He'd had never heard a sweeter word. Lately it had been a familiar word in the house again but it was the first time since all this had blown up that he'd heard it like this, it was first time in such a long time that she was standing here.
"Hey Sweet Pea." He held out one hand and swallowed the bubble of emotion that crept up on him when Polly curled up next to him. He rested his cheek on her head as she tucked it up under his chin. God he loved this kid, he loved being her father even though the past few months had been rough. Of everything he had achieved throughout his life, and he'd certainly been recognised over the years for his work, being a Dad was far and away his greatest achievement.
It was late and Polly had gone upstairs almost as soon as they got home from dinner, no doubt to talk to Sam who she hadn't spoken to for three days, which apparently for a teenager was 'like forever'. Towards the end of dinner they could tell she was starting to get a little keen to get going so she could call him. She hadn't touched her phone while they'd been there and Kim and Adam appreciated the effort. They'd always been pretty strict with regards to phones at the dinner table. Occasionally Adam would have his phone with him if they were on a case but otherwise it was not acceptable to check or answer messages or phone calls during dinner.
Gus pretty much went straight to bed as well. He was feeling better but had probably pushed himself a little harder than he should have just because he wanted to enjoy everything his Dad had planned for them. It was rare that he got a whole weekend of his Dad to himself and he was gutted on Friday when he thought he'd ruined it.
Kim threw her legs over Adam's as they relaxed for a few minutes, enjoying the peace and quiet as he massaged her calves and Kim closed her eyes. She was also knackered from all the driving and wanted to go to bed but she knew Adam would stay up so if she wanted to talk to him it had to be now.
"Gus is thinking the sun shines out of your ass at the moment."
"That was my plan." Adam continued working on her legs and he could tell that she was enjoying it.
Kim smiled as Adam squeezed her calves a little. "Dad of the year."
"How was she?" Adam indicated upstairs with his head when Kim opened her eyes again.
"Great." And she was, Kim was really happy with Polly. She had loved the weekend away and gushed about it all the way home. She'd loved hanging out with Zoe and getting all excited about the baby and Kim promised to take Polly up to see Zoe as soon as she had the baby.
"And?"
"And what?"
"Anything I should know?"
"Yes, she loves you."
"I got that message." Even Kim could hear the little bit of joy in his voice. "Did you tell her to send it?"
"No." Kim scoffed. No matter how many times she told him that Polly loved him Adam just couldn't get his head around all this shit that had gone on with her and her attitude towards him. It hurt him. "As if I would do that. She asked if she could send it. You should feel lucky, Sam didn't get one."
"What's going on there?"
"They are not sleeping together."
"Good."
"Adam, it's not far off though. You know that right?" He put his hands over his ears and dramatically squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't be an idiot." Kim nudged him playfully with her foot.
"I feel old." He whined. "Do you remember bringing her home from the hospital and we looked at each other and wondered what the fuck do we do now?"
"I do."
"I have that same feeling. I keep looking at her thinking what the fuck do I do now."
"What you always do? Adore her." Kim dropped her legs to the floor and leaned in for a beautifully slow kiss. "Well I could take your mind off it for a bit. I missed you." She knew though that even the offer of sex wasn't going to be enough right now to get him to come to bed. Not tonight.
He had a feeling so he decided to wait it out downstairs; like he did most evenings in the hope that she'd come back to him, it was the way she had looked at him a few times during dinner that gave him a reason to sit down here rather than go and love his wife. For weeks he'd gone to bed disappointed but this was worth the wait. He didn't give up because he wanted to be here when she did come back and he wasn't about to let her down now. He had an over whelming need to be there for his kids.
He'd been let down his whole childhood by those who were supposed to look out for him, he wasn't going to do that, he wasn't letting them down because at the end of the day Kim and these two humans were his whole world. They weren't perfect humans but they were his humans and that was close enough.
"I am proud of you." She needed to know that he didn't think any less of her because of how she had coped with everything even when it was rough, even when he was worried that she was barely holding her head above water. "You've been so brave and I love how strong you are."
"I don't feel like it."
