Everyone had checked to see whether he was coming. The last few weeks he hadn't done big gatherings well. They had a few rough weeks. After Christmas things had spiralled a little and just when he got back on an even keel he'd been rocked by re-emergence of his handler and the angst that it caused. Nobody else knew about that though, Adam didn't share that with anyone other than Kim and Al. The less people that knew the better and they had done their best to shield him from people who only wanted to help but didn't understand how much Adam struggled some days.
Some people just assumed he'd be happy to be back and that would be the end of it. They didn't see the burden of nine years of trauma had caused because Adam refused to let them see it.
Despite all the noise in the background for Adam and Kim, on the surface life was returning to normal for everyone else. They got on with life and the novelty had worn off, and Adam was left with more time to think.
Being in love with someone who you were terrified of being with wasn't helping his anxiety either and those moments and waves they were riding were overwhelming.
He was also trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life now that he knew that Chicago was where he needed to be. Working in construction was paying the bills and keeping him busy but it was unfulfilling. The last nine years had felt like a waste and he was still doing it. He had been a cop and he had loved it. He never wanted to be anything else and from the time he could talk he had apparently always wanted follow in his father's footsteps and he had. Intelligence had been a dream come true and he could honestly say he loved every single minute of it, right up until his life literally blew up in his face. Now there was no going back.
Kim was adamant that he had to come to Atwater's birthday party. "I will come and get you."
"I can make my own way to the party." Kim was surprised by the shortness of his answer.
"Okay Adam. What's going on?"
"I'm just tired. Don't worry, I will be fine." He promised to be there but that really didn't answer her question. Ever since they had talked about the compensation claim he had been on edge. He was trying so hard though to hide it from Oliver and even that was taking its toll. He felt like he was living another lie.
A couple of beers in and he was good, or at the very least he was good at pretending. Roaring with laughter at some story Halstead was telling him, Kim watched him curiously. They had settled down a little but they had been on such a rollercoaster since Christmas, they had some incredible highs and some crushing lows but they were trying. It was getting to the point that they had to decide which way they were going to go.
Trudy had been watching them both and she sidled up to Kim and handed her a drink. "I think, Kim it needs to be you."
"I know." Her breath caught in her throat. "I'm scared he's not ready."
Trudy hugged the woman she had always felt was her daughter. "You've got to try because I see this is eating you alive. You are both scared but you are scared of the same thing." The conversation ended just as quickly as it started when Atwater decided to give a speech.
As always he was the life of the party, his big booming voice drowning out the crowd to get their attention. "I gotta say this year has been pretty damn remarkable. My boys, man they kick our asses daily and we love 'em." He had his arm draped around his wife. Adam really liked her and was glad that Kev had found someone good and honest and who didn't take his shit; she was a force of nature with a heart of gold. "So much so we decided to give it another go." His grin was as big as Christmas. "Only one this time." He patted her stomach.
"But…" he held up his hand to quiet everyone down. "…and I know I'm headin' to the doghouse for this. But this…" he pointed his beer towards Adam. "..this man, seeing him again has made this the best year of my life. I love you Bro, you have no idea how it felt to find out you still part of this world. Seeing you walk through my door again, man that's the sweetest thing ever." Adam raised his beer in thanks and Kim could see that Atwater's words, followed by an intense hug had thrown him way off course.
"Life rarely gives you a second chance and I always believed that you had to do things right the first time. This is one of those rare times when a second chance comes along and man, grab hold of it." He hooked his arm around his buddy's neck and laid a kiss on his head and it was like he was talking only to him. "Because I can tell you, third chances never happen."
Once the speeches were over Adam grabbed his jacket and headed outside into the cold night. He rested elbows on the railing outside and let the bottle of beer hang from his fingertips as he stared out across the dark garden. The noise of the party was filtering through the doors, suddenly it got louder as the door opened and then faded again. He wasn't surprised; they never left him alone for long.
"Hiding again." Platt's voice was the last one he expected to hear.
"Just catching my breath."
"He was pretty lost for a bit." She nodded back towards the house as she leant on the railing beside him. Atwater took Adam's death hard, harder than most and while everyone rallied around Kim he drifted for a while. It was when he was at his lowest he met Joelle and she had pulled him out of his wild decent just in time.
"I'm glad he settled down. Joelle seems good for him. He loves those boys but man are they full on."
"What did you expect, they are Atwater's flesh and blood?" Platt turned her back to the garden and looked back towards the house. "Why don't you just take her upstairs and get it over with?"
Adam laughed, a little painfully. "I've missed you Trudy."
"Pfft, I am pretty sure I was low on your list."
"You'd be surprised. Your teasing let me know I was alive. You kept my ego under control."
Platt nudged him lightly, that was the only acknowledgement he was going to get for that brief admission of affection. "You know that was the worst day of my working life. Knocking on her door, I will never forget the look in her eyes. It haunted me for a long time."
