AN: Well, we have reached the end. Can not believe that this story reached 10 chapters. Thank you so much to everyone that has followed, favorited, and reviewed. It has given me confidence to share the ideas that pop into my head for these characters. The music quote for this chapter is at the end. Enjoy!

Kim had felt butterflies from the moment she had left her apartment to the point that Adam had answered his door. This apartment was new. From what Kim had heard, Adam had decided that it would be easier for him to move out and sublease his old apartment to Al. Olinsky was all about the job and his girls which Kim imagined didn't give him much time for house hunting.

Adam's apartment was in a rehabbed warehouse that now housed two floors of apartments and shops on the ground level. The central atrium to the building was an interesting mix of industrial and outdoor wonderland. Trees had been planted in parts of the floor that had been dug down to the earth and their branches reached up to the steel rafters and skylights above. Flowers were placed around to add color that pleased the eye and she noted the floral scent as she walked to the main stairway.

Kim had to admit she found his choice in apartment a bit of a surprise, but once inside his door she understood better. The floor to ceiling windows reminder her of his chosen refuge from childhood and the view of the park below continued that theme. Kim now stood at one of the windows and noted his glass of whiskey in front of her on the small metal sill. She hadn't been wrong about him needing to drink tonight. She could hear him come up from behind her, so she turned to accept the glass he was holding. The sweet taste of the wine would normally have more than pleased Kim, but her nerves were making her think that she might have made a mistake in not bringing something stronger. Looking at Adam, Kim's mouth got ahead of her internal filter.

"How did your mom and dad ever get together?"

Adam's quizzical look made Kim grimace with embarrassment. "I'm sorry. That was not how I meant to..."

Adam shook his head, "No, Its ok. I ask myself the same thing all the time." Kim watched as Adam finished off is glass and placed it back on the sill. Guess he needed the strength from the liquid as much as she did.

"The stories my Uncle Danny tells me are that for a time my Mom was rebelling against her family, so she dated my Dad in high school. Interesting thought process to think that dating a kid from a cop family could be rebelling. I guess after fifteen years of marriage though she finally figured out that it wasn't who she was. Or something."

Adam picked up his glass and headed back to his kitchen table where refilled it. He turned back but did not move to rejoin her. Kim knew she was pushing, but she needed to understand. She needed to put the jigsaw puzzle that was Adam Ruzek together and at this point so many of the pieces were right in front of her.

"Your Dad. Did he not know? I mean about you? Umm.."

Adam actually laughed which confused Kim, but he shook his head. "My Dad's not Voight, Kim. He came from a good family and God love him, but if things are going well he is not going to question it. As a kid, I was really good at playing that everything was great."

Kim understood completely. A deep part of her suddenly understood how they connected and found each other so quickly at the 21st precinct. They were cut from similar but different circumstances.

"My father left when I was five."

Adam began shaking his head as he spoke, "Kim you don't..." Kim turned towards the window and took the moment she needed before turning back to Adam.

"Yes, I do."

Walking to the couch and setting her glass on the coffee table was simply finding a physical activity to deal with her nerves. Sitting down, Kim wrapped her arms around herself as if she could physically hold herself together while psychologically opening an old wound.

"My mom had finished making dinner that night and my sister was setting the table. My sister was eight, I think. Maybe nine. I can remember that she had just finished putting my hair in pigtails before my mom had called for her help. Its really weird the things you remember, you know."

Kim was mildly conscious of Adam moving to the far end of the couch as she continued.

"My father walked into the kitchen as my mom was placing the plates down on the table. He had his suitcase in his hand and he just stood at the head of the table and waited for my mother and sister to look up. I can see him in his suit and I can remember staring at his penny loafers. I remember the shoes because I was sitting on the floor still watching the tv, so his suitcase and his shoes were right there. I don't even remember what he said. I just remember seeing him walk out the front door and watching the suitcase swing in his hand. I remember even at five knowing that something had changed forever."