"You are Sweetie." He kissed the top of her head. "This has been really tough and you've been knocked down a few times but you've got up again, every time."
"I think I learnt that from you and Mom."
"Ah, we just pointed you in the right direction." He touched her nose lightly. "You did the hard work." Listening to her Dad was sweet. She'd treated him badly more often than not lately but he was still here, liked he'd promised her he would be.
"Why are men like that?" She wanted to talk about Simon; they hadn't really discussed him much yet. She'd seen the photos' and dealt with it but still didn't really understand why he had them or what he wanted to do with them.
They had both taken her into the District the day after she'd learnt about the photos. Adam had called Jay that night and told him that Polly wanted to see them. They had discussed how many to show her and Adam wanted her to see them all, he didn't want her to find out later that they were still hiding things from her and he had to trust that they'd be strong enough to deal with the fall out. However the decision was made not to show her the photos of Abbey. Adam talked to her about them explaining that Abbey did not want anyone to see them; especially Polly and she had to accept it. At the time she had given him a gob full of attitude but he was that far in the shit at that stage he didn't really care anymore, things couldn't get any worse for him.
Jay had set them up on his computer in his office and the first thing he did was talk to Polly alone. She baulked a little when Jay went to hug her but Adam had warned him that she wasn't really receptive to physical contact right now, even though she wanted her Dad with her today she still refused any form of affection from him. He did get to rest his hand on her back as he led her into the District. They were tiny little wins for Adam and he was taking them all. "This has been a tough decision to make for your Mom and Dad, they just want to protect you and they are really worried about you."
"I know."
"You do know that everyone here loves you." Polly nodded. "I will tell you that only I have seen them, your Mom and Dad and Kevin. That's all. What did they tell you?"
"That there is nothing horrible. Not of me, but there is some of Abbey and I am not going to see them."
"That's right, but Polly the rest of them, all the other photos Simon had it's not like all the photos that we have of you growing up and playing and having fun. That's not why he took them."
She shook her head when Jay asked her if she had any questions, she just wanted to get this over and done with. It felt like a crushing weight sitting on her chest, she felt sick and hadn't been able to eat anything all morning. "Do you want Mom and Dad to come in?" He could see them waiting in the bullpen. Adam was at his desk and Kim was leaning against it holding his hand and he hated to see how tough they were doing it. They'd made sure no one else was upstairs when Polly came in, nobody was sure how she would react and they didn't want other people around particularly if it didn't go well. She nodded and Jay called them in.
He left them to it. The three of them looked at the photos, Polly held her Mom's hand as Adam flicked through the photos. She gasped when some of the photos of her came up, it shocked her to see them and how innocent they seemed knowing that they were anything but. "I don't understand." She shook her head. "Why did he want these?"
"We don't know Polly."
"The photos of Abbey? Are they bad?" Polly looked at her Dad and her pain was devastating for him to see.
Kim looked at Adam and he closed the lid of the computer and came and sat next to Polly, for the first time she didn't baulk when Adam covered her shaking hands with his. "They are bad, they show some of the things that he did to Abbey and things that he made Abbey do to him. You can't see them Polly, I am not going to show them to you and Abbey and her parents don't want you to see them. Simon is in jail, he's confessed and there is no trial so those photos will never see the light of day." Adam didn't even try to sugar coat it. Nothing could soften the blow. Polly pulled her hands away and looked at the tissue in her hands, realising the scrunched up ball of paper was useless to wipe away her never-ending tears so Kim handed her another one and she rested her head on her mother's shoulder. Adam rubbed her back softly as she cried again.
Eventually she pushed herself up, wiped her face with her hands and told them. "He's not going to ruin my life. He broke Abbey, this is not going to beat me." Kim and Adam had no idea where that came from but perhaps the fog around her was starting to clear. It was still one step forward and two steps back for a while but there was a glimmer of hope.
She still hadn't talked about Simon though and here she was weeks later finally feeling strong enough to start to work through that. "Not all men Sweet Pea."
"I know but how do you know? I mean you didn't know what he was like? Abbey's Mom had no idea. I think Abbey did but her Mom didn't listen to her."
