SVU - katie/elliot - and she'll go - PG
title: and she'll go
fandom: Law & Order SVU
pairing: elliot/katie (ofc)
letter: o for one-way - table # 11 for a_to_z_prompts
summary: Katie makes a decision about her relationship with Ben, but that's not her biggest worry...
rating: PG.
word count: 2383
warnings/spoilers: None.
a/n: Katie Summers is an original character of mine who I'm pairing with Detective Elliot Stabler for my fic's in this challenge. You'll get to know more about her as you read :) SVU timeline wise is set during the time Elliot is separated from his wife; around seasons 5-7.
disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Law and Order SVU. This is purely written for entertainment only.
And She'll Go
When Katie ended things with Ben; it went about as well as she expected... which was not well at all. She had to admit to him that those feelings he felt, the ones that he believed Katie reciprocated, only went one-way. She didn’t feel the same way anymore; and it was unfair of her to be with someone she didn’t completely care about.
Ben, however, was angrier than Katie had ever seen him; she didn’t know he’d even had a side like this. “Where has this come from, Katie?!” He yelled as they stood a foot from each other in her living room. “I mean, what the hell?”
“I’m sorry.” Katie said for the tenth time. “I just... I can’t do this anymore; it’s not fair to you.”
“I don’t believe you.” He snapped cruelly.
Now Katie was the one to be annoyed. “What the hell does that mean? Would you rather I stayed with you and lied my way through our lives? I won’t do that, Ben, and you shouldn’t either!”
“I’m not lying!” Ben bellowed, his words echoing through the stillness of the empty apartment. The fact that she hadn’t answered was, in itself, an answer. “You’re lying...?”
“Ben-”
“What is it? Another guy? Who?” Now he had an idea in his head; he wasn’t letting it go. “Are you seeing someone else?!”
“It doesn’t matter, Ben!”
“Who is it?!” Ben yelled; her refusal to say she had been faithful to him a gigantic clue to him that she had apparently cheated on him. “Who?”
“You have to leave.” Katie said, managing to turn herself away from him and head towards the door; hoping he would follow. “Give me your key and get out.” She knew she was being callous; but he wasn’t exactly agreeable at the moment... not that Katie could blame him. It was her fault he was acting like this; but that didn’t mean she had to stand there and take it. “Please don’t make this harder than it is.”
Still in shock, Ben ambled towards the door. “How... can you do this?” He said quietly as he hung by the door; fumbling around in his pocket for the spare key Katie had given him months ago.
“I don’t know what else I can say.”
“Simple; don’t say anything.” He said, stepping out into the hallway. “Let me back inside.”
“I really am sorry, Ben,” Katie said sincerely. “And you might not understand it right now; but I am doing this because I care about-”
If Ben wasn’t the man he was, he might have spat at her, cursed at her, hell, even smacked her. “Just stop it!” His voice was low but cut Katie right off. “You didn’t do this for me... you did this for you.” He managed to smile; or smirk would be more accurate. “Have a good life, Katie.”
Alexis had showed up so fast Katie hadn’t even seen her until she had her arms around her best friend and neighbour. Alexis led Katie back to her apartment, sitting Katie on the reclining chair by her old TV and retreating to her tiny kitchen to get the pair of them a drink. Katie poured her heart out to Alexis, told her everything, but it turned out Alexis had suspicions of her own. Apparently Elliot sneaking in and out of the apartment building at all hours had been a big clue. She wasn’t surprised when Katie confessed to the affair; but she was sympathetic. She knew how Katie felt about Ben, and it must have been one hell of something with Elliot to make her end things. Ben was the perfect man; the all-American with boyish good looks who had been raised to respect women implicitly; he was the husband every mother would want her daughter to marry.
“Elliot must be fantastic in bed,” Alexis said; an attempt at humour; but the look on Katie’s face said she was definitely not in the mood to laugh about the situation yet. “I’m your best friend, Katie, I’ll say whatever you want me to.”
“Nothing; I don’t want you to say anything.” Katie muttered into her beer bottle.
