I found her standing on the dock, watching the water. The wind had picked up slightly by the time I caught sight of her, blowing her hair in every direction. I could tell that she was upset when she didn't try to stop it. Normally, she would have. But she had just been dealt a devastating blow, and I doubted things would be normal for her for a while. I knew they wouldn't be for me, but I was grown, and well aware that we, even as murder police, were just as mortal as everyone else.
Kai was twelve, still naive in many ways, and perfectly convinced that the lot of us were invincible. Over the years, she'd seen us fall. And she'd watched us make it out alive. She'd watched us return to the squad room as if nothing had happened. That night, however, she'd learned that sometimes when we fell, nothing in the world was going to bring us back.
I was tempted to think that she should have learned it four years ago, when we lost Crosetti, or maybe even two years ago, when we lost Felton. But she'd been a lot younger; we'd coddled her, even going so far as to tell her that we'd see then both again some day. Now, however, was different. It was different because she was older and had long since learned to see through us. It was different because she knew the one we'd lost wasn't coming back, and because in ways, she had been closer to Gee than any of us had ever hoped to be.
My feet felt heavier than normal as I moved forward, carrying her jacket in my arms, but I walked. The wooden planks creaked under me as I did, and I felt that fleeting worry that they'd come out from under me, but they didn't. I looked up to see if Kai had noticed that I was coming, but she hadn't. She was still staring straight ahead, ignoring her hair and everything else around her. The sounds of Baltimore had disappeared somehow; there was silence, except for the water and my footsteps. She pretended not to hear either one, but I knew she did.
It wasn't until I was standing right behind her that she finally acknowledged me, turning so that she could look me in the eye. Her glasses were off; I could see the outline in her pocket, and her face was red, stained with tears. I opened my mouth to say something, but before I could speak, she did.
"Why, Dad?" she asked. "Why'd that idiot guy have to go and shoot Gee? He never did anything to anyone!"
And there was that naivety of hers. I figured then that I should have known that question was coming, but as it was, she'd caught me off guard and I faltered.
"I don't know," I told her quietly. "I don't think I'll ever know."
She sniffled and ran a hand over her face, pushing her bangs out of her eyes as she did so. "I don't get it," she said. "I thought he'd be all right…he was supposed to be all right."
We'd all thought the same thing. And then Brodie had come in and shattered our illusions by telling us bluntly that Gee was gone. Kai was probably the most upset out of all of us, but I wasn't surprised by that. I didn't think I ever would be.
"Why'd you run?" I asked finally. "Why'd you leave without saying anything?"
She looked up at me again, looking somewhat uncertain, as if she knew that she should be in trouble for what she'd done and wasn't sure whether she was or not.
"Didn't want to see you guys upset," she said finally. "I don't…didn't…want you to see me upset."
I was tempted at this point to tell her that we'd all seen her upset at one point or another. It wouldn't have made any difference. But I knew why she hadn't wanted anyone to see her. It was the same reason why I hadn't wanted anyone to see me, only I hadn't had a choice.
"Everyone's looking for you," I said. Kai looked away from me and out at the water, sighing.
"I didn't want anyone to find me," she said quietly. "I wanted to be alone."
If there was one thing that I'd learned, it was that being alone after something like this wasn't always a good idea. It wasn't that I thought she would purposely hurt herself. It was just the fact that this was Baltimore, and it wasn't a place where a girl her age should've been alone at night. She of all people should have known that, but grief had always done odd things to people.
As silence fell between us, I realized how strange this might have looked to anyone who might have been passing by. But it hardly mattered. The only thing the silence really meant was that Kai wanted me to go away and leave her alone. But I was just as stubborn as she was, and she knew it. I wasn't going anywhere unless she came with me.
Wordlessly, I handed her jacket out to her upon noticing that she was shivering, but she pushed my arms away and it fell. For some reason, this brought on a new onslaught of tears. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, her shaking and crying and me just watching. I had never been one to leave well enough alone when someone was upset, and before I knew it, I was hugging her, waiting for her to pull away. But she didn't. Instead, she hid her face in my shirt, and I could hear her muffled sobbing, even over the other sounds around us. After a while, she stopped crying, but by this time, I was close to starting.
Swallowing back my own emotions, I bent down and picked up her jacket, handing it out to her again. This time, she took it, sliding it on and closing it around her, like a shield against the outside world. My cell phone rang, and though I knew it was one of the others, trying to find out whether or not I'd found Kai, I ignored it. They could wait. And so could the rest of the city. This, however, could not.
I waited, still saying nothing as Kai turned to face the water again, and I wondered if this crisis of faith she was having would leave her with no faith in the world around her once it had gone. I wondered if she would ever look at Baltimore the same way again, or if she'd finally come to understand what was meant by the nickname 'the city that bleeds'. And I wondered if this particular lesson could have been put off, but realized that it was inevitable, and always had been.
The lessons of life were many and even if she hadn't figured it out, I had. And so had the others. None of us had ever wanted her to learn this one the hard away, but fate had taken that decision out of our hands. She had finally learned, however harshly, that even the murder police were mortal…that even we weren't invincible.
The water continued to lap against the poles that held the deck up. A few more minutes passed before Kai turned to look at me again, glasses carefully in place, hiding whatever it was that she was still feeling. She reached for my hand, lacing small, tentative fingers through my own, looking for some sort of reassurance. I squeezed her hand then, gently, to let her know I was there if she needed me for anything.
And together, we turned, and walked, back towards the lights…back towards the noise and the people on the streets and the traffic…back to the city that the two of us would always call home.
A/N: So, yeah...for those of you that have actually read my fic 'Made to Be Broken' over in the LOSVU section, I said I was going to write a chapter fic explaining Kai so she doesn't seem so out there, and this is part of it. I seem to have the habit of posting little one-shots that turn into scenes in my chapter fics. Anyways, this is kinda set after the H:LOTS movie, in case any of you wondered, just so you won't get confused...and now I'm rambling so I need to shut up and go. Oh, and H:LOTS isn't mine...