"Sometimes you don't know, I'd like to think that Janice had no idea. I am sure Simon wasn't like that when she was around. Sometimes Polly nothing really makes sense. There is a reason why they say hindsight is twenty-twenty vision."
"How am I going to know then? Like Sam, how do I know he's not like that?"
"What does your gut say? How do you feel about him?" Adam did not have any answers for her, he wished he could tell her that there was something to look for but that would be a lie. She had to learn how to trust herself and her instincts, as much as he wanted to make all the decisions for her, that just wasn't how life worked. If it did, she'd probably be a Nun because no one was ever going to be good enough for this girl.
"I really like him Dad, he's really sweet. I feel good when I am with him." She pushed her hair back from her forehead, a nervous little habit she had. "He makes me feel good about myself, he makes me laugh and we have fun together, we can talk about anything and I missed him so much."
"We like him too." Adam pulled her a little closer into his side. "Can I ask you something?" Polly sat up, facing her father and nodded.
"Simon, how did you feel about him?"
Polly didn't answer straight away, she'd thought about it a lot and it had played on her mind constantly for weeks. She'd talked to Sam about it but he didn't really have any answers for her, he'd never met Simon. "I didn't really like him so I just avoided him, I don't know what it was though. He was always hanging around and that seemed weird but I didn't think anything of it. Then I thought about you and when my friends are here sometimes you are around and we have fun and they all really like it. I thought maybe it was just me so I just stayed away from him. Do you think that I could have stopped him if I said something?"
"No, no I don't Polly, but you're gut was telling you something and you protected yourself. Sometimes it just takes time to understand what that means and you need to learn how to trust it. You're still learning. This is not your fault, none of it."
"I know." She was quiet for a little bit and Adam didn't mind. Just having her here was more than enough for him. Quite frankly she could have come down, just said his name and nothing else and he would be happy.
"Tell me something, what's the difference between how you feel about Sam, how he makes you feel and how you felt about Simon? Like when you first met Sam, before you really knew him did he make you feel uncomfortable?"
"No. I didn't know how to talk to him and I was nervous because I liked him and didn't want to stuff it up. Even now, I know what Sam wants and he never makes me feel weird or uncomfortable and he lets me decide and he only does what I want. When I want to stop he's okay with that. Well I don't know he's completely okay with it but that doesn't matter, he listens to me and he stops." Adam just tried to breath and not seemed freaked out by what she obviously meant by all that. "With Simon, I just didn't want to talk to him at all and I hated being around him or left alone with him, I always left the room if it was just us."
"You know what that is?"
"My gut?" Polly smiled a little and Adam nodded. This was his job, getting her to understand herself and trust her own instincts.
He could see her turning it over in her head. "Do you really like Sam?"
"Yes, Polly. I do. He makes you happy and treats you well and I am also happy to hear that he stops when you ask him to." That was going to drive Adam nuts. "That's all I care about."
"You don't have a gut feel about him?"
"I do, and my gut feel is that I think he might just be a little bit in love with you."
Along with the weekend with her Mom and their conversation about her Dad, Sam had been the catalyst for her to be sitting here right now. From the very start he had always told her not to take it out on her Dad. Apart from those few weeks when he accepted that they had basically broken up, once Polly had finally reached out to him and they started to get closer again they'd talk about Abbey and everything that was going on with that but when it came to her Dad Polly wouldn't say much.
Things with her Dad had gotten back on track to a certain degree but one thing she hadn't done yet was this. She hadn't come back and talked to him or sought his advice and that was always going to be the final hurdle. Sam had laid it all out that day at the Summer House and he knew she had listened to him but it had still taken her a while to do anything about it.
This was all new for Sam too and it would have been easier to walk away. They were young and this was supposed to be fun and a lot of the time it hadn't been fun. Polly was funny and smart and beautiful but she was also struggling with understanding what was going on around her. It wasn't just your friends splitting up, fighting, getting back together and all the usual teenage angst. It was horrible and frightening and very confronting. Sam had stepped in right at the start and made the decision to stick around. He didn't regret it. He'd known for a while that he loved her but because of everything that had happened he had only recently he told her that.
