AN: Still procrastinating, as you can see.
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"Can I help you?"
Adalind turned her head and the met the eyes of the officer, another detective she guessed, judging by his plainclothes appearance, who asked the question. He checked her out, looking her over slowly, eyes lingering on the baby on her hip and she suppressed a smirk. Nothing that repelled most men more than a woman with a baby. Fortunately, that wasn't true about all men, or at least the one that mattered to her. Of course, it was his baby, but still, Nick had never struck her as the type to be intimidated by a woman with a child if he was interested in her.
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for Nick—er, Detective Burkhardt," she said, helping herself to a seat at Nick's desk. She settled Kelly in her lap and then snatched Nick's pen away before Kelly could wield it as a deadly weapon. Kelly made a sound of frustration, and she bounced him lightly on her lap in an effort to soothe him. It didn't work.
"I think he's interviewing a witness," and she nodded, trying to hang on to Kelly as he attempted to wriggle off her lap.
"That's okay, I can wait," she said, adjusting her hold on Kelly and resettling him again. He began to fuss and she pulled a pacifier from her pocket and stuck it in his mouth. She glanced up to find the officer still watching her closely and plastered on a smile.
"Can I tell him who's looking for him?" the officer offered politely.
"His lunch date," she said. "He'll know who it is. If he's busy, don't worry about it," she said, and the officer nodded and disappeared, presumably towards interrogation.
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Someone rapped on the door in observation and Nick turned as Pogue opened it and stuck his head through.
"Hey Burkhardt, some woman's looking for you. Says she's your lunch date."
"Crap," Nick said, looking at his watch. It was eleven after twelve and he had completely forgotten about asking Adalind to lunch earlier.
"Tell her I'll just be a few minutes," Nick told Pogue and Pogue nodded and started to leave when Mickelson piped up.
"Is she hot?"
"Yeah, kind of," Pogue replied. "Got a baby with her. Your son?" he asked Nick.
"Damn," Mickelson said, disappointed, and Nick rolled his eyes in irritation, unseen by him.
"I don't know man," Pogue said, "I wouldn't be too quick to judge on that. If you're busy here, I don't mind to take her to lunch," Pogue added to Nick with a teasing smile and Nick gave him a look.
"I'll just be a few minutes," he said again and Pogue smiled wider.
"I'll let her know," he said, and left.
"I can finish up here if you want to hurry and meet Adalind for lunch," Hank offered and Nick nodded as he noticed Mickelson's not subtle eavesdropping. Nick frowned, doubly annoyed that the case he and Hank were working had to involve him. Mickelson had found the witness after a three-day search by the department and had hung around to watch the interrogation. "We can pick it up again after lunch. I'll see if I can get an address on the wife's sister while you're gone."
"Okay," Nick agreed. "Let's finish up with the witness and we can break for lunch."
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"Sorry I'm late," Nick said by way of greeting. It was now almost twenty-five minutes past noon and Adalind had been waiting on Nick to show for lunch for thirty minutes.
"It's okay," she said. "Busy day?" Nick nodded, tossing a folder on his desk behind her. He leaned down and gave Kelly a tickle, eliciting a smile, before hefting him up.
"We can always reschedule for another day," Adalind said. Nick shook his head.
"You've waited thirty minutes. I'm starving, I'm sure you are too. Where do you want to eat?" he asked her.
"Dewitt's?" she suggested and Nick nodded.
"Sounds good. We'll take my car," he said and Adalind stood, gathering Kelly's baby bag and their coats. "Where did you park?"
"Parking garage," she said and Nick nodded, guiding her out of the department and towards the elevator doors. An arm reached out from the confines to hold them as they started to close and Adalind stepped on with a smile and a thank you, Nick opening his mouth in acknowledgment also before the intention was replaced with a scowl.
"You're welcome," Mickelson said, checking out Adalind before turning his attention to Nick and Kelly. Natchez stood beside him, also carefully observing the occupants in that way all detectives come to view their environments at one point or another.
"This your son?" Mickelson asked him and Nick gave a short nod.
"You must be Burkhardt's girl," Natchez said turning his attention to Adalind and she smiled and nodded.
"Adalind," she introduced and Natchez nodded.
"I'm Natchez and this is Mickelson," Natchez offered.
"Nice to meet you," Adalind said politely eyes glancing up at Nick and registering the expression on his face.
"Kid got a name?" Mickelson asked.
"Kelly," she said after a beat, no doubt wondering why Nick was making that face.
"So I understand you're a lawyer?" Natchez said, and Adalind pulled her eyes away from Nick and back to her speaker. Mickelson attempted to make inroads with Kelly, who merely stared back at him as though confused. Nick adjusted his heavy weight against his side and patted his son's back, gratified whether or not Kelly understood what an asshole Mickelson was, that at least he was instinctively wary of his friendly attempts. That's my boy, Nick thought.
"I was. I took some time off while I had Kelly. Getting ready to go back to work soon, as a matter of fact," she said and Nick impatiently watched the floors tick down as Kelly turned his attention away from Mickelson and back to his father. He babbled something mostly incoherent to Nick, fingering George, which Nick took to be an assessment on Mickelson's character and how it was lacking, and Nick nodded in agreement. Kelly looked up at Nick as though they had come to some sort of understanding.
Adalind turned her attention again to Nick and her son, reaching around Nick and pulling down Kelly's shirt where it had ridden up due to Nick's arm and Kelly held out George and then snatched him away with a smile when Adalind reached for him.
"What law firm do you work at?" Natchez asked Adalind.
"Berman, Rautbort and associates," she said.
