Stitched Back Together

Chapter 1

A foghorn sounded in the distance as the lifeboat was slowly lowered into the water. It wasn't exactly a glamorous entrance, but there weren't many other options. The two had to stay a ways back from shore for fear of being seen. Walton had taken them as far as he could, but he needed to return to shore alone to avoid exciting suspicion and having public eye turned toward his strange new passengers.

Having promised to meet up with the two later, Walton had felt a little better about leaving them on their own. Of course, he was still terrified of leaving them alone together, Victor was still in an extremely delicate state, only barely having recovered from his hypothermia. That, and the fraught relationship between him and his creation made Walton nervous that leaving them to their own devices would spell the end for Victor.

Walton stared off at the small rowboat that had been sent out, Victor's mop of entirely white hair was still easily visible against the near tar black night sea. Victor had claimed that it had used to be a dark black, but Walton couldn't help but doubt. Even with that said... Imagining him with raven hair always made Robert's face heat up. He felt that if his hair were black, he would much more closely resemble his creation...

He sighed heavily and chewed on his lip, deep in thought. He didn't know what to feel about Victor's creation... He knew that they had started calling themselves Adam, and they seemed peaceful enough. They had been very volatile and violent before, according to what Victor had recounted. Although they never killed anyone they had admitted they had planned too, but couldn't bring themself to go through with it.

If he was anything like Victor, he may be prone to the seemingly random fits of passion tha Victor suffered from. Paranoia reared its ugly head, convincing Walton that in one of these fits Adam might finally make an attempt on his creator's life. With Victor being in such a feeble state currently, and Adam being physically stronger than most healthy adult men, it wouldn't take much effort to kill him. Being entirely fair, even in health it wouldn't take much to cripple Victor, a breath might knock him over.

Walton sighed thinking of this. He didn't want to distrust Adam, he was aware of what Adam had been put through. He wanted to like him, to trust him, to be his friend- but he also constantly felt worried for Victor. The journey back from the arctic had been the first time they were within a mile of each other and not at each other's throats, but during that time Walton had been there to mediate between them. This was the first time they had really been alone together.

Walton reasoned that there wasn't anything he could do about it at this point, their boat was already quite distant and the quiet splashing of its oars grew fainter by the second. They would be reaching shore in a matter of minutes. Walton bit the inside of his cheek before setting his shoulders. It was out of his hands. The only thing he could do now is wait for his own ship to be signaled to dock at the port and hope that nothing goes wrong while he's away from the volatile pair.