Once we ran and lived as one
In different world, my little one
Where whispering trees and dark rivers run
I told a dream to you – Bruce Springsteen.

"Why are you here?" It was the first words he had uttered to her in almost a week. He was finally rid of his IV and drains, although he still wasn't moving much but the swelling on his face had subsided and the bruises had stopped deepening and some of the more minor ones were even starting to yellow and fade.

"Because it was the only way to get you to rest." Kim was a little stunned that he'd actually spoken. Most of the time he'd been asleep and although she had started staying a little longer after he woke up they just didn't talk.

"I didn't want to need you." A tear trickled out of the corner of his barely opened eye.

"I know." Kim felt her own eyes welling up.

"Please don't." The last thing he needed was to see her crying. It was too late. Now that he was feeling better all those memories came back, the reason he was alone, doing stupid things with people he didn't even like and that pain was starting to replace the physical pain.

"Don't what?"

"Cry. Don't cry over me now."

"Adam."

"You can go." How he managed to sound bitter and so hurt at the same time was heart wrenching.

"Okay. So we are done?" She picked up her bag and stopped beside his bed. He turned his head away and Kim hesitated before she placed a kiss on his temple, like she had done every time she arrived and before she left each morning. She noticed that the hand he was clenching his sheets in went slack.

"Will you be back tonight?" He wasn't looking at her.

"I don't think you need me anymore."

"Yes I do."

Running her hand down his arm, Kim's voice hitched in her throat. "I'll see you tonight."

"Fuck." He screamed before she was even out of earshot and it stopped her in her tracks. His mind was all over the shop, he didn't know what he wanted or needed. The lines were blurring between the two. He needed her to calm him down and now he wanted her to just be here, not to talk but just to sit and let him know that he hadn't fought so hard to stay alive for nothing.

Why couldn't he get her out of his head? Why was he so weak? He hadn't lied, he did wish that he didn't need her, but the sad pathetic thing about it all was he did. She was the only thing that had stopped him letting the sweet silence of death take him when he was beaten to within an inch of his life. Why didn't he have the guts to tell her that?

Erin called in to see him. "How's Kim?" he asked her. He wanted to know what was going on in her head but didn't have strength to ask her.

"I don't know. She's pretty upset and I haven't really talked to her."

"Why not?" That annoyed him. Initially he liked that people had his back but the way they treated Kim some days upset him. He never wanted this, he never wanted his relationship or lack of to become cannon fodder for gossips at work. They circled their wagons around him and that was comforting and those wagons drew closer when Kim continued to rip his heart out but that was between them. Kim was a good cop, it never should have been allowed to get as far out of control as it did.

"Kim doesn't want our help. I think she feels like she has no friends at work and we shut her out. She was pretty hurt when Hank wouldn't let her help find you."

"Why not?"

"He wanted to keep it in house and we knew that you had done your best to move on."

"Fucking joke that turned out to be."

"Kim's been here a lot." They all knew what was going on and because of that they just let it go and avoided visiting late at night. The packet of Gummy Bears that always sat beside his bed was a dead giveaway. Adam always had a packet in his desk drawer at work and in the past every time Kim came upstairs she was always rifling through his desk looking for them. Whatever was going on between them it was working? Adam's improvement had been rapid over the past week and there were even times he started cracking the odd joke and the old Adam was starting to break through.

"Yeah."

"And?"

Despite knowing that he needed her to be there each night he really still didn't know why she was doing it. "What? We barely speak. She doesn't want to be here, my Dad asked her to come so she's probably doing it out of some sense of guilt or pity. I don't know what."

"Adam, that's not why she's here. You know that." Biting her lip for just a moment she ploughed on. "Perhaps if you weren't so god damn stupid and stubborn when all this started you wouldn't be here right now."

"What was I supposed to do?"

"Talk to her, ask her what was going on. You keep saying you don't know why…."

He cut her off. "I know nothing Erin, nothing. She hasn't talked to me for months. I have no idea what I did to her. I don't know why she left. I don't know why she slept with Roman. I don't know why she wanted to hurt me so much." He was starting to get agitated and Erin tried to calm him down to no avail. "Can you just go, please?"

"Adam."

"Go, just fucking leave me alone. Why won't anyone just leave me in peace?" He turned his head away and closed his eyes. This conversation was over.

Someone had to fix this, this god damn mess they got themselves into. Kim may not want to talk to anyone but she could damn well listen because Adam certainly wasn't.

"What the hell are you doing?" Erin didn't even say hello, she pushed past Kim into her apartment before she had the chance to slam the door in her face.

"What now?" it was just one thing after another, she was tired, her back and neck hurt and she was hungry. Life had been a treadmill for the past week, a relentless cycle of work, hospital and home.

"With Adam? What are you doing to him? He's got no idea what happened? He's got no idea why you broke it off. He doesn't understand why you wanted to hurt him so much and now he's confused because he thinks you are only sitting with him out of some sad sense of guilt or pity."