"Didn't you work a protection detail there a few years back," Mickelson asked Nick and Nick slid his eyes over to him, unimpressed. "Is that where you two met?" Mickelson said, ignoring Nick's glare.
Adalind glanced at Nick again, not missing the annoyance on his face, and nodded.
"We met before that, actually," Adalind said, "but yes, Nick and Hank were the detectives assigned to protect me." The doors dinged and finally opened up and Nick shoved off the back of the elevator, hand out to firmly guide Adalind out and away from the mini-interrogation.
"Really? How long have you guys been together?" Mickelson asked unabashedly and Nick narrowed his eyes in anger, knowing exactly what he was getting at.
"A while," Adalind hedged, sensing an underlying thread in his question. Nick didn't know if it was better or worse to do so. Would the truth had been better? How did you even explain that?
We hated each other for years, until she got pregnant and we decided to declare a truce and live together.
We didn't fall in love until about six months or so ago when we finally admitted we had feelings for one another.
We weren't involved until months after we had Kelly.
"We've been together a little over a year," Nick said shortly, deciding a slight bending of the truth should suffice. They had been living together for nearly that and thrown together by circumstances since, well, basically the incident in the hallway when Juliette had threatened Adalind at the station. He felt Adalind's eyes on him and guided her away from Natchez and Mickelson, towards his truck, heaving a sigh when they had finally put some distance between them.
"What was that about?" Adalind asked him in a quiet murmur.
Nick shook his head.
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"Hey, isn't that Burkhardt's baby mama?" Sounded like Cooper and Nick shifted slightly, wishing Adalind would find whatever the hell it was she was searching for in Kelly's baby bag. He watched her shuffle through the contents methodically, leaning against the front passenger side door he had opened for her before she remembered she needed to look for it.
"Well, she's got a baby with her, so one could infer she's a mama."
"Stellar detective work."
"Smart ass."
"Yeah, that's her," he heard Natchez say. "Just rode down the elevator with her."
"Yeah, she comes in every once in a while with the kid. I think Burkhardt's living with her somewhere."
"Surprised they're still together," Cooper remarked. If you knew our history, you'd be surprised we're together at all, Nick thought, absently listening to Adalind talk about final preparations with Kelly's new daycare. "Usually affairs start out hot and heavy and then cool off by the time you start knocking up your mistress but he seems pretty happy."
"He never talks about the kid, or the woman."
"Adalind's his girlfriend's name. Lawyer."
"I told you I thought she was a lawyer. From that law firm where he worked those two murders?"
"Yup, she said he was the detective assigned to protect her. Also said they had met before that. I asked them how long they'd been together and she acted like she didn't want to admit to how long it had been carrying on between them."
"He said a year," Natchez put in.
"Ashamed is he?"
"Probably, I mean given what happened, it's not much to be proud of. He screwed around with another woman for years and finally got caught."
They quieted for a moment, no doubt watching as Adalind paused in her search, taking notice of Nick's aggravation and stood on her tip toes and looped her arms around his neck, smiling softly at him, having realized he wasn't actively listening to her. He pulled his attention back to her.
"What?" she asked him.
"Thinking," he said. He slid an arm around her waist, then the other and pulled her close, his SUV blocking her from the vultures' view. Kelly watched them and mumbled to himself as he kicked his foot impatiently.
"You're thinking awfully hard over here. I can hear your teeth grinding," she said, looking at him suspiciously.
"Did you find what you're looking for?" he asked.
"No, let me look again," she said sighing, turning back to the bag.
"What are you looking for?" Nick asked her, thinking he might be able facilitate this activity and hurry this along.
"One of the nipple cups for my breast pump," she said, and Nick rocked back on his heels.
"That's all you," he said, and she flashed him a wry look, and Nick suppressed a sigh and resigned himself to listening to more crap about his personal life. Honestly, did they have nothing better to do? Was he really so interesting?
"Hey, you know sometimes the person you were with is not the person you're meant to be with," Bauer was saying. "Obviously something was missing in the relationship with Juliette that he felt he had to look elsewhere for it. Maybe that's why he kept going back to her and just didn't know how to break it off with Juliette."
"You say, I've found someone else. Or this isn't working anymore. You don't just keep living with the person while you're screwing another woman."
"It's called the best of both worlds, Coop."
"I don't know; I think he's pretty serious about her," Bauer insisted.
"You thought he was pretty serious about Juliette. Christ they lived together for five years. He even bought a house with her. They did everything but get married."
Mickelson snorted. "Wonder why."
"Anyone know what happened to her? It's like one minute she was here and the next gone."
"Uh, you find out the guy you've been living with for the past five years has been fucking another girl for nearly all that time, I don't think I'd hang around and see if he marries her."
"Doubtful she would have gotten an invite to the baby shower."
"Doubtful she would have gone if she did. Poor Juliette. She didn't deserve the way he treated her."
"Probably moved back home. I think she's from California?"
"I thought she was from Washington."
"Who knows."
"She was a damn good vet. My wife was devastated to find out she wasn't working there anymore. Madsen said she up and left there with no notice."
"What do you expect? He humiliated her."
"Yeah, but isn't it weird though? I mean, though, nobody knows where she's at. It's like she's disappeared from the face of the earth."
"Probably found somebody else and settled down somewhere. Women like that don't stay single long unless they want to."
"The kid's gotta be a year old now?" he heard Cooper say.
"About that, I guess. He's walking and talking at any rate."
"Kelly."
"Who?"
"That's the kid's name. Kelly. What kind of name is that anyway?"
"Found it!" Adalind said triumphantly, Kelly and Nick's eyes falling on her.
"Thank god, I'm ready to eat," Nick said, breathing a sigh of relief, and stepping back as he held the door again for her.
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