Two extra bits that didn't make the cut...an extended version of Kim asking Adam to come to Oliver's Game and a chapter on a day out with Oliver that doesn't go as planned and Adam ends up talking about the UC operation and what went wrong.
"How's Oliver?"
Adam didn't even give her a chance to say hello and she laughed. "Well hello to you too."
"What? Hi, hello. How's Oliver? Have you talked to him?"
"Of course I've talked to him." Kim was curled up on the couch with a glass of red in her hand. She needed it; the past twenty-four hours had been a rollercoaster. Whatever loose plans she had for telling Adam and Oliver about each other had been blown out of the water but she was glad it was out there now and they both seemed to be coping well. She was worried about Oliver but he seemed okay with everything and Adam was handling it better than he expected. She was waiting for the anger, at some point things had to wobble.
"Is he okay? Like with everything?"
"Adam, just breathe."
"I can't Kim, I can't breathe. It's all I've thought about, I can't think about anything else. I have a son."
"I know, I gave birth to him remember."
"I do know that, and I hate that I missed it, I've been trying to think if I felt different? It's stupid isn't it?"
"No, it's sweet. You are sweet."
"What if he doesn't like me?" Adam had so many fears, he was broken and tortured and she had told him some of it but there was a lot he just wasn't ready to share. He talked about some of the places he went, the people he met and the work he did but one thing he hadn't told Kim was about the assignment and the moment they told him he had a choice to make. He didn't talk about his 'death'. Kim had asked him once and he just looked at her, shook his head and left the room.
When he came back she could see the effect it had on him, "I can't, not yet, not that." He told her and Kim just held his hand and told him it was okay.
"Adam…" Kim sighed. "I don't think you have anything to worry about."
"He might hate me for leaving?"
"Oliver doesn't hate you for leaving. He knows what happened, he always has. You didn't know, Oliver is okay, he understands." Kim wanted to be honest with him. "Last night he was worried, he was confused and felt like I had been lying to him but he understands. It was just such a shock for him. He doesn't hate you, he's not angry at you."
"Yes but that was before. It's okay to understand when you never thought I'd be back. I am sure you have felt that hate or disappointment, you hated me for leaving."
"Honestly yes. There were times, even before he was born I hated you for leaving but Adam that was just grief. I was grieving for you. I was grieving for your baby never having the chance to meet you. And now he has and you get to see how amazing he is. I love him so much Adam, he's my whole world. My children are my whole world." Kim wanted him to know. "I let go of that anger a long time ago, it was pointless. Nothing was going to change the fact that you weren't there, you were gone." When he started to protest Kim interrupted him. "As far as everyone was concerned you were gone. I buried you Adam; I made peace with it. I never liked it, I hated it but I had to move on, I had a baby to raise and a life to live."
"I never wanted to hurt you, you know that right? I was trying to protect you; I wanted to save your life. I had too."
"You did, you left me with Oliver."
"If I'd know about Oliver I don't know what I would have done. Yesterday I thought why didn't you tell me, I would have stayed or if I had tried to contact you and told you what was happening I would have found a way but I couldn't and I didn't and I hate myself for that. I was angry at you for not telling me."
"I know. What's done is done; can we move past this? I don't blame you and I am so happy to see you again and I can't wait to see my son get to know you."
Adam didn't say anything. Kim could only imagine what he was feeling right now. He wasn't quite ready to let it all go but he was willing to push it back down deep within himself and focus on the most important thing in his world right now. "Hey, Oliver wants to know if you want to come to his game on Saturday morning. If…."
"Yes."
"..if you are busy, he'll understand."
"I'm not busy. I want to come. Where? What time?"
"I will text you the details. Are you sure Adam? This doesn't need to be rushed."
"Yes, yes it does. Unless you think Oliver is scared?"
"Adam, he asked. He wants you to come. He wants to meet you properly."
"Okay, then yes."
"He is scared, but he's happy Adam."
"I'm scared too."
"Why?"
"Why do you think? I have no idea what I am doing? I don't know how to be a Dad; I wasn't expecting this at all. Not once did I think this could happen to me. A long time ago I realised that I would never have this, and now I do."
"Okay. You know, when he was born I had no idea how to be his Mom. I had this tiny helpless baby who needed me to know what he wanted when all he did was cry. I didn't know how to feed him, hold him, and change his diaper. Some days he would cry and cry and I didn't know why or how to stop it but I learnt and you will too. Adam you don't have to do anything, just come to his game that's all he wants right now. The rest we will work out, day by day."
"I don't want to fuck it up."
"Adam, I won't let you fail."
"Promise?"
"I promise. That's our boy, he's my son too and I won't put him at risk or let you break his heart. I know you won't do that either because I know you Adam."
"I'm not that Adam anymore."
