Kevin staggered under the weight and enormity of the grief that was flowing out of Adam right now. Adam grabbed at his jacket, Kevin could feel the tight ball of his fist in his back but he didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say.

This was like nothing he'd seen before and he'd seen him pretty low. When Kim first broke off the engagement it felt like the bottom and then the Roman thing happened and he went lower and they spend many a night drowning his sorrows but he always climbed out of the hole. After a week or so, he'd shake it off and move on.

When Al died he staggered but didn't fall, when he almost lost this badge with the Antonio thing he tripped up but kept ploughing on.

Losing the baby was bigger than all of them and he crashed hard and there were times he still did.

This felt momentous, even bigger than losing the baby and he worried that if he let go or said the wrong thing then there would be no coming back, not this time. So he held on until the tide finally receded. "Sorry." Adam muttered as he pushed himself away from Kevin. "Grab yourself a beer, I'll be back in a minute." He didn't even give Kevin a chance to say a word.

Kevin knocked the top off two and put the rest in the fridge. He noticed, when he opened it that is was pretty well stocked which surprised him. The Adam he just held onto didn't seem like the Adam who'd have his shit together enough to fill his fridge full of decent looking food. He glanced around and noticed that the place was tidy, slightly cluttered perhaps but that was due more to the size than anything but it was clean and tidy.

By the time Adam came out he was on the couch, feet up on the table nursing one beer in his hand. He leant forward and knocked the neck of the bottle against the one that Adam had picked up. "Thanks man." He muttered as he sat down in the chair opposite. "Sorry about that."

"About what?"

"All that shit." He motioned vaguely to where they had been standing.

"Yeah, Ruze, the thing is I don't know what all that shit is. Care to share?"

Adam rolled the bottle up and down his leg and watched the condensation leave a dark mark. "My old man, he's out there being Pop of the year to Sammy and lapping it up and it feels like such a kick in the nuts, ya know."

"Yep. You are talking to the guy who's old man is in the hole."

Adam nodded. They'd spent a lot of time in the past talking about Kev's Dad and his eternal struggle not to be like him, right from the time he could ride a bike, that turned out to be a stolen bike and Kev had to give it back to the rightful owners then copped shit at school about it for months. Shit father's was just one of the things they shared.

"Not the real issue though is it Ruze?" Kevin wasn't letting this get waylaid. They could wax and wane about fathers all night but he knew that what just happened was only partly because of his old man. Adam just stared at him so he continued. "I saw Kim at the park today."

He didn't take his eyes off him and even in the gloomy lamplight he saw something flicker. "And Makayla asked about you? What are you doing?"

"Protecting her."

"From what?"

"Me." He did not even hesitate. "I'll just fuck it up, like I fuck everything up. Why hang around waiting to be told I'm a failure. I've had that my whole fucking life and I'm done. So it's better this way. Nobody gets hurt."

"Da.. fuck?" Kevin shook his head. "Nobody gets hurt is bull… fucking… shit. You are already hurting them."

"You see that's the problem. They hurt because I am around, I'm just going to fuck it up, that's what I do so she'll get over it. She always does."

"She?" He found that curious. He'd learnt to listen to every little word, not just the sentence, but the words. That told you more than most. "Kim?"

It was the longest pause and Kevin knew that he heard it and was willing to wait. "Yeah, Kim."

"What happened?"

"Ask her." Adam snapped. "Ask her." He was clearly agitated by Kevin's question and he took a mouthful of beer to steady himself but it came out anyway. "All my life, nobody believed I'd be anything worthwhile, they were always waiting for me to fail and then I got into the Academy and the same thing. Oh Ruzek, he'll fuck up, he's not like his old man apparently. Then I met Kim and she believed in me. And then she didn't, she doesn't."

"She does man, she does."

"What did you do?" Kevin looked confused when Adam spat that out at him with venom. "When she came up after I shot Barela the first thing she said was 'what did you do?'. Not are you okay? Or what happened, but What did you do?"

