agirllost | Pieces of the Sun

Entry tags:

adam kaufman

Pieces of the Sun

[OOC: Millitimed to sometime before Palmer's death]

Kim's come into the bar to get away from the stress of the outside. If someone had told her that she would come to the bar to escape stress a few years ago she would have thought they were obviously high.

For the first time in a while, she's not here to see anyone, just to relax. She's listening to a song on her iPod that she vaguely remembers from 2007.

Emo Punk isn't really helping her feel better so she switches to something a little more mellow.

As she's sitting in the booth she notices a familiar dark haired man trying to slouch his way down to normal size and about to walk right past her.

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Jersey is a hell of a lot safer than LA, which is why he's there.

"My bad." Adam isn't very well-versed in wedding traditions, so he'll take her word for that. "I'll take it back, then." He's developed a capacity to be...slightly more charming than he used to be.

"Yeah, I...tried to quit, got a job at NJIT for a while, but I just couldn't, you know?"

"Too late," she tries to say lightly.

"Yeah, I - " she lets her hands rest on the table. "I was going to school to finish a degree and then -- it just didn't seem like -- there were...things that happened."

"There's always something," he says. It's not meant as a crack at her, or the famous Bauer propensity for attracting trouble--he does understand.

Things always happen.

"Yeah," she's quiet for a moment. "I never got to tell you how sorry I was about your sister."

Even after several years, hearing people mention Sarah is hard. He knows Kim means well. It's a nice thing to say. He just doesn't talk about this.

"Thanks," he says, and his thanks are sincere, but he's already trying to think of a way to change the subject.

"Anyway, uh, so...you're doing okay back at CTU, and everything?"

Kim understands, but she had to say it, since at the time Adam's loss was far from her mind.

She nods, "It's different but...I have a lot of history with that place," she glances up at him. "When is it for you?"

"2012. Fourth of July, actually." Woohoo.

"I guess I shouldn't really be surprised that you went back," he muses.

"I'm from a little later," she admits, fighting the urge to warn him.

"Really?"

After what happened on September 19, it was clearer who really belonged at CTU and who didn't. Adam isn't really built for regrets, per se, but he'd realized when it was all over that he'd been wrong about her.

"Yeah. Some people just...have to be there."

CTU's an addictive place.

"I never thought I was one of those people," she murmurs. "But circumstances force you to make new choices."

New choices like spontaneously moving across the country when he'd never left California in his life before Sarah died.

"I kind of miss Los Angeles sometimes."

"What part, the smog or the traffic?" She gives him a half-smile.

"I live in Newark, Kim. Don't talk to me about smog." He laughs a little, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Honestly, I miss having coworkers who aren't complete idiots."

This is probably news, as Adam never gave any indication that he ever thought of his LA coworkers as anything but drooling Neanderthals.

She grins in return, "Adam, you wanted to give Chloe a virus when she copied data from your side of the server," she points out. "How much worse can you feel about your new coworkers?"

"No, no, it's different," he protests, although that memory is kind of hilarious in retrospect.

"Okay--remember that one time you got mad at me for something and hacked into the tree structure and locked me out of my system? None of them know how to do that. It's...oh my god, it's seriously ridiculous."

He can't quite resist a grin.

"Anyway...Chloe and I worked that all out a while ago."

"That's...really bad for the people of Newark," she smiles at the level of incompetence because sometimes it's nice to hear about CTU branches that are worse. Especially since Division is forever pointing out things they're doing wrong.

Something about Adam's grin and the way he says Chloe's name makes her pause for a moment.

"You did?"

"Good thing Newark sucks enough that nobody would want to bomb it." Mostly they just handle spilloff from whatever New York City and Philadelphia can't deal with, but it's a living.

...eheh. Of course, their method of 'working it out' mostly involved Adam working Chloe out of her clothing and Chloe working her tongue down his throat, but he is tactful enough not to put it that way.

"We've been seeing each other for a little while, yeah."

Chloe and Adam. Well, that's proof that things can change drastically.

"That's so great, Adam. " Chloe's been through a lot these last few years too. "I didn't even know you guys were talking."

He shrugs, a little sheepishly, but he's happy. He doesn't know how long this thing with Chloe will last, but--he wants it to last. Really wants it to last. That surprises him.

"Chloe lives here, and I was Bound for six months. I blame the Bar."

"You can blame the bar for a lot of things, but liking someone isn't one of them." She says, grinning.

"I've been in and out for a while, I don't know how I kept missing you."

"Yeah, me either," he says, with what passes for amiability with Adam. "Can we blame the Bar for that?"

He has learned to relax and have a slight sense of humor, when his unit isn't dealing with severe terror threats so often. Shame that it's all going to be ruined in a few weeks, really.

"It's totally the bar's fault," she agrees with a slight smile. "You're lucky that you have a permanent door, I used to have to wait for one to appear and sometimes that was...a long time."

"It's not really permanent, just kinda semi-regular, but I think that's what Bar does for most people once she's brainwashed them into liking her."

"In a real emergency I can get here, but I mostly wait for the door." Gating is exhausting and very easy to mess up.

Adam thinks for a moment about what Lyrae told him, about Kim being one of the Bar's few channelers. He just doesn't get that.

"How do you get here without a door?" he asks slowly.

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