The next morning when Katie woke up, she was confused at first, wondering why she would have decided to sleep on the couch, and that was when the memories of the night before came flooding into her mind. Noah had hit her. She never knew that Noah was capable of doing something like that, she thought his behavior change had just been from stress at work, but she was wrong. She was kicking herself, she's a detective, she's trained to notice this type of behavior, she should've known something like this was going to happen and that Noah was going to change, but she didn't and she felt like it was all her fault.
As Katie went to push herself up off the couch and into a standing position so she could go get ready for the day, she couldn't help but let out a small whimper and sit back down as a screaming pain went through her ribs. Bracing herself so she would be prepared this time, she pushed herself off of the couch again and slowly made her way to the stairs, so she could go to her room and get ready for the day. When she stopped in front of the floor-length mirror on the back of her closet door she was shocked by what she saw. She had already started to change so she only had on a sports bra and some Nike Pros and what she saw terrified her; there were ugly bruises that were all different shades of purple and yellow all over her sides, back, and stomach, and there was one, very faint bruise directly under her left eye. She immediately went to her bathroom and grabbed her makeup. She started with the bruise on her face and then moved to the ones that were higher up on her stomach, closer to her chest. She had only managed to cover a few of them before she ran out of concealer, she cursed herself for not getting more makeup when she went to the store a few days earlier and decided she would have to wear long clothes to cover up the bruises.
An hour later Katie had finally pulled up to the district. She took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself before getting out of her car. Walking up the short flight of stairs in her apartment this morning had been excruciating for Katie, so she was dreading the walk up the stairs into the district and the stairs that lead from the front desk to the bullpen, but all she could do was pray that no one noticed her pain as she walked up the stairs.
Just before she reached the stairs leading up to the district she heard a voice calling her name, she turned around to find where the voice was coming from and saw Jay Halstead running towards her with one cup of coffee in each hand.
"Hey, Katie, how are you doing this morning?" Jay asked the brunette as they started up the stairs.
"I'm great, I'm happy to bring Tatum home in a few days, and I've been super excited getting ready for her lately." Katie replied, letting out a wince that she could only hope Jay hadn't seen. Unfortunately for her, her efforts were in vain as Jay had seen her wince anyway.
"You good?" He asked, "You looked like you were in pain for a second." Jay said as he saw the pained look coming from his partner.
"Yeah," she responded, "I'm just sore. I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting getting a room ready for Tatum." Katie finished. Jay just nodded in response. He wasn't convinced, but he didn't want to say anything in a place as busy as the lobby of the district.
A little while later intelligence had caught a case and Jay, Hailey, and Katie were on their way to talk to the mother of a girl who had been kidnapped. Normally it would've only been Jay and Katie, but Hailey had gotten tired of sitting at the district and Voight gave the okay, so she decided to ride along.
Getting out of the truck at the mother's house, Katie winced again, this time being noticed by both Jay and Hailey. Hailey asked her friend if she was okay and Katie again tried to shoot down their concerns by saying she was just sore from doing heavy lifting, but neither her best friend nor her partner believed her, but then again, didn't question her in such a public area.
While Katie had questioned the mother, Jay and Hailey hung back to talk about the recent behavior change in their friend, after seeing Katie wince in pain a few more times they decided that they would confront her about it once they got back into the truck, so they could figure out what was actually going on.
"Katie," Hailey announced once the three detectives were back in the truck, "Something's going on with you and we need to talk about it."
"You look like you're in pain, and if it's something that can be avoided we want to help you and we want to make sure you're safe, we don't want to see you get hurt." Jay continued after Hailey finished. "And I know that you're tough, and you think you don't need help, or you don't want help or whatever, but we need you to be honest. Why are you in pain, Katie? Did someone hurt you?"
Katie internally panicked for a moment. She was worried that Hailey and Jay would find out about what was happening, but, being the quick thinker she is, Katie quickly came up with an excuse. "I'm fine." She answered, "Nobody hurt me, nobody did anything to me. As I said, I get to bring Tatum home in a few days and I still have to get a room ready for her. Noah was busy at work and he couldn't come and help so I had to do everything by myself and that's why I'm sore. Noah said he was sorry that he couldn't make it home in time and if he could've been there he would've helped me but he couldn't, so now I'm a little sore, but everything is fine, I'm fine." Katie finished hoping that the conversation would end there. After Katie's speech, Jay and Hailey no longer had anything to say to her, so Jay started the truck and the three detectives made their way back to the district.
