Adrian vanishing for a couple hundred pages and then returning MUCH later to a Universe that has moved on would have been my (sinister) wish.
But, then, I've figured out what rubs me wrong about the guy: he's Jack Dawson from Titanic.
Arrives on the scene. Thumbs his nose at the powerful. Is swept up into events beyond his control (but he somehow knows just what to do). Disrupts the best-laid plans of one-dimensional "villains". Gets the girl(s).
And I want him to sink into the icy waters of the North Atlantic just as much.
He's such an endearing, perfect character (even when he
fails it's with jaunty pluck) that he fits in my imagination as the guy who
loses the girl(s) in a Mind Control world. A co-victim like
Rob in Unicode Smith's Anonymous Caller.
Wishes aside, there was no question he'd return. It was just a matter of when and how.