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Kim saw Adam drop to the ground out of the corner of her eye and felt her stomach drop right along with him.
They’d been tracking a trio of drug dealers, who couldn’t care less about how many bodies they left in their wake, for weeks when they’d finally cornered them in the abandoned warehouse. And it hadn’t taken more than five minutes for the encounter to turn deadly as first the dealers had pulled out their weapons and then the members of intelligence returned fire. And now Adam was on the ground and that was blood splattered all over his face.
“Adam,” she yelled, eyes darting back and forth from his prone body and the dealers, two of whom were still on their feet and fighting hard. Her stomach twisted when Adam didn’t so much as stir before glancing sidelong at Jay on her other side. “Cover me,” she barked.
Jay didn’t argue, just nodded sharply and obediently squeezed off a half dozen rounds, forcing the dealers to duck for cover and giving Kim enough time to run across the exposed area separating her from Adam. She was terrified of what she might find when she did but she didn’t hesitate, quickly reaching his side and dropping to her knees.
Relief, more intense than Kim thought she’d ever experienced before, swept through her as she saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and she felt near tears as she quickly searched for injury.
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, choking on something between a laugh and a sob. She’d found the wound on his scalp and her probing had caused him to open his eyes and hiss something uncomplimentary at her.
A bullet had clipped him, and by Kim’s estimate had been less than an inch away from doing fatal damage, but other than that he seemed okay. She didn’t let herself think about that and busied herself by yanking off her jacket, wadding it up, and pressing it to the wound with one hand while she tried to clean as much blood off his face as she could with the other.
“Kim?” Adam frowned and peered up at her when her ministrations didn’t ease. “What happened? Are we clear?”
Kim was more concerned about the slight slurring to his words, and truthfully wouldn’t have cared if the drug dealers right at that moment were driving away in a getaway car. But he was struggling to push himself up to see for himself, so Kim risked a quick look around; the gunfire had ended and Hailey and Kev were cuffing a dealer each while Voight stood next to the third who was on the ground and unmoving. Jay however, was standing apart from the others, speaking with his phone held up to his ear, as he looked at Kim and Adam.
“We’re okay, we’re okay, an ambulance is coming, you’re going to be okay.”
Kim knew she was babbling but didn’t know how to stop. Adam was the unshakable one between them, the grounded one, always on his feet, always ready to take on whatever came next. She wasn’t sure she knew how to be that for him.
Adam reached up and found the hand that was still pressing the wadded up cloth to his head, fingers fitting around her wrist easily as his thumb slid back and forth over her thundering pulse.
“I know, I know I’m going to be okay.” His gaze wasn’t quite focused on her, his words still slurring a little, but he sounded sure of himself.
So sure, that Kim found herself asking, “How do you know that?”
“Because you’re with me.”
This time it was her heart that swooped, but before Kim could figure out what to say in response, the sound of approaching sirens reached her ears, and within seconds, Sylvie and Violet were bursting into the warehouse, a gurney rolling between them.
Sylvie and Violet were calm as they tended to Adam, a calmness that Kim latched onto even as her stomach still twisted painfully at the sight of him in the back of the ambulance. Adam, who claimed to be feeling better with every passing minute, wanted to skip the hospital altogether once his head had been bandaged but it was a non-negotiable for the two paramedics.
So as they were preparing to depart, Kim found herself stepping up onto the back of the ambulance, pausing only long enough to toss a “I’m riding along” over her shoulder to the others. No one objected, possibly because they’d already decided that it made the most sense for her to go along, or even more likely because they knew arguing would be futile.
Kim felt like she didn’t know where to look or what to do with her hands as she sat beside Sylvie in the ambulance. She caught Adam’s gaze once long enough for something deep and intense to flash between them but then she looked away, the ambulance feeling much too small and much too public all at the same time to say all the things she wanted to.
Sylvie, oblivious to everything that was hanging unsaid between them, said comfortingly, “They probably won’t even keep you overnight, you’ll be able to sleep in your own bed.”
His own bed, in the apartment they shared together, with Makayla, who felt like she was both of theirs. Kim shuddered as she couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to go home without him and have to explain to Makayla where he was. The thought had her leaning forward once Sylvie turned away to fiddle with something and ease her hand into Adam’s, lifting it so she could brush a kiss to the back of his palm. She allowed herself to rest her forehead against his hand for a fraction of a second as she savoured it’s warmth, the reminder that he was still here, that he was still alive.
They didn’t rush exactly when they got to the hospital, but moved just fast enough that Kim was worried about being left behind, not quite ready to have Adam out of her sight just yet. But she was stopped at the entrance to his room by an unfamiliar doctor in a white coat.
