Well what do you know...not sure why I never posted this deleted chapter, anyway, here you go. I think, at the time I felt the story was getting a little bloated and needed to move along to the real essence of the story, Burzek getting their happily ever after. So this ended up being dumped, hope it brings back fond memories of a story I really enjoyed writing and was quite proud of.

It was hard to get her head around sometimes, how quickly he could fall. Without warning or reason it just happened and as well as Adam learning how to be a Dad, Kim was learning how to manage having him in her life and in her son's life when sometimes he barely managed to function on any level.

A week ago he was on top of the world, Oliver was excitedly telling him about the father and son bbq after his next game and that he wanted Adam to come. Adam promised Oliver that he'd be there but Kim saw the look of panic on his face. She asked him if he was okay and he blew her off but then watched him fall apart slowly over the next few days.

Kim grabbed her phone as it rang, she was desperately trying to finish the case notes and file it so she could get out of here. Ollie and Daisy were with Janet and she planned to pick them up and grab some burgers and chill out of watch a movie with them. She had told Adam that his mother was having the kids after school and often he would go over and see them but today he just sent her one word back. 'okay' and that was it.

"Hi Al."

"Kim, you busy?"

"Just finishing off some case notes and then I've got to get the kids."

"Can you swing by?"

"Why? Is Adam okay?"

"No. He's not." This wasn't completely out of the blue. He'd been spiralling a little over the last few days and they'd both seen it. He had refused to talk to Kim a couple of times and had cancelled plans to meet Atwater for a drink and was non-committal to his plans to go to Oliver's game on the weekend even though he had promised to come to the bbq. He'd been ecstatic when Ollie asked him to go so it was a little perplexing and she desperately tried to hide it from Oliver. One thing was for certain she would fight him to the death if he thought letting Oliver down was even an option. She had talked to Al and he promised to keep an eye on him and call her if he was worried.

He was worried. Adam hadn't come out of his room all day. He had tried to talk to him but he just closed his eyes and either ignored him until he left or told him to leave.

Kim knocked softly on his door and when he didn't answer she went in anyway and sat on the edge of his bed. Adam was lying flat on his back, arm over his eyes and she could tell by his breathing that he wasn't asleep. "Hey." She whispered softly.

"Al called you?"

"He did. He was worried about you. I am worried about you."

"Don't be." He sounded a little resigned to the fact that she wasn't leaving until they talked.

"Because lying in bed all day in a dark room is completely normal."

"I'm tired."

"And?"

"And what?"

Kim knew she was pushing him, he'd asked her to, to push him when he wanted to shut down. It was all well and good to say that when things were good and now they weren't he wanted to take it back, but she wasn't taking a backwards step. "Anxious, depressed, scared, nervous."

"All of the above."

"Do you know why?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to talk to me about it? Or do you just want me to sit here with you so you can breathe?"

"Can you just sit here?" So Kim just sat next to him with her hand on his chest in the dark of his bedroom and listened to him breathe.

"How's Oliver?" He eventually spoke.

"He's had a good week. He's looking forward to seeing you tomorrow."

"I don't know…."

"No Adam, please don't do this. He's been talking about it all week. It's father/son day, please just do this for him? Please don't let him down."

"I'm trying, but I am…" his voice shook ever so slightly. "…I can't control this." He held up his hand and she could see how much it was shaking. Kim reached for it and held it in her hands for a moment before lying it on his chest and covering his hand with hers.

"Why? What happened?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. What can I do?"

He was quiet again and Kim found it hard to wait, she wanted to claw at him and get him to talk but from her limited experience dealing with Adam since he'd been back that wouldn't achieve anything. His mother was constantly at him to open up and he admitted to her how frustrating it was.

Suddenly he launched into a long rambling story and Kim just had to listen and try and follow along. He didn't need her to speak. "I got this message one day, from my handler. I hadn't heard from him for about a year. I blew him off for about three months I just couldn't deal with it anymore. I'd just settled down again and was starting to do my thing, form a relationship and thought 'this time Paul, this time you need to stick it out and make it work, you can't keep running'. Anyway this guy just kept calling so I met him and he told me I had a choice to make."

"And it reminded you of that other choice didn't it? The one that wasn't really a choice?"

"Yep, this wasn't much of a choice either but for a different reason. He told me they were letting me go." He picked up Kim's hand and played with her fingers for a moment. "I thought fuck, what now? And then I thought right; this is it I am on my own now. Up until then it was just this little link to my past, when I was with him I could actually be Adam and if they were letting me go then that meant it was all over, for Adam as least. He really was dead now." He chuckled. "Then he told me I could be Adam again if I wanted or I could stay Paul."

"I am glad you chose Adam."

"That's it though Kim for a moment I thought 'Adam is dead.' And I could finally put this all behind me and perhaps I could start to make a future for Paul and then I thought about you." He opened his eyes and saw her tears. "Please don't cry Kim."

"I'm trying."

"I had to hear you say those words."

"I forgive you?"

"Yeah sure…." That's not what he wanted to hear right now. There were three other words he craved but that may never happen. Kim got the feeling he wanted something else but it was too complicated to bring that into it now. "…I feel like I have no control over anything at the moment."

"You do."

"What? Oliver is this thing that I can't control, or slow down or whatever."

"Explain that to me."

"It's just this unstoppable force, and I love it but some days it just overwhelms me. I don't want to fuck it up or him. I can't explain it, I don't understand it."