“Ok...” Alexis swigged from her drink. “But I will say this... you did the right thing... well; first you did the wrong thing... but ending things with Ben was the right thing to do. And you know that; that’s why you feel so crappy.”
“You always talk so much when I ask you to be quiet?”
“Do you not know me?” Alexis smirked.
Sighing, Katie flopped back into Alexis’s recliner. “I wish Bonnie would call me.”
“She’s not talking to you?”
Katie shook her head and took another gulp of beer. “Mum said she called her; said she was coming to stay. I guess she’s really pissed at me...”
“No offence... but isn’t she a drug addict who got knocked up by her abusive boyfriend?”
Katie shot her a very offended look. “She’s smart. Yes, she made mistakes but she’s well aware of them...” She exhaled loudly. “Ok, maybe it is a little rich for her to react like she did but I don’t care. I just wish she’d talk to me.”
“Well, then you call her.” Alexis suggested. “You’re the big sister; call the shots.”
Nodding, Katie finished her beer and got to her feet. “You’re right. I’m gonna call her. Whatever she has to say to me she can say to my face.”
“Godspeed!” Alexis tipped her beer bottle towards Katie as her friend let herself out of the apartment.
Katie retreated into her apartment, wishing she couldn’t still smell Ben’s aftershave in the air, and went straight for the phone speed-dialling her mother, ignoring the hungry mews of her two cats slinking into the kitchen. One beer wasn’t enough to make Katie drunk; but it did calm her initial nerves that her sister might pick up the phone on the other end, and then promptly hang up. But she didn’t, Katie was grateful to hear her mother’s voice reply to her. “Hey, Mum, is Bonnie there?” She imagined her sister had told her mother about the affair... or maybe not... she might be mad, but Bonnie kept her word. Granted, she hadn’t specifically said she wouldn’t spill about the affair...
“No; I thought she was with you?” Paget said to her daughter.
Katie cocked her head to the side. “What? Why would you think that?”
“She sent me a text message saying she changed her mind... wasn’t coming to stay with me anymore.”
“When?”
“A couple of days ago,” Paget said. “Is she not there?”
Katie’s heart began to race. No, Bonnie wasn’t there. But that didn’t mean anything; she was probably on her way... maybe she’d gone back to PA to get the rest of her things... or met up with a friend... or told Paget she was going to Katie when really she was going somewhere else; that was believable. Bonnie and Paget never really did well staying in the same place together for too long; and Bonnie was mad at Katie... of course she’d lie... and so would Katie, because otherwise her mother would worry. “Oh, hang on,” Katie said, getting out her cell phone from her pocket as if her mother was right in front of her. “I have a text from her, too. Yeah; she’s coming in tonight. Sorry, Ma, I’ve just been a little frazzled.”
“That’s alright, honey.” Paget had suffered another bout of pneumonia and hadn’t been able to travel into the hospital to see Katie when she was admitted, but Katie and Ben had kept her updated. “When do you go back to work?”
Katie spent ten more minutes on the phone with her mother, trying to have a normal conversation with her, all the while trying to text and call Bonnie on her cell phone. Her sister didn’t answer. When she was finished on the phone to Paget, Katie took a shower and got ready for bed, texting Bonnie one last time.
“I don’t care if u txt back a whole bunch of curse words; just let me know ur ok.”
That would get a response, even if it was just “Fuck off”, and for some reason that made Katie a little less anxious, and with the aid of that one beer she’d had, she fell into a somewhat easy sleep after her exhausting day.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Bonnie didn’t answer her text at all. Two days after she’d lied to her mother; Katie was still trying to contact her sister with no avail. And even though she wasn’t due in to work until the next afternoon, she made her way to the precinct.
“Olivia!” She yelled frantically as soon as she saw the detective walking to her desk.
“Hey, thought you weren’t due back til-”
“Bonnie’s gone!” Katie interrupted her. “I can’t find her, I’ve called her and she won’t answer, it’s been days, and she-she would call. She would call me!”
“Ok, ok, Katie?” Olivia put her hands on Katie’s shoulders. “You need to calm down; alright?”
“I can’t just calm down!”
