10.1 of Post

A/N: For more information about Post, check my profile.

"Lights"

Elliot

The orange glare of the sunset glided across the windshield of the sedan as Elliot drove on the brown cobblestones of the SoHo side street. He shook his head as his hands gripped the steering wheel harder than normal, not knowing what was troubling him most at that moment.

There was, of course, Olivia, as there nearly always seemed to be one issue or another going on with her. She had cancelled on yet another date and those many cancellations bothered him like few things did. Each cancelled date meant another night she spent all alone and, even though they had rarely discussed the state of Olivia's social life outside of terse and cold moments scattered sporadically throughout their partnership, his heart still hurt from the loneliness he knew she felt. Then, there was the constant glow of melancholy that emanated from her each time her saw her.

She had been despondent lately and, while he could not remember forwardly saying or doing anything that might have caused the new distance between them, he was certain that something was wrong. Apart from the circles under her eyes and the second, and sometimes third, cup of coffee she drank before ten o'clock each morning, Olivia was completely distracted and he often wondered if she was even listening when he spoke to her.

The horn of an impatient black Jaguar behind him blared and Elliot braked, prepared to stop and unleash some of his anger on the driver, but then thought better of it.

No sense abusing my power twice in one night, he thought as he turned down Spring Street.

He ran his tongue across his top teeth and squinted in the bright light as he simultaneously tried to find the building number again and push the image of Gwen Sibert's dawning realization out of mind.

The thought of a rapist even coming in contact with his victims after the fact was nauseating on its own; a rapist marrying one of his victims defied all logic in a way that Elliot had never witnessed and he could think of nothing else that sickened him as much.

No, there's something sicker than that even, he thought.

The idea that his daughter was running around with some boy who was coercing her into getting tattoos and doing God only knew what else when she should have been studying was enough to get his blood boiling on face value. The fact that she got "his and hers" tattoos with said boy was simply the proverbial icing on the cake.

Elliot passed Broadway shaking his head again as he realized he could have shaved minutes off the drive if he had taken Broadway from the start, but the anger and confusion that ran through his veins had also clouded his judgment.

Describing Kathleen as out of control was akin to describing the ocean as blue puddle. He had thought that being carted away handcuffed and in the back of police cruiser a year earlier would have humbled her a bit, but her attitude in the squad room said she had not learned anything from the experience and was still heading down a dangerous road.

"…and you better make it right."

She had said it with such impertinence that he wanted to simply reach out and shake her right there in the corridor. In the end, it was the sheer arrogance in her eyes that forced him to make the drive Downtown. There was no sense that she even recognized the chaos she caused in his life and her response was that he, Elliot, had better resolve everything to her satisfaction, as if his responsibility was first to fulfilling her every wish, was infuriating on its own merits.

He let out a breath in a long, harsh huff as his fingers squeezed into the Pleather of the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles cracked. Within minutes of crossing Broadway he had double-parked, taken the steps into the building two at a time and had begun banging on the door of Kathleen's loft.

The heavy door slid open and one of Kathleen's three roommates gawked at him from the door.

"Jodie," Elliot said, red-faced and angrier than when he was climbing the stairs. "Where's Kathleen?"

"Oh…um…." The tall twenty-year-old's cat-like brown eyes looked toward the ceiling for a moment before she turned and called out into the loft. "Kat! Your dad's here."

A full minute passed without the slightest sound and Elliot stormed into the apartment, heading straight for Kathleen's bedroom.

He had hoped to find her with the alleged boyfriend "Tony" so he could scold her and throttle him at the same time, but instead found her sprawled across her bed reading Things Fall Apart with her iPod earbuds firmly in place.

Elliot snatched the book from her and glared at her as she jumped from the bed.

"Hey! I was reading that!"

"Is this one of the damn books you bought for school?"

"No, it's a book Tony lent to me. He said it's a classic."

"No, what's classic is dealing with the same bullshit drama with you over and over again."

"Dad! What is your problem?"

"What's my problem? You stole my credit card and maxed it out!"

"I told you, we were buying books."

"And that's not all you bought, is it?"

"Dad, we were just doing a little culture shopping and the tattoo is so not a big deal. No one would know unless I showed them."

"That's not the point, Kathleen! You should've told me you were taking my credit card. And even if you did tell me, what the hell makes you think you can go culture shopping for whatever the hell you want? Like money grows on trees. Now, I gotta spend another day on the phone with the credit card company trying to sort out what you did. "

She crossed her arms in front of her. "Look…I'm sorry, okay? But, seriously, in the grand scheme of things, it's really not that big a deal."

"To who!" Elliot took a step backward to pace in the small room and his eyes fell upon a large, wooden mask on the wall. He pointed to it and glared at Kathleen. "You bought that thing on my time and my money?"

