Time Frame: During Annihilated. This is an intra-episodic story
Summary: What Stabler was thinking when he did what he did with Kathy.
Notes: SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS FOR SEASON 8 YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Well, Laura S., you asked for more. Here it is. I didn't swing this to my betas. I did not like the ending of this episode.
Relationship: Elliot/Kathy
Rating: Teens and up.
Reactions
By: Lynda Mayfield
Elliot lay in bed with Kathy, wide-awake after taking a quick shower. He used her shampoo, her body wash, too, since nothing of his was there. He asked himself why. Not why had he come here, but why had he stayed, at her beckoning?
He had needed to feel. Twenty years of turning off his emotions had gotten through to him. This case so easily could have been him. His family. His children. Aside from knowing they were safe, he needed to feel something real. Making love to his wife was the outlet he had chosen throughout the years. Rather than discuss a case with words, he made her feel loved, was loved in return, and it made the case go away or at least made everything all right, for those moments. Those nights, he was able to sleep.
But not tonight. His feelings of love for Kathy were true and real. It was easy to fall back into the old pattern they had established. Elliot had not wanted the divorce. That was Kathy's idea. Recently, he had asked to move back into the house and she had asked to think about it. Maybe she was still thinking, maybe not, they did not discuss the matter this time, either.
He stood and dressed, thirsty. It wasn't unlike him to drink straight from the carton, in the middle of the night, while his family slept. They never woke up. He smiled, the one perk of his sleepless nights on the job.
Elliot entered the kitchen with a satisfied smile on his face. He and Kathy had been good together, like always. The divorce was final, but perhaps, their love affair was not. Then Kathleen was awake before him in the kitchen, confronting him. What the Hell? He was going to say something back to her but CSU had called and he had to leave.
Elliot didn't blame Kathleen for what was said. Friends-plus-benefits was not the post-divorce relationship Elliot wanted. But the child didn't have all the facts, didn't know it was her own mother who'd invited him to bed. Elliot had history with Kathy and her arms had been a comfortable place for him for a few hours that night.
In the end, it did not matter. He was not going to be there for the next few days, he had to catch up to his partner and solve this case.
The End