Voight suggested he take Hailey with him when he did the notification as she was on scene too and honestly it was the last thing he wanted to do. Not that he had any issue working with Hailey, they were well beyond that, he just didn't want to talk about Kim or the baby and knew that she'd pick away at him. He didn't have the energy for that.
Voight saw him baulk and he ended up sending Halstead instead.
Not that Halstead wasn't going to ask, he just wasn't going to pick at the scab like Hailey or even Atwater would.
"You wanna talk or not?" Halstead asked as they pulled out of the District parking lot.
"Not." Adam sighed. "Look, I appreciate that everyone wants to know that Kim's okay. I do, and she is. It's just…." He trailed off as he stared out the window.
"I get it. I'm glad Kim's okay, both of them. Tell her I'm thinking of her."
"Will do." Adam had already told him that he wanted to stop at Kim's and grab a couple of things on the way and then get dropped off at the hospital once they were done. There was some suggestion that Hailey and Vanessa would stop by on the way home and he asked them not too. "She's just not up for visitors." Kim hadn't specifically said anything but he knew her and he also wanted to be a bit selfish. He wanted to be the one to support her, that was his job.
"One more question?"
Adam just nodded.
"You?"
"I'm good."
Not that any notification was good but some were worse than others. Some people were too stunned to respond and often you were left wondering if they heard you at all, then there were the ones that knew it was coming and it was almost a relief.
This one wasn't like this, this one was heartbreakingly horrific. This was tough. The mother screamed and then flew into a rage, pounding her fists on Adam's chest and one landed on his chin sending him staggering backwards a little. He just stood there, too stunned to respond while her husband tried to stop his devastated wife's emotion laced attack. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." It was all Adam could say. "I'm sorry, we tried. We were too late."
Halstead stepped in and indicated that they all needed to sit down and just take a moment. "We can give you a few minutes if you like?"
"No, no. It's okay." The father shook his head. "Please, we need to know."
It was harrowing going through the details. "One of our officers received a phone call while she was on duty at the call centre. It was a 911 call. She sent two officers out to check it out but they came up short, Officer Burgess didn't believe it, she'd heard something in the girls voice and followed up again. It eventually led us to your daughter but unfortunately we weren't able to get there in time. We performed CPR until paramedics arrived but were unable to save your daughter. We are so so sorry." Adam spoke slowly and clearly.
"Where was she?"
Jay explained the situation as they knew it. "Unfortunately we couldn't save everyone and I know this is probably cold comfort but we did find and save 19 other girls who were in a similar situation to your daughter."
"Thank you for finding Emily."
"We really wish we could have saved her."
"What about this piece of shit who did this? Who is he? What's his name?"
Jay didn't want to get into the specifics, not until everything was finalised. "Under arrest. He will be charged with your daughter's murder and abduction."
"That's it?"
"No." Adam jumped in, he let Jay do most of the talking. "There are plenty of other charges yet to be laid. We are just working through them all. He's going away, for a long, long time. You can take my word for it."
They were both surprised when Emily's mother spoke. She had sat and said nothing since her initial reaction at the door. Jay and Adam had got up to leave after asking if they had any other questions and Jay had explained that they would need to claim their daughter's body. "This officer that found Emily?"
"Officer Burgess." Adam spoke quietly and Jay could sense that he was hoping to get out of here without talking about Kim. He knew he was worried that they would blame her if they knew what had gone on. Kim wasn't cleared for active duty, she should never have been there anyway.
"I'd like to meet her, to thank her."
"I don't know…"
The plea was heartbreaking. "She was the last person to talk to my daughter. The last person to hear her voice. Please." She grabbed Adam's arm. "Please."
He was like a deer caught in the headlights until Jay jumped in. "We'll see what we can do. Maybe in a few days. She's… " Adam glared at him, his silent plea to not tell them that Kim was in hospital. "…a little shook up right now." The last thing he wanted them to know was that Kim was pregnant. He had a sense of dread, the mother's desperation, her wild reaction to him concerned him. Would she do the same to Kim? Would she ask too many questions? Would Kim be able not to tell her the truth? There were too many what if's.
Jay ushered him out of the house and into the car. "You okay dude?"
"Yeah, yeah." Adam ran his hands over his face. "Nah. Kim's already blaming herself for Emily dying. She doesn't need this, not right now."
"What do you mean blames herself?"
"For not going in early enough, for waiting."
"Adam, you wait for back-up. Kim knows this, we all know this. That guy could've killed both of them, she had no idea if he had a weapon or not."
"She doesn't see it like that."
"She will." Adam wasn't so sure. Kim was going to carry this for a long time. "Nobody blames her, nobody."
Adam ordered some pizza from her favourite place without even asking her what she wanted. Kim wanted to be annoyed but it was sweet, he was just trying and up until today they were in a good place. Kim was trying to let herself get back there, back to where they were good because Adam hadn't done anything wrong. It was her, this was all on her.
She got up and went to the bathroom and Adam just looked expectantly when she came out. "It's all good Adam." Standing in front of him she felt a little overwhelmed by him because she desperately wanted to feel his arms around her but didn't think she deserved that kind of support. "What's that on your neck?" Kim made him tilt his head to the side and touched the scratch mark. "You scratch yourself, I mean obviously not by shaving."
