A/N: Happy New Year, let's get this show on the road again. Enjoy :)
Kim sat with Ollie until he went to sleep. Actually she didn't want to leave because outside these walls she would have to face reality. The reality that the very thing she was trying to avoid had happened. Both Oliver and Adam knew about each other and she had not been there for either of them, particularly her eight-year-old son. Creeping out of his room she grabbed a quick shower, poured herself a wine and finally picked up her phone and listened to the messages. Al was short but to the point. "Oliver was here, he met Adam. They both know. You need to talk to them both."
Steve was angry, par for the course lately as far as Oliver and her husband were concerned. 'He's not here but I guess you know that.'
She held her breath and listened to Adam's message. 'Were you ever going to tell me?'
He didn't sound angry or sad, his tone of voice was almost emotionless and that didn't fill her with confidence. Calling his number it went straight to voice mail. 'Adam. Please call me back. I want to explain everything to you. I'm sorry. I owe you an explanation. Please call me back?'
It was well after midnight when Kim finally stopped looking at her phone, waiting for him to call. She had called him several times but he had his phone switched off. He never called and sleep didn't come easily and she would have guessed that she had about an hour if she was lucky. How could she do this to her son? She was trying to protect him but ended up hurting him even more. How could she do this to his father?
Adam had gone to see his mother. Janet was surprised to see him, Adam hadn't really reached out to her in the last few days. She talked to him daily but so far he hadn't been to see her, he wasn't ready for the close physical stuff his mother craved and he could tell she just wanted to claw away at his mind, get him to talk and open up to her. He wasn't there yet, he was not sure he ever would be. Now he was here he didn't look happy and Janet was starting to worry that he was going to disappear again. Bob had expressed his concerns about how Adam was coping and that he looked flighty.
"Al had a visitor today." He took the cup of coffee that Janet offered. "Apparently it was my son."
"Oliver?"
"Yes, Oliver. My son."
"Adam, we wanted you to know but Kim said no."
He held up his hand to stop her. He didn't want to hear his mother's opinion; he didn't want his mother to throw Kim under the bus. "I know why she did it, she had every right to protect him and do what she thought was best. Don't start on Kim." He was calmer now but he'd certainly been angry at her earlier and it wouldn't take much to be back on that ledge again. Both his father and Al had talked to him about it until he had calmed down.
"I wasn't. Adam, he's beautiful, he's a beautiful boy." She pulled a photo out of the drawer, where she had stashed it when she stupidly agreed to keep this from Adam. Handing him the framed photo she watched her son stare at it, clutching it in his shaking hands.
Running his finger over the photo he whispered. "I wish I'd known."
"We wanted you to know the minute you got back. As soon as Kim and Al told us that you were alive I wanted you to know about Oliver."
"No I wish I'd known about him before I left. I would have stayed. I loved Kim, I always did. That's why I left because I loved her. More than I loved anything, more than life." Adam used his sleeve to wipe away the tears that splashed onto the glass. "I had to agree to being killed off to protect her."
Daisy was full of beans as usual at breakfast, which was a blessing because that meant she didn't need to talk and Oliver was barely paying any attention to anything she said anyway. "Ollie." Daisy called his name. "Are you coming to my dance?" She had a ballet concert in a couple of weeks but it was all she talked about. Kim often found her practising in her room and while it was very cute Kim had to admit that Daisy wasn't exactly overflowing with talent when it came to Ballet but she loved it.
"Sure." He shrugged. It was the last thing he wanted to do, it meant he would have to see her father. He couldn't call him his father anymore because he wasn't. Apparently he had a father who had come back from god knows where and he wasn't supposed to know about it. He was some big secret. "I guess he's coming?" Of course he'd be there, he never missed anything of hers.
"Oliver." Kim whispered quietly. "Please don't."
"Who's coming? Daddy?"
"Maybe."
"Is he coming home?" she asked hopefully.
"Yeah, is he?" Oliver glared at his mother.
"We've talked about this Daisy." She completely ignored Oliver's snark. "Daddy doesn't live with us anymore, but he still loves you and you will get to see him on Friday, he's picking you up from school. Remember you are spending the weekend with Daddy at Nan's house?"
