Burgess rolled her neck around. They had been sitting in the patrol car for four hours and she was regretting taking the OT now, she'd rather be asleep like everyone else probably was. At least it was a quiet day, although that probably wasn't the greatest because it was hard to stay awake and alert. It would have been better to be run off her feet, at least the day would go quicker.
JJ was taking it all in, asking her about what she thought might be going on beyond the tape and drilling her about working in Intelligence and how she got up there. "SWAT would be there I'd imagine."
"Have you worked with them before?"
"Yeah, a few times, they are intense. You just do as you are told, and they will definitely tell you."
Kim jumped out of the car when she saw a black sedan pull up. "Sorry, you will need to turn bac…" the window rolled down to reveal Al. "Al? What brings you down here? What's this got to do with Intelligence?"
Al drummed his fingers nervously on the steering wheel and tried to avoid looking at Kim, he didn't want her to see anything in his expression. "Nothing really, Voight and I are just lending another set of eyes. Can you let me through?" Kim signalled to JJ to back up the car.
"Hope it's more interesting than sitting here?"
"I hope not." He looked a little distracted. "Kim…." He started to say something and then stopped. "…try to stay out of trouble." Al laughed a little and it sounded forced.
"Sure Al. Same to you. Although it's you and Voight, anything could happen right?"
"Right." He nodded and gave her his trademark smirk. He didn't necessarily agree with Voight's decision to keep things on the down low right now. They knew they had to keep the fact that there was a cop held hostage out of the media so the less people who knew about it the better although Intelligence was good at many things and keeping secrets was one of them. Voight's point was valid though and until they established who was involved and what the reason was they had to stay silent for Ruzek's sake, his life might depend on it. He argued that the team would not blow it but Voight decided that it was too early to bring them in when they weren't officially asked to help yet and there was no way he could keep them out of it if they knew.
"Let's just check it out and we can call them in if we need too."
"They'd want to know."
"They'd want to see Ruzek alive, that's all I care about right now." Al couldn't argue with that. Ruzek was like a son to him. He'd lost just about everything good in his life but Ruzek had remained his one constant. He had supported him in his own way when he lost Lexi. He never made a song and dance about it and doubted that anyone even knew what he did.
Once a week he would turn up at Al's house with a bottle of red and they'd just sit. Sometimes they'd talk, sometimes they'd just watch a movie but Al always hugged him before he left, the words weren't needed. Adam would listen to Al talk about Lexi growing up, the struggles they had as she started to become a teenager but it was the stories about reading her a book at night, sitting with her when she was sick, the joy on his face when he came home from an Undercover job that Adam loved hearing the most.
Al glanced in the rear view mirror as he drove away. Adam also talked about her.
He knew they weren't together anymore and that frustrated Adam, he didn't know what she wanted. They'd had a few moments when he thought they were on the right track again only for Kim to pull away from him. Al had been surprised at how long Adam had pined for her, he honestly thought he'd dust himself off and move on quickly. He'd moved from Wendy to Kim so quickly but he underestimated the depth of Adam's feelings for Kim's. It reminded him of his relationship with Meredith, he'd never been able to move on but Adam was too young for that and he'd told him so. "It's not that easy Al, I wish it was, I've tried, I can't shake her off. How'd you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Get over Meredith, move on?"
Al looked at the glass in his hand, he drank the last little bit and then topped it up again. "I still haven't."
"So?" Adam arched one eyebrow. "Good talk Al. Real good talk."
Right now though he wasn't sure where it all stood. Adam had mentioned that they'd had dinner recently but it was just happenstance rather than something that he'd planned but he enjoyed it and thought they were in a good place again but he was waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under him. It was unsettling him but Al was impressed that he never let it show in the bullpen or at a crime scene.
Pulling into the first spot he could find he found Voight talking to SWAT. He introduced Al to the Situation Commander as Ruzek's partner. "He knows him like the back of his hand."
"Good."
"What's going on?"
"It's pretty quiet at the moment. We know there are two of them but they are not negotiating right now; we've tried to communicate with them but what we'd like is for one of you guys to try talking to him and somehow get some information to Ruzek. Something he'd understand. We don't really know what's going on, what the lay of the land is."
"Haven't you got building plans?"
"We do, and the Banks are pretty spot on and bloody secure but unfortunately the surrounding buildings are years out of fucking date. The Landlord just let the tenants do whatever the hell they liked and didn't think to get updated plans. We got in the back where we thought there was an old access door that had been sheeted over because we thought it was probably a weak point that we could use but the new tenants have a built in bookcase installed. If we try to move it, it needs to be dismantled and it would probably make too much noise."
"So what's the plan?" Al just wanted to get to the point.
They went through it and both Voight and Al agreed it was worth a shot, the problem they had was that unless the Offender picked up the call it was wasn't going to work and for the next two hours there was not a peep from inside the building. They had no eyes and ears inside and no idea what was going on. It was a frustrating few hours.
Burgess was also well over it. They heard nothing, saw nothing and she was relieved when another Squad car rolled up to take over. "Platt says you can head back to District." They were informed. They still had three hours of shift to go so she wasn't expecting to head back just yet.
"Any news about what's going on in there?" She pointed in the general direction of the Bank.
"It's been radio silence. Seems weird."
"Yeah, nothing here either, no one is saying a word. Just your usual idiots wanting to get through because the detour is 'too far out of the way'. Have fun." She jumped in the car and tapped the steering wheel impatiently waiting for JJ to stop talking and get in. She wanted to get out of here before Platt changed her mind and had then on crossing guard duty or doing public safety talks at the local Nursing home.
Kim looked at Platt weirdly when she told Burgess to go home early. "What? Why?"
"What. Why What?" Platt repeated, peering over the top of her glasses. It was a look that Kim was familiar with and it was still terrifying. "I said you are done for the day Burgess. JJ here has some paperwork to do so you can go. Get some rest, you look tired."
"Oh okay, this is not weird, not at all but I'm gonna go before you change your mind." She pointed upstairs. "Anyone up there?"
"Nope." Platt just wanted Burgess out of here. The longer she hung around the more questions she would ask and it annoyed Platt no end that Burgess could almost read her as well as she could read her. The more she had to pretend that she didn't know that Ruzek was being held hostage the more likely that Burgess would figure out that something was going down. "Haven't seen anyone today."
"I saw Al out at the hostage situation."
"Yeah, Voight muttered something about being dragged out to cast an eye over the situation. I think they've both taken off home now. Like you should, before I find you something exciting to do like writing parking tickets at that food truck festival."
Burgess held up her hands in defeat. "I'm leaving. I need a shower and food and bed."
"See you tomorrow Burgess."