"Tony said it would look nice in my room. It's from the Ivory Coast and it's supposed to symbolize this goddess and-"

"You've never cared about art before."

"Things change, Dad. Tony's taught me a lot about art."

"All of this…all the crap you bought is going back. All of it!"

"What d'you mean going back?"

"Back! Back to the store, back to wherever the hell you bought all of it."

"I can't just take it back. What am I supposed to do? Go up to Tony and take away all the stuff we just bought?"

"Yes, that's exactly what you're gonna do."

"Not all the stuff we got is returnable…if you know what I mean."

Elliot felt his eye twitch as he stared at her. "Fine. I want you to start looking for a job because you're paying me back for every dime…before the end of the semester."

"What!" Kathleen said, eyes wide. "How am I supposed to do that and be in school at the same time?"

"If I could do it trying to take care of your mother and Maureen at the same time, you sure as hell can manage. And, I don't want to see your grades slipping because of the job…or this Tony, either."

"Dad, Tony is a Comparative Lit major. He's bringing my grades up, not down, so I'd appreciate if you stopped disparaging him like he's not good enough for me. He's the best thing that's ever happened to me."

"The tattoo you're gonna have removed says different."

"That was just on a whim, Dad. It's really not that big a deal."

Elliot shook his head. "Where is this Tony now?"

"On his way back to his apartment."

"So, he's already out? I didn't say anything to…make it right."

"His dad plays golf with the police commissioner or something and they let him go quick. Surely, you know about stuff like that."

"Don't start with me right now, Kathleen. I want his address and I want it now."

"Daddy, Tony is a good person."

"I haven't even seen the kid and I know no good person would let you run wild with your father's credit card."

"Tony is so smart, Dad. He's cultured, he's talented, he speaks two languages other than English and Spanish, he's got-"

"I don't give a damn if he's a Nobel laureate who can walk on water. I want to talk to him. I want his address…tonight."

"Why, so you can throw his head through a wall? No way! He's already had it bad enough being arrested by your people like he's some kind of criminal."

"As far as I'm concerned, he is a criminal."

"No, not a chance. I don't have to give you his address and I'm not gonna. He's a great guy and just because he doesn't fit your little definition of what makes a good person, doesn't make him bad. It takes all kinds."

"Kathleen…" He swallowed as he felt his temperature rise a whole degree. "I'm about ten seconds from re-filing the charges against this Tony and you. Now, either you give me the address or you're getting cut off for good."

"Like Mom would let you do that."

"She'll do exactly what I tell her once she hears about that monstrosity on your leg."

Kathleen rolled her eyes, pulled a Post-It pad from her desk drawer and scrawled an address on the top sheet in messy handwriting that had an uncanny similarity to Elliot's own script.

"Here," she said, holding the Post-It toward him with it resting on the tip of her finger. "And, I better not hear about one scratch on him, Dad."

"You don't get to make any demands here. Just be glad that I had time to calm down before I got over here. And, so help me God Kathleen, if you call him to warn him of what's coming…"

Kathleen's face went pale as Elliot gave her a final glare and turned to leave.

The apartment was only a few blocks North of Kathleen's and Elliot felt his eye twitch again at the thought that "Tony" had the ability to stop by Kathleen's loft anytime he wanted.

He got to the fourth floor walk-up quicker than he realized and was banging on the door before he knew it; all that mattered was confronting this "Tony" lest he go another minute without knowing that Kathleen's father had a foot still planted in her life. His pulse was racing and Elliot felt a wild rush of adrenaline as all rational thought began to seep away from him and images of body-slamming the boy who talked his daughter into getting a tattoo on her thigh crept into logic's place.

A skinny pale boy with greasy black hair wearing a spiked collar around his neck, a tight black Thrice t-shirt and dirty black Converse answered the door and glared at Elliot. "Who are you?"

"I'm Kathleen Stabler's father and I need to talk to you for a second."

"Oh," the boy said as he crossed his arms. "Well, Kat's not here right now."

"Right. That's why I said I wanted to talk you." He pushed his way into the apartment and pulled himself to his full height so he could glare at the boy properly. "You coerced my daughter into stealing her father's credit card and then you took her on some shopping spree across the goddamn city like you both lost your minds causing me to use my valuable time on a wild goose chase. And believe me, if there is something I can't stand, it's people who waste my time."

"Hey, man. I didn't do anything. That was-"

"Shut up. Now, if you want to get a tattoo with someone you do it on your own time, with your own money. If you want to find some girl to play Bonnie to your Clyde, you find someone who isn't Kathleen Stabler. And, if you want to pull someone away from her studies and into whatever deviant lifestyle you're setting up for yourself, you sure as hell better be ready to pull yourself out of the city for good too, because the next time I find out that you and my daughter are behaving in a manner that's not to my liking, you're going to be in a world of hurt."

The greasy kid snorted. "Kat's grown, Dude. She doesn't have to listen to daddy anymore. She can do what she wants."