"Nah. I think Emily's Mom caught me."
"Huh? What? What happened?" Her heart started thumping wildly and she felt nauseous all of a sudden. She took a sudden step back.
"You know how some people react. I'd just told her the news she dreaded the most and she attacked me." He tried to sound unsurprised, and it wasn't really. They'd all had notifications like that.
"She hates us, she hates me."
"No Kim, she doesn't hate us or you. She lost her daughter, she was devastated."
"Did you tell her what happened?"
"Yes."
"You told her that I was there and I choose not to go in and her daughter was murdered because of me."
"No, because that's not what happened."
"It was what happened." She screamed at him, thumping her chest violently. It was like she was trying to inflict pain on herself. "It was, it's my fault. I did this, she's dead because of me."
Adam was a little taken aback at the ferocity of her anger. It wasn't just on the surface, reacting to the heat of the moment, it had gone deep already. He reached for her arm and she reefed it away angrily and warned him not to touch her.
"Why can't you say it? Why can't everybody just say it? Nobody wants to look at me, nobody has come to see if I am okay…"
"I asked them to give you space and time to rest."
"I don't need you looking after me, you don't need to protect me."
"But I do."
"Why? Why? This is my fault."
"Because I love you…" There was no point trying to tell her it wasn't her fault right now, she wasn't going to listen and that was a realisation she had to come to by herself.
Kim held up her hand defiantly. "Don't. Don't try and manipulate me or distract me."
"I am not manipulating you or distracting you, I thought you needed to hear it and I needed to say it."
Kim stared at him, tears filling her pain filled eyes and they cascaded down her cheeks. "Adam I killed that girl." She cried painfully. "I killed her. She's dead because of me. I don't deserve your love or support."
"Yes you do, you always have. You know this."
"How can you not see it?"
"See what?"
"It's my fault. I need you to say it." She pushed him hard in the chest and he took half a step back and when she went at him again he grabbed both her wrists. He was careful not to hurt her and when she pulled against his grip he let go instantly.
"No."
"Adam….." It was an agonising few moments. Her anguish was written all over her face, in her body language and in her desperate words.
"You know, if you hadn't followed your gut after that call we may never have found Emily or those 19 other girls and her parents, their parents would still be sitting by the phone wondering what ever happened to their daughters. You; you did that. You gave them their daughters back." Adam couldn't stand back and let her destroy herself. "You didn't kill her, Daniel did, he stole her soul first and then he killed her. You didn't kill her."
Kim's breathing was ragged but she finally sat down heavily in the chair Adam had been using. He crouched down in front of her but knew it wasn't the time to reach out physically. "How can I forgive myself?"
"I don't know because I don't think you have anything to forgive yourself for but I understand that you do and I can't do that for you or tell you how."
The room was quiet, faintly you could hear the hustle and bustle of the ward outside. There was always a phone ringing, people talking, trolleys rolling past but they were quiet. Suddenly the door opened and they both jumped when a nurse came in. It had been hard not to hear the commotion coming from the room. "Everything okay?"
Kim nodded. "Yeah, just being an emotional pregnant woman."
"Good. Now let's just take some Obs. I need to check your blood pressure. Any bleeding? Cramping?"
"No, I just went to the bathroom and it's fine."
Adam slipped out just after the nurse came in to meet the delivery guy and grab their pizza. It gave him a minute to catch his breath. He would do whatever he had to do but it was exhausting, and he had no idea if he was getting through to her but he had to keep trying. He didn't expect this level of terror, he had never felt this out of control and didn't know what to do. Apart from Voight no one else could understand this feeling, this baby had changed everything in him and he hadn't expected that. Al would have and he missed him more than anything lately. He wished he'd repaired that relationship better than he had but he thought he had more time, more time to win his trust back but life was cruel and that was now his burden to carry. Just like this was Kim's burden.
"All good?" He decided they had to move away from the trauma of the day for a little while at least. Whether Kim would appreciate it he had no idea, but he was going to try. "What they say?"
"Everything is fine Adam."
"Good." He slid the pizza onto the tray over Kim's bed and opened the box. "Your fave."
"It is, it smells good." Kim reached for a piece. It was an uneasy peace. "I am starving."
Adam grabbed a piece and pulled up the chair beside the bed, popping his feet up on the edge of her bed. Making himself comfortable. Kim had already told him that she didn't need him staying, that once they'd had dinner she was going to get some rest and he could go home. She hated being here so the more she slept the quicker morning would come and she could go home. He'd be back in the morning to pick her up before he went to work. Voight had insisted that she have the rest of the week off. Kim didn't think it was necessary but she got no support from Adam or Trudy and truthfully two days off before the weekend would be good.
"Adam?" Kim didn't look at him when she spoke. "The baby, were you worried?"
"Terrified Darlin'."
"Why?"
"Because that's our future, that's our family. Nothing more important than that."
"Our family." She sighed. "Adam, I want to see Emily's parents."
"I know and you will."
"I want to do it alone. I need to do it alone."
That was no surprise, she'd done a lot of things during the past few weeks on her own and it did grind his gears a little. They had come to an understanding that they were in this together so it was hard to let this one go. Technically though this wasn't about the baby, not directly and he did understand her desire to do it alone. He agreed on one condition. "I'll drive you."