"And what about me?" He was taking his frustration and anger out on her by being passive aggressive and she wasn't biting.
"Oliver, stop it please. We will talk about this later." She threw his lunch into his school bag.
Kim tried to ask him if he was okay and he just fobbed her off. She offered to let him stay home from school but he really just wanted to not think about it just yet. He was confused and scared and he wanted things to be like they were before yesterday. For the first time in weeks he did not tell her to be safe when he jumped out of the car and that hurt. Kim dropped him off and then Daisy and headed home having called in to book off for the day. She needed to talk to Adam but so far he had been un-contactable. He hadn't returned any of her calls or messages and even Al told her that he wasn't home when she called him.
Adam wasn't home because he was waiting for her. He was sitting on her front porch, legs stretched out in from of him as his back rested on the porch post. As her car pulled up he rolled his head to the side but didn't get up even as she approached. "Were you ever going to tell me?" he repeated the message he had left on her phone. He still sounded flat and emotionless and that scared the crap out of Kim.
Anger was something that Adam rarely displayed. At work he could get angry with a suspect but it wasn't often that he showed that kind of emotion in his personal life. Kim had only seen it a few times. Once when Roman was hounding him about the laptop and he lost it at them both. They had broken up; well to be precise she had broken up with him and then shut him out completely. He was angry that day. In the cold hard light of day, long after Roman left and Adam confronted her about it and she finally saw how much pain she had caused him and how unfair she had been. Not that he was totally blameless, but she had to take the lion share of it for how they ended. He told her, that day in the locker room that he knew they had ended rough and he was right, they had ended rough and that was all on her.
Then the night that led to Oliver's conception there was a lot of anger that night. Generally though he just let things slide, he chewed things over in his mind and ate it.
"Of course I was."
"When did you find out?" She could only imagine all the questions he would have and to be fair to him she was going to let him ask them. He'd asked Al and his parent's a thousand questions and now he needed to hear it from her.
"I found out the day before they told me you had been in an accident. I am not even sure why I took the test to be honest. Maybe it was out of hope but I honestly didn't think I was pregnant." Kim sat down on the step, dropping her bag at her feet. "You'd been gone about two weeks. I was six weeks pregnant, I just felt a little off, not massively so and I missed my period which as you know was unusual" When they were together Adam bemoaned the fact that she was as regular as clockwork especially if that week coincided with a less hectic time at work. "But work had been stressful, I hadn't been eating or sleeping well and I was worried about you. We knew nothing about that case and you'd left without a word."
Kim closed her eyes for just a moment and when she opened them Adam was staring at her. "That first night, we weren't exactly careful and well that was Oliver."
That night was insane. They had been crazy at work, now that Kim was in Intelligence they crossed paths more than he wanted to and eventually he couldn't help himself and told her exactly what he thought of her screwing around with Roman. They'd both had a few too many drinks and he knew that he'd hurt her with his accusations, not that any of them had been unfounded but Kevin had chewed him out for the way he spoke to Kim that night. He went to her place to apologise and that decision changed both their lives forever. They'd argued, he'd told her how much she'd hurt him, she accused him of not being committed to her and then he kissed her and within minutes they were naked and falling into bed. It was wild, uninhibited and painfully satisfying. He'd also got her pregnant.
It wasn't the only time they'd had sex over the next couple of weeks but it was the only time they hadn't used any protection.
"I never would have left on that job if I'd known." And that was the god honest truth. He left because it was good for his career and because he couldn't stand what was happening between them. She may have been able to handle the friends with benefits thing they had going on but he hated it. He had to get her out from under his skin. Didn't work out that way though because he never shook her off. If he'd known she was pregnant that would have changed everything, he would have stayed and fought for her. He should have fought for her.
"I know Adam."
"Al says he's a good kid."
"He is, he's so much like you, not only in looks. He has your personality; he is kind and loving and always wants to make people happy. He was such a blessing and he's going to love that." She pointed to his bike parked out front. "He keeps telling me he's going to get one when he's older. I think he does it to freak me out."
"It's in his blood. That's good." He still sounded so flat and emotionless but he was anything but. He was like a duck, on the surface it looked like he was gliding along but under the water his legs were going at a million miles an hour. "Does he know? I got the feeling that he knew who I was."
