A/N: Happy PD finale day...let's hope season 5 is kinder to Ruzek.
Polly just about died when her she came downstairs and found her father standing in the kitchen in a bullet proof vest with his sidearm firmly strapped to his hip. He also had his full tactical belt on. "Dad." She gasped. Polly had hoped that when he got called into work early that morning that perhaps he wouldn't make it home but there was no way Adam was missing this. He'd told Halstead that he needed to be home at a certain time and she was damn lucky that they whole squad wasn't here.
"What Polly?" Adam tried to look serious, he'd already got a lecture about coming home dressed like he was about to run a raid from Kim which he chose to ignore. "I'm working, I've got ten minutes to met this Sam character and then I am going back to make Chicago safe."
"You just want to scare Sam."
"Well, that too. He's taking my girl out on a date. He's got to know I am armed." He sipped his coffee and smiled and winked at her. "You look beautiful by the way." And she did, she was just like Kim and he had always loved that she was so much like her mother but right now it wasn't exactly pleasing, his wife was hot and got his motor running constantly so the thought that Polly would elicit that response in a teenage boy who no doubt had rampant hormones wasn't a comforting one.
Poor Sam looked like he had swallowed a bug when Polly opened the door. He had been nervous enough about meeting Polly's parents so rocking up and seeing Atwater leaning against the car in the driveway also fully kitted out had just added to his current state of distress. Polly saw him and rolled her eyes and when he saw Polly and Sam looking at him he smiled and waved. "I am so sorry." Polly didn't even give him a chance to say hello. "My Dad thinks this is funny."
"Is he armed too?"
"He is, but be grateful he didn't bring the long guns, although come to think of it they are probably in the trunk of the car." That did little to ease Sam's nerves. It had been a long running joke between her Dad and all her 'uncles' – Jay, Kevin, Antonio, Hank and Al that he was going to bring home the long guns when Polly started dating. Sometimes you couldn't even tell he was carrying a weapon, he often had it shoved done the back of his pants and if he had a jacket on it was concealed, not today, today he had it jutting from his hip for the world to see. Polly tugged on his arm. "Come on. Let's get this over with so we can leave. He's not that bad I promise."
She led him through to the dining room where both her parents were waiting. He shook Adam's hand followed by Kim's. He called them Mr and Mrs Ruzek which Adam had never got used to; he thought it made them sound old and then called Adam sir, which wasn't much better but at least he was polite and he didn't look like a hobo. He was off to a good start, even if he was taking his daughter out on a date. Adam swore he could feel the hormones seeping from every one of his pores.
"You do know Polly has all the sporting ability of a drunk ant?" Adam asked him with just the tiniest hint of a smile. While he may have been joking all Sam could see was that his hand was resting on his gun and how tall he was. Adam Ruzek wasn't a small man and to a nervous 17-year-old boy he was kind of frightening. "I am not sure mini golf is going to go well."
"Dad." Polly was mortified and she was blushing furiously. She really liked Sam, that was obvious to everyone and her Dad was embarrassing her. She desperately looked at her mother but Kim gave her a look as if to say that she knew she had zero chance of stopping him so why even bother.
"What? Let's remember I used to watch your softball games and all those god-awful ballet recitals." He screwed up his nose. "It wasn't good Polly."
"That would explain that thing you called dancing the other night." The kid finally found his voice and Adam liked him. He was smiling at Polly and looked more than a little smitten. It was cute the way Polly was blushing. Ah, young love, how he remembered those days. It seemed like only yesterday he was trying to impress the parents of his first girlfriend and he failed miserably because basically he was a shithead and they spotted him coming a mile off.
"I've checked out this mini golf place, they have CCTV which I can so hack." He clicked his fingers. "In an instant."
"Adam." Kim slapped his arm playfully. "Ignore him Sam. You two go and have a good afternoon. You are welcome to stay for dinner, we'd love to have you." Kim kind of rushed that out because she didn't know what else to say and to stop whatever was on the tip of Adam's tongue. He was bound to say something stupid or embarrassing for Polly, but judging by the way she glared at her mother Kim realised she hadn't done much better.
"Sure, dinner." Adam nodded. "I should have seen the footage by then." Adam cringed a little at the look both Kim and Polly gave him.
Sam wasn't sure if they were kidding or not. "Um, thank you but it's my brother's birthday so we have a family dinner." He could think of nothing worse than staying for dinner, not yet. He certainly hoped that he'd be seeing more of Polly but he wanted to get through today first. It was the first time they would be spending any more than a few minutes alone together, up until now other people had always been around. He didn't count that hour they spent looking for Abbey at Navy Pier because that was so far from okay but he did like that she seemed to want him to be there with her.