The words hit a chord that had been sore all day and Elliot even surprised himself when he grabbed the greasy boy by the shoulder and pushed him against the far wall.

"Kathleen might be grown," Elliot said with a hand firmly pressed against the boy's neck. "But, if you expect to see your next birthday, you better make sure she does listen to daddy."

"Dude…aren't you a cop? Is-isn't this like police brutality or something?"

"It would be…except the fact that I left my badge in the car just so I could come here…as a father, not a cop."

"Oh…right…"

"So, we're not gonna have a problem here, are we?"

"No, man. No problem."

Elliot stared at him for a full minute before releasing him. He looked the boy up and down several times, sneering all the while.

Of all the creeps in the city she has to choose from…

Rolling his eyes at the greasy boy who stood with his back pressed against the wall and looking small and fragile, Elliot headed toward the door when a young light-skinned black man wearing Kenneth Cole shoes and a Gucci sweater stepped through the open doorway. He glanced at Elliot and then at the boy against the wall and then at Elliot again with wide eyes.

"Am I…interrupting something?" he said.

"And, who are you?" Elliot said glaring at the boy who looked too clean cut to be normal.

"Anthony McCray, sir…the third."

A breath escaped from Elliot's mouth as he tried to keep his mouth from gaping. "You're Tony?"

"Yes, sir." He stepped forward extending a hand toward Elliot. "I live here with my roommate Kyle."

Elliot slowly shook his hand as it dawned on him that he should have known the pale boy he encountered did not match the description of the person who used his credit card. He then glanced back at the boy behind him. "Kyle?"

"C-Campbell," he said softly. "Kyle Campbell."

"You two are roommates?"

The real Tony at the door cleared his throat. "Yes, sir. Same music tastes and habits make good roommates, I suppose. And…you are, sir?"

"Detective Stabler. Kathleen Stabler's father."

"Right," Tony said his eyes even wider. "Detective Stabler…Kat's told me a lot about you."

"I'm sure she has."

Tony pursed his lips for a moment under Elliot's intense glare. "I'm sensing there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding over the past few days about the issue with the credit card."

Elliot's eyes narrowed at Tony. He looked him up and down, now unable to retrieve his prepared speech again. "Yeah, you took my daughter on a shopping spree, on my credit card."

"Oh…well, I didn't know she hadn't asked for permission. I know a lot of kids' parents just give them a card to use, so I really didn't think about it too much. We were just out buying books and…kinda splurged a bit to bring a little culture to Kat's apartment."

"Culture…And the tattoos?"

Tony swallowed and covered his left wrist with his right hand. "Yes…well, I figured you would've seen those charges after what they were holding me at the police precinct, but trust me, I know it was probably a pretty poor decision on our part, but we'd talked about it a little and after she mentioned how cool the ones you have looked…we figured we would just go for it."

Elliot crossed his arms, his eyebrows still furrowed. He glanced at Kyle who stood straighter as he took a backward step. "She didn't even tell me she was dating you. She didn't say she was dating anyone."

"Oh… Kat says you two don't talk like you used to, so maybe it just slipped."

Yeah," Elliot said. "I'm sure this kind of thing would just slip her mind."

"I'm really sorry about the confusion, Detective Stabler. I'll definitely pay you back for everything."

Elliot waved a hand at Tony not liking the fact that the boy seemed so instantly likeable and feeling very foolish from his previous actions at the same time. "You, um…you don't have to do that. Kathleen's going to make up for it."

"I see. Well, I promise, this will be last time we do anything like that again."

"Yeah, I bet," Elliot said as he sighed. "Well…I'm gonna…get going. Nice to meet you…Tony."

"And, you as well, sir."

"Sorry about that…Kyle."

"No prob, man…"

By the time he had walked down the stairs and clicked his seatbelt into the lock, Elliot could hear his stomach rumbling as it burned and could feel bile accumulating at the back of his throat.

He had been prepared to face a low-life who was attempting to drag Kathleen into whatever hole was digging for himself. In fact, he had been rehearsing what he was going to say to the boy all day and had the speech perfected before he got to Houston Street; no amount of time could have prepared him for an up and coming black boy who not only had managed to get Kathleen to read outside of assigned schoolwork, but also show an appreciation for art.

Wishing he had remembered that the description of his would-be credit card thief had been for a black male before he had made a jackass of himself, Elliot turned the key in the ignition as he simultaneously wondered when life had become so complicated.

His daughter was in a biracial relationship; he had no particular reservations about it either way as he knew he disliked any boy who took more than one glance at his daughters, but he had a nagging suspicion that he would be getting an earful from Kathy once he delivered the news.

Elliot sighed and shook his head as he drove through the E-ZPass lane, shaking his head at the growing twilight all the while.

Fin is going to love hearing about this…