So this is completely new...I had always wanted to delve a little deeper into Adam's recovery but couldn't quite pull it off in the original story. I had another go at it, hope you like it.
"Hello." He answered the phone casually. Even now he never answered with his name. He was never Adam. It had been one of the only things he had hung onto. Kim asked him once why and he painfully told her that he had too because he never knew who would be on the other end.
"Adam Ruzek?" He couldn't tell from the two words if he knew the voice or not but the tone of the voice was questioning rather than friendly and it instantly set his teeth on edge.
"Think you've got the wrong number."
"Why? Did you go back to Paul Benson." The voice laughed sarcastically. "Never thought of that."
"Wrong number." He hung up instantly and thought about blocking the number but something stopped him.
He didn't need this, right now, he didn't need any of this. His life was good now, a little rough some days but he liked where it was heading. He had a family, or was trying to have a family and he had people who wanted him around and who he wanted to be around.
Suddenly everyone else was put on the back burner again as Adam dealt with a past he didn't want to remember.
Just like before the phone calls didn't stop until the day he got an envelope in the mail. It was the missing pages of his file. "You wanna talk, we'll talk." He barked down the phone when he called his mystery man. "I'll send you the time and place."
Two days later he was in a familiar place. His life had changed here before, it seemed appropriate to be here again. Even on the drive up he had to fight the urge not to turn around and head straight back to Chicago. He didn't realise how safe he felt in Chicago until he left it again.
He was in Battle Creek.
"I never actually thought I'd see your face again, hoped actually" Adam slipped into the vacant seat opposite the man he only knew as Lucas, the man that only knew him as Paul Benson and Adam Ruzek.
"Trust me, I didn't want to see you either." Lucas tapped the side of his mug. "But, I couldn't get you out of my head."
"I'm touched." Adam furrowed his brow. "But I'm tellin' ya, you aren't my type."
Lucas clicked his fingers. "Damn. I thought we had something."
"What do you want?"
Lucas leant back. "You look good. Adam Ruzek looks good on you. How you going?"
Adam shrugged nonchalantly. "Fan-fucking-tastic. Until you showed up again."
Lucas laughed. "Anyway. " He got straight to the point. He knew small talk wasn't going to cut if for long, it hadn't in the past. "Something always didn't sit right with me. Your whole case was fucked, but it was my first and I did what I was told. It took me a while to figure out that I could and should stand up and say something when things aren't right. So, I'm sorry, I know that means nothing right now. You were screwed over."
"You aren't telling me something I don't know."
"Adam." Lucas leant forward and lowered his voice. "You never needed to go into Witness Protection. Not for nine years, a couple of months tops would've done it. They never went looking for Kim or your parents. Once they cleaned house you could've gone back. Someone was covering their ass because they fucked up."
Adam sat back in his seat. He always suspected he was screwed but hearing just how much hit harder than he thought. "Why now?" he seethed. "Why the fuck now? I'm finally getting somewhere. I have a son, I have a family. Why are you doing this to me now?"
"I think you deserve to know. That folder I sent you, contains everything you need to know, I am assuming you haven't read it. If I was you, I'd use it. I know money can't make up for anything, but people need to know that they can't just fuck with people and get away with it."
Adam looked at him curiously. "Who screwed you?"
"Doesn't matter." Lucas waved his hand. "I'm done though, my career is cooked, they can't touch me now. I warned them I wouldn't go quietly. They are nervous because you aren't the only one. Funnily enough you are the only one I care about. I looked you up, you had a kid you didn't know about."
"Don't fucking talk about Oliver." Adam spat at him. "Don't you dare. So you putting me back in the gun? What if they come after me? What if they come for my son?"
"Adam." Lucas leant forward again. "They want this to go away. If you want to get compensation, if you want to make them pay, now is the time. They don't want this out in the open. They won't touch you because I made sure there is a paper trail, I had to cover my ass and that meant covering yours. A lot of people are cooked if it does get out. They knew about Oliver."
"What?"
"They knew, and they were willing to use that if you looked like digging too deep."
"Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck? They knew? They let my son grow up thinking I was dead. What sort of fucking animals would do this to a child? What the fuck did I do to them?"
"You, Adam Ruzek, were too good at your job and you had a team behind you who just kept poking the bear."
"I won't put my family at risk." Adam narrowed his eyes. "What if they come for me? For Oliver?"
Lucas shook his head. "Adam, they just want this to go away. Tell them what you want, promise them to let it go and they will pay up and you'll never hear from them again. If I was you, knowing them, that's what I'd recommend."
Adam appreciated that Lucas sat with him and went through step by step how he thought Adam should tackle this. For him, there was something deeply broken about Adam that he just couldn't forget. And he wanted to die without this on his conscious, and he was dying. Soon. The look in his eyes when he told him he could be Adam Ruzek again never left him. He gave him enough to make his case and then he'd vowed he'd never hear from him again.
