The house was deathly quiet. Kim had told Adam that she was going home after work to grab some more clothes for her and the kids and that she had organised a meeting with Steve. He offered to come with her to talk to him but they had met for lunch and there was no way he could get out of work. Not that Kim thought it would be a good idea anyway, Steve still blamed Adam for everything that had gone wrong in his marriage.
Kevin had called him when she didn't come back to work after her lunch.
He tried calling her but got no answer and the brief text she sent filled him with no joy. 'I'm fine. Stop nagging.' She was anything but fine.
He knew she was here because her car was parked outside and he found her sitting on the bedroom floor, back against the bed in an almost catatonic state. "Kim Darlin'." He dropped down to his knees beside her and when she looked up at him he could tell she had been crying for hours. "What happened?" Her eyes were puffy and red and unfortunately she had snot pouring out of her nose. She wiped her face angrily on her sleeve.
When he went to tilt her face up so he could make sure she wasn't hurt Kim pushed him away. "Don't touch me."
"Hey, Darlin.'" He sat back on his heels and tentatively rested on hand on her knee but she pulled it away and Adam started to panic. "Kim, talk to me. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"
"Hurt me?" she choked out. "You all do. That's all you ever do is hurt me. You lied to me, he lied."
Adam was having a hard time following her and he was doing his best to stay calm but she was seriously freaking him out. "You are not making sense, Kim." He reached out for her again, holding her cheek gently and when she didn't pull away he slowly lifted her face and he was shocked to see the agony in her eyes. "What happened?" he asked again.
"His girlfriend, he's been seeing her for two years. Two fucking years." Adam didn't need to be a genius to work out that math.
"Oh Baby."
"You are all fucking liars."
"Not all of us."
"You lied, you were alive and you didn't tell me. That's lying, you let me believe you were dead." She pushed him away again but Adam came right back.
"Okay, we are not talking about that now. This is not the same thing, I know you know that."
"She wasn't the first. He got fired from his job because he was screwing someone in the office." She buried her head into her knees and let out an almighty sob. Adam kissed the back of her head and slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Why would he do this? How could he?"
"I don't know Darlin'." And he didn't but he did want to beat the living daylights out of him.
He had waited until Kim bought up the girlfriend before he admitted what had gone on with Daisy that day. He had asked about Daisy and apologised again for leaving her and promised that he was getting himself sorted out. He told her about the Rehab he was looking into and that his parents agreed to support him through that. Steve assured her that he'd hit rock bottom when he realised what he'd done to Daisy.
"Why were you drunk before lunch when you had Daisy with you?" Kim's eyes narrowed. "What happened?"
"I don't know, it was just a bad day." He shrugged, he had lied to her for so long that he had become a little complacent. He forgot that this was what she was good at, reading people and finding out their secrets. That's why she was a damn good cop, yet he'd got away with it for so long he just figured he always would. He'd always taken advantage of Kim's willingness to always see the best in people.
"So it had nothing to do with your girlfriend?" Years of interrogation had served her well. The expression on her face did not change but his did, his poker face slipped.
"Daisy told you."
"Daisy told Adam, yes. So?" His lip curled a little bit and he did have to swallow the snide remark he had ready to go about Oliver's father. He was insanely jealous about the guy; he couldn't help it. Kim knew it and she was baiting him, knowing full well he wouldn't be able to control himself once she mentioned Adam. It was a trick she had learned a long time ago, sometimes you had to push the right buttons.
"She was upset, Sarah was upset. I hadn't told her I had a daughter."
"Why not?"
"It never came up." Trying to slip back under his robe of deceit wasn't quite so easy all of a sudden.
"Bullshit." Kim could smell his lies a mile off. When you didn't have so much of yourself invested in believing in someone the lies stood like a beacon. It annoyed her that she hadn't seen the signs earlier.
"Fine, I didn't want Daisy to know because she would blab to you, which she obviously did at the first opportunity." He sat back, waving his hand nonchalantly, honestly believing that he could still get away with this. He knew that Daisy didn't know enough to say something that would hang him but then again it was bound to come out eventually.
"Why did you think I would care if you were seeing someone? I would have liked to have met her like you demanded to meet Adam before Daisy had."