Adam held out his arms and Polly gave him a quick hug and kiss along with her mother. "Have fun." He shook Sam's hand and Polly couldn't drag him out of there quick enough. "Drive safely. I've got a BOLO out on your car."
"God I am so sorry Sam." Polly gushed out as soon as they were out the door and she was literally dragging him towards his car. She didn't even bother looking at Kevin on the way past. There was no way she was acknowledging their ridiculous stunt.
"No worse than I was expecting. Isaac warned me." Adam watched from the window as Sam opened the car door for his daughter. So far he seemed to be doing all the right things and he wasn't ugly. When he mentioned that to Kim she just rolled her eyes and told him to go back to work and warned him not to call or message Polly and annoy her. Kim would let him know when Polly got home.
"He's really not that bad."
"Hey, of course he's not. If he was that bad I'd still be sitting on a chair answering 400 questions." He tried not to sound nervous. "What's a BOLO?"
"It means be on the look out and it's what they call it when they are looking for someone and he's kidding, don't worry. He'll save the 400 questions for dinner; I wouldn't be surprised if he brings out the handcuffs. You don't have to come anytime soon, I'll call off the dogs." It was a little too early to contemplate letting Sam sit through a family dinner.
"What if I want too?" Sam was starting to see figure out that Polly was just a little bit cheeky. The way she dropped in the comment about the handcuffs was cute, a little unsettling, but cute. She was reeling him in but he was pretty sure she had no idea she was doing it.
"Then be prepared."
"I did scouts."
"Really?" Polly turned herself slightly in her seat so she could watch him as he drove. Although they had talked more than a few times this was the first time they were really alone with each other. She was a little nervous but excited. He wasn't the first boy she'd had a crush on but he was the first that paid her any attention in return. Almost all of her infatuations had been unrequited and all the attention she did receive were from boys that she didn't like. She'd had a couple of dates and they did nothing for her confidence. Some of that she blamed on the fact that just about everyone knew her father was a cop in a specialised Unit and thought that she was too much trouble. The boys that did make an effort seemed to be doing it for challenge of dating Polly and made no attempt to get to know her. Sam had actually chased her and now here they were.
"Of course not." He laughed. "I'm not that pathetic. Zoo Explorers was more my thing." Sam was the youngest in his family. He had an older brother, Andrew who was working as a Chef and two sisters, Heidi and Lauren. Heidi was studying to be a nurse and closest to Sam in age, although she was almost 4 years older and Lauren who was into PR and was living in LA. Sam had been a bit of a surprise for his parents. He was into animals and his plan was to be a zoologist so anything to do with animals he was there. One day on the weekend he was usually working at the Lincoln Park Zoo and one week during school holidays. It helped that his Dad was a Vet and got him a foot in the door.
"I think my Dad would have laughed if Gus wanted to do that too. He was way more into making sure he played sport." Her Dad, despite loving the structure and discipline of being in the Police Force, albeit the Intelligence Unit worked with some pretty loose guidelines, he would have baulked at something like Scouts or Cadets for Angus. Their Pops had apparently tried to get their Dad into Police Explorers when he was running wild but not much could tame Adam as a child and they spent more time digging him out of trouble than anything. Sport was a much better use of his excess energy and he certainly encouraged Angus to do the same.
"Your Dad's unit? I've heard rumours." Everyone in Chicago knew about Intelligence but they didn't know what they did. None of their cases ended up in the paper but people knew there was this crazy unit who took on the shit that no one else wanted to touch. He wanted to get a handle on this from the start. The amount of advice he'd got to stay away from Polly Ruzek was alarming not because of her but because of her father; he couldn't stop himself though and decided not to listen to it and work it out for himself. He still wanted to know what he was letting himself in for.
"I can imagine. We don't really talk about it. All I can say is a lot of people want them doing what they do."
"Sounds rough."
"It's always been this way so I guess I am just used to it." Polly shrugged. "He often comes home battered and bruised and he's been shot a couple of times. Nothing serious mind you, he'd had his shoulder clipped once and a bullet grazed his thigh a few years back. He'd taken the odd one in the vest which knocked him on his ass a couple of times." It sounded terrible but more often than not it was black eyes, bruises and a few stitches. They'd always know when he'd had a rough day because he'd hobble through the door and complain about it extracting the required amount of sympathy. When Polly was younger she would fuss over him, giving him massages, wiping his face with a damp cloth and sitting and holding his hand and tending to his every whim. Adam missed those days, even if they were a little tedious at the time. They also knew when it had been pretty rough because he would disappear into his bedroom and they knew to leave him alone.
"Holy Crap Polly, does that freak you out?"
