Chapter 11: Shadows of the Past
POV: Adam
Detection screamed warning before Adam saw him—signature achingly familiar, burned into his enhanced memory from countless hours watching The Last of Us gameplay. Tommy Miller walked into the Firefly safehouse like a ghost stepping out of television screens, and Adam's world tilted on its axis.
The man whose brother's face Adam wore stood ten feet away, scanning the room with military precision. Recognition or disaster separated by heartbeats.
Adam pulled his hood lower and used Tess as a human shield, enhanced senses painting every detail of Tommy's movements while his heart hammered against ribs that felt suddenly fragile. Same jaw structure he saw in mirrors. Same dark hair, though Tommy's carried gray threads that spoke of guilt and sleepless nights. Same broad shoulders that had carried Joel through childhood adventures that existed only in backstory.
"He can't see my face. If he sees my face, questions start that have no safe answers."
Tommy approached Marlene with the careful confidence of someone seeking alliance rather than conflict. "Ma'am. Heard you folks were looking for people with military experience."
"Depends what kind of experience," Marlene replied, voice carrying professional evaluation. "What branch?"
"Army. Two tours overseas. Came home to find the world ending." Tommy's voice cracked slightly on the last words. "Lost my brother and his daughter during the outbreak. Nothing left to lose now."
The lie hit Adam like physical blow. Joel and Sarah were alive—damaged, isolated, struggling with trauma that Adam's intervention had created, but alive. Tommy didn't know because his brother had pushed him away, choosing protection over connection.
"This is my fault. I saved Sarah but broke their family. Joel's paranoia, Sarah's PTSD, Tommy's guilt—all consequences of changing what was supposed to happen."
POV: Tommy
Something familiar nagged at Tommy's awareness as Marlene introduced him to Firefly operations. A hooded figure helping organize medical supplies caught his attention—careful movements that spoke of hidden precision, stance that suggested military training.
When the figure turned slightly, Tommy glimpsed a profile that made his breath catch. Not the features themselves, but the way they fit together. Like looking at family photos where everyone shared certain angles, certain inherited expressions.
He started toward the medical station, but the hooded man vanished through a side exit with timing that suggested deliberate avoidance. Tommy found himself staring at empty space, wondering why a Firefly medic would run from casual introduction.
"Probably nothing. This place is full of people running from something. Still..."
The feeling persisted through Marlene's briefing about Firefly ideology, their fight against FEDRA oppression, their search for immunity research. Tommy nodded in appropriate places while part of his mind replayed that moment of almost-recognition.
He'd felt the same confusion on Outbreak Day, when chaos and terror had mixed with impossible moments—glimpses of someone who looked like lost family, demonstrations of abilities that belonged in movies rather than reality. Joel had mentioned it once during those early weeks when they'd still talked: a stranger with Miller features using powers that made no sense.
"Just pattern matching. Trauma makes you see connections that aren't there."
But the nagging certainty remained. Somewhere in Boston's underground network, someone moved with his brother's ghost in their bones.
POV: Adam
"I can't avoid him forever in the same QZ. Fifty thousand people in twenty square miles, and Tommy Miller had to find the Fireflies."
Marlene cornered Adam two hours later in the supply room where he'd been hiding, pretending to inventory medical equipment while his enhanced senses tracked Tommy's location throughout the building.
"That's Joel's brother," she said without preamble, voice carrying tactical certainty that made denial pointless. "You know them."
Statement, not question. Adam's silence confirmed what Detection probably revealed through his elevated stress responses.
"Whatever history you have," Marlene continued, "Fireflies need you both. Work with him."
The phrase "work with him" landed like a medical diagnosis of terminal illness. Adam's horror at forced proximity warred with inability to explain why being near Tommy Miller represented existential threat to his carefully constructed identity.
"He doesn't need to know I exist," Adam tried.
"He already knows you exist. Saw you avoiding him, asked questions about the mystery medic." Marlene's smile held sharp edges. "Choice is whether you control the narrative or let him build his own conclusions."
"She's right. Tommy's military trained, naturally suspicious, and now actively curious. Better to establish controlled contact than let him investigate independently."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Be professional. He's here to help the cause, not solve personal mysteries. You're both adults fighting the same war."
The tactical logic was sound. But it ignored the fundamental impossibility of Adam's situation—how do you work alongside someone whose brother's face you wear for reasons that cannot be explained without revealing transmigration secrets that would shatter everyone's understanding of reality?