Something in his eyes unsettled Kim. "Because she doesn't really like kids and she had no idea about Daisy."
"Why would you want to hide Daisy from her?"
"I don't know, it was getting harder to keep it from her and…" he avoided her eyes, running his finger around the rim of his coffee mug. "…she didn't know that I was married."
"You weren't married anymore, we were separated. You are a free man, you can date whoever you want."
"Not when I started seeing her."
"What?" Kim thought she'd heard wrong.
"I've been seeing Sarah on and off for almost two years."
"Two years?" Kim almost vomited on the table. "We've only been apart just over a year."
He just shrugged.
"I…" she stuttered, reaching for her glass of water and taking a small sip, her mouth had suddenly gone dry. "How many others?"
"Only one other. At work, before I got fired." There was little point in lying or trying to soften the blow now. He'd ripped the Band-Aid off and now it was just a matter of making sure the bleeding wasn't irreversible. He decided not to tell her about the one just before they got married. It wasn't going to help the situation.
"Is that why?"
"Yes." He looked down at his hands. "Kim, I'm sorry."
"Sorry?" When he reached across the table for her hands she snatched them away. "Don't you dare fucking touch me."
"Kim."
"So let me get this straight." She was spinning and she pressed her fingers to her temples. "You got fired because you were screwing someone at work, you basically bummed around at home feeling sorry for yourself for getting caught and you drank yourself into oblivion. What for? Guilt? Or was it just self-pity. Or just because you are piss weak?"
Her voice was unnaturally calm. "You abused my son, you gave him a black eye and begged me to take you back and all the time you were fucking around with Sharon."
"Her name is Sarah."
"I don't fucking care what her name is. You cheated on me for more than a year." Kim seethed.
"You were never home."
"No, you don't get to blame your weakness on me. I was out busting my ass to keep my family together." Kim had an overwhelming urge to hurt him. "Do you think I liked being away from my children so much? Especially when I knew what a dick you had become."
"You didn't care about me. It was all the job for you."
"You knew how intense Intelligence was and that hadn't changed from the day we met." He wasn't laying that guilt trip on her; no way was he blaming her for this. "So, getting back to you. You were screwing around on me for more than a year, you abused my son, you left him at home alone at night and turned all the power off, you abandoned your daughter in a bar because you were too pissed to remember you had a daughter, anything else you want to confess since we are getting this all out in the open." Kim waved her hands around wildly. "Did you kick any homeless people, shoot fucking Santa and run over the Easter Bunny too?"
Steve lashed out at her. "How long have you been fucking Adam?"
"Not as long as you've been screwing Sharon, and whoever the fuck else you've screwed but I will tell you it's great, better than great. I actually remember now how great sex can be. I haven't had that feeling for such a long time, nine years in fact." Kim was being petty, she knew that would prick at his delicate male ego but she didn't really give a shit right now. "Adam is ten times the man you are, in every fucking way. You were right, you were never as good as him." Steve clenched his fist but Kim wasn't scared of him, she was too angry to be scared. "So what happened, she met Daisy and kicked you out? Doesn't Sharon like liars either."
"Sarah." He seethed. "Yes. Are you happy?"
"Happy? I had to comfort my son after you hit him, when he cried because he didn't understand why you stopped loving him. I had to watch as you made his life hell. I had to calm them both down after they stood and watched you trying to hurt me. You hurt Daisy when you were trying to stop me from taking her to see her family for Christmas, your father had to stop you hitting Oliver again, I had to pick my child up from a Police Station, my four-year-old daughter because you were too drunk to even remember your own fucking name. I am fucking ecstatic." She grabbed her bag. "Don't think you'll be seeing Daisy anytime soon."
"You can't keep me away from Daisy."
"Watch me."
Steve reached across the table and grabbed her wrist making her wince as his finger dug into her flesh. "Don't you dare."
"Don't I dare what? Protect my child from her abusive alcoholic father? Watch me." Then she did one thing she had never done, she pulled her badge laid it on the table. "Your choice, let me go and I won't use this to bring CPD down on your ass so quickly your head would spin or perhaps I will call Al and Voight, I'm sure they'd love a chat." Those two names would probably put more fear into him than all of CPD.