They'd been watching a movie in his room; well at the very least they'd started watching a movie and ended up doing anything but. Polly was letting him spend more time exploring her body than anything else. It wasn't quite innocent but neither did it get too far but gradually they were learning more and more about each other and what they liked and didn't like. She did like the feeling of his hands on her skin, he was gentle and slow and it made her tingle and even the weight of his body on top of hers was enjoyable. "Sam, can we stop?" Polly finally pulled away from his kiss and Sam rolled off to the side, obviously disappointed but he wasn't going to push her into anything she didn't want.
"I'm sorry." He muttered.
"Don't be, I liked it, I'm just…." She didn't finish her sentence. She no idea why she didn't want to go any further but it just didn't feel right. She wasn't ready to take the next step.
"Okay." Sam rubbed his hands over his face in frustration before propping himself up on one elbow and tried to catch her eye. Polly felt embarrassed and did her best to avoid looking at him; she didn't want to see his disappointment. It was hard knowing what he wanted and he'd been honest about that but Polly just couldn't push herself over the line, not yet. He continued to softly stroke her collarbone with his hand. "I love you Polly."
"You do?" Polly felt her stomach flip. "Sam…"
Sam kissed her softly. "I do. I really do and I don't need you to say anything right now okay, because I am going to wait for you. I just wanted you to know, I didn't want to wait anymore."
"You don't want to wait?"
Sam hated that she looked like she was starting to panic so he added quickly. "No I didn't want to wait anymore to tell you that I loved you. That's all." The reason he hadn't told her that day back at the beach house was because he just wanted her to remember the moment for the right reason, he just wanted her to know that he loved her and not all the other crap they went through that day, it had been a little bit of a rollercoaster. When it all boiled down to it, the good things far outweighed the bad but it still wasn't the perfect time. Right now he didn't want her to think that he only told her he loved her to sleep with her because that wasn't why. He said he loved her because he honestly did.
"He told me he loved me." Adam felt a lump in his throat. The way she was looking at him she reminded him of her mother and she looked so beautifully happy and he hadn't seen it for such a long time. Suddenly Polly knew why she hadn't told her Mom the other night that Sam loved her, she wanted her Dad to know first. Perhaps because she knew he would be honest with her, she knew her Mom would be happy and squeal and make a big deal of it but her Dad would help her understand it. For all the joking and teasing they did, these moments were often more raw and honest.
"And what about you Polly? How do you feel?"
"I'm not sure. I really liked it but it feels strange."
"In what way? Good strange or bad strange."
"Oh." The little look of shyness on her face was cute. "Good strange. Like, I have butterflies in my stomach, every time I am with him and even when I just think about him. Even the very first time he kissed me on our first date I had these butterflies. It scares me a little because I like how that feels." Adam wasn't surprised she was confused. Nothing had come easy for Polly in the last few months; her faith in the people around her had been rocked. It was hard to watch her go through it but at last they felt like there was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel and if falling in love, if experiencing your first love gave her that light nothing Adam could do or say was going to stop it. Nor did he want to, even if it meant that he had to let her go and grow up.
"Ha, it's terrifying." Adam he ran his thumb softly over her cheek. "I am terrified."
"Why?"
"It's strange seeing you all grown up with this great guy who I do think loves you and I think you are so close to falling in love for the first time." Adam thought about it for a moment. "Actually I think you do love him, that's what those butterflies are." He poked her playfully in the stomach. "I used to get butterflies every time I saw your Mom and even now when I am driving home after not seeing Mom for a while I get this feeling. I can't wait to get home."
"Yeah?"
"Yep and it's terrifying because you are my baby girl and no matter how big you are, no matter how pissed off with me you are, you will always be my baby and I will move heaven and earth to make sure you always know that." He smiled at her as he waved his hand back and forth between them. "You and me, this is a life long deal Polly."
"I do know that." She threw her arms around his neck and Adam never wanted to let her go. "Thank you for always looking out for me and I am sorry I've been horrible. I love you Dad."
"To the moon Baby."
