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Adam had given up keeping track on how many nights he had spent just like this one: lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling as he tried in vain to ignore everything happening inside his brain. It was so much harder to pretend at night. During the day, he had Watson's cases and his own patients to distract himself. All he had to do was make a few comments here and there, and no one ever suspected that anything was amiss. A small part of him loathed how easily everyone in his life could overlook him, but he kept that part chained as best he could. He had worked too hard to maintain this facade of normalcy to just let anyone see past it. That being said, as Adam lay in the dark, he truly had no idea how he was going to survive this time. Before, there was always a reason to his depression, a catalyst to his self-destruction. Now, there was nothing, but he kept destroying himself anyway. It should have scared him, how easy it had become to fool everyone, to trick even his own brother, but that would require him to actually feel something. As it was, he could barely conjure enough emotion to mask his inner turmoil, which spread like ice slowly chipping away at everything good in his life, until nothing was left but a vast and barren wasteland where joy used to reside. It was a slow-going process, but with every passing day Adam could feel the ice taking its toll. He had learned long ago how to act as cheerful and pleasant as normal, but he feared for the day that the cracks would show.
If pressed, he would say that the ice had been slowly creeping in since Moriarty, but he knew that that was not quite true. If anything, Moriarty had only exasperated an already existing problem. Adam knew, even if he ignored it, that he could not even remember the last time he felt any kind of peace. Fleetingly, he tried to grasp at a single memory in recent months where he felt even remotely stable. Maybe that day last October, when Stephens agreed to come to his chip ceremony. Despite everything, that day he finally let himself think that they would be okay after all. That maybe he hadn’t completely lost his twin to his own selfishness. Adam fought to push those thoughts away. Thoughts of the five-year chip he could no longer claim only made the swirling tendrils of failure and shame inside him grow. All that time and effort, wasted on nothing. Worse than nothing, he mentally corrected himself. Deep down, he knew the past five years were wasted on nothing but his own self-sabotaging tendencies.
Adam did not plan his last relapse, it had simply happened, almost without him fully making the decision until after the deed was done. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that he didn’t lie to Stephens, per se — everything Adam said had been true. There was no logic or reason to what happened, only plain and simple need. Underneath that need, however, there was a deeper intention that he had tried for so long to ignore. Everything in his life had started to fall into place. Stephens had finally forgiven him, his book was about to take off, and he planned to propose to Lauren. For once, everything in his life had been good and he hadn't known what to do with it. Subconsciously, he knew it could not last. So, he decided to sabotage himself, so maybe then he would at least have some some modicum of control when everything inevitably fell apart. Of course, it didn't work. He realized what a monumentally stupid decision he had made the second that weekend was over and he regained clarity.
In the immediate aftermath, Adam thought he could handle it. He could almost laugh at the thought of the speech he once gave. You don’t make it by gritting your teeth and bearing it alone. He was, now, a goddamn hypocrite. Oh, he had his reasons. Excuses he piled up inside his mind for why it wasn’t worth it to share his pain. He was just starting to get his brother back, he couldn’t risk his job, he couldn’t face himself, etc, etc. He tried to rationalize with himself that it was just a weekend. There was no reason to risk his job or worry his brother over six pills in two days. To Adam, there was no reason it shouldn't work out like his relapse five years ago. He would pretend like nothing happened until that weekend was so long ago that it didn't make any difference whether anyone knew or not. Under the cover of night, Adam could admit that, maybe, he just didn't want to see that disappointed look back on his twin's face when he had finally gotten him back. Sometimes, he wondered if Stephens ever realized that if Moriarty had not poisoned him, no one would have ever found out. He wondered if it ever scared Stephens how good he had gotten at pretending. He doubted it; Stephens had far too much going on with Sasha to unnecessarily worry about him anymore.
Adam forced those thoughts away. His relapse should not matter anymore. So much had happened since then; he had nearly died. He was forced to watch helplessly as his brother almost died. It doesn't matter, he desperately reminded himself, everything is fine now. He shouldn't have any trouble now because everything had resolved itself. He had to be okay — not just for himself, but for Stephens, Lauren, the team, the clinic. And yet, he could not stop dwelling on everything that had gone wrong months prior. Everything had resolved itself, and with no help from him. Everyone had moved on. Their clinic team was finally back together and, now that Ingrid had made up with Sasha and Stephens, it was almost like none of the last few months ever happened. Even Stephens was completely back to normal. And thank God for that, Adam thought, because seeing Stephens with his cane only served as a physical reminder of his guilt. He knew, logically, that it was completely irrational to feel guilty at all, but it was hard not to when he remembered that Moriarty had only been after him. What happened to Stephens was ultimately just collateral damage. Plus, no matter how much he tried not to, Adam couldn't help but think that it would have been better if he had just died when he was supposed to. With him out of the equation, Watson and the team wouldn't have had to choose who to save. Stephens wouldn't have been left to suffer for days on end until they finally found the cure for him. They would have been sad, no doubt, but it didn't take a genius to understand that Stephens was far more important to the clinic than Adam could ever hope to be. And he would have gladly died if it meant Stephens would be okay. Adam found it harder to breathe his troubling thoughts caused the ice to spread ever further.