"Your name isn't Lucas is it?" Adam asked him as Lucas stood up to leave. He had been watching him closely for a few minutes and he looked different from what he remembered. For someone so young life had taken a toll on him.
He tossed some bills on the table. "It is to you." He held out his hand and Adam shook it.
"How long you got?"
"Couple of weeks, max." Lucas smiled sadly. "Good Luck Adam Ruzek."
It was all he thought about for days, he read the file Lucas had sent him and it just confirmed what he already knew, he'd been fucked over to save someone further up the chain than him and he had a suspicion he knew exactly who. One part of him wanted to walk away and pretend he didn't know but he just couldn't. He wanted justice, he wanted them to know he knew and he wanted someone to pay and he'd be dammed if it was him.
Lucas had told him that his best chance was to claim that his family, his son deserved compensation. They'd push back but they'd pay if they thought it wouldn't go away. Did he want to revisit it just for the money? What could that money do for his family? Oliver could be set for life, he could help Kim out, he could buy himself a place to live. But the flip side was always, he had to remember Paul Benson and he hated that man.
He wanted to hate Lucas but he couldn't. He could hang him as well, tell them that it was Lucas that gave him the information he needed but had some form of gratitude for him, he had always 'liked' him or more to the point he didn't despise him like he had the others. He'd put his neck out for him on more than one occasion and allowed him to come home and now this. That didn't really matter though, Lucas was fucked seven ways from Sunday, and not by these ghouls.
At least Adam could honestly say he didn't know him if he was asked, he knew his name wasn't even Lucas, he had no contact details and knew that he'd never see him again. Nobody would. He didn't know if they knew this or not.
There was part of him that also worried that he was opening himself up to a world of pain. They could come for him and make him go away for real this time. So he made sure he crossed every I and dotted every T. He made sure there was a paper trail and that someone completely unrelated to him knew what he was doing. He'd gotten advice and mulled it over. If they wanted to get rid of him, there were a lot of threads they had to pull. His demand was simple. Pay him and they'd never hear from him again and every copy he'd made of his file would be mailed to them so that it could finally be wiped off the face of the earth. Just like they wanted.
Kim hadn't seen him or heard from him all week although he had sent her the odd text message when she demanded it and she knew that he had been calling Ollie everyday like he promised he would. That didn't worry her, Oliver was happy and said that Adam seemed fine but as the week dragged on and she hadn't talked to him Kim started to fret. She missed him, they had this thing going and when it was missing it hit her harder than she thought. It also reminded her of a time she didn't want to revisit either. When Adam went silent last time it was nine years before she heard from him again.
The first she saw of him was Saturday morning when he came to pick Ollie up. He bought her a coffee as usual but he was quiet. "Busy week?" Kim took the coffee and missed the little kiss on the cheek that he had started giving her. Even when he came inside he stood by the door and looked like he just wanted to escape.
"Yep."
"You okay Adam?"
"Yep." When he heard Kim sigh he realised he was being a dick. "Can we talk later?"
He'd already told Ollie they were going fishing and he couldn't wait. Up until Adam came back he'd never been fishing and he loved it and Kim could think of nothing worse, she went with them once and that was more than enough to last a lifetime. She was bored senseless and Adam agreed fishing wasn't for her.
They bought home fish for dinner, Oliver was dripping wet and Adam wasn't much better. She sent them both up to shower, although the thought of Adam in her shower was a little unsettling. When he came back down he set about cooking the fish while Kim prepared a salad. Oliver was on top of the world so no matter what Adam had brewing in his head he didn't let it bother Ollie and that was a good thing.
Kim was looking forward to spending the rest of the evening with Adam, although with some trepidation because he was clearly struggling and she hated that, because it was painful to bear witness to. This had become their norm but when she came down from saying goodnight to Ollie Adam had his keys in his hands. "You're leaving?"
"Yeah, is that okay?"
"Not really No."
"I spent the day with Oliver." He snapped.
"Don't make it sound like it's an obligation." Kim pushed past him. "Fuck off then Adam."
Adam reached out and grabbed her arm, a little roughly but at least she stopped. He kissed her and it was desperate. "What are you doing?" Kim pushed him in the chest. "This better not be Paul."
"It's not, I just needed it."
"Why?"
"Because I do."
"You know what Adam, no. I need a lot of things too, this is not how you get it. You don't get to do that.." she waved her hands around angrily and he knew she was talking about the kiss "…and then demand I just be okay with it. You said you'd talk to me later, well later is now." Kim was furious with him. "You've been quiet all week, you were off this morning, and now you are leaving but suddenly you want a kiss but don't want to talk. It's doesn't work like that. Not anymore."