"Control the narrative. Establish limited contact. Keep hood up, conversation professional, deflect personal questions. Tommy's a good man—he won't push boundaries if I set them clearly."
Marlene's expectant stare demanded answer. "Fine. But I maintain medical autonomy. No one dictates my patient priorities."
"Agreed. Welcome to the team, Adam."
The way she said his name carried undertones of victory that made Detection spike with warning signals he couldn't quite interpret.
POV: Adam
Training grounds at midnight offered relative privacy for the conversation Adam couldn't avoid forever. Tommy practiced marksmanship with focused intensity that reminded Adam painfully of Joel's survival-driven precision. Same stance, same controlled breathing, same unconscious efficiency that spoke of skills learned through necessity rather than hobby.
Detection read Tommy's emotional state like an open book—guilt, pain, searching for purpose through action that honored lost family. The younger Miller brother carried weight that threatened to crush him, looking for meaning in a world that had taken everything he'd valued.
Against every instinct screaming for self-preservation, Adam approached with hood up and intentions carefully neutral.
"Your stance is off," he said quietly.
Tommy spun with reflexes that spoke of combat experience, rifle tracking toward the voice before recognition kicked in. "You're the medic. The one who's been avoiding me."
"Avoiding everyone. Comes with the profession." Adam moved closer, keeping his face shadowed. "You're leaning too far forward. Compensating for recoil that isn't there yet."
They talked shooting mechanics for twenty minutes—carefully neutral ground that let Adam assess Tommy's personality without revealing personal details. The younger Miller was intelligent, driven, haunted by losses he couldn't process. Everything Adam had expected from game lore, made more tragic by knowledge of what those losses truly were.
"Name's Tommy," he said finally.
"Adam."
Pause that stretched like held breath.
"You ex-military?" Tommy asked, studying Adam's concealed features with growing interest.
"Something like that."
"You seem familiar." The words carried dangerous curiosity. "Ever serve in Texas?"
Adam's heart stopped. "I have one of those faces."
The lie delivered smoothly despite internal panic. Detection showed Tommy's suspicion warring with desire to connect with someone who understood military background. Family recognition working below conscious level, creating familiarity he couldn't explain.
"Maybe," Tommy said finally. "Still feels like I should know you."
They parted with mutual confusion—Tommy puzzled by connection he couldn't place, Adam terrified by how close recognition had come. Both drawn to something neither could safely acknowledge.
POV: Adam
"What's your deal with the new guy?"
Tess found him obsessively mapping Tommy's patrol routes through the QZ, avoiding potential encounters with tactical precision that suggested military planning rather than casual dislike.
"He reminds me of someone I can't afford to remember," Adam said slowly, each word chosen with surgical care.
It was the first time he'd admitted that his past—whatever it was—haunted him with more than simple amnesia. The first crack in his cover story that suggested secrets ran deeper than experimental military enhancement.
Tess studied him with partner's intuition that read volumes from small details. "Family?"
"Complicated."
"Everything's complicated these days." She settled beside him, presence offering support without demanding explanations. "Want me to handle liaison work? Keep you separated during operations?"
The offer was generous, practical, and fundamentally impossible. Tommy would eventually demand answers about the mystery medic who possessed impossible abilities. Better to control those revelations than let them emerge through investigation.
"I'll manage," Adam decided. "But thanks for the option."
Tess nodded, filing away another piece of the puzzle that was Adam Collins. Her concern deepened with each secret he carried, each wall he built between himself and the people trying to help him.
"She's loyal, but loyalty has limits. Everyone does. How many mysteries can one person carry before they become more liability than asset?"
Outside, Tommy Miller continued his integration into Firefly operations, asking casual questions about operational structure that included inevitable inquiries about medical support personnel. The collision course was set, momentum building toward revelations that could destroy everything Adam had built.
"One conversation at a time. One carefully crafted lie at a time. Tommy's a good man, but good men ask hard questions. Time to prepare better answers."
In the distance, Detection tracked Joel's signature remaining motionless in his isolated sector, protecting Sarah from a world that had hurt her beyond conventional healing. Three members of the Miller family, scattered across Boston by trauma and secrets, none knowing how close the others were.
All of it connected to Adam through butterfly effects he'd never intended to create.
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