Disclaimer: I own nothing except my imagination.
A/N: I want to thank everyone who left a review on the previous chapter, it's always nice to read your thoughts. Sorry it took a while to post this next one but hope you guys like it.
The following weeks, Adam and Kim spent a fair amount of time together. More often than not, they would sit in either one's place with some Pilsners and some popcorn, binging tv shows and watching movies. Adam had a thing for falling asleep on Kim's couch after drinking one too many beers but she never had the heart to wake him up. One night, they were watching game of thrones and Adam had unceremoniously fallen asleep with his head leaning back against the couch. It wasn't all that late but the last couple of days had been physically and emotionally hard for everyone in Intelligence. Kim draped a throw on him, knowing he was probably out for the night, no doubt having some muscle stiffness in the morning if he stayed in the position. She took the time to do the dishes of the dinner they shared and then she made it to her room. She sat on the floor against the side of her bed and she took a pull of her own beer before pulling a box from under her bed. She hadn't looked into that box in a very long while, but she picked the small stack of pictures and went through it one at a time. Kevin had taken a lot of them at Molly's but one of them, he had taken behind their backs while they were in the locker room. Adam was straddling the bench like he always did, and he was sporting a smile, Kim laughing with her head thrown back in laughter. She remembered the story he had told her about the day Al had pulled him from the academy.
"I wish we could go back to this."
"That was a pretty great time." She was startled by Adam's voice in her door frame. He was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Can I join you?"
"Sure." She smiled back at him and placed her beer on the other side of her.
"What do you have there?"
"Pictures of us." She shrugged.
"I didn't know you had that many." He sat down next to her.
"It's all Kevin's fault." She chuckled. "He took a lot of those."
"Can I?" He offered his hand and she placed the stack in his hand.
"Knock yourself out." She leaned her head back against her bed as Adam went through a few of them.
"I remember this one." She cocked her head towards him. "He took that the night at Molly's after you were shot."
"Not my finest moment."
"Never been more scared in my life." Kim shifted closer to him and placed her head against his shoulder.
"How did we get so lost?"
"We were young, we weren't ready." He could at least admit to that.
"Did you want to get married?"
"Did you?" He countered.
"I said yes didn't I?" She sat up straight against the bed.
"Why did we have to rush it then?"
"We didn't have to rush it. All I wanted was for your dad to meet my mom."
"And you couldn't understand why my dad couldn't meet her on that day."
"I don't want to fight tonight Adam." She sighed.
"I don't want to fight either Kim, but we haven't exactly communicated, have we?" He hissed under his breath.
"That's on me, I'll chalk up to that one." She could get where that was coming from. "But you didn't exactly fight for us."
"You kept pushing me away Kim, every single time."
"I wasn't." She argued her case.
"Weren't you?" He wanted answers and maybe tonight wasn't going to end well but it was high time they talked about their past issues. "That time when you found the kid in the fridge. And every time I tried talking to you but you wouldn't listen to what I had to say. Maybe I didn't fight as hard as I should have but I did fight for us." Kim had become quiet after that but Adam stayed next to her still.
"Maybe I'm the one who threw the towel too quickly." She whispered. "If I hadn't been so influenceable, maybe things would have been different."
"I'll never put the blame on you for having doubts, for being scared. But Roman, he's not quite as innocent in all that." Adam still felt rage where he was concerned. "He was willing to sabotage your life, your ambitions just to make himself better and make me want to rip his head off clean."
"I had my own blame in that. I gave the ring back to you without so much as talking to you, without putting our, my issues on the table."
"I know my track record speaks for itself, but I should have been honest with you about it."
"And I should have talked to you about how I felt about that, how I fit in all of that, but I just ran from it."
"We can talk about it now." He suggested. It was long overdue and if Adam wanted to let go of their past so they could move forward, that's how it had to be.
"Talk to me about them." She looked at him as he sighed, getting ready to tell the truth.
"I was eighteen and Nicole and I had been dating for a couple of years already, but I was stupid. I thought I knew what love was, but the truth was, I had no idea. I only had a bad example of what a marriage was, and I wanted to badly to prove to everyone that I wasn't going to screw it up like my old man but who was I kidding? We were too young, and it never would have worked, even if we had walked down the aisle."