"Yes, yes you are. I can see him and feel him and I know there are some big walls you've built around yourself but the Adam I fell in love with all those years ago is still there." Kim was desperate to let him know that she could feel that Adam. It was hard to get her head around the fact that Adam was so unsure of himself, that was never him, he was always so confident sometimes to his detriment but he was willing to put himself out there and make mistakes and learn from them. It was strange to see him so scared of failing.
XXXX
Kim was surprised by Adam's mood. He'd been happy all day; they'd had a fun day at a Waterpark with Oliver. Kim had barely seen them they'd been off taking on the biggest challenge they could find. Oliver was in heaven. But now she had come back from the bathroom and grabbing them a drink and a cloud had descended over him.
"Are you okay?" She rested her hand on his arm and he jumped a little.
"Yes."
"Where's Oliver?" Adam flicked his eyes in her direction and then looked away.
"Adam, what is it? Where's Oliver?"
"He's gone off with some friends. Is that okay?" He asked a little harshly.
"Okay?" She sucked some air between her teeth and took a sip of her drink. He was pissed and she was hoping it had nothing to do with Oliver or he hadn't said anything to him.
Oliver had been sitting talking to Adam when a group of boys approached him. He obviously knew them and jumped up to talk to them. Adam actually liked seeing him interact with other kids; he was fascinated by it all, watching Oliver being a kid. He liked that he seemed popular. "I need to wait until my Mom comes back." He turned and looked at Adam quickly. "I need to ask her."
"Ask her what Ollie?"
"Joey and Zac want to go on the water cannons, I want to ask mom if I can go too? Joey's Dad is coming with us."
"Oh…" Adam felt like he'd been kicked suddenly. "I'm sure she'll be fine with it. I'll tell her."
"Thanks Adam." He almost skipped away and Adam heard one of the boys ask him who that man was.
"That's my Dad."
"I thought that other guy, Steve was your Dad."
"Nope, he was my step dad. Adam has only just come back."
"Where was he? Jail?"
"Nah, I thought he was dead." It was an innocent conversation between friends and it was a kick in the guts. Oliver didn't sound upset about it, quite the opposite in fact but it still knocked him way off axis. It wasn't the way Oliver told his friends who he was; it was that he couldn't ask Adam for permission to go in the first place. It shouldn't have bothered him but it did and he couldn't stop the anxiety taking over. He wasn't that good or strong enough yet.
Kim was at a loss to explain Adam's sudden change. She didn't want him to be possessive, he had to let Ollie live and have his friends too, he couldn't smother him. "He's loved having you here today."
"I know."
"He's still a boy who loves his friends."
"It's okay Kim."
"Then talk to me Adam."
"I'm angry."
"About what?"
"About everything. I'm angry at those fuckers who took this from me, from us, from Oliver." He looked so anxious. "This shouldn't be the first time we are here with him. This should have been something we did every year. I fucking hate it." He jumped up and took off and Kim didn't know whether to follow him or not. She decided to go with him.
Falling into step beside him she didn't say anything and eventually he turned and looked at her. "Leave me alone." He barked. "I'm not ready."
"I am, I am ready."
"This is not about you is it?"
"Hang on…" She grabbed his arm. "It is about me too, you know why. Do I really need to explain it to you? Oliver, your son."
He waved his hand dismissively. "I know, you keep reminding me." It was a dick thing to say.
"Fuck you Adam." Kim snapped. "Oliver is happy, you know he is but he is still confused sometimes and despite what you think he worries about you. He worries that you'll leave, that you are sad or angry or that you won't like him. He worries and I am doing my best to support him but I can't do it alone. I will fight to the death for him and that means right now that I have to fight for you too because all he wants is to have his Dad around and get to know you. So let's try this again okay?"
"It's stupid."
"What's stupid?"
"Just before, he didn't want to ask me if he could go with his friends, he had to wait to ask you."
"Maybe he thought you'd say no because you didn't want him to go."
"No, he didn't ask because I am not his Dad, I am just this random guy who he thought was dead for his whole life." It was the last thing she expected him to say, Adam loved being Oliver's Dad he was doing so well so this was out of the blue.
"Adam."
"What? What Kim? It's true. I'm not his Dad, I'm just this guy who is pretending and those fuckers did this to me. They took this from me. I sat there one day thinking that I'd be home soon and they showed me a photo of you, someone was watching you because I'd been made. They were going after you and you know what they told me. Witness protection or they wouldn't do a damn thing to protect you. I had no choice. Those assholes were willing to let them go after you if I didn't agree."
"Oh…" She had wanted to know what went down but now that he was telling her it was brutal. This wasn't the place either.