He let her go.
She had stopped railing against Adam and was now lying with her head in his lap. They were still sitting on the floor of the bedroom and it was getting darker outside and there was barely any light in the room. She was quiet and rolled over so that her head was buried into his stomach. All he could do was run his hands through her hair and stroke her back.
"Kim, honey. Where are the kids?"
"The kids?"
"Yes, Oliver and Daisy. Where are they?"
"Ummm, with your mother. I sent her a message. Oh God, are they not with her?" Kim sat up quickly, her eyes widened and full of fear. He grabbed her phone and checked the messages from his mother who had them at home. Kim had replied to her so she knew they were safe but in the murky mess that was her brain right now she had obviously forgotten. Adam reassured her that they were fine and he felt the tension leave her body again.
"I will call her and ask her to keep them for a while."
"No" Kim shook her head and sat up again. "I don't want them to know. Please don't tell your Mom, don't tell them."
"I won't but she can give them dinner and I will pick them up later." He lowered her back down into his lap and called his mother, telling her that he'd had a few rough days and was feeling a little tired and fragile and they just needed some time alone. He didn't mind bending the truth a little to protect Kim right now.
"Are you okay?"
"I am, I will be. We just need to catch our breath a little."
"Is this about Daisy and the Police?" Adam smiled just a little, trust Daisy to still be talking about that. It was the highlight of her weekend taking a ride in a Cop Car and he knew she had taken great delight in sharing that with all her friends at school too first thing on Monday morning.
"Yeah, a little." He was watching Kim, her eyes were closed and at least she seemed relatively calm. "Anyway we will come and get them later."
"No." Kim whispered. "Can they stay? I don't want them to see me like this."
Janet offered to keep them overnight and she had everything they needed at her place. They had pyjamas and toothbrushes and would be fine. She could wash their school uniforms and dry them ready for the next day.
Adam thanked his Mom and told her he would pick them up early in the morning before school. He promised to call them before they went to bed. It was only a few minutes later he got a message from Oliver asking him if he was okay and he assured him he was, he just needed to spend some time talking to his Mom.
He went back to just sitting with her, his poor heartbroken baby. You would think he would be worried why she was so upset about finding out her husband had been unfaithful to her and whether that was because she still loved him but he wasn't. He kind of knew how she felt, he wasn't with her when she slept with Roman but it didn't mean that it didn't still hurt. Although he was still in love with her at the time so the situation was a little different. Nonetheless, betrayal hurt, no matter when it happened.
The only thing he could do to help her right now was hold onto her, tell her he loved her and wait it out. It was now dark outside and the only light they had was from the streetlight through the open blind in the bedroom. "Darlin', we need to get up." Eventually his ass was as numb as all get out and he needed to move.
Kim sat up slowly. "I don't want to talk right now."
"Then we won't but I need to get up and get you home." Kim's mouth twisted into a little smile. She liked that he had started calling his place their home because that was how she felt and it wasn't because of the physical building. Her home was with Adam and wherever he was that's where she needed to be now.
He got her home and made her have a shower while he called the kids. "Is Mom okay?" Oliver seemed to have worked out that it wasn't his Dad with the issue right now, it was his Mom. "I can help her too." Oliver wasn't happy about staying here, they had just started staying with Adam and he really liked being around his Dad all the time and he was worried about his Mom.
There was no point lying to him but he did ask him not to tell Daisy. "Mom's not feeling great, you know with everything that happened in the past few days so please just stay with Grandma tonight and look after Daisy for me, that's what I really need and that's what will help your Mom right now. I will come and have breakfast with you in the morning and take you to school."
"Is it Steve?" Oliver flat out asked him.
It had taken a while but Oliver had opened up to his Dad about how he felt about what happened. "I tried Dad, I did." He had told him one day when they were out fishing. "I didn't know what I'd done wrong."
"It wasn't you Oliver, please don't think that. I've talked to your Mom and I know how hard you tried." Adam assured him. "It wasn't your fault. None of it."
"You talk to Mom about me?"
"All the time. I kinda drive her nuts some days wanting to know every single thing about you. I know when you first smiled, laughed, crawled, and walked. I know your first words. Everything."