"Adam, he has always known about you. I never hid you from him and I always wanted him to know about his father, your parents are a big part of his life, the Intelligence Unit are. I couldn't have kept the truth from him even if I wanted too. We talked about you a lot." Kim pulled her phone out of her bag and found a recent photo of Oliver and showed Adam. He jut stared at it; it was surreal seeing his son looking back at him; his own flesh and blood and for someone who had no emotional link to anyone for nine years it was stressful. He felt like he was suffocating under the weight of all this sudden chaos. He was trying to think and talk and feel all at once and he couldn't breathe.
"Except now, suddenly it's this big secret." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice now. He was hurting.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what else to say. I didn't want you to find out this way and I was trying to figure it all out but I wanted you to know. Everything is a mess." She had pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. "I didn't want anyone to get hurt, particularly Oliver. I didn't know how to tell him about you and I was scared of you finding out and still walking away from him. He's had such a rough time lately."
"Why?"
"With my marriage falling apart."
"I'm sorry. I hope that this is not because of me?"
"It wasn't, it had fallen apart before you came back. It's just made it harder to deal with everything and throwing this at Oliver's feet with everything else seemed so unfair to him, but it was unfair to keep this from you."
"Did Oliver tell you that we met?"
"He did, he flat out asked me if you were his father. He's a smart kid Adam."
"You sure he's mine then?" For the first time since he'd been there a small smiled tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had called into the District and Atwater had told him that Kim had booked out for the day and he begged him for her address. He insisted that he just wanted to talk to her, that he knew about Oliver and needed to see her face to face.
"You ain't goin' all apeshit at her are you? I won't stand it."
"No Kev, I'm not angry with her, I just want to talk. I want to know about my son." So he had given him her address and promised that if he found out any different he would kick him into next year.
"Oh he is." Kim smiled a little and briefly touched his arm. "He's all you. Wait here." She jumped up and disappeared inside the house, returning a few minutes later she handed Adam a piece of paper. He unfolded it and his hands shook as he looked at his son's birth certificate. 'Oliver James Ruzek Burgess' was his son. It was overwhelming to see his name registered as his father. Kim could see his lip quiver and she wanted to reach out to him but squeezed her hands between her knees instead.
"Is he okay?"
"He's confused. He thought that I'd been lying to him and that perhaps you left because you didn't want him." Kim couldn't help notice the flash of pain that flitted over his face. "He is worried that no-one wants to be his Dad?"
"What about your husband?"
Kim chewed on her bottom lip and Adam watched her for a moment. He used to love it when she did that; she looked so vulnerable and beautiful. "Steve and Oliver have butted heads for a while and they've kind of given up on each other."
"Why?" That was painful to hear. It had surprised him already how he felt. He hadn't really met this kid yet and he already felt connected to him.
"Oliver has always known about you and your parents are such a huge part of his life."
"I know; Dad showed me his room and I talked to Mom."
"Steve wanted to adopt Oliver after Daisy was born and I said no. Oliver didn't want it and neither did I. I didn't want to rip him away from your parents; he was all they had left of you. Steve didn't take it well and kinda.." she wrung her hands tightly in her lap and Adam could see her anguish. "..he just gave up. He made life difficult for Oliver and Oliver switched off. That's why I didn't want to tell you yet, I wanted to protect him and make sure you both were ready for this. I don't want him to get hurt."
He swung his legs around and leant forward; resting both hands on her cheeks he ran his thumbs along her cheekbones. "I won't walk away from our son. I know this is quick, I know everything is so up in the air and I am still a mess but I want to be his Dad, that's one thing I am sure of. It's the only thing that makes sense to me right now." He was so close to her, he could see the tears in her eyes and he got some insight into the pain and anguish this was all causing her. He hated that.
"You need to be all in, or you walk away now."
"I'm not going anywhere. He's my son. I want to meet him, I want to love him."
"Adam." Her warm breath tickled his cheek and he felt himself falling. He had to stop but he didn't want too. It ached; his whole body ached for her. It had ached for her for nine long years. He was lying to himself if he thought he was going to be able to come back, apologise and then walk away. That was before he found a reason to stay. She was back under his skin again and he was in agony.