“What’s going on?” Elliot was behind Katie and touched the small of her back. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Bonnie.” Katie tried to sound calm as she explained to both Olivia and Elliot that they’d had an argument and she hadn’t seen or heard from her sister since.
When Katie started gathering a swarm of onlookers, Olivia led her into one of the interview rooms in the back, thankfully not one of the ugly, stale ones with the one-way mirror; it was ones of the ones that Katie frequented when she led family members to wait, or sat with children while their parents made statements... one of her few territories in the precinct.
Katie was alone with Olivia, and she knew Olivia would ask her why she and Katie had argued, what had they fought over. Katie thought at first to be vague, just be general in her statements so she wasn’t lying... but she knew that any information she withheld could be important to the case, even if it didn’t sound like it; she’d heard that speech from every cop in the office.
So when Olivia asked her what the fight was about, Katie didn’t hold back. “I’ve been sleeping with Elliot.” She said, watching Olivia’s face as her beautiful eyes grew round and her brows arched.
“What?”
“For a few months.” Katie confessed, shifting uncomfortably. “And when Bonnie found out she was so angry with me... she left me at the hospital...”
“Ah...” Olivia’s brain was obviously spinning; but at the same time she had to keep her mind on the job. “Ok... well... when did you last hear from her?”
“That day at the hospital; the day I was released.” Katie said. “Matt drove me home, and when I got there Katie wasn’t around; I figured she was walking; letting off steam; she does that. But... but she never came home. At first I thought I was just missing her, like she was purposely dodging me... and then I spoke to my mother; she said Bonnie called her and said she was going there to stay.” Hurriedly, Katie explained the rest to Olivia, the fact that Bonnie hadn’t actually spoken to Katie or Paget seemed to concern Olivia. “I have no idea where to look, Olivia.”
“Does she have any friends in the city?”
“Yeah, a few... she was going to this prenatal breathing class, she met some women there... and she seems to know more people in my apartment building than I do...”
“What about her boyfriend?”
Katie caught Olivia’s eyes; the boyfriend who had impregnated her sister and then beaten her to a bloody pulp mere months before. “Marcus Wembly.” She said. “I only know his name; and that he and Bonnie lived together when she was at Penn State. She said he didn’t know she came to live with me.”
“Could he have followed her?”
Katie shook her head. “No... maybe... it’s been months; why would he show up now?”
“Maybe he had a change of heart about the baby... wanted to reconcile?”
Fear rose in Katie’s throat. “Oh God... Bonnie would never go back to him... but if she said no to him? I mean...” Her eyes flushed with tears. “You saw what he did to her last time.”
“Hey, don’t think the worst, ok?” Olivia said calmly. “I’ll make some calls; you wait here.” She smiled and rose to her feet.
“Liv?” Katie wiped her hand across her cheek to remove the tears. “You didn’t say anything... about Elliot...”
Olivia shrugged, and smiled weakly. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say... you’re both adults.”
“I broke up with my boyfriend.” Katie told her; suddenly feeling extremely immature, like she was involved in teenage love triangle.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Olivia said formally. “Your life is your life.”
Though she was smiling, as forced as it was, Katie knew Olivia disapproved. Hell; everyone disapproved. No one was happy for her; and that was okay. She could deal with that. Right now, her mind was just on Bonnie. She needed to find her sister.
“Hey.”
When Elliot entered the room, Katie read the look on his face. “Olivia told you she knows.”
Elliot nodded. “Yeah... I think she’s more pissed that she wasn’t the first to know...”
“Have you heard from Bonnie?” Katie knew it was early; but a call from a cop might startle her sister into contacting her.
“No; nothing yet, we’re tracking down the boyfriend.”
“So,” Katie shrugged. “What are you doing in here then?” She just watched him as he pulled a chair up beside her, sat down, reached over and held her hand.
“I’m waiting with you.” He said calmly, with a sympathetic smile.
For some reason, this simple act touched Katie right in the depths of her heart. It was an unnecessary thing for him to have done, he could just be out there in the pit searching for Bonnie, but instead he was in here, making sure she was okay.