Now, everyone seemed perfectly content to pick back up exactly where they left off before Moriarty derailed them. Everyone except Adam. Maybe, he realized, that was the problem. Everyone had moved on, while he still felt stuck in those terrifying days when his and Stephens's lives were on the line. Adam didn't know why he was still trapped in the past or why no one else seemed to feel the same. All he could do was act like he still had his shit together. As much as it was killing him, he didn't see that he had any other choice. No one else would understand, or worse, they would pity him. The only one he had a chance of commiserating with was Stephens; and, after everything he had already put his brother through, Adam had absolutely no right to tarnish any of his twin’s newfound joy. Adam so rarely got to see his twin at peace with the world, he thought that he would rather kill himself than ruin it. He refused to acknowledge how much better that outcome was starting to look rather than continuing to feel like this.
The longer he dwelled, the more he rationalized himself into silence. He told himself — again — that it didn’t matter. Everything he felt was just temporary. He just needed more time to heal from almost dying, plus everything before and after. There wasn’t anything technically wrong with him, anyway. He had no intention of relapsing again, so he should just join everyone else and move on. Then again, his traitorous mind supplied, it's not like I ever had the intention to relapse before. He always felt the want, but that was a constant fight that he had long since learned to live with. And live with it he did, constantly, until eventually — somewhere in his subconscious — he lost the fight and gave in. And, so, the cycle started once again. Adam took his recovery very seriously, but sometimes he wondered how anyone continued to put their faith in him when he only ever let them down.
Adam mentally recoiled away from those thoughts and tried to focus again on all the reasons he should be fine. He had physically recovered a long time ago. There was no reason for the panic he now lived with, for the ever-present darkness to saturate his world so completely. He spent most days feeling as though he was drowning. It took everything in him to act normally, and he genuinely didn’t know how much longer he could keep it up. He didn't know how long he could continue to act like he wasn't supposed to be dead right now.
Looking over at Lauren's sleeping form, Adam felt another wave of anguish wash over him, spreading the ice even further into his heart. It's a wonder Lauren puts up with me at all, he thought. It was a miracle she stayed and that she accepted his proposal. For the past few months, he woke up scared almost every day, fearing that this would be the day she realized that it was just too much, that he was too much to deal with. Addiction would hit almost any relationship hard, and he had to add almost dying to the mix. Just because he had a shorter recovery than Stephens didn't meant that it still was not a hell of a lot more work than he was worth. And Lauren stuck by his side through all of it. He had always counted his lucky stars that she had chosen him, but now more than ever be knew that she deserved someone better. Someone who didn't spend every waking hour trying to desperately convince himself that he deserved to be alive. If nothing else, she deserved someone who could bring himself to actively partake in planning their wedding. Adam didn't know what was wrong with him to be acting like this. He knew from very early on in their relationship that he wanted to marry Lauren; yet he couldn't bring himself to deal with any of it. It wasn't that he didn't care, he wanted to care so much, but the present just felt too far away from where his mind now dwelled.
To Adam, all of it — the wedding, the planning — felt like they belonged to a man who died all those months ago. He didn't know how to start being that person again, and he didn't know how to reconcile the differences. However, he did know that for all her endless patience, if he didn't get his shit together soon, Lauren would reach her breaking point with him. Hell, he would reach his breaking point if he couldn't figure out what the fuck was wrong with himself sometime soon. It was killing him to keep up this facade, and the more he spread himself thin, the easier it was for the ice to take over every little crevice of his heart and soul. Soon, there would be nothing left and Adam would shatter completely.
Before Adam could lament any further, he heard Lauren shift in her sleep and felt her press into his side, draping an arm over his body. The physical touch grounded him just enough to halt the ice and bring him into the present for just a moment. He looked to the window and saw the faint light of the sun beginning to rise. Adam sank further into his mind and let the exhaustion take over. He needed at least a little sleep before he could deal with whatever case was waiting for him at the clinic. Adam knew he couldn't keep this up for much longer. Something would have to give soon. In his last moments of consciousness, Adam only hoped that the fallout wouldn't break him completely.