[color=a36209][i][b]Adam 'Trails' Wilford- Wilford's shed[/b][/i][/color]

Adam was in his small one room shed, patching the holes in the wall before he got to putting out the goods he'd scavenged out of the Inn. His holotape playing a bunch of Pre-War country songs, the current one a song called '[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge6Mj_7lL9g]I never will marry[/url]' that filled the room with music, which worked for him since he hated silence. He groaned as he got up from his knees, holding his welder's torch in one hand. "There, that ought to to it. Now, before I get to putting this stuff out, I should get to cleaning off the boat since those parts ain't coming in for a few days yet." He put his tools back and dug around for his brushes and rags to polish and clean the ship of the blood, crap and general dirt that had gotten on her over time. Adam took his jacket off to work in his t-shirt to keep cooler while he worked in the sun and strolled around his shed to the makeshift dock he'd thrown up, a joke in comparison to the proper docks to his left and right, but he was mistrustful of anyone but him overseeing his boat except him and maybe Rook. He hopped on deck and looked around in disgust at the cages needing removal to be fixed, but he sighed, figuring this would be the price of helping make Salem succeed. He put the small crate of cleaning supplies down and began moving on and off the ship to the coast, putting cages and old rope and fishing net in a neat pile. After about an hour, he'd finally cleared the deck and returned to the crate beside the ship's controls and began to spray the deck with a mixture of Abraxo and other cleaning solvents and began to scrub with both hands to scrub through all the grime.

As Adam finally finished, he looked out west, noticing the orange radiance of the sun. He'd put up the supplies and put a longer sleeved shirt on and decided to sit back on the boat. He dug out the film canister and for once he felt no dread to see his old photograph of his wife and son. He'd spent years denying to himself his past, but something in his encounter with Celeste seemed to allow him to confront his choices he'd made almost six years back. Adam looked at his wife, a mixture of shame, longing and relief all a torrent inside, but he only smiled a sad smile to her smiling face. He sighed, then finally spoke to the picture, "Ellia, I....you know I'm sorry. About Jack, I mean. I didn't abandon him, but you know that, don't you? I couldn't have him be a drifter like his pa, he deserved a settled life. But...maybe with Salem....maybe one day. But how could I ever face him. He may have my letter, but, hell, you can't blame the kid if he never wanted to speak to me again. But I was never that good with kids, without you, I didn't know what to do. But, I think, meeting Celeste, finally telling the whole story, not just vague parts, finally brought some closure." He ran a hand in his the mustache over his lips and kissed the photograph. "And that's why you know I have to do this, my love. You will always be in my heart, but I have to let go. It's....it's how you'd have wanted it." Adam took a fist sized boulder and tied the canister to with with a piece of fishing line and kissed the can one last time. "You're free. Both of you. You don't need me to hold your ghosts in this world anymore."


[hider=OOC Commentary on Adam's past.]
Adam's son died not long after he left. I didn't want to cover it here since I like the idea of him still truly struggling with actually letting go, but the part he left out to Celeste (and himself) is that the town he'd been living in was slaughtered to the last man and in a sort of traumatic blot on his memory, he still believes his son's alive and questioning that upsets him because it challenges him on something he subconsciously knows, but he's basically doublethinking his son's death. The reason for this is because he left his son behind because, simply, he was too far in grief to raise his son as a good father, so he trusted the township to care for him. Since their town was butchered by raiders, he can only blame himself. He tried to accept it, but the grief drove him to near suicide, so his coping mechanism is to believe his son is still alive but resents him. I know this is all a little complex, but I think it helps to keep him from being a Mary Sue type of character. He was originally conceived as a skilled mechanic and scavenger/trader, but as time's begun to march on, I feel like adding the hidden layers of trauma and how they shape him as a person today really helps make him a deeper character the more these layers are pulled back.
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