"I had two hours and I sat there while they talked about how they were going to kill me….a car wreck that went up in flames was their preferred choice because it would leave no DNA, you have no idea what that's like. I had no choice. They did this to me." He slapped his hands on his chest. "They took me from Oliver, they took me from you. You shouldn't have had to do this alone. I shouldn't have been a coward and let them just kill me, then you'd be safe and I wouldn't feel like I let you down and Oliver, all I've done is let him down."
"Don't you fucking dare, don't say that Adam. I'm glad you are alive; sure I wish I'd known nine years ago but I didn't. You are here now and you protected me and your son, that's a brave thing Adam, coming back is brave. Don't you ever fucking say that again." Kim desperately grabbed his face as she was spinning out of control and people were starting to watch them. "Adam, breath, Adam." She walked him further away from the people around them.
"It's not that easy. All they wanted to do was save their own ass, they fucked up that case and it was easier to ruin my life than admit they fucked up. I ruined your life because of those fuckers." He sat down heavily on the grass and bought his knees up to his chests. "I'm sorry."
Kim was on her knees in front of him. "Adam, I'm not going to lie it wasn't easy, I didn't want any of this shit. I didn't want to be a single mom but I did, I had to raise your baby, your son into someone that you'd be proud of because I needed to prove to you that you didn't die in vain. I held your badge in my hand just to feel you with me, when I was giving birth to your son I felt you with me."
"You don't know how that makes me feel, I wish I was there."
"You were Adam, in my heart and in his. Okay? Then let's go back and wait for our son to finish playing with his friends, take him out for dinner and just enjoy being his parents. I know it's hard for you, you want to make up for lost time but you can't do it all at once. It's going to take time for you to figure it out and it's going to take Oliver time to work it out doesn't mean that he isn't so happy to have you around, he's so happy Adam, I've never seen him like this. He's less anxious; he's calmer and more stable. He loves you and I know how much you love him so we will work this out, yeah?"
"I need you to forgive me."
"I don't blame you for any of this." She held his head in her hands and kissed the back of his head as it sagged forward. "I don't blame you Adam."
"I need you to forgive me. Please." He was begging her. Kim didn't want to say it because it wasn't his fault. None of this was. If she forgave him, or said that she did then it was admitting she blamed him. As far as Adam was concerned until she did he could never let it go.
"Not here Adam. This is not the time. We need to go. I don't want Oliver to worry if he comes back."
"Can you give me a minute? I just need to go for a walk." The last thing she wanted to do was leave him alone but Adam insisted. She was worried he wouldn't come back but Oliver would panic if he couldn't find them. She didn't want Oliver to see him like this either. It was balancing act trying to manage the anxiety of both her son and his father and some days it weighed heavily on her shoulders but she couldn't give up because not only did her son deserve his father but also Adam deserved the chance to be his father.
"Where's Adam?" Kim was still waiting for Adam when Oliver came back. She'd packed up their things a little to keep herself busy. This day hadn't gone as well as she hoped, not for Adam but at the very least she would try to make sure Oliver didn't notice.
"He'll be back soon."
"Is he okay?"
"He is." Kim nodded and wrapped him up in his towel when he started to shiver. "Did you have fun?"
"I did. Is he upset that I left to play with my friends?" Oliver was such a switched on little boy. He was trying really hard to understand his Dad and what was going on with him. He would talk to his mom about it because he didn't feel comfortable talking to his Dad about some things. He was scared Adam would tell him off. Kim was tyring to encourage Ollie to talk to his Dad, Adam would tell him when he'd gone to far and as long as he respected Adam when he said no then that wasn't a bad thing. They had so much to learn from each other.
"No sweetheart, he's not. He just got a little overwhelmed. I know you didn't mean to upset him but you know you can ask your Dad for permission to do things, you didn't need to wait for me."
She saw his lip quiver a little, a trait of Adam's and it made Kim feel like she was going to cry too. "I didn't mean to upset him. I'm sorry Mom, I'm just not sure sometimes."
Kim pulled her son down onto his knees in front of her. "Ollie, it's okay. We'll work this out, but just remember it's all very new for Adam and he's learning too. He's not sure sometimes either but I really want this to work for both of you."
When he did come back he forced a smile on his face. "How was it? If you are going be a cop you need to shoot straight." He ruffled his hair and smiled at Kim.
"I did." Oliver slipped his hand in his Dad's as they walked back to the car. He rarely held his mom's hand anymore but he felt he needed to do it, for himself as much as his dad.
Kim didn't let him go home after they had finished dinner, this wasn't a conversation that he was going to get away with talking on the phone. Adam took Ollie to bed, talked to him for a while and promised Ollie that he wasn't upset with him.
They sat on the front porch; it was the scene where Kim first talked to Al about Adam being alive and where Adam had learnt all about his son and it felt the right place to have this conversation. "What happened Adam?"
"When today?"
"Well that surprised me, but no not today. That day when you found out, what happened with the case?"