It was the first moment Katie had felt good about ending things with Ben; it was her first sign she had made the right decision.
xxx
fandom: Law & Order SVU
pairing: elliot/katie (ofc)
letter: o for one-way - table # 11 for a_to_z_prompts
summary: Katie makes a decision about her relationship with Ben, but that's not her biggest worry...
rating: PG.
word count: 2383
warnings/spoilers: None.
a/n: Katie Summers is an original character of mine who I'm pairing with Detective Elliot Stabler for my fic's in this challenge. You'll get to know more about her as you read :) SVU timeline wise is set during the time Elliot is separated from his wife; around seasons 5-7.
disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Law and Order SVU. This is purely written for entertainment only.
And She'll Go
When Katie ended things with Ben; it went about as well as she expected... which was not well at all. She had to admit to him that those feelings he felt, the ones that he believed Katie reciprocated, only went one-way. She didn’t feel the same way anymore; and it was unfair of her to be with someone she didn’t completely care about.
Ben, however, was angrier than Katie had ever seen him; she didn’t know he’d even had a side like this. “Where has this come from, Katie?!” He yelled as they stood a foot from each other in her living room. “I mean, what the hell?”
“I’m sorry.” Katie said for the tenth time. “I just... I can’t do this anymore; it’s not fair to you.”
“I don’t believe you.” He snapped cruelly.
Now Katie was the one to be annoyed. “What the hell does that mean? Would you rather I stayed with you and lied my way through our lives? I won’t do that, Ben, and you shouldn’t either!”
“I’m not lying!” Ben bellowed, his words echoing through the stillness of the empty apartment. The fact that she hadn’t answered was, in itself, an answer. “You’re lying...?”
“Ben-”
“What is it? Another guy? Who?” Now he had an idea in his head; he wasn’t letting it go. “Are you seeing someone else?!”
“It doesn’t matter, Ben!”
“Who is it?!” Ben yelled; her refusal to say she had been faithful to him a gigantic clue to him that she had apparently cheated on him. “Who?”
“You have to leave.” Katie said, managing to turn herself away from him and head towards the door; hoping he would follow. “Give me your key and get out.” She knew she was being callous; but he wasn’t exactly agreeable at the moment... not that Katie could blame him. It was her fault he was acting like this; but that didn’t mean she had to stand there and take it. “Please don’t make this harder than it is.”
Still in shock, Ben ambled towards the door. “How... can you do this?” He said quietly as he hung by the door; fumbling around in his pocket for the spare key Katie had given him months ago.
“I don’t know what else I can say.”
“Simple; don’t say anything.” He said, stepping out into the hallway. “Let me back inside.”
“I really am sorry, Ben,” Katie said sincerely. “And you might not understand it right now; but I am doing this because I care about-”
If Ben wasn’t the man he was, he might have spat at her, cursed at her, hell, even smacked her. “Just stop it!” His voice was low but cut Katie right off. “You didn’t do this for me... you did this for you.” He managed to smile; or smirk would be more accurate. “Have a good life, Katie.”
Alexis had showed up so fast Katie hadn’t even seen her until she had her arms around her best friend and neighbour. Alexis led Katie back to her apartment, sitting Katie on the reclining chair by her old TV and retreating to her tiny kitchen to get the pair of them a drink. Katie poured her heart out to Alexis, told her everything, but it turned out Alexis had suspicions of her own. Apparently Elliot sneaking in and out of the apartment building at all hours had been a big clue. She wasn’t surprised when Katie confessed to the affair; but she was sympathetic. She knew how Katie felt about Ben, and it must have been one hell of something with Elliot to make her end things. Ben was the perfect man; the all-American with boyish good looks who had been raised to respect women implicitly; he was the husband every mother would want her daughter to marry.
“Elliot must be fantastic in bed,” Alexis said; an attempt at humour; but the look on Katie’s face said she was definitely not in the mood to laugh about the situation yet. “I’m your best friend, Katie, I’ll say whatever you want me to.”
“Nothing; I don’t want you to say anything.” Katie muttered into her beer bottle.
“Ok...” Alexis swigged from her drink. “But I will say this... you did the right thing... well; first you did the wrong thing... but ending things with Ben was the right thing to do. And you know that; that’s why you feel so crappy.”
