"I'm no good without this job. I'll find something to fill this thing in me but it'll be something wrong. Y'know? I'll lose you, I'll lose Mack…"
Adam's words played in Kim's head over and over like a catchy pop tune. Kim hated that she had to cut the conversation short. She could tell that something had been bothering him for about a few months now. Once his rehab started picking up in regards to endurance and strength training he had made one or two comments that seemed to be made in jest but she felt like there was a small sense of self doubt in them. As his time off the job continued there were more comments and she could tell that his insecurities were building. They seemed to have climaxed as of late. His anxiety was flowing off him in waves regarding him passing his tests.
She was patient and reassuring before and after drawing the truth out of him. She knew something wasn't quite right but didn't want to push too hard. His insomnia had returned and what started as finding him watching a late night movie or playing video games in the early morning had turned into him heading out for poker. She wasn't surprised when she heard his reasoning. He had worked consistently for a decade; take that thrill away from someone within a snap of a finger, or a pull of a trigger, and you've got a recipe for feeling dysregulated.
It'd been a few days since they had wrapped up the case. Adam had been into work and had spent a couple of shifts catching up on new developments; Voight hadn't wanted him out in the field right away unless it was absolutely an all hands on deck case. Adam adjusted well to being back but Kim knew that they still needed to have a conversation. He would never admit to needing a sense of closure to how he had felt. Sure, everything was going well at the moment but in the back of her mind that line just teased at her consciousness. It sounded a lot like one he had said a couple of years prior when he asked her if she and Mack would find someone else, someone better and move on from him.
She felt like there was no time better than the present to try and have what might be a difficult conversation with him. Quite possibly for both of them. If she waited any longer they'd probably catch some heater of a case that would have them working surveillance shits at night. As they made their way back to the kitchen to clean up after getting Makayla to bed for the night Kim seized her opportunity:
"Hey Adam? Think we could sit and talk about something?"
"Uh yea, sure. What's up?"
"I want to talk to you about what you said on the phone right before I needed to hang up that day…."
"Ahhh Kim, that was nothing. I'm sorry about that, I was just being a baby about being stuck at home." She knew he would try to do this. Downplay how he was feeling that day. Pretend that it was nothing and that everything was good now.
"Adam it's not nothing. I get it you're good now so you don't feel like that at the moment but; I never got to say my piece that day. So would you mind hearing me out? Please?"
He nodded and gave her the floor.
"It's not the first time you've said something like this. The first couple times it was just about the job. Now it's about Makayla and I." She reached for his hands, needing to feel a connection to him in some way. His hands found hers quickly and he looked up with relief to be able to hold onto her, those familiar cracks were back.
"You, Adam Ruzek, are so much more than this job. So much more than any job you could ever hold. I get it, policing is in your blood, hell your dad had you in a little blue onesie the day you left the hospital…"
"Hey that little checkered beanie was kind of cute though" He added as they both laughed
"It was. But Adam, I didn't fall for you because you were a cop. We met on this job and it allowed me to see some of the best qualities of you. But 'Officer Ruzek' isn't who I want to come home to every night. It's Adam Ruzek. The guy who lets our daughter paint his nails and then takes her to play hockey with him."
"Kim, that's all because I have this job to keep me straight…"
"Could be. But I feel like these little self doubts, this insecurity has been building within you for a while and we've never handled it. Then I added to it. I placed a ring back in your hand years ago and put this thought in your head that I could leave at any time. The two aren't always connected but there's a lot of overlap there. You feel like you aren't good enough and then you feel like we'll leave you. I said it a year ago Adam and I'll say it again and again as much as I have to. I believe in YOU. It breaks my heart when you snapshot your identity like this. You don't see what everyone else does. How good of a man you are. How good of a friend you are. How good of a father you are. How good of a partner you've been and continue to be. I wouldn't be here like this if it weren't for you. That wasn't 'Officer Ruzek', that was Adam. Adam did that for me, Drove me to therapy, went to therapy. YOU did that for me, for us."
As she talked she couldn't help the tears that escaped her eyes. She didn't want to cry. She wasn't trying to make him feel bad. She wanted him to know how much he meant to her. How proud and grateful she was that he stood by her and that she was determined to do the same for him. She never took her eyes off him as she talked. He struggled with eye contact when he got emotional. He'd look down at the table or off to the side from time to time. She didn't mind; he wasn't doing it to tune her out. He had a lot of emotions pouring through him. With his left hand he would swipe at the stray tears that puddled in his own eyes from time to time but always made sure to keep hers held firm with his right. He didn't respond verbally when she paused. He tried to but no words came out when he opened his mouth so he simply nodded prompting her to pull her chair closer so she was sitting beside him rather than across from him.
"Adam, honey, I'm not leaving you. I'm by your side. No matter what. That's not going to change. Not then, not now, not ever. Makayla is not leaving you either. We are a family. No job, no titles, nothing will change that. And I will tell you every day if I need to."
The few stray tears that were puddling on the bottom of his eyelids were now steady streams as the dam that he had been building to protect him from his greatest fear for the last 8 years finally broke. He let them and with it felt an enormous sense of relief. Kim had gotten up and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head right next to his whispering the same thing she had said to him just about a week ago: "I've got you".