Kim looked down at her left hand as she suddenly realized that she was twirling her birthstone ring again. She stopped and reached for her wine glass. Taking a big gulp, she coughed a bit on the sweet burn of the liquid.

"I honestly don't know how my Mom did it. There wasn't some big explosion or long drawn out ugly fight. The papers just came one day. He gave us up. My mom. My sister. Me. It was like he just surgically removed us." Kim finally looked at Adam. "My mom use to cry at night when she thought my sister and I were asleep. She would push all day long and then collapse. Like she just got to the point that the mask was too much to hold. My sister completely changed. She just started doing what she wanted. She was so angry. When she was in high school, oh wow. My Mom had to work two jobs, so we were always with relatives and they couldn't get through to her. I don't know where she would be if she hadn't met Aaron in college. They became best friends and his mother took her in like she was her own. It was her turning point."

Kim looked up at Adam as something dawned on her. "What was yours?" Adam closed his eyes and rubbed at his beard. Kim understood the nervous gesture now. They were stripping everything away today and the physical movement was the only thing they had left to try and hide. To try and protect themselves from the fear and pain.

"Finn. My cousin Finn. He was my older, cooler cousin, and I looked up to him. He got pinched. He's spent the last fifteen years at Joliet. Wasn't the best role model for a kid to have obviously. Him getting popped just flipped something in me. He wasn't a bad guy by nature, but life just flushed him and it made me want to do something else. I drove straight home when I found out about Finn's sentencing and it was probably the first real conversation my Dad and I ever had. Where it was me and not some game I was playing."

Kim could feel Adam waiting for something and the drumming of his fingers against the fabric of the couch showed his impatience. She knew it was her. For all the scars he had exposed that day, she knew she was still holding back and couldn't blame him.

"You've talked about your mother and sister. What about you?"

Kim could feel the large tear roll down her cheek, but before she could even try and hide it Adam was there. The soft movement of his thumb across her cheek felt like a cut. The painful comfort of someone trying to help you open up the deepest wound you have. The kind that you put in a box in the back of your mind with a sticker that says do not open.

"I was the happy kid. What else could I do?"

Adam stroked her cheek again with his thumb. "You buried it." Kim could feel herself nodding her head in Adam's hand.

"He left us. Like we meant nothing. Why let him affect me? It wasn't a choice in the beginning. It was survival. My sister was a mess and I didn't want to make my Mom hurt anymore than she already did."

Kim could finally admit something when she looked up into Adam's eyes.

"My Mom told me when I was older that my father had actually been pulling away for months prior to that night, but I was too young to understand that. I... I thought that was you. You were pulling away and before I knew it you were going to be gone."

Kim could see the dawning regret in Adam's eyes as he pulled her to his chest and wrapped her in his arms. Kim held on with everything she had left. In his arms, she felt safe again. As vulnerable as she should feel in that moment, she knew that he wouldn't let her fall apart. His breath was coming out in short bursts which fanned her hair and she knew she couldn't look up or seeing him break down would break her. How he found a voice, Kim couldn't begin to understand.

"I could never leave you, Kim. Being apart from you has killed me."

Kim buried her face into Adam's neck and just breathed him in as she finally let the tears fall. She had no idea how long they stayed like that. Simply allowing the other to absorb the hurt and pain. Allowing it to wash away in tears that they had both shed that day. Kim finally began to brush away the wet trails from her face as she continued to lean against Adam's chest. Her brain connected with something her sister had said to her once.

"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Adam's hand stopped the rhythmic caress it had been doing on her back as if asking what she meant.

"My sister use to quote that to me after she got married and had Zooey. Said it was from a Leonard Cohen song and its what she used when I asked her how she turned everything around. I think I understand what she means now."

Adam pulled Kim even closer than she already was and then he seemed to chuckle to himself. Kim couldn't for the life of her understand what he would find amusing, but then she felt his lips lightly kiss the top of her head.

"I think I like Pink better."

Kim's eyebrows scrunched together trying to figure out which song he was thinking about. "Pink? Really?"