“You always talk so much when I ask you to be quiet?”
“Do you not know me?” Alexis smirked.
Sighing, Katie flopped back into Alexis’s recliner. “I wish Bonnie would call me.”
“She’s not talking to you?”
Katie shook her head and took another gulp of beer. “Mum said she called her; said she was coming to stay. I guess she’s really pissed at me...”
“No offence... but isn’t she a drug addict who got knocked up by her abusive boyfriend?”
Katie shot her a very offended look. “She’s smart. Yes, she made mistakes but she’s well aware of them...” She exhaled loudly. “Ok, maybe it is a little rich for her to react like she did but I don’t care. I just wish she’d talk to me.”
“Well, then you call her.” Alexis suggested. “You’re the big sister; call the shots.”
Nodding, Katie finished her beer and got to her feet. “You’re right. I’m gonna call her. Whatever she has to say to me she can say to my face.”
“Godspeed!” Alexis tipped her beer bottle towards Katie as her friend let herself out of the apartment.
Katie retreated into her apartment, wishing she couldn’t still smell Ben’s aftershave in the air, and went straight for the phone speed-dialling her mother, ignoring the hungry mews of her two cats slinking into the kitchen. One beer wasn’t enough to make Katie drunk; but it did calm her initial nerves that her sister might pick up the phone on the other end, and then promptly hang up. But she didn’t, Katie was grateful to hear her mother’s voice reply to her. “Hey, Mum, is Bonnie there?” She imagined her sister had told her mother about the affair... or maybe not... she might be mad, but Bonnie kept her word. Granted, she hadn’t specifically said she wouldn’t spill about the affair...
“No; I thought she was with you?” Paget said to her daughter.
Katie cocked her head to the side. “What? Why would you think that?”
“She sent me a text message saying she changed her mind... wasn’t coming to stay with me anymore.”
“When?”
“A couple of days ago,” Paget said. “Is she not there?”
Katie’s heart began to race. No, Bonnie wasn’t there. But that didn’t mean anything; she was probably on her way... maybe she’d gone back to PA to get the rest of her things... or met up with a friend... or told Paget she was going to Katie when really she was going somewhere else; that was believable. Bonnie and Paget never really did well staying in the same place together for too long; and Bonnie was mad at Katie... of course she’d lie... and so would Katie, because otherwise her mother would worry. “Oh, hang on,” Katie said, getting out her cell phone from her pocket as if her mother was right in front of her. “I have a text from her, too. Yeah; she’s coming in tonight. Sorry, Ma, I’ve just been a little frazzled.”
“That’s alright, honey.” Paget had suffered another bout of pneumonia and hadn’t been able to travel into the hospital to see Katie when she was admitted, but Katie and Ben had kept her updated. “When do you go back to work?”
Katie spent ten more minutes on the phone with her mother, trying to have a normal conversation with her, all the while trying to text and call Bonnie on her cell phone. Her sister didn’t answer. When she was finished on the phone to Paget, Katie took a shower and got ready for bed, texting Bonnie one last time.
“I don’t care if u txt back a whole bunch of curse words; just let me know ur ok.”
That would get a response, even if it was just “Fuck off”, and for some reason that made Katie a little less anxious, and with the aid of that one beer she’d had, she fell into a somewhat easy sleep after her exhausting day.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Bonnie didn’t answer her text at all. Two days after she’d lied to her mother; Katie was still trying to contact her sister with no avail. And even though she wasn’t due in to work until the next afternoon, she made her way to the precinct.
“Olivia!” She yelled frantically as soon as she saw the detective walking to her desk.
“Hey, thought you weren’t due back til-”
“Bonnie’s gone!” Katie interrupted her. “I can’t find her, I’ve called her and she won’t answer, it’s been days, and she-she would call. She would call me!”
“Ok, ok, Katie?” Olivia put her hands on Katie’s shoulders. “You need to calm down; alright?”
“I can’t just calm down!”
“What’s going on?” Elliot was behind Katie and touched the small of her back. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Bonnie.” Katie tried to sound calm as she explained to both Olivia and Elliot that they’d had an argument and she hadn’t seen or heard from her sister since.
