This is the first of a completely new chapter...hope you enjoy.

It was late when Kim heard a knock on her door and her heart skipped a beat. She panicked thinking that it might be Adam which was ridiculous because she had talked to him a few hours ago and he was still in Detroit, or so he told her. He was just getting his head around his parents knowing and he told her he was coming the day after next.

Peering through the window she spied Kevin's car in the driveway and exhaled. She honestly wasn't surprised to see him. Kevin had been rocked by today's news and Kim had baulked at every opportunity to talk to him today. It wasn't the right time and she was getting agitated that people kept coming at her so Antonio finally sent her home.

"It's late Kevin." Kim opened the door.

"I know. Couldn't sleep, couldn't stop thinkin'."

Kim made sure the door was unlocked and pulled it closed behind her. Like she'd done with Al she sat on the front porch because she didn't want to the kids to overhear anything and irrationally she was trying to keep Adam out of her house. She felt like if she didn't talk about him in her house it was protecting everyone under her roof from her ghost.

This time it was Kev that was pacing up and down, he loomed large in front of Kim yet everything seemed huge and overwhelming to her right now. "I don't get it." He finally spoke.

"What don't you get?"

Kev paused. He thought the response was a little harsh. "So you knew?"

"What? No, no I didn't. I didn't mean it like that." Kim sighed. "Sorry."

Kevin kept pacing. "I'm his best friend. Why didn't he at least tell me so I could let you know. I could've looked after you. Why didn't you tell me you were going to see him? I would've come with ya."

"You did Kevin. He knew you would, he didn't need to ask you to do that." Kim reminded him. "You've been looking out for me for long before Adam left, and I wouldn't have made it through his death and Oliver without you." Kim paused for a moment. "I couldn't tell anyone until I knew it was real. I had to do this myself, it was what Adam wanted."

Kevin sat down beside Kim and reached for her hand. "I can't believe he's alive. How is he? Really?"

"I can tell you one thing, physically it's Adam. I guess I had this nagging fear that it wasn't really him but I just knew. I could feel it as soon as I saw him. That's our Adam." A tear slid down Kim's cheek. "But he's changed, he's overwhelmed, he's scared and he's so unsure of himself and who he is now."

"Is that why you didn't tell him about Ollie?"

"Yeah, one of the reasons yeah." Kim nodded and stared out across her front yard. "You know how tough Ollie has done it lately. All this with Steve and him realising that Steve didn't want to be his Dad. It hurt him so much. What if Adam doesn't want to hang around, what if he doesn't want to be Ollie's Dad? What then? I can't do that to him."

"I get it. I do." Kevin could understand. He'd do anything to protect his boys and that's what Kim was doing. Protecting her boy. "Honestly though Kim, that's not the Adam I knew."

"Exactly Kev, the Adam you knew. I just need a little bit of time to find out if the Adam we knew is now the Adam he is." Kim was adamant that she was doing the right thing. "I will tell them both, when the time is right and when I am sure Oliver is not going to get hurt."

"Okay." Kevin nodded. "Tell me 'bout it."

It was Kim's turn to stand up and start pacing. "He thinks he was made, and the FEDS were just covering their asses. He moved around a lot, lived overseas for a couple of years, he has no family, he didn't stay long enough in one place to form friendships. As of right now the only people he has in his life is Al and me. He's alone."

"I can go see him."

"No Kev, he doesn't want that. He'll be back in a couple of days. He's coming back to see his parents. We told them last night, which was a little intense." Kim was almost talking to herself. "There are no guides on how to do that. Al and I must've sounded like stark raving lunatics. Al actually thought he had a brain tumour at first."

"I can imagine. Bob and Janet were always a little wild."

Kim laughed weakly. "Well Janet slapped me so hard, I can still feel it."

"So what do we do? Re-open the case? What now?"

Kim stopped pacing. "Re-open what? The case is done. What we do is let Adam come home and learn how to be Adam again. It's not up to you or me to decide what to do about anything else." She sounded a little pissy.

"So what?" Kevin jumped up quickly. "Nobody pays for this." He waved his arms around wildly.

"Oh no, plenty of people have paid, just not the ones that deserve it." Kim replied bitterly. "My son paid for it." She didn't know enough yet to state whether Adam wanted to look into it or not She got the feeling that he would just want to put it in his past but maybe once he knew about Oliver he would think differently. She wasn't going to make any decisions for him or speculate about what he wanted to do. So she changed the subject.

"I told him about you and how happy you are with Jolene and the boys, Buster and Grady. He liked that you called one of your boys Adam, when I told him how wild Buster is he thinks that's great, that he was still around to give you grief."

"I'll never live this down now will I?"

"I doubt it."

Kim came and sat next to Kevin and rested her head on his shoulder. "How are you girl?"

He wasn't surprised when she just burst into tears, he placed one hand on her the side of her face and cradled it. "It's Adam."

"The love of your life."

"That was such a long time ago Kevin."

She was right, it was a long time ago but that's what the love of your life was, no matter how long it had been. They call it the love of your life for a reason. "It was a long time ago and you had his boy and that love didn't ever really die, it didn't die with Adam."

"I moved on Kev, I had too."

"Oh I know, doesn't mean you stopped loving him though. How could you when you looked in that boy's eyes every day?"

"Because I had no choice." Kim was determined not to let herself think about what Adam coming back meant for her so she just kept telling herself and anyone else that asked that it was only about Oliver. "Right now Kevin, this is about Oliver and Adam, and that's it. That's all it can be about. He needs to come home. I just want him to come home."

"Me too."