"Really?"
"Every single thing." Adam assured him. Like his Dad, Oliver suffered from anxiety. It had certainly started dissipating over the past few months but it was still there and when Adam got anxious so did Oliver.
"When you first knew about me. That day in Al's kitchen what did you think?"
"I was pretty shocked to be honest. When I got to Pop's I was a bit angry because your Mom didn't tell me right away but it didn't last long. I wanted to meet you, I wanted to know everything about you, I wanted to be your Dad. That first day we spent together.." Adam smiled at him, rubbing his head lightly. "…Best day of my life."
"I'm glad you wanted to be my Dad,"
"Oliver, not as happy as I am to actually be your Dad."
Adam knew that Oliver was going to stress out about his mother and he didn't know how much to tell him. Kim didn't want them to know and he had to respect her wishes. "She's okay Buddy."
"He didn't hurt her did he? He didn't hit her?"
"No Oliver, no Mom is not hurt. I promise you, I wouldn't lie to you and I am looking after her." Although he had seen the red marks on one of her wrists as he undressed her for the shower. Kim saw him looking at it and pulled her hand away.
"What's that?"
"He grabbed my arm. I was leaving and I told him he wasn't going to be seeing Daisy anytime soon." The way she looked at Adam and he knew that was the end of it. She wasn't going to talk about it anymore so he let it go for now. He left her to shower and busied himself tidying up his lounge; having three other people in his small apartment certainly had turned his world upside down. There was stuff from one end of the place to the other and Daisy had certainly made herself at home. His place was an explosion of pink and dolls and top of all the stuff he had accumulated from having Oliver stay with him.
"Can I get you something to eat or drink?" He asked as he came back into the bedroom. Kim was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in a towel and looking so desperately sad. She shook her head. She was pretty sure that trying to eat something would make her vomit.
Adam crouched down in front of her and rested his hands on her thighs. "I love you, so much." Adam whispered quietly. "So much, that even though I never saw you, touched you or kissed you for nine years, I still loved you."
"I know."
"It hurts my heart to see you so upset." And it did, he hated this. He was so desperate to fix her, to say something that would make this hurt less.
"I feel like a fool."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't know, all the shit I put up with, the drinking, the disappearing, the way he treated Oliver and for so long I gave him a leave pass because he was my husband."
He rested a hand on her cheek. "It's not your fault Kim, you loved him and believed in him. He was Daisy's father you had to believe in him."
"You never liked him."
"No." and that was the truth. "But I am biased. By the time I met him I knew he had treated you and Oliver like shit, then all the other crap. And perhaps I was a little jealous."
"Jealous?"
"He'd been sleeping with you for years, a lot longer than I ever did." It sounded as stupid coming out of his mouth as it did in his head.
He was smiling just a little and Kim couldn't help herself and eventually he saw the faintest of smiles. "That's ridiculous Adam."
"I know, but still." He shrugged. "I don't like the thought of anyone sleeping with you. I only like to think of me loving you, adoring you and touching you." He kissed her thighs lightly and watched as she closed her eyes. "Kissing you, making love to you."
"Can you now?"
"Can I what? Kiss you, make love to you?"
"Yes."
"Lie back Darlin'." He stood up and undid the towel as she lay back on the bed and then spent the next hour loving and kissing every inch of her. Since he'd been back she had been his safe harbour, right now though, with his body covering hers he was her safe harbour and he liked that feeling.
Adam slipped out of bed when Kim drifted off to sleep. He called Kev knowing that he was worried if the numerous calls and texts were anything to go by. They had eased back into their old friendship pretty quickly and after a few uncomfortable moments early on they just clicked again. He knew that Kim would probably be pissed with him for talking to Kevin about this but he needed to vent a little.
"How's Burgess? She okay? What'd he do this time?"
Adam chuckled, Kevin didn't even give him the chance to speak. "You know her ex, just being a total fucking asshole as usual."
"He wasn't always this bad, I never would have let her marry him if I thought he was such a dick."
Adam squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel the start of a headache creeping up on him. "I hope not."
"He was good to her."