Adam's breath continued to fan the top of her head as he spoke the lyrics.

"Just give me a reason, Just a little bits enough, Just a second, we're not broken just bent."

Kim knew he left the next line out for a reason. Letting it hang between them like an unspoken prayer. And we can learn to love again. Kim finally had the strength that she hadn't had before with so much unspoken between them. She sat up so she could be even with him and he could see that she meant every word.

"I wasn't lying in the warehouse. I still love you. I never once stopped."

Adam smiled slightly. "I love you too. I never stopped." Kim felt the smile spread across her face and she couldn't help reliving the memory.

"Well, that's something we have in common."

Adam laughed and then cupped her face. The touch of his lips on hers was the best feeling. It was light, happiness, and home. And Kim knew that she wasn't going anywhere that night. She had no where else that she would rather be.

Two years later

That night was another turning point. Adam sat thinking about the night that Kim had come to him with wine in hand to meet him half way. The spring air felt good as he sat on a blanket in the middle of the park across from their apartment. Their apartment. Their home. She ended up moving in two months later even though they didn't spend a night alone from that day on. Honestly, he should really say that she gradually moved in over that two months. The movement of furniture was a technicality.

It made him happy to see things work out. When he chose his apartment, he was thinking of the two of them together. It had the park near by. The kitchen island bar for their kids to do homework in the future as they made dinner. The not so distant future.

His son's uninhibited giggle as Kim chased him in the grass brought a grin to his face. Their gift. Quinn's blonde hair and big brown eyes was a perfect mix of his parents. Adam could not believe his current reality sometimes. Watching Kim, was a joy he could not describe. She was wearing an empire waist dress for strategic reasons today. The unit was meeting them for a picnic out and they were trying to make their news a surprise. Quinn was going to be a big brother in about seven months and Kim was going to have to go back on desk duty again. She was going to hate it, but love it at the same time.

"Dada!"

Quinn was pumping his little legs as fast as he could to try and get to his father and out of the reach of Kim's tickling fingers. Adam laughed as Kim scooped their son up and started to tickle him into a giggling fit. Adam finally got up and began to stalk the two loves of his life. Kim's big eyes looked towards him with a challenge unspoken. He could never turn down a challenge. Quinn squirmed his way down from his mother's arms and that gave Adam his opening. He weaved around his son and lunged for Kim, tickling her sides so she began to laugh herself.

"Quinn! Little man, what are your parents doing?"

Adam stopped tickling Kim and pulled her to his chest as he watched Quinn now run towards Atwater, who was carrying a basket that Adam was sure was filled to the brim with his mother's cooking. Kevin lifted up Quinn without effort and could be heard asking Quinn what he had been up to.

Adam squeezed Kim and then looked down into her eyes. She had never been more beautiful or looked as happy in that moment. They had their ups and downs like any couple, but the good far out weighed the bad. Adam knew that they would have bumps in the road. His mother getting released next year would be a bump, but he wasn't worried like he would have been if he didn't have his family to lean on. His unit was his family. Kim and Quinn and baby Ruzek was his family. Wedding vows or not. Adam looked down at the engagement ring that was once again on Kim's ring finger and he could not wait till next Friday when a wedding ring would be joining it. It was going to be a civil ceremony with just the unit, his Dad, Kim's Mom, and her sister's family in attendance. It was an absolute perfect plan for Adam. Small and intimate with the people that meant the most. What more could a person ask for? Not a whole hell of a lot.

Baby

We've come a long way

And baby

You know i hope and i pray

That you believe me

When i say this love will never fade away

Oh, because

You are the best thing

(you're the best thing)

You are the best thing

(you're the best thing, baby)

You are the best thing

(you're the best thing, oooh)

Ever happened to me

Both of us had no love before

(to come on promising like a spring to walk on out the door)?

Our words are strong and our hearts are kind

Let me tell you just exactly what's on my mind

"You are the Best Thing" - Ray Lamontagne