He threw his keys back on the side table. "Fine."
"Talk to me Adam?" Kim led him to the couch, he was tense and angry and Kim needed some clarification. "It is still Adam right? Not Paul."
"Not Paul." He shook his head sadly. God he hated that name, even more so now.
"Okay Adam." She rested her hand on his leg and waited.
"I had a meeting this week." He took a deep breath and Kim reached for his hand as it started shaking. "With my handler, from the case."
Kim panicked. "You are not going away again?" she cried painfully.
"No, I'm not." He touched her cheek, as much to steady himself as well as Kim. "I'm not."
Kim relaxed instantly, he sounded so adamant that he was staying and she softened her tone instantly. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have come with you. I thought they were done."
"I didn't want you to talk me out of it."
"Why would I?"
"Going back to all that, it was a risk opening myself back up to that, I know I don't cope some days and I was scared." He paused. "I'm going to ask them for compensation" Kim looked a little shocked. "I mean, I want them to compensate me for missing eight years of my son's life. I can't get that back, I can't go back and re-live his life, seeing you pregnant with him, seeing him being born, take his first step, say his first word, take him to school on his first day. I don't get to do any of that and Oliver doesn't get those memories. All those photos of him, and I love them all but one day he can't sit down with his own kids and say this is your Pops with me when I was your age. I don't get that, and those fuckers owe me. They owe Oliver."
"Are you sure? We don't need money, Oliver just needs you here with him."
Adam told her that he'd been screwed over, that he actually didn't need to be in Witness Protection for that long and they'd lied to him about threatening her, they'd used her to get him to do what they wanted to cover up their own mistakes. He apologised that he'd put her through all this for nothing. "I wouldn't blame you if you hated me."
"You didn't know Adam, I don't hate you, I've never hated you. I kinda hate them right now though."
He was going to blow it wide open, or at least threaten too unless they compensated him. Kim wasn't sure it was a good idea and couldn't understand why he just didn't want to let it go. Sure they didn't get all those past memories, but they had the future and that was better than they ever hoped for but Adam was determined to see this through and Kim eventually supported his decision, someone had to be held accountable and Adam needed closure. "Okay. I wish you had told me."
"I didn't want you to say no."
"Why would I say no?"
"Because they might want to talk to Oliver, and to you."
"Adam, this isn't fair. When?" This shit was getting real. Putting Oliver through something like this wasn't what Kim was expecting.
"Not for a few weeks."
"I don't think it's fair to expect Oliver to be involved." Kim's maternal instinct took over, she wanted to protect Oliver from as much of Adam's past demons as she could. Clearly he understood some of it, but there was a lot they hadn't told him either. Her initial reaction was No, she wasn't going to let him be dragged into it.
"It's not fair that Oliver didn't have a dad for eight years but they knew about Oliver, they knew I had a child and they decided not to tell me and were going to use that to make sure I stayed compliant." Adam pleaded his case and Kim felt herself weakening. "They need to know that they can't just do this, screw with people's lives and then discard them like trash when shit goes sideways, they can't fuck up my life, your life, my parents, my son's life because they fucked up and want to cover their own asses. They don't get to wipe their hands of me and pretend that I never existed, they don't get to not care about what they did to me. Please Kim, I need to do this for me, to put it behind me."
"Are you sure?"
"I am not sure about anything except my family deserves this. I have to put it behind me and I think this might help. I want to be fully in this life, in this family and this is dragging me back right now." Adam sighed. "I'm going to see a lawyer next week."
"When?"
"Thursday."
"I want to come with you."
"Sure." He shrugged. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It happened a little quickly." He chuckled painfully. "I went back to Battle Creek. I thought it was apt, my life changed for the better at that place."
"Holds a special place in my heart. I'll never forget seeing you again for the first time. My heart stopped beating." She leant in close and kissed him very softly. "It's when I started to become whole again."
"Me too."
Kim rested her hand on his leg. "Do you really want to put yourself through this again?" She knew how hard it was revisiting not only those missing years but also that case. All the pieces were coming together for her, like a jigsaw puzzle, Adam was gradually letting her in to his life as Paul Benson. Every single moment felt like she was swallowing glass. Hearing about it was painful enough she couldn't imagine having to live it.
"Yes. I have to."
"I think that's incredibly brave Adam." She leant forward and pressed her lips to his again. Softly and gently and Adam grabbed the back of her neck when she went to pull away.
"Don't." he muttered. They spent a couple of minutes lost in the kisses and both pulled away breathless at the same time. "You are like a sedative."
Kim laughed. "I am not sure it's a compliment."
"It is, it's very therapeutic for me."