"It does. It's pretty intense sometimes and when he is on a really hard case he can be pretty distant and we just keep out of his way. Most of the times we don't really know he's on a dangerous case until after they are done." Sam wasn't sure he wanted to know much more. Polly tried not to worry about her Dad at work because if she did she would be a nervous wreck. He kept telling her that he'd been doing it a long time, he was smart and he had a good team backing him up. She'd gotten so good at pretending it didn't worry her that she knew she sounded a little emotionless and that couldn't be farther from the truth. "I can't worry about him at work all day, it would drive me insane. He's nothing like what he is at work. He's pretty cool actually."
'That guy out the front?" It was hard not to notice Atwater, he was big and black and even more frightening than her father.
"Kevin." Polly rolled her eyes. "My Dad's partner, they've been together for years. He's a big teddy bear but Dad would have roped him into that little sideshow. I'm surprised there weren't more of them. Mom is always at them about their antics, they are like kids when they are together. Don't worry about Kev."
"More of them?"
"Sure, there is a few more of them who have worked with my parents for years. They are all pretty harmless though. Some of them are retired now. You'll have to meet them all eventually."
How could he not worry? He'd just picked up a girl from her house and been confronted with not one but two armed men. No wonder Polly didn't seem to have really dated anyone else, at least not more than once because no one was stupid enough to try. He was grateful that Polly was talking like this may not be a 'once and done' situation although the way it was going it might be him that hightailed it out of there. To be fair though, unless she grew horns in the next few hours he was pretty sure he'd be back for more.
Sam decided it was time to change the subject. "How's Abbey?"
"Not talking to me." Her smiled faded just a little bit.
"Why?" He didn't have a lot of time for Abbey and he certainly didn't like what he saw on the weekend and was worried that Polly was going to get dragged in too deep and the few times he'd talked to her during the week he hadn't bothered to ask about Abbey. He'd talked to Isaac about them though, quite a bit because he knew Polly better than most and while everyone kept telling him to stay away from Polly Ruzek, Isaac was the only one who encouraged him to go for it. He knew how tight she was with Abbey and they had been friends for a long time so getting on her best friends bad side or slagging her off wasn't going to get him anywhere.
"Because my parents tried to help her."
"That was pretty rough last weekend."
Polly closed her eyes for just a moment. She had tried to talk to Abbey all week and got nothing. "Can we not talk about it? I just want to forget about it for today." Although Abbey had stayed for dinner after Kim talked to her she barely spoke to Polly and left pretty much as soon as dinner was done.
The next day Abbey basically reamed Polly out for blabbing to her parents. "Now your Mom is all over my ass. I guess you Dad knows too? Just what I need? It's none of your business what I do and who I do it with."
"I was worried about you. I didn't like it and I was in trouble for being late."
"So you dobbed on me to save your ass. Some friend you turned out to be. Stay out of my business." She stormed off. Polly tried to talk to her, call her or message her but got nothing back. She basically ignored her at school.
Polly was devastated and Kim struggled to get her to try and see it from Abbey's point of view and give her some space. God knows she'd had fights with her girlfriends growing up but they always calmed down and worked it out. Adam wanted to take Abbey to task but Kim also talked him down from the ledge. Eventually Kim convinced Polly to leave it a few days and try again. By Friday Abbey had responded to one of her messages and that had cheered her up a bit.
Together with the concern they had about what was going on with Abbey, the effect it was having on Polly worried them just as much, if not more. Fortunately the prospect of her date with Sam gave her something else to think about and focus on and they did like how excited she was. Polly had convinced her Mom to take her shopping for a new pair of jeans and top. Adam had just about died when he saw the receipt and when Kim reminded him how often she had bought something new to impress him on a date it did little to pacify him. Kim would often have the hottest new dress to wear that would leave him itching to get her out of it as quickly as possible, add to that he remembered his own behaviour as a teenage boy and did not make having a teenage daughter starting to date any easier, in fact it may have been his worst nightmare.
"Okay, you know I was never interested in Abbey. I want to make that clear." Sam told her, touching her hand lightly. "Also, I know Abbey said some things that might have freaked you out. That's not me Polly, that's not why I am here. I really like you and I want to get to know you. I don't expect anything. Right now, we are just friends okay."
"I'd really like that." Sam loved the smile that spread across her face. Polly didn't want to think about Abbey today, she wanted to think about Sam and how he was making her happy and he looked delighted when she reached over and held his hand.
This was where she wanted to be today, with Sam and nothing was going to rain on her parade.
They had fun, they laughed a lot and Polly liked how he even stood behind her and helped her with her golf a few times. Not that she needed it but it felt nice. He was sweet and he would cover his eyes as she ran to get her ball when she had belted it out of bounds pretending not to see her cheating. Before they got back in his car he looked over both his shoulders. "Who are you looking for? My Dad?"
"No, just checking for CCTV." Polly felt like a basket full of butterflies were let loose in her stomach as he leant in to kiss her. It was soft and sweet.
It was Polly's first real kiss and she floated through the rest of the weekend.