When Katie started gathering a swarm of onlookers, Olivia led her into one of the interview rooms in the back, thankfully not one of the ugly, stale ones with the one-way mirror; it was ones of the ones that Katie frequented when she led family members to wait, or sat with children while their parents made statements... one of her few territories in the precinct.
Katie was alone with Olivia, and she knew Olivia would ask her why she and Katie had argued, what had they fought over. Katie thought at first to be vague, just be general in her statements so she wasn’t lying... but she knew that any information she withheld could be important to the case, even if it didn’t sound like it; she’d heard that speech from every cop in the office.
So when Olivia asked her what the fight was about, Katie didn’t hold back. “I’ve been sleeping with Elliot.” She said, watching Olivia’s face as her beautiful eyes grew round and her brows arched.
“What?”
“For a few months.” Katie confessed, shifting uncomfortably. “And when Bonnie found out she was so angry with me... she left me at the hospital...”
“Ah...” Olivia’s brain was obviously spinning; but at the same time she had to keep her mind on the job. “Ok... well... when did you last hear from her?”
“That day at the hospital; the day I was released.” Katie said. “Matt drove me home, and when I got there Katie wasn’t around; I figured she was walking; letting off steam; she does that. But... but she never came home. At first I thought I was just missing her, like she was purposely dodging me... and then I spoke to my mother; she said Bonnie called her and said she was going there to stay.” Hurriedly, Katie explained the rest to Olivia, the fact that Bonnie hadn’t actually spoken to Katie or Paget seemed to concern Olivia. “I have no idea where to look, Olivia.”
“Does she have any friends in the city?”
“Yeah, a few... she was going to this prenatal breathing class, she met some women there... and she seems to know more people in my apartment building than I do...”
“What about her boyfriend?”
Katie caught Olivia’s eyes; the boyfriend who had impregnated her sister and then beaten her to a bloody pulp mere months before. “Marcus Wembly.” She said. “I only know his name; and that he and Bonnie lived together when she was at Penn State. She said he didn’t know she came to live with me.”
“Could he have followed her?”
Katie shook her head. “No... maybe... it’s been months; why would he show up now?”
“Maybe he had a change of heart about the baby... wanted to reconcile?”
Fear rose in Katie’s throat. “Oh God... Bonnie would never go back to him... but if she said no to him? I mean...” Her eyes flushed with tears. “You saw what he did to her last time.”
“Hey, don’t think the worst, ok?” Olivia said calmly. “I’ll make some calls; you wait here.” She smiled and rose to her feet.
“Liv?” Katie wiped her hand across her cheek to remove the tears. “You didn’t say anything... about Elliot...”
Olivia shrugged, and smiled weakly. “I don’t think there’s anything I can say... you’re both adults.”
“I broke up with my boyfriend.” Katie told her; suddenly feeling extremely immature, like she was involved in teenage love triangle.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.” Olivia said formally. “Your life is your life.”
Though she was smiling, as forced as it was, Katie knew Olivia disapproved. Hell; everyone disapproved. No one was happy for her; and that was okay. She could deal with that. Right now, her mind was just on Bonnie. She needed to find her sister.
“Hey.”
When Elliot entered the room, Katie read the look on his face. “Olivia told you she knows.”
Elliot nodded. “Yeah... I think she’s more pissed that she wasn’t the first to know...”
“Have you heard from Bonnie?” Katie knew it was early; but a call from a cop might startle her sister into contacting her.
“No; nothing yet, we’re tracking down the boyfriend.”
“So,” Katie shrugged. “What are you doing in here then?” She just watched him as he pulled a chair up beside her, sat down, reached over and held her hand.
“I’m waiting with you.” He said calmly, with a sympathetic smile.
For some reason, this simple act touched Katie right in the depths of her heart. It was an unnecessary thing for him to have done, he could just be out there in the pit searching for Bonnie, but instead he was in here, making sure she was okay.
It was the first moment Katie had felt good about ending things with Ben; it was her first sign she had made the right decision.
xxx