“Family?” he inquired, not noticing or perhaps graciously pretending not to notice as Kim stood on tiptoe to keep Adam in her sight over his shoulder.
The question drew Kim up short. Was she family? No, not really. But she didn’t not feel like family either. How could she possibly explain their tangled history to this stranger? Did being engaged once make them family? Did them almost having one child together and ending up with another make them family? But Adam was more than just Makayla’s father to her. He was her rock. Her safe place.
“He’s my partner,” Kim said, the word feeling wholly inadequate for everything Adam was to her.
Whether the doctor took ‘partner’ to mean in the romantic sense, or if he just noticed her badge, he stepped aside and allowed her to finally enter either way. Kim wasted no time in crossing the room to slip into the chair at Adam’s bedside.
“This really isn’t necessary,” he was arguing with a nurse who was checking under his bandage.
“Let’s let the doctor decide that,” she said briskly in response.
Kim could tell Adam wasn’t exactly happy with that, but maybe he could tell that between Kim and the medical staff he wasn’t getting out without a thorough look over, because he sunk back against the pillows without further complaint. So, for hours the doctors and nurses had him turn this way, and look at this light, lie still for this scan and so on.
Kim wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but between one test and the next she found her hand had closed around Adam’s once again, thumb automatically rubbing soothing circles into the back of his palm as she saw him get more and more frustrated with how long everything was taking. It proved helpful when the doctor mused that a CT scan might not go astray either and Kim could sense Adam gearing up to protest. He paused however when she squeezed his hand comfortingly, glanced at her, and then acquiesced with a sigh and slight nod.
Throughout it all there was a constant hustle and bustle in the treatment room as the doctor appeared and disappeared, nurses came in and out, along with x-ray technicians, and all manner of other medical staff. So Adam and Kim didn’t get a chance to be alone with each other until he’d returned from his scan and they were impatiently awaiting the results.
“Sorry if I freaked you out back at the warehouse with what I said,” Adam said suddenly, interrupting the silence of the room. They’d both been staring at the little tv in the top corner of the room, pretending to watch the muted cooking show that was playing on the screen.
“You didn’t freak me out,” Kim said automatically, not even pretending to play dumb.
Adam scoffed, a more cynical sound that he would usually direct at her. “I saw your face.”
Her mother had always told Kim that she wore her heart on her sleeve, and while she’d mostly trained herself out of that trait working in intelligence, it seemed that Adam Ruzek would always be able to read her.
“I wasn’t freaked out,” Kim corrected softly, but didn’t elaborate further.
“Kim…” Adam prompted.
She sighed but stood from her chair and perched on the edge of his bed instead so she could say this to him face-to-face.
“I wasn’t freaked out,” she insisted. “But I was surprised.” The question was written all over his face so she continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever realised that I could be such a comfort to you. It always feels like you’re there to pick me up when I fall, to hold me when I’m breaking apart, and it scared me for a long time thinking that you might be able to handle walking away from me but I would never survive losing you.”
She doesn’t say it out loud, but she knows they’re both thinking of their broken engagement, of the thought that he might someday grow bored of her and walk away just like had with all his other engagements, of the way she had made the decision to walk away first and the way she’s kept him at arm's length ever since. It had taken them both a long time to recognise it for the act of self preservation that it was.
“I guess part of me still thought that you didn’t need me as much as I need you. Until you said that, that you would be alright as long as I was with you, because…” Kim trailed off and took a deep breath, wondering if she was really going to admit what had been growing clearer to her for months now. “Because that’s how I feel about you, Adam. All I need to be alright is you.”
She didn’t even realise a tear had slipped down her cheek until he reached out and brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. He didn’t pull his hand away immediately afterwards though, cupping her cheek with it as he looked earnestly into her eyes.
“Darlin’,” he said, his voice the most serious she’d ever heard. “I have always needed you and I will always need you.”
Kim hiccupped against the rising threat of more tears, but allowed Adam to pull her closer so they could finally lean forward for a kiss that felt like it had been years in the making.
“We’re all in on this, right?” Adam asked when they’d drawn back far enough to rest their foreheads together. “No more messing around, no more running, we’re all in, the proposal, and the bad banquet hall, and the babies.”
“Yes,” she sighed, her breath warm against his face. “Yes to all of it. I love you.”
“I love you too. Now can we please find that damn doctor so he’ll let me out of here and we can go home?”
Kim chuckled, and leaned forward to sneak another quick kiss. Then she leaned back, eyes sparkling, and said, “You got it.”