Leaden Clouds of Stormy Now
Maybe she was wrong?
Kim's world had turned itself inside out and she didn't know how she felt anymore. A month away from work felt like years, like millennia. Like another lifetime altogether. If she returned, would the district still have white walls, wooden desk, iron gate with a palm scanner leading up to Intelligence?
When she returned, not if...
Tomorrow.
She wasn't ready. She felt much worse than after she had been shot. Back then, somehow, despite all the irrational fears, there was also this necessity. This feeling that she still had something to accomplish, to give to the world. Now she felt empty.
Sean would come back to work tomorrow too. She'd asked him, as they sat together and watched tv in the evening, if he had any reservations about going back. He'd said that it was their duty to return and show those thugs that it wasn't so easy to break Chicago Police. He was determined.
He hadn't asked how she felt.
They went to bed, she'd spent so many nights in his bed, in his place, over the last month, that it almost felt like home now. Almost, but not quite. And today, she needed something else. Something unspecified. She couldn't sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning she gave up trying and went to the kitchen. She poured herself the rest of the wine and sipped it, going over and over and over all the fears and insecurities.
It wasn't about the rightness of her actions – that had been proven in court. Part of her felt bad for the kid, thought his anger justified – but not the way he'd carried it out. She wasn't afraid that her judgment was impaired, that her performance as a police officer would suffer for it, no.
And yet.
She needed reassurance. She needed someone to tell her that she was still the person she had been a month ago. That she hadn't changed – like the district.
The district hadn't changed. Outside, fifth step still had that crack on the right side; the smell, when Kim opened the door, was a mixture of old furniture, iron and vomit. Ugly but nice. The incessant hum of voices and doors closing and opening, and printers spitting out forms and depositions and reports, was still just like she had remembered.
She hadn't changed either. Her hair was maybe hanf-an-inch longer and she lost a couple of pounds due to lack of appetite, but she still had two hands and two legs and she remembered all the emergency codes like a prayer.
Platt was the same too, gray hair, sour expression.
"Burgess!" same demanding tone. "Go to the locker room and get changed. No one's gonna wait for you!"
Kim felt smile tug at the corners of her lips. The feeling was a surprise, but a welcome one.
"Nice to see you too, Sergeant."
Platt tried to furrow her brow, but instead her eyes widened and her lips scrunched in not-a-smile not-at-all. She waved her hands about her, Just go girl unsaid, but evident.
Kim entered the locker room lighter, all the leaden clouds of stormy past cleared away, and more encouraged than she felt in what felt like... millennia.
And inside she saw him.
They hadn't spoken after the trial, she hadn't seen his face since that interrogation by defense attorney Green. She hadn't seen his face then, she made sure not to look in his direction, for fear of what his expression would be.
She'd rather remember the sincere look in his eyes when he'd told her he still cared about her and that he had her back no matter what. Her feeling like the worst kind of a traitor in that moment notwithstanding.
"Hi," she choked out, the leaden clouds of stormy future flowing right back over her head.
"Hi," he replied. Buttoned up his shirt and turned to face her. "Good to see you back."
"Good to be back," she answered. What else could she say? She desperately tried to think about something, but her mind was empty. She was empty. That's where this feeling was coming from, this emptiness, this feeling of inadequacy.
"Look, Kim," he broke the silence.
She searched for his eyes, but his head was bowed, he was looking at his hands, at his fingers he writhed and wringed, unseeing.
"I have nothing on your relationship with Roman," he said finally, in a voice so low she had to strain her ears to hear him. He cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, looked up. "You have every right to be happy," he said stronger. "And I'm happy for you, I really am. Just..." He shook his head, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I wish I found out about it from you." He met her eyes again. "That is all."
He didn't leave though, like she thought he would – and should. Instead, he gave her a chance to say something, to reply, to... To do the only thing she could do.
"I'm sorry," she apologized.
He nodded in acknowledgement and walked past her and out of the room.
And Kim realized exactly what she felt. From the moment he'd told her he still cared and that he would have her back. Hell, long before that, in fact she'd never stopped feeling it.
She loved Adam Ruzek. She made a terrible, terrible mistake and there was no way to fix it now, she had to live with it. She'd let herself be fooled by... she didn't even know by what – and as a result she lost the most loyal, the most dedicated man that had ever laid his eyes on her. How had she not seen all that before? He didn't even hate her for the heartbreak she had caused him. And she had let him go. She had pushed him away.
In that moment Kim made up her mind. She would find a way to fix this. She would make it up to him, eventually and then, they would have their happily ever after.
.end