He had promised to come by and talk but the day just drifted on. Maggie had gone back to work today and Kim had assured her that she would be fine. Some time alone might be good, the last few days she had been surrounded constantly but as the day wore on the quietness had unnerved her and being left alone with only her thoughts and that wasn't pleasant. She had talked to her sister again who still wanted to come and get her but she couldn't leave until she had talked to Adam.
"Did you get much sleep?" Adam finally turned up with no explanation about where he had been all day, not that he owed her any.
It was late afternoon. She knew that he wasn't working because Platt had told her that he had been ordered to take the day off to get his head straight when she came to see her earlier in the day.
It was an emotionally draining time for Platt as well as Kim. "I wish I'd seen it, that you had come to me. I was angry at you for not doing that; for letting yourself go through this alone but it was misplaced. Then I was angry at myself for not noticing what was going on."
"You can't be angry at yourself. I did my best to hide it because I was scared and embarrassed. I could never understand why so many women put up with it, now I think I get it. You just don't know what to do. It was like a nightmare and I thought one day I would wake up and find out it was some horrible dream."
"Oh I am not angry at myself anymore. Trust me my anger is very well placed right now." It had certainly dawned on Kim in the last few days what havoc she had wreaked on the entire district. Everyone was feeling it, but at least she didn't feel so alone anymore and that had to be a good thing, right?
Platt had stayed at the District until they bought Roman in. Voight had kept her well in the loop and she had even offered to go with them when they finally tracked him down. How she would have loved to be the one to slap those cuffs on. As Antonio and Atwater bought him up the front steps, in full view of every single person in the foyer she stood stoically at her desk. "Sean Roman, you will be charged with Domestic Assault, you will be stripped of you badge and suspended effective immediately. You will be processed in the morning and held here overnight." Her voice was calm and steady while her gut was churning. She turned to Antonio. "Get him out of my sight."
Adam had bought some of her cupcakes and took them through to the small kitchen. "Not much. I was worried about you?" she admitted.
"Don't be. I'm fine." He came back and sat in the chair opposite her. Two days he felt so close but now the physical and emotional distance between them was unsettling. Maggie's place certainly wasn't big but it felt like an ocean between them. He could have been sitting on the other side of the world for how close he felt to her now.
"Adam, why didn't you tell me what happened when Roman was arrested. You made yourself bait?"
"I did what needed to be done. I was just doing my job. That was all."
Kim knew very well that wasn't all it was. Roman was coming after Adam for whatever reason and he put himself at risk because of it. She was glad she didn't know at the time because the very thought of it would have pushed her over the edge and she would have begged him not to do it. "Well thank you. I really appreciate it."
Silence fell over them. Kim watched as he picked at a loose thread on his jacket. She could still read him and his body language told her he was agitated.
"Tell me about the push test." He suddenly blurted out without looking at her. It made Kim jump a little and she wasn't sure she had heard him correctly.
"The what?"
"The P.U.S.H T.E.S.T." he repeated slowly and bitterly.
A small gasped escaped Kim's lips.
"Tell me." He demanded. He needed to know.
Kim took a deep breath. "When I found out that you'd been engaged twice before me I kinda freaked out. Roman suggested I give you the push test. That I should ask you to push back the wedding and if you agreed it meant that you didn't really want to marry me."
Adam slowly lifted his head, his eyes were so hard and it made her wince. "Do you know how pathetic that sounds?" He eventually spat out. He was angry and he had every right to be.
"Yes I do. Now I do. Now I know it was Roman playing mind games and I fell for it."
"He called you stupid, for listening to him. Did you know that?" Now he sounded sad.
"He called me worse that that I can assure you."
"Like what?"
"Doesn't matter anymore does it?"
Adam shrugged "I guess not." Again the silence was deafening. He was trying hard not to let his anger show because he didn't want to scare her, not after everything she'd already been through. "So you called off our engagement because Roman told you that I didn't want to marry you, because of a made up test. Did I get that right?"
"When it all boils down to it yes. That was the start of it." Kim knew, however painful it was that truth and honesty were her only options. "You didn't seem interested in the wedding or living together or meeting my Mom."
"We were living together basically and I said when Al was sorted we'd find a place."
"I know, but we couldn't really agree on what type of place."