"I had no choice." Platt leaned closer because his voice was so small and broken; he was wringing the neck of his beer bottle tightly, the anxiousness seeping out of him. "They told me they had photos of Kim, that they were watching her and I had seen what they did to others. I couldn't let them hurt her, I thought it was better that I did the hurting but then at least she would be alive and have a life. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I put her in danger, but then I learnt that I couldn't really live without her either." Adam just couldn't tell people the whole truth yet about how badly he'd been screwed over, that it was worse than they thought and he didn't need to be gone for so long. He couldn't handle people asking him how he didn't know or why he didn't come back.
"You made the only choice you could. No one blames you."
"Yeah." He whispered, almost to himself. If only they knew. "I can't ever repay you for what you did for them both."
"You don't have too. That was a terrible day but there was this little pink line on a stick that changed everything. It had to be all about that baby, that was what was going to get us all through. And he did. That stupid thing that you two did happened for a reason. Oliver was here for a reason."
"I tortured myself for months. I kept going to Internet Cafés and I would sit there and want to Google her name to see what popped up but I never did. If I'd known about Oliver I don't know what I would have done." He tilted his head back and looked at the sky. "I tried to move on, I really did but I couldn't."
"What's done is done. You can't change the past, as much as I know you want to. All that matters now is that you are here, making up for lost time and making a little boy happier than I have seen him in years. You've also bought Kim back to life."
"I wouldn't be doing so great without her." Not that you could classify what he was feeling right now as great.
"Then what are you waiting for?" Adam knew precisely what Platt was talking about. Why was he waiting, why was he holding her at arm's length? Why was he constantly pushing her away when he knew she didn't want him to, when he knew he just wanted to be with her? She had already tried to talk to Kim about it and she claimed that Adam wasn't ready, although by the look on Kim's face not even she believed it and Kim knew that Trudy didn't either.
"I wish I knew."
"You know, there was always something about you and her, the way you always looked at her even when she was breaking your heart."
"Chaos, mayhem and a shitload of angst?"
"And passion and love and some ridiculous connection, but I don't need to tell you that." Trudy smiled slightly. "And that unbreakable thing called Oliver."
"I don't want to fuck it up again."
"Then don't." She pushed herself off the railing and patted his back. "For what it's worth, I don't think you were the reason it didn't work the first time."
It took Platt a long time to get over that, what did she call it at the time? Betrayal. She felt betrayed by Kim and Roman. When Kim broke it off with Ruzek and wanted to transfer out Platt refused despite seeing how distraught she was. The only time she asked what had happened Burgess told her that Adam didn't want to get married, that he was stringing her along. She wanted to string him up and then Kim had moved on with Roman and she stupidly thought that made her happy. That Adam hadn't made an effort, or so Kim had told her that she had to put him in the past and get on with her life. She had neglected to tell Platt that every time Adam tried to talk to her she ignored him and neither did she know that Roman had planted those seeds of doubt in her mind in the first place.
One night, long after she had delivered that crushing news about Adam's death to Kim she cried in her arms, full of rage and raging pregnancy hormones. Roman had turned up and offered to marry her and take on the responsibility of the baby and Trudy had been surprised by Kim's reaction. "I thought you and Roman ended on a good note, perhaps the feelings are still there."
"The only feelings Roman ever had was for himself." Kim spat at her. "He ruined my relationship with Adam. I was a fool; I let him manipulate me. I don't know if Adam never wanted to get married because I never asked him." She ranted and Trudy just sat back and let her go. "I asked him to push back the wedding, twice because Roman told me to test him. He told me that if Adam didn't want to marry me he would agree to push back the date. I tested him and I was mean and cruel and Roman loved every fucking minute of it. How dare he come back here and pretend that he's all noble and caring, he loved screwing over Adam and I have no idea why. Now he wants to dance on his grave. I don't know why he hated Adam so much."
Kim paused and sat down, rubbing her now slight baby bump, but she wasn't done. "I pushed him away every time he tried to talk to me and Roman kept feeding those insecurities. When Adam lost it at Roman and accused him of trying to get into my pants I was pissed at him and Roman just kept telling me that Adam was the bad guy. I was too busy protecting my own bruised ego to see what was happening."
Platt was gobsmacked but Kim still wasn't finished. "He didn't fight for me. Why didn't he fight for me? He was supposed to want me."
"Maybe because he didn't know what he'd done wrong. You looked happy without him." Kim looked like she was about to explode. "I thought that's what you wanted. I thought you were happy with Roman." It was not lost on Trudy the words Kim was using. She kept calling Adam by his first name but was refusing to use Roman's.
"He told me he loved me probably. Probably? Who the fuck says that? What the fuck does that even mean?" Eventually she cried and yelled herself out. "There was no probably with Adam, I felt loved. Why didn't I trust him? Why didn't I talk to him? Why did I hurt him?"
Trudy was at a loss to know what to say, and that didn't happen often. "Well now, you've got the chance to let his child know how much you loved him."
As expected he barely had five minutes alone once Trudy had left him before the door opened again. This time it was welcomed, in fact the moment the hand slipped under his jacket and landed on his back he sighed and leant into her as her head came to rest on his shoulder and he felt somewhat peaceful. Why was she the only one who could calm him? He had to stop relying on her, but that was easier said than done. "Hi."