"And what about Nicole. I know they didn't work out, and I'm partly to blame for that but something was wrong before I walked in the picture."
"Wendy, there were so many things wrong in that relationship." He scoffed. "We were compatible enough that I could blend in with her friends. I never had a ton of those, so it was convenient. But then I got accepted in the academy. She knew that's what I wanted more than anything, but it didn't take long that she started being scared of the job. It got worse when Al plucked me from the academy."
"What happened?"
"The lying happened." He sighed. "She would send me these dirty texts while I was on the job with Al, it irritated the HELL out of him." He chuckled. Kim was just letting him tell the whole story, without interruptions. "I told her that I had been pulled from the academy to work in the ivory tower to take the worry off of her, but I guess some part of her didn't believe me. And then, I worked with you." He turned his head to the side and smiled at Kim. Kim could only laugh at the memory of their shift together.
"That was memorable." She agreed.
"We were already so great together. For the first time, in maybe all of my adult life, I clicked with a woman. We had a real connection Kim, and I could be myself with you, the real me."
"I like that version of you."
"Getting pulled out of the academy and placed into Intelligence is the best thing that would have happened to me. Al made me the cop that I am; kissing you gave me a best friend in Kevin, he was so protective of you while I was still engaged to Wendy."
"Atwater will do that to you." She laughed. He was her best friend too and he was protective of her as much as he was his own sister. "I feel bad for putting him in the middle of our mess."
"I think he put himself in the middle Kim. I know it was hard for him, but he has your back, always. And he's not afraid to give it to a guy who's not treating his best friend right."
"I knew I kept him for something." She tapped on his leg. "Thank you for telling me the truth."
"I want to do it right Kim." He linked his fingers with hers. "No more hiding and no more running."
"Maybe it's time I stop running too."
"We don't have to talk about that tonight." He didn't want to push her to talk if she wasn't quite ready, he never would be that kind of guy.
"Clean slate." She mused. "I want us to have a clean slate and that goes for me too."
"Okay."
"But I need you to promise not to get mad."
"I can promise that I can try, nothing more."
"The real you, I'm good with that." She took a deep breath before she started. "When I found out about Nicole, about being your third engagement, I spilled to Roman and he stayed quiet. I knew he had an opinion and deep down; I knew he didn't like you, but he was my partner and I thought he had my back." Adam grumbled but she ignored him and continued. "I pressed him for an answer. I wanted to know his thoughts on it, and he didn't push back."
"I bet he didn't."
"He said that you were into the bachelor party and everything that goes with an engagement more than into being married."
"That's not how it was."
"It was easy to believe him with what I knew, what I didn't come to you for clarification with. And then that thing happened with your dad and my mom and I just, jumped to conclusions that were easily put in my head. I should have come to you with this and not just give the ring back."
"When you gave it back to me in that locker room, I couldn't breathe anymore. I had lost the one thing that made my world turn right. Not being in your orbit, even as friends was killing me. Would we have been married now, maybe, maybe not but I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, I still do Kim."
"Maybe that's still in our future Adam, down the road, but we need to be able to trust each other again, completely, before we even think of getting back to being romantically involved."
"I know and I'm willing to go down that road with you, until the very end this time."
"Good, because I'm willing to go down that road with you too." Sitting there with him, was the most honest Kim had been with herself and she was glad that he had forced them to talk about it, to put it behind them.
"I love you." Adam whispered when silence had enveloped them. "I never stopped."
"I know." She whispered back. "Stay the night?" She questioned.
"I'll grab the couch."
"No, not the couch. The bed is more comfortable."
"I thought you said." He trailed off, suddenly confused.
"I just need you to hold me."
"I can do that." He pulled his hand from hers and stood, extending his hand to help Kim up. They cleared the pictures and put them back under her bed before they both stripped and slipped under the covers. Kim found the spot against Adam's chest where she would hear the thumping of his heart, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. That's how she fell asleep, his steady heartbeat lulling her to it, the two happy to be open and honest with each other for what felt like the first time.
A/N: So everything is finally out in the open. Will the road to finding their way back to each other be easy or will Adam have to work harder to get her back? Please take a few seconds to review before you go, your thoughts always mean the world. - Sarra