Once they got to the district, Jay, Hailey, and Katie all headed back up to the bullpen so they could tell the team about their findings. Jay and Hailey, once again, noticed the amount of pain their friend seemed to be in as they were making their way up the stairs, but considering that they had already questioned her earlier and had made no progress in discovering the mysterious source of her pain, they decided not to push any further. When the three detectives were up in the bullpen they immediately got the attention of their colleagues and started going over what they had found.
While the unit was going over all the information that they had so far, Jay and Hailey noticed that Katie seemed to be getting around a lot more easily and she wasn't in as much pain and they began to wonder if Katie was telling the truth and she actually was just sore from moving things. They were pulled back to their original suspicions, however, a few minutes later when Kevin and Adam were messing around. The first thing that happened that worried them, was when Kevin and Adam were pretending to fight and Adam pulled his arm back to pretend like he was going to smack Adam, and Katie, who was standing right behind him, flinched. The two detectives were hesitant to jump to suspicion again though. Hailey had known Katie since they were in elementary school, she knew that Katie's childhood had been a rough one that was similar to her own, but she thought that Katie had grown out of her habits of flinching whenever someone got too close to her or frightened her. Jay knew that Katie was a marine, he knew about her PTSD and that she could be triggered by little things sometimes, but he knew that if it was her PTSD, then that would have been a new trigger for Katie, which he thought was unlikely given that people with PTSD normally don't develop new triggers this late after being diagnosed.
The second thing that raised suspicions with Jay and Hailey, was worse, and more obvious than the first. Kevin and Kim had just gotten back from a much-needed food and coffee run seeing as the unit had been working since their normal start time of 6 AM without any breaks and it was now almost 2:30 PM. When Kevin and Kim walked back into the bullpen everybody excitedly approached them to get their respective cups of coffee and bag of food. When they went to get their stuff from Kevin and Kim, Katie had been standing behind Adam, who didn't realize how close to him Katie was standing. As Adam turned around to go back to his desk, he bumped into Katie, spilling his hot coffee on her arm and shoulder, and causing her to hit her sore ribs on the corner of her desk, as she let out a short cry of pain. Adam was apologizing profusely and asking what he could do to help her. Katie reassured him that it was fine that it wasn't his fault and that she didn't need any help since all she needed to do was rinse the coffee off of her and change.
As Katie walked to the locker room, Jay and Hailey exchanged worried looks. Everybody else in the unit assumed the yelp that came from Katie after Adam bumped into her was because of the hot coffee being spilled on her, but Jay and Hailey knew better. Jay, having seen many of his buddies get injured at times when he was deployed overseas, and Hailey, having grown up in an abusive household, both knew that the way Katie's side had hit the desk, the way she moved and grabbed her side afterward, and the fact that the cry Katie let out sounded more like a pained one then one of surprise, both knew that there was something more going on and that Katie wasn't "just sore" as she had said earlier.
Once Katie exited the locker room after changing, she immediately went to the break room, getting a cool water bottle from the fridge so she could roll it over the very minor burns from the coffee. Before she had a chance to leave the room, however, Jay and Hailey entered, closing the door behind them.
"Katie," Hailey began to say, "we both know that you're not 'just sore' like you said. That noise that you made when Adam bumped into you sounded like you were in pain."
"Yes, I am 'just sore' like I said," Katie began, "That coffee was hot and it burned, and if you know anything about burns they hurt, so yes, I was in pain but not because anybody caused me pain, because that coffee was hot and because I did too much heavy lifting by myself." Katie finished as her two friends looked at her in shock.
"Katie," Jay sighed, "You're not 'just sore' and you didn't make that sound because the coffee was hot. We know it and you know it Katie, and we just want to help you."
"I've known you for a long time," Hailey started, "and that cry didn't sound like one of surprise because you just got hot coffee spilled on you. Katie, that sounded like the cries of pain you let out when you came over to my house after your dad or one of your uncles had just beaten you and I accidentally pushed too hard on your side, so no Katie, you're not okay, and we know that and we need you to tell us what's going on so we can help you." Hailey wrapped up her speech with tears in her eyes.
Katie's eyes had started to glaze over and she looked like she was about to confess everything that had happened the other night. But then her phone went off with a text from Trudy telling her that Noah was there to visit and was on his way up. Katie tried to find the words to quickly tell Jay and Hailey what was going on before Noah got to the break room, but she had no such luck as right before she was about to tell them what had happened the night before Noah came into the break room. Sensing that Katie was about to tell her friends something, he walked up to her and wrapped an arm around her, intentionally putting extra pressure on her bruised ribs as a warning. At that moment the look on Katie's face changed from one of sadness to one of fear and she swallowed and simply said the words, "I'm fine."