"He hasn't been good to her for quite a while Kev." Adam picked at a loose thread on the arm of his couch. At least dealing with this pushed aside everything else going on with him. The CFD stuff was intense and he was desperate to do well. He didn't want to let anyone down and it was also another step towards putting his past firmly behind him and that made him a little anxious. He'd let people down before and it never made him feel good.
"True. Lately has been rough, but he was a good guy."
"No, Kev he hasn't been a good guy for years. You know he's got a girlfriend?"
"Yeah Kim told me, they had a fight and that's when he left my Daisy girl."
"Kev, he's been seeing her for two years."
It took a second for Atwater to connect the dots. Adam waited quietly until he did. "No."
"Yep, man I want to beat the living shit out of him." Adam sucked in some air between his clenched teeth. "This girlfriend wasn't the first. He cheated on her and he hit my son."
"Whoa, whoa Ruzek back up man. What you talkin' about?"
"You didn't know?" Of course Adam knew that Kevin had no idea about Steve hitting Oliver, Kim had been pretty firm on that. Now he was hoping she just didn't care anymore.
"Know what?"
"That black eye Oliver had a while back. Apparently from a baseball game, just before they split up. That's why she kicked him out."
"Fuck, Kim never said a word. What the fuck?" He could hear that Kevin was now pacing around. Adam did like how protective Kevin was of Kim, they had such a long history together right back to their Patrol days. The fact that they had become partners again in Intelligence was testament to how well they worked together and knew each other and supported each other. There was never an ulterior motive with them and when Adam wasn't around he tried to take comfort in the fact that he knew that Kevin would be there to pick up the pieces, the pieces of her life that he had obliterated.
"Do you remember it?"
"I do, she didn't say nothin' about him hitting Little O. Man, I would have killed him."
"Perhaps that's why she didn't say anything."
"Whatcha doing about that?"
"Right now, I am looking after Kim. She's pretty cut up, she's asleep now for a bit. I'm spinning man, I love this woman like you wouldn't believe, my heart beats because of her, it's what kept it beating all those years and she's hurting and I can't make it stop." Adam looked up and saw Kim, dressed in one of his shirts and a pair of shorts standing in the doorway, he had no idea how long she had been there or how much she had heard.
"You have man, you've made the pain stop. She hurt for nine years and now she doesn't. This is just a bump in the road, we'll deal with it." His eyes never left her face as Kev talked, she still looked so sad and it broke his heart.
"Kev, I gotta go man, Kim's up."
He hung up and leapt up from the couch. "You're up. Can I get you anything? Something to eat?"
"I am a bit hungry."
Adam kissed her forehead and headed into the kitchen to make her a toasted sandwich and a cup of tea. She followed him slowly and sat up on a stool at the bench and watched him moving around getting things ready. "You were talking to Kevin?'
"He was worried about you, he'd been calling me all day when you didn't come back from lunch."
"Did you tell him?'
"Yes I did." He nodded without looking at her.
"Why?"
"Because I didn't know what else to do, he's your partner and we are all worried about you. I needed to talk to someone." He held his breath when he also added. "And I also told him that Steve hit Oliver."
Surprisingly Kim didn't freak out like he was expecting. "He wants to kill Steve right?"
"Yep."
"I don't know if I want to stop him." Adam caught just a hint of a smile. "I did like what you said though."
"About what?"
"That your heart beats because of me. Do you believe that?"
Adam came and stood in front of her, his hands holding onto her neck, his fingers tangled in her hair and he leant close to her lips. "Every single beat." He whispered before he kissed her softly.
"I'm gonna focus on that."
"Good." Adam sat and watched her as she ate. They didn't talk much but she did ask if he had spoken to the kids. He left out the part where Oliver asked if Steve had hurt her because he was worried that it would send her back over the edge. He'd only just got her feet back on the ground.
"We going to look at those couple of houses on the weekend?"
"Do you still want too?" Kim, for some reason was worried that Adam was going to change his mind now.
"Yes Kim, we need to find a place of our own. This is too small for all of us. I've loved having you here, you know that but Oliver and Daisy don't need to be sharing a bedroom." Scratching at his little bit of stubble he added. "I want to be a full time father to Oliver. I want to be there when he goes to sleep at night and have breakfast with him in the mornings. I want to be around all the time for all of you. I need to be around my family." He had wanted to tell her that for a while but wasn't sure how well it would be received. He was worried she'd think it was too soon and that were rushing into things.