'Hi, whatcha doin?" She was drawing circles on his back and it was comforting and reassuring.
"Trying to figure out the laws of relativity."
"Ha, you wish." Kim slipped her hand around to his hip as she pulled in a bit closer. "All got too much huh?"
"Atwater's speech." Turning his head slightly he smiled sadly, his eyes glistened a little as they caught the light from the back porch. "That got me. Great news about the baby hey?"
"I think he's pretty jazzed that you'll be here for this one."
Adam dropped his head and Kim knew that he was going to have a battle to keep it together. "Yeah." He was so desperately sad right now and he was struggling. The last few weeks had been hard on everybody. Adam had tried really hard to be there for Oliver and Kim felt helpless as she watched him flounder.
"It's okay Baby."
Hearing her call him baby was a surprise, for both of them. It had just slipped out, it felt comfortable and the right thing to say and it gave him some hope. He grabbed the hand that was on his hip and let his fingers brush over hers. "I know I should be happy for him, for them and I am, honestly I am. It just makes me sad thinking about what I missed. I think I would have loved to seen you pregnant."
"I doubt that. I was as graceful as a three-legged dog and the size of a whale."
"I've seen the photos, you were beautiful." He stared out into the darkness. "Nothing's changed there."
Oliver had made his way downstairs. He had been shoved upstairs with the rest of the kids watching movies. They had all fallen asleep and the movie had ended so he went in search of his mother or father. Erin was watching them through the door and she stopped him before he went outside. They needed a moment alone and Oliver asked her if his Dad was sad again.
"Does he still get sad?"
"Sometimes, he's been sad again lately. Mom says we need to help him, I'm trying" Kim had told Erin that he struggled at times with all the attention and there were moments when they needed to back off and let him come to them. Everyone was pushing him to just be the same old Adam and nobody was the same anymore, especially him. He hadn't been in suspended animation, he'd had a whole other life forced onto him and now he was back in his old skin and even that wasn't the same anymore. Suddenly he was a father and desperately in love with a woman who he wasn't sure he could be with. For nine years he was a nobody and now he was everything to one boy, it was overwhelming but it gave him a reason not to give up, to keep fighting when it would have been easier to just slip beneath the waves.
He hadn't fought for nine years to give up now he almost had it all.
Erin swallowed the lump in her throat. This kid had done it tough for a while but since Adam had been back that boy that they all adored had returned. It hurt to see him so worried about his Dad. She knew that Kim was trying to shield Oliver from the worst of it but she got the feeling he knew anyway. "I know you are helping him. He's always talking about you and how much he loves you."
"Yeah." His face lit up.
"You betcha." She took him back upstairs and helped him pick out another movie. Erin sat with him until he settled into it. "My Dad's going to be okay isn't he Erin?"
"He is Ollie, you just keep doing what you are doing. Promise me that." He promised that he would.
Adam was silent; he was enjoying the feeling of having her close. The last few weeks they'd grown closer again, even enjoying some intense moments when things had almost spilled over. Something always held them back, sometimes it was Adam and other times it was Kim. There were times when the gulf between then couldn't have been any wider and they couldn't see a way across and times they were just content to be alone and not talk and share the same space and some moments left them both breathless.
The dark of Atwater's backyard had offered some protection from his fragile world but she had stepped into it again. "I love you, you know that right?" The silence was broken and he had taken his finger out of the hole plugging the dyke. He'd said it. It was out there now and he couldn't take it back and he didn't want to. It was the right time but that didn't make it easy. "I'm so in love with you. It kinda hurts." He felt out of control, everything was spinning so fast.
"I do. Adam, I know." His head sagged and he felt his world crashing down around him again when she didn't tell him what he wanted to hear right away. The silence was painful and he wanted to turn and run but she was holding onto him. "I love you too, Baby. I always did, I always have and I still do now, more than ever. I'm in love with Adam." He'd always had this thing, that you could love someone, almost anyone but not be in love with them. That was the difference. He loved Erin but he wasn't in love with her. Kim always knew this is what he needed to hear, that she was in love with him.
She couldn't see his tears in the dark but she knew they were there. "I don't know how to do this."
"Yes you do."
"I love the faith you have in me." The knot that he'd carried in the pit of his stomach for weeks started to loosen. He held onto her hand like he was worried that if he let go she would slip away again. "I was scared that I just wanted to love you to feel like Adam again but it's not, that's not why. I had to make sure. I need you to know that. I'm in love with you."
"I love the faith I have in us and I know we are going to make it. You know, I felt like that too, that I was scared that I was in love with the memory of you, and I was, then I realised that it was more than that, it was everything. It was you. I'm in love with everything about you. You make me feel like me again, the best version of me." Kim stepped away from him and shivered a little. "Let's get back inside. It's cold out here."
Adam finished off his beer and turned to follow her inside. "You know Platt told me I needed to take you upstairs and get it done." Kim looked over her shoulder and that familiar cheeky smile that she adored had returned.
"Sounds like Platt."
"What would you say?"
Kim didn't answer him she just smiled and tugged on his hand as they headed back to the party.