"There was a lot going on for you right then Ruze."

"Is that what you would've said?"

"No." he paused. "I don't know. I wasn't there." He responded honestly, their previous conversation about how Atwater should know that that wasn't in him, to be that sort of cop was in him was still fresh in his mind.

Adam shrugged. "Then back at the District I told her it was a good shoot, and she said 'I hope so.' And it was a good shoot and she saw that and said nothing. She then showed up here, expecting… I don't know what. Forgiveness, to clear the air…" he said those few words with such bitterness even Kevin was stunned. "apparently I had to understand why she thought what she did, I had to see it from her point of view but I don't, I can't. I still can't because I would never think that of her and I realised that perhaps she doesn't believe in me the way I thought she did."

"Ruze. I'm sorry man." What else could he say? Arguing for Kim would've been a dick move, he couldn't argue for her and he didn't want to. He didn't necessarily agree with Adam's assessment that Kim didn't believe in him but he wasn't about to tell him he was wrong, that wasn't his place.

"I expect that from anyone else but not from Kim. I feel like she's been telling me for years that she doesn't get me or love me or whatever…" he waved his hand, spilling a little of his beer which he wiped off his leg with his free hand. "… and I've just be too fucking blind to see it."

"You are not blind. Dude, come on." That one he wasn't going to let slide.

"I spent years bargaining with myself that my old man wasn't who he was. I've spent years trying to stop loving her or bargaining that I just need to give it one more shot and she'll finally get it. Who the fuck am I kidding anymore?"

Adam jumped up to grab them another beer. Despite talking about things he didn't think he was ready to it felt good to get it off his chest and he didn't have the fear of being shut down. Kevin had always been good like that, he was good at just listening and not judging. Oh he'd kick his ass if he had to, but he never made it seem like he didn't have the right to feel what he was feeling.

Atwater tipped the bottle in his direction once he'd sat back down. The few moments of peace and quiet while he got their drinks was just enough to settle the air and let the last conversation ebb away before the next one flowed. That was the past, that conversation was what had happened, now they need to get to what needed to happen now. "So what ya gonna do?"

"I don't know Kevin, my job, live a little, give myself some breathing space." He was resigned to that. "Buy a fucking boat." He smiled a little painfully. That had been a good few days when they were mucking around with the idea of him buying a boat.

"No what are you going to do about Kim?"

"Nothing, nothing I can do. I can't make her want me or love me. She knows where I stand, I've told her what I want and she chooses not to believe me so…" he shrugged. "… I've just gotta leave it alone."

"Fair enough. One thing I will say though, at least let her know that you are open to listening if she starts talking."

Adam nodded.

"Oh…and another thing."

"I thought you said one?"

"Okay, I lied, but this is one word." He waited until Adam indicated that he could say it. "Makayla."

It was a low blow. Kevin knew how Adam felt about her. He adored her, he loved spending time with her and he knew being away from her would be a struggle. It kind of clued him into how badly Adam was taking all this. He'd never want to hurt Makayla, she'd been through enough already but Kevin did stop short of telling him that he was hurting her by hiding from Kim. Sometimes the less said the better.

In the first couple of weeks Kim had Makayla she had shut Adam out a little. He'd been worried about the reasons why Kim was taking her in and how she was going to handle it and had told her as much but he also told her he would always be in her life. Kim never took being questioned well, and now he thought about it, it all made sense. She always got defensive and then eventually started to see things rationally. It was then that Kevin had mentioned to her that she should bring him in, once the sting had gone out of the tail. Kim missed him being around so she started to bring him in and not only had Kim loved watching Adam engage with her but Makayla thrived with him around.

Kevin mused to himself as he drank his beer with one eye on his brooding buddy. Perhaps Makayla was the bridge to get them back on the same page again because when they were it was when both of them were at their best.