"Whoa. Don't yell at me?" Suddenly her place felt crowded, for such a long time it had been empty of anything that could be called joy. She could not remember the last time someone, anyone was here? Maybe it was Adam? He'd always made this place come to life from the first night he knocked on her door. This place reflected her perfectly, sad and alone.

"Why not? I tried yelling at him, months ago and he blew me off. I tried talking to him today and he's being a stubborn ass so now it's time you heard it too."

"Heard what?"

"You were happy to let everyone think that Adam was the bad guy, that being around him was so terrible. You wanted to transfer out because of him?"

"I couldn't be around him."

"Why not? Because you didn't want to see what you'd done?'

"I hadn't done anything to him." It had been a long time since she honestly believed that but she wasn't in the mood to admit that to Erin. "He didn't do anything."

"You gave him back his ring, in the locker room at work. You didn't even have the courtesy of doing it in private. Everyone knew and when he walked back in the building the next day everyone was talking about it. How do you think that made him feel? How would you have liked that? He was a mess and then you just shut him out, completely. I saw you ignore him in the bullpen, we all did."

Kim was stunned. Is that what people saw, her shutting him out? She didn't ignore him to be mean; it was just easier than talking to him because that hurt too much. "It was more complicated than that."

"Oh, that's right. Roman, right? You had feelings for him and wanted an out? Is that it?"

"No."

"Well you certainly didn't wait to jump into bed with him. I told you that one broken engagement would follow you forever so you thought sleeping with Roman was a good idea? You just continued to rip his heart out over and over again. I don't get it." Honestly she didn't think she was that stupid, even when Kim told her about the theatre and her confused feelings for Roman she never thought she would go there. Obviously she was that stupid. "I thought you loved Adam."

"Adam didn't want me."

Erin waved her hand in some vague direction outside these walls. "Adam still wants you, right now to this very day that guy is in love with you. He was dying in a filthy motel and the only word he said was your name."

"Then why didn't he come after me?"

"Tell me something? If the shoe were on the other foot, if Adam had been the one to break it off, what would you have done? Honestly?" If she wasn't willing to fight for him, how could she just sit back and expect him to do the same?

"I don't know."

"I do, you would have cried yourself to sleep, been miserable and heartbroken and you would have avoided him."

"So?"

"What do you think he did?" When Kim didn't answer Erin did. "He cried, he was miserable and he tried to lick his wounds and he was heartbroken He didn't avoid you though, but you certainly made it damn difficult for him to even say more than two words and then you rubbed his nose in it by sleeping with Roman and letting him find out in Court. That was pretty god damn pathetic."

"That's not fair."

"Ever wonder why nobody was willing to tell you anything about Adam's case? Because we didn't trust you." That hurt. Erin could see the look on Kim's face as the realisation started to kick in. Ruzek may not have been perfect but he hadn't done anything to deserve to be treated like he had. He'd been in love, trusted someone so completely that when she broke his heart he was paralysed by his own fears and insecurities and he let it crush him.

"I can do my job." She squeaked out somewhat meekly although she knew this wasn't about how she worked as a cop.

"No they didn't trust you not to break his heart again."

"I love him." She cried.

And that was the sad truth, despite all this horror everyone knew that they both still loved each other and that's what made it so hard to understand. "You know what Kim, I actually believe you. I really do."

"Then what do I do? I don't know how to fix this."

"It's not me you need to convince."

"He won't talk to me."

Erin headed for the door but not before offering one final piece of advice. "Kim, for the love of god, he waits for you to come in every night just so he can sleep. Doesn't that tell you anything?"

She went back that night, pressing her lips to his forehead and letting them linger for just a moment. His eyes were closed but she could tell by his breathing that he wasn't asleep but he obviously wasn't in the mood to talk to her. As the nights had gone on she pulled the recliner closer and closer to his bed & then curled up into it.

At one point he did open his eyes and looked at Kim. They didn't speak though; silence was easier to deal with. It had taken him a while to calm down after Erin had left. Even when his parents came he was still on edge. Now he was calm though, as soon as he felt her kiss all the tension left his body and he drifted off to sleep.

"I'm on second shift tonight. Will you be okay?" Kim was standing beside his bed early the next morning and Adam reached for her hand as it rested on the edge of the bed. Lightly he touched her with his fingers. Up until that moment she had planned on going home after shift and getting a half decent night's sleep.

"So you'll be late?"

Okay, change of plans. She guessed another night sleeping in this chair wouldn't kill her.

Grabbing the only vase she could find she set about arranging the flowers and tucked the card between the stems and placed it in the middle of the small dining table. From her bag she pulled out a bottle of Widow Jane Bourbon and two shot glasses and left them beside the flowers before she took one last looked around and smiled as slipped back out, locking the door behind her.