He's seen a lot of things in his life, his career, but not a lot comes close to the birth of his second child. Tiny robots and a surgeon who looks about fifteen, a woman who isn't his wife but might as well be sleeping peacefully in clean sheets, the bloody ones taken immediately to the laundry by a midwife, and Adam Carter sat in a chair in the ( Read more... )

It takes entirely too long for them to get back into bed. All presents opened (and half of them put on), Coraline's piled out into the snow to play with Cat and Adam's made tea and he brings it back to bed still in his pajamas with freezing cold feet. He carefully passes Sarah her tea before he climbs back up onto the bed, shoving his cold toes ( Read more... )

He felt ridiculous.

He probably should have known better than to let Coraline choose the bathing costume. If he had known better, maybe he wouldn't have ended up in a bikini with a ladybird pattern but at least, in letting her chose, he'd avoided the box giving him an endless string of suits similiar to ones Fiona had worn ( Read more... )

Ha-bloody-ha ( Read more... )

It wasn't ideal, but one of the tables in the kitchen did as well as anything. In usual weather, he might have done it outside - sand was good for learning Arabic, using a stick for a pen. The table would do though, the rough pile of paper and few pens that he'd caged from the supplies. Adam had never really enjoyed writing Arabic with a Biro; ( Read more... )

It took him twenty four hours to admit it to himself. Twenty four hours to admit that Angela wasn't coming back. He'd left Coraline sleeping quietly and he'd padded through the trees to a familiar door. For a long time, he hadn't even known why he was there. He made enough noise walking up to the hut that, if Sarah was awake, she'd know that he ( Read more... )

It had been a week. Adam was dirty and sweaty, his hair standing up in fingered spikes, and his tanned face streaked with mud. That morning, on waking, he'd kissed Angie goodbye and told her, asked her, not to go with him. She hadn't put up too much of a fight which, thank God, had stopped him having to knock her out. He figured that that would ( Read more... )

Coraline had been missing for five days, now, and Adam and Angie had been camping out and looking for her for nearly as long. Adam had the note that she'd left him stuffed in his pocket. He'd brought it with him because it was the only proof that he had that she hadn't disappeared into thin air. A bad idea had been going around in his head all ( Read more... )

It had taken some planning. He'd spent the afternoon cooking, nothing too complicated -- a seafood soup, a green salad, fresh fruit with a little vanilla ice-cream. Light stuff. He didn't want anything too heavy. Standing in the kitchen, he'd remembered just how long it had been since him and Angie had had anytime to really be alone in private ( Read more... )

Coffee was important first thing in the morning. It was a long hike to the compound but the hut was beside the stream, clean sweet water, and Adam had rigged up a can from the kitchen for boiling water and brought a small quantity of coffee down from the compound every week. It wasn't an ideal system, but it worked ( Read more... )