He stared off into space. This conversation was inevitable but there was always the hope that Kim wouldn't want to hear it. "I don't know. Things had got pretty hairy. People were dying and the FEDS were getting jittery." He didn't look at her, he was wringing his hands together and rocking slightly and when Kim went to sit next to him he baulked so she moved away a little. "They started blowing me off and stopped giving me information. I got a feeling they were freaking out. Then this guy I'd got in real tight with disappeared and man did they freak. He turned up two days later."
"Where was he?"
"Floating in a river. I'd like to say he was face down but he didn't have a face." He shook his head. "Colt, this guy was a big guy and not only did they go after him but they killed his missus and his kid was left sitting in this shitty filthy house for days with his dead mother, bang…" he made a gun with his fingers and pressed it to his temple. "…one shot in the head in front of his kid." Even now he remembered that day like it was yesterday and no matter how hard he tried to forget, he couldn't.
"They figured he'd been talking to the FEDS but man that was me. I was talking to the FEDS, telling them what Colt had been feeding to me, although he had no idea. I got a man and his wife killed, their kid is an orphan because of me. They were sending a warning. Screw with them and they didn't give a fuck who got in the way."
"Adam, it's not your fault."
"I never got it, you know." He heard her but just continued talking. Once he started it just kept bubbling up inside him and he couldn't swallow it any longer. "I was pissed off about the kid and they wouldn't tell me nothing but I thought maybe he'd have a better life, you know his mom was up to her eyeballs, fucked off her nut on dope most of the time but now, now it just feels so fucking wrong. I don't know anymore, I wish I knew that kid was okay? I thought about looking for them, but they changed his name. I just want to know he's done good, you know?"
"Adam, this is a mess. Why the hell didn't they pull you out earlier?"
"Because Kim, this was supposed to be their big break. This was going to get their name in fucking lights. I was collateral damage, expandable, a piece of fucking dogshit stuck to the bottom of their shoe. For some reason they got spooked and perhaps getting a cop and his family killed wouldn't look good on their resume. I don't know." He shrugged. "Anyway, some shit went down. They pulled me out and then went in and got a couple of the guys but not the big dude, they got the minnows and that pissed them off even more and to save themselves they let me twist. These bastards had pictures of you, of my old man, my mom. I don't know how they knew me. I don't know who blew my cover. Colt was a warning, they weren't after him, they were after the FEDS and that, as far as they were concerned was going to be me. I was there ticket out. Kill me off and the FEDS could wash their fucking hands of this whole fucking mess."
"Someone ratted you out?"
"Yep. These smug assholes sat in this shitty motel, showed me pictures of you that they'd got from these fuckers they arrested. Or so they told me, perhaps they didn't know at all and they were just setting me up, the more I think about it the more I believe that. They basically said 'you die and disappear into witness protection' or 'you are on your own and best of luck to your pretty little woman.' I had no choice."
"I wish I'd known."
"I couldn't take that risk Kim, I couldn't do it. They'd move on to someone else if they thought I was dead. I had two hours, sitting in some fucking dive I was told in two hours time Adam Ruzek would cease to exist."
"But they had a body?" Kim had heard a lot of shitty things in her years as a cop but this came as close to breaking her as anything. Listening to Adam talk about what actually happened, and not the sanitized version she realised she had got in the file. Even Adam's notes were vague. Tears streamed down her face, but they were silent tears, as were his.
"Don't underestimate what the FEDS can do. Some poor old guy, lying unclaimed in a morgue became Adam Ruzek, the ashes you mourned over."
"I don't know what to say. Adam, we looked into this. Voight went on a rampage. He was furious. We didn't give up until there was nothing left, no one we hadn't pissed off. We tried to find out what happened, we did."
"As I said, don't underestimate the FEDS. They are the experts at covering their asses; they don't give a fuck about anyone else. Hell they probably knew you were pregnant, if not before certainly after the shit went down. I had the same handler for six years and he never said a fucking word, I would ask him to look you up, find out if you were okay and he kept telling me the risk was too great. If someone found out they were keeping an eye on you they would know I was alive and they'd come for you. It's bullshit, I know that now, I knew it then but I couldn't take the risk. They knew; I have no doubt." Both of them were silent, Kim moved closer and was happy that he leant into her shoulder. "They kept reminding me that Adam Ruzek would always be on these assholes radar. I pop up and you wouldn't be burying some random old guy."
"So this saved your life too?"
"If I'd known you were pregnant I don't know what I would have done and they were probably worried that I would blow that case wide open, drop them in it and hand them to these assholes on a platter just to see you one more time." He stared at her for a moment. "I had no choice."
Kim slipped her arm around his shoulder as he hunched forward. "I forgive you Adam." His cry was deep, guttural, and heartbreaking and he felt the burden of his guilt finally lifting. "We forgive you."