Adam thought they were done but Polly bit her bottom lip and cocked her head to the side. A look he was all too familiar with, it was a look Kim would give him when she had something to say and she wasn't sure how he was going to take it. "Can I ask you something else?"
"You can ask me anything." He couldn't help himself. "Except if you want to ask me about having sex with Sam. I don't think you and I should have that conversation."
"Dad." She buried her head in a cushion.
"Just being honest."
"It's not about that." She giggled a little when he swiped a finger over his forehead indicating his relief. "Like I'd talk to you about that, you'd freak out."
"I would indeed. You know it's not that great."
"Whatever Dad, that's why you hound Mom about it almost daily." Polly rolled her eyes; he wasn't fooling anyone. "It's about the baby."
Kim had given Adam the heads up that she had told Polly about the baby and their miscarriage so he wasn't completely blindsided but that was a little while ago and he honestly thought she'd forgotten about it, or at least he hoped she had. He didn't want to talk about it, even when Kim bought it up he would struggle with it. He felt they'd been there and done that, there was nothing left to say and it was so far in the past it was just better left back there. He wasn't quite expecting it right now though. "What do you want to know?"
"Mom says that she treated you like shit but you just took it."
"Your Mom was going through a lot, I just needed to be there for her."
"Were you upset about losing the baby?"
It was like time was standing still as Polly waited for her Dad to answer, she wondered if she had gone too far but in reality Adam was trying keep his head in this moment rather than let his mind drift back fourteen years. "I was devastated and I was heartbroken watching your Mom go through that, I just wanted to help her."
"Is that why you never had another baby?"
"One of the reasons, yes. We had you and Angus and you both needed us for everything. When we lost the baby it was hard. Your Mom was still feeding Angus, he was still a little baby and you were too young to understand what was going on. You and Angus kept us going though, we had to get up everyday just for you."
"Mom said that you never thought about splitting up."
"I'm not going to lie Pol, it wasn't easy and I hated every minute of it but I never wanted to be anywhere else. It wasn't an option, even today not seeing you or Angus or your Mom everyday kills me. Your Mom is here." He pointed to his chest. "Every day. I can't live without your Mom, this doesn't work without her."
"Do you still think about the baby?"
"Some days. Not very often but I have wondered what they would be like now." And he did, when Kim told him that Polly knew about the miscarriage he did think about what their baby would have been like right now. How they should have been worried about three children instead of just the two they had, two that they adored.
"Did you know if it was a boy or a girl?"
"No. It was too early to find out. It all happened really quickly. I wanted it to be a girl though, another mini Mom to love, another you. Angus is my main man, but you, you'll always be my girl and to be surrounded by three of you would have been heaven." Sensing that Adam was struggling a little when his voice trembled slightly Polly tucked her legs up under herself and leant on him a little bit more. "Did your Mom tell you about that day?"
Polly shook her head. Adam took a deep breath and tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear. "I called your Mom, she had been asleep when I left for work and she didn't answer the phone. You did."
"Me?"
"Yeah, you were always grabbing our phones and talking on them, you'd dialled quite a few people and would chat away, they always knew it was you though and would just talk back to you." The first time she'd called Voight he'd come out of his office and stood in front of Ruzek and handed him his phone telling him that this call was probably for him. Adam died a little bit but Voight just laughed. "We couldn't stop you. Anyway you told me that Mom was crying."
"She didn't tell me."
"It's not very easy for your Mom to talk about. Anyway, I came home and by then your Mom had lost the baby. You saved your Mom that day and you and Gus saved us everyday after that. We love you guys more than anything. You are without a doubt the best thing we have ever done and we wouldn't swap one single day of the last twenty years, even when it's been rough. I am sorry there is not three of you but I am certainly glad we've got you two."
"Mom showed me the necklace." Adam didn't answer her; he just closed his eyes and tried to breathe. "It's beautiful, Dad you should let Mom wear it."
When Adam finally came to bed he pulled Kim into his arms, which she did so willingly even though she was barely awake. "You've talked to Polly." She muttered sleepily. He missed his chance of loving his wife but that was okay because he finally felt like he had his daughter back.
"How can you tell?"
"I can feel it."