"Let me talk for a bit." This she had learned calmed him down. Just listening to her talk especially about his son. "I remember the first time Oliver met Steve. We'd been dating a couple of months. I thought, at the time that it was the right thing to do and the fact Steve agreed made me think he got it. I had told him early on that I wasn't ready to introduce him to Oliver because I didn't want to parade people through his life. I'd been on dates before, not good ones and a couple that I liked. One in particular that I thought maybe this might be something until I told him about Oliver and that was the last I heard from him. Steve was different, he asked about him and was happy to wait to meet him."

"I don't know if listening to your dating stories is helping me."

"Just listen." Kim chuckled. "Anyway I finally invited him over one night and Oliver was there. He was a little shy, he clung to me like a barnacle and I thought it was cute. Steve didn't mind and he was patient and sweet with him but I sat down just the other day and thought about the differences. I know he was only two and different back then but there was always something about Oliver and Steve. He rarely sought him out if he was sick or hurt, he always wanted me. And that was okay because we had this bond you know."

"You don't have to make this up to make me feel better."

"I'm not. Oliver did love Steve eventually, but it took a while and he desperately wanted to make him happy, but that was it Adam he was always trying to make him happy. He wanted to know, especially towards the end what he had to do to make Steve love him. He tried so hard. When Daisy was born, I remember the day Steve bought him into the hospital to meet Daisy, he picked up the baby and completely ignored Oliver. I had to ask him to let Oliver meet her. When she came home he was always telling him off for making too much noise, for waking her up and if Oliver was holding her he constantly told him to be careful, not to hurt her. He didn't trust Oliver with Daisy."

Kim sighed. "One day they were playing together and Daisy had just learnt to sit up by herself and Oliver was playing with her and she was laughing, they both were, it was so cute. I will show you the video one day, they are so happy together and then the end..." She smiled, that video of them laughing was the cutest thing but she rarely watched it all the way through because it didn't end well. "Anyway, they were playing and Oliver took her toy and hid it and Daisy squealed and she fell back and bumped her head and Steve lit into Oliver. He was so heartbroken. He loved Daisy, he still does."

"He does, he talks about her a lot. I think it's great seeing him and Daisy together, I never had that, that sibling thing."

"Then there is you. He loves you and that all happened so quickly and easily and now I think about it, it's amazing. Oliver wants to make you happy but I feel like he's not trying so hard, he just feels it. It's been beautiful to watch, I love seeing you both together it is just beautiful. He's so happy Adam; just being with you makes him happy he's not walking on eggshells anymore. But he does worry about you and not like he worried about Steve and what he had to do to make him love him or even like him. He used to ask me why Steve doesn't like him anymore and that broke my heart and I couldn't explain it to him and why should I? Only once, that first day you met did he ask if you liked him but that was nerves, it was such a big thing for him. He worries about how he can help you get better."

"I don't want him to worry about me."

"Too bad Adam, he does worry because he loves you and loves having you in his life."

"I love being in his life."

"Good, because that's where you are going to stay but perhaps it's time to talk to him about this."

"About what?"

"This Adam, these low points you have. Your anxiety and your mental health."

"I can keep these from him. I don't want to scare him."

"Well it scares me, I worry about you and I worry about Oliver. He notices these things and just wants to know what to do to help you. I think it would be good for him to know, we can trust him with this and give him that stability and trust. Hiding it from him is not working."

"I'm scared it will push him away. I don't want to be a burden to him or to you."

"Adam, you are not a burden. You are here and I never thought I'd see you again and if we had a choice between doing everything we can to help you or not having you I know what we choose. We choose you Adam, actually it's not really a choice, we need you. Oliver wants you in his life so lets work out the best way to do this."

He agreed to think about it and promised to not blow off tomorrow. "Do you want me to come pick you up?"

"No, I need to do this myself. I need to make myself not let him down."

"This is not like all those other times Adam, I know you feel anxious about making choices but being in Oliver's life is not a choice, it's your life now and I have faith in you."

Adam was there, smiling broadly before his game started the next day. Oliver bounded up to him and dragged him down the meet his coach. Kim watched them and loved how effortless Adam made it look. He was seemed determined to make sure that Oliver didn't realise how much he was suffering. He came and sat with Kim during the game. "How are you today?" It was the first time he grabbed her hand and hung onto it, for no other reason than to keep him steady.

"Happy to be here with Oliver and you." She hung around a little while after the game and made sure that they were both good and left them to it. Oliver wanted it, he wanted to spend the day with his Dad, he wanted his Dad to meet his friends Dad's because he thought that they could become his friends too. He didn't see that Adam might struggle if he had to talk about why he hadn't been around, he just wanted to show off his Dad and make him happy.

He called Kim late that night, he'd dropped Oliver off earlier and declined to stay for dinner. He made up some excuse that he was catching up with some old academy buddies for a beer. It wasn't a lie, he was supposed to be meeting some old friends but he blew that off also. The day had taken too much out of him. "Tomorrow can I come over and talk to Oliver?"

"Of course you can."

"Can you stay? I want to talk about me."

"Yes. Are you sure? Are you ready?"

"No, not at all but I need to do it. Today was tough, I loved being with Oliver but he wants me to be someone I don't think I can be. I'm not like those other Dad's, not yet. I want to be but its too soon Kim."

"That's okay Adam, I think if you talk to him about it he will understand. He just wants you here in his life, he's excited."

"I don't blame him Kim, not at all. It was really sweet what he was doing, I just can't handle it right now."

"Then we will talk to him tomorrow, together."