"For the love of god Kim, we'd looked at a couple of places. What was the rush? It wasn't like we weren't together nearly every night anyway." He ran his hand up and down his thighs. "Meeting you Mom, that was shitty of me I know and I am sorry. I couldn't understand how that caused you to walk away from us though because I didn't know the rest of it." He stood up and started pacing again. He'd paced around this room a lot lately. "I thought that if blowing off one dinner was all it took to get you to call off our engagement and dump me that obviously you didn't love me and what was the point of coming after you. You didn't love me like I loved you."
"It wasn't like that at all. Adam I did love you, more than anything." Looking up at him he turned his head away. "I still do." She whispered and by his lack of reaction she doubted that he heard her but he did and it was like a knife to his heart.
"I wanted to talk to you so many times but every time I came near you, you pushed me away. That day, in the squad room I was happy that you were working with us and I thought if I had a moment I could talk to you and I was so nervous. I didn't know how or where to start. You didn't give me a second of your time though and when I congratulated you on the bust you looked annoyed that I had actually spoken to you and you called me Ruzek and I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach again. You were like ice." The sadness in his voice made her heart break. "Well to me anyway."
"I was trying to protect myself."
"From me?"
"From having my heart broken again."
"You broke your own heart. I would have done anything for you." Slowly the anger seeped back in "Anything. And then you only looked miserable when you saw me. Whenever I saw you with him..." he couldn't bring himself to say that bastard's name. "You were laughing and having a great time. You looked happy. What did you want me to feel? What did you want me to think?"
"How much you loved me and missed me?" Kim cried angrily.
"Missed you? Missed you?" He laid his hands on his chest. "I was devastated and everyday you stayed away I died a little more inside. You know Mouse tried to set me up with some random chick and you know what I did? I walked away because I couldn't cheat on you."
"Adam." He held up his hand to stop her talking.
"Can I tell you something?" Kim nodded. "When I found out you had been in that ambush all I could think about was you. Were you okay? My heart was literally in my throat the whole trip over. I wanted to find out the truth of what happened with that kid because I believed in you, you are a great cop and I was out of my mind worrying about how you would cope…." He paused and sucked in a deep breath as he choked on his words. "Without me to hold you. Then in the courtroom, I felt like I'd been kicked in the balls, I actually didn't think anything could be worse than what I had already been through but I was wrong. Dying would have hurt less than that."
"I'm so sorry. I could see the pain on your face and knew that I caused it and I hated myself for that. I still do."
He continued without acknowledging that she had even spoken. "But you'd moved on, made your choice and I had to get over it. I respected you and your decisions and decided it was time to just move on. You obviously never loved me the way that I'd loved you. You made me look like a fool, so I decided to be the bigger person and get out of your way. I wasn't going to be that pathetic man anymore who was pining over someone who didn't love them. I had to let go of whatever sliver of hope I still had because you had made your decision and chosen someone else. When I came talked to you in the locker room and told you that I still cared about you and that I had your back, I don't know, I felt like I saw the faintest glimmer of something in your eyes. I thought perhaps you still did care but that turned out to be some cruel joke. So I decided that you could do whatever you liked because your life and mine were no longer linked."
"Adam, I know how it must of seemed to you, but what it looked like on the outside and the reality of what I was feeling were miles apart."
"My perception was my reality because you gave me nothing else. We were done." He sat back down in defeat. The last of his resolve shattered. "I've accepted it." He spoke with such finality that Kim felt like she had been hit with a tonne of bricks.
"I made mistake after mistake. I feel like this is karma."
Adam snapped his head up suddenly. "Don't say that. What he did to you wasn't karma; it wasn't payback. It was all him and his sick and twisted mind."
"I convinced myself that he loved me and that I could love him." Kim stared him directly in the eye and didn't flinch even when she saw a mask of anger and hurt descend over his face. "But what I was trying to do was find something that filled a hole in my heart that was never going to be filled. It was nothing like what I had with you; from the start we had something, it felt so right. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, it always felt wrong but I couldn't stop myself. He told me that he loved me…probably and wanted me to give up everything I had here and move away with him. I was supposed to give up my whole life on a declaration of I love you, probably."
"You know I talked to Roman, ages ago when you started asking me to not worry about setting a date, after I was jammed up and had my badge pulled. I talked to him and asked him if you had said anything to him about postponing the wedding and he said you never mentioned it. Now I know he was lying and playing games with us. He put those doubts in your head and you chose to listen to him rather than talk to me."
"I don't know why. I don't know why he hated you and I together. I don't know what he had against you."
"When did it start?"
"What?"