"Do you have any idea how much I love you?"
Adam just smiled at his woman. "Well I'm gonna love you til the day I die." He grabbed the empty plate from in front of her and bent down and kissed her forehead. "For real this time."
"Don't say that."
"Okay, this never ends though. You and me don't end. I think we've proved that."
Kim couldn't go back to the house, she hated that place right now so Adam and Kevin headed over and grabbed some more of their stuff. not that Adam had any idea where to put everything. They were bursting at the seams. Kim gave him a list of clothes and boxes that she wanted. She stayed with Joelle and gave the kids a chance to run amok together.
Adam and Kevin were just sorting through the last of the stuff when Adam saw the car pull into the driveway. This was the last thing they needed right now.
"What the fuck do you want?" As Atwater came downstairs he heard Adam talking to someone and was surprised to see Steve in the house. Adam saw him but Steve had his back to the stairs and had no idea Atwater was there. If he'd known he might not have goaded Adam the way he did. Atwater was bouncing on his toes lightly, he was just waiting for one sign and he would be on him like ants on a picnic.
"Where's Daisy? Where's Kim?" His lip curled into a snarl. "Shacked up with you now doubt. You better not be touching my daughter."
"Like I am going to tell you where they are. They are safe."
"Where are they? You can't keep me from Daisy."
"I can do whatever I want." Adam advanced on Steve. "You are a fucking piece of shit, you think I am gonna let you anywhere near them right now."
"You don't scare me." Steve taunted. Adam had serious doubts on the mental capacity of this guy. What Kim saw in him he would never know. Nothing he'd seen so far pointed to the fact he was even a half way decent guy. "Some tough guy, who was so gutless he ran away and hid for nine fucking years like some weak dog."
Atwater just folded his arms and watched with a slight smile on his face as Adam punched him twice. It was a sickening thud when his fist connected with his jaw and the one to his gut sent him crashing to the floor. Adam was standing over him. "Get up you cunt."
"You'll pay."
Adam laughed. "I don't care. Come at me. You hit my son; you cheated on your wife and left your daughter in a bar. People will probably be lining up to give me a fucking medal for laying you out."
Adam dragged him up by the scruff of his neck and Steve managed to land one punch to Adam's ribs. He had caught him off guard and he lost his balance momentarily but Adam got one more off and probably broke his nose and that was very satisfying. It was then that Atwater stepped in. "Oh so now you do something." He snarled at Kevin.
"Dude, you are lucky he got to you first." Atwater dragged him towards the door and pushed him through it before turning to Adam. "You okay Bro?"
He shook his fist and grimaced a little. His hand was throbbing and his ribs certainly felt like they had been hit but man he felt good. "Kim's gonna be pissed at me."
"Nah, I'll tell her it was self-defence but man she can't stay here."
"No shit."
They finished up as quickly as possible and Adam asked Kev not to say anything to Kim. She had blocked Steve's number at the moment so he knew that it was unlikely that he would blab. He just didn't want to stress her out anymore than she already was.
"Adam?" Kim sat up quickly. "What the hell is this?" She lifted his shirt and saw the bruise just starting to colour up. He had managed to keep it quite all day, even though it had hurt like hell when Kim and Daisy both hugged him at one point but when she went to lie against him on the couch he couldn't stop the gasp from coming out.
"I got in a fight."
"At the house? With Steve?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want to upset you. You're stressed enough as it is."
"What happened?" At least she didn't sound as angry as he thought she would.
"He turned up, he was a dick, he goaded me, called me a weak dog." He shrugged. "So I hit him, several times. He got one shot off." Adam pointed to the red mark on his chest.
Kim leant down and kissed it. "Is that better?"
"Yes. A little." Adam grabbed her ponytail and wrapped it around his hand before pulling her down for a kiss. "Actually, No it's not better. I need more."
Kim jumped up and held out one hand. "Let me take you to bed and look after you." Adam didn't need to be asked twice. "And Baby.." she stopped before they reached the bedroom and turned to face him and smiled. "Thank you."