"All of it. The relationship, the abuse?"
"Adam."
"Tell me."
"He came to the theatre with me one night. I had two tickets, I had bought them months before when we were together. We were talking one day and I told him about them and he turned up. I had a nice night and.." she twisted her hands in her lap. "I thought it was a sweet thing to do. Then that whole laptop thing and you were angry and basically told him to go ahead and date me. I was furious with you and I kissed him. It was a few weeks after that. That baby in the duffel bag case was so tough and it just kinda happened." She hated talking about it and she could tell by the pain on his face he didn't want to hear it either but they needed too. At the very least they needed to clear this air between them. What it meant after that she had no idea.
"When you were with me, did you think about being with him?"
"No, not once. Adam I would never have cheated on you. Never."
Adam was drawing circles on his thigh. He couldn't look at her. He almost hated her right now, almost. Hate was such a strong emotion, as was love and it was a fine line he was walking.
Kim continued. "Then when he was shot I felt obligated to support him."
"I didn't feel obligated to support you when you were shot. I supported you without a moment's hesitation because I knew that I loved you."
Kim heard him, heard his broken heart speaking. "He kept reminding me that he was shot, that he took a bullet for me, that he stayed in Chicago doing a job that he hated because of me. It was subtle but I guess it was all part of his emotional abuse. The physical stuff happened later. The emotional stuff came first. He locked me in my room one day." Kim was shocked by the flash of pain she saw on Adam's face but it was gone in an instant. "He would check my phone daily, take it off me when I got home. He had find my phone on his so he could see where I was. He knew when I was at the gym, at work everything. I suppose initially I thought it was sweet that he wanted to know what I was doing and that he was interested in me."
Kim got up from the couch and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. She leant on the bench to steady herself. Her chest ached from the burn and the heaviness in her heart. She looked at Adam. His eyes were closed but he still looked tortured and she hated seeing him like that and she hated that it was all her fault that he was so broken. What she would give to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but if he pushed her away that would be hard to come back from.
Wrapping her arms around her waist she walked slowly around the small lounge room. She started speaking again, breaking the silence and Adam opened his eyes and watched her. "One day I got home and he was angry about something at work I think. Anyway I decided to go home and let him cool down. He thought I was going out to meet someone, I am guessing probably you. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and slammed the door on my hand. I was so stunned I just let him apologise and comfort me. I wanted to get it checked out because I couldn't move my fingers and he agreed to take me to the hospital a few days later as long as I told them it happened at work. I don't know why I went along with it."
Adam clenched his fists tightly. He couldn't understand how people could physically abuse someone they claimed to love. Hell, he couldn't understand how anyone could hurt a woman and he certainly couldn't understand how she let him get away with it. It made no sense to him; she was stronger than that. She knew what women went through everyday and they often picked up the pieces but she was willing to let herself become one of those women. He struggled to understand why.
"The burn, I got home late from the gym and he just threw a cup of coffee at me, I don't know why. I was in my gym clothes so I copped the whole lot. This time he wouldn't let me see anyone about it. It got infected, I think I didn't treat it in the hope that something would happen and someone would notice. I needed someone else to save me because I couldn't save myself. Then I collapsed at work. That morning when I told him I wasn't well he told me to stop whining and get on with it. I feel so pathetic and stupid. When Halstead came in I was relieved, finally I knew I was going to be okay."
"I know you felt like you couldn't come to me, but I wish you had. I would have helped you or at the very least anyone in Intelligence would have helped you. Platt or Erin would have helped you."
"I know but I couldn't. I couldn't see a way out."
When he finally he spoke again it was barely above a whisper and she almost didn't hear him. "Did he force himself onto you?"
Kim wanted to deny it; she wanted this whole conversation to stop. She covered her face with her hands. Adam watched her from his seat. He saw the anguish on her face and all her vulnerability. He was surprised at how beautiful she was at that moment. It was when he loved her the most when she was at her lowest – when she had been shot, trapped in the warehouse, when Nadia had been murdered – her strength shone through and he loved that about her.
She sank to the floor as she started sobbing. Adam leapt from his seat and in an instant was beside her on the floor and had her in his arms. It felt so familiar, holding her as she cried. He had wanted this for so long, to have her in his arms again. Not like this though. "Oh Kim, I'm so sorry." Adam knew by the look on her face and he felt the fight drain out of her.
"Adam. Everything is so fucked up. Everything. I've ruined everything. I was so happy."