Chapter 4
The traffic was so awful that Olivia got to Kathleen's school a half hour later. She walked into the main office, knowing where it was due to prior cases at the school, and a woman came up to her. "May I help you?"
Olivia nodded, "Yes, I'm here about Kathleen Stabler."
The woman chewed her gum loudly. "That office," she pointed.
"Thank you." Olivia went to the office.
"Olivia!" Kathleen cheered and wrapped her arms around her tightly.
Olivia hugged back with a smile, "Hey Kathleen! So what's going on here?"
"I'm Mrs. Boyer, the principal," a woman stood up and held her hand out. Olivia walked over to her desk.
"I think we've met before, I'm detective Olivia Sta… Olivia Benson," Olivia shook the woman's hand, quickly correcting herself.
Mrs. Boyer sat down, "Kathleen, why don't you tell her what you told me."
Sitting next to Olivia, Kathleen explained, "Ok, two days ago Dad said he would help me with my math. But he had to get to work so he dropped me off and I was late for school. Mrs. Boyer took me to the office and I told her that and Dad could come in yesterday and explain what happened. But Dad didn't come home, and now I'm in even more trouble."
Olivia nodded, "Why don't you go wait outside, let me and Mrs. Boyer talk"
"Okay. No prob," Kathleen said before she left the room.
"I can explain all this," Olivia told the principal, feeling like she was back in school.
Mrs. Boyer nodded, "Please do."
After a short pause Olivia began, "Elliot, her father, has been under a lot of pressure lately. He was going to help Kathleen with her homework, but like she said, we spent an all nighter at work last night and things are kind of overwhelming for him right now."
"Well, that is bad, but he is a parent, and he needs to take care of his children. I've never seen him at a parent conference, or a school event. I've only met him once when he was here for one of your cases," Mrs. Boyer told Olivia as she folded her hands on her desk.
"He's trying. He really is. But for now is there anyway to clear this up for Kathleen? Make sure it's not on her record?" Olivia wondered.
Mrs. Boyer thought for a second before replying, "I'll talk to her math teacher, see if she can still get turn it in, and as for being late… I'll let that go for now."
Olivia took in a deep breath of satisfaction. "Thank you so much."
Mrs. Boyer simply nodded, "You and Kathleen wait in here until I get back."
Kathleen came into the room a minute later and Olivia told her what Mrs. Boyer had said. Olivia figured it might be a bit of a wait and thought it may be a good chance to see how Kathleen was doing.
"So Kathleen, you like school?" Olivia asked.
"I hate it" she snarled earnestly.
Olivia frowned and asked, "Why?"
Kathleen sighed, "It's awful. No one likes me, my teachers hate me, I'm not good at anything…"
Olivia broke in, "Now you know that's not true. And even if it were, are you going to let all that stop you?"
"Stop me?"
"Yeah! Are you going to let some schoolmates, and teachers tell you you're a failure? That doesn't sound like the Kathleen I know."
Kathleen stuttered a few times in her own defense, then let out another exhausting breath. "It's different now," she spoke quietly.
Olivia was glad they were getting somewhere, she hoped she could get Kathleen to open up. "Why?"
"…Dad… and Mom." Kathleen looked away.
Olivia was confused. She thought the girl would say boys, or friends changing, "What about your parents?"
"They're different. They… I saw something," Kathleen finally admitted.
Olivia was about to ask what when Mrs. Boyer came back in, "Good news. Kathleen, you will finish your math right now with Miss Benson, and turn it in. And may I suggest, if you don't understand any of your homework, talk to your teachers- that's what they're there for." Mrs. Boyer looked Kathleen straight in the eyes. Kathleen nodded as did Olivia.
Breathing in a huge sigh of relief, Olivia asked, "Where can we go to work on this?"
"Well, school is almost finished now, take it home, finish it, and bring it back tomorrow."
Olivia nodded and thanked her again. "We really appreciate this, Mrs. Boyer. It won't happen again, I promise." Turning to Kathleen, she said, "Come on you." As they headed out to the car, Olivia handed Kathleen her phone. "Why don't you call your dad and ask him where he is. If he's still at Marsha's, we can pick him up."
Elliot was still at Marsha's, but Fin was with him, so Olivia and Kathleen headed to the station. Olivia figured she would help Kathleen finish her math so they could get it done and not have Elliot fret over it, and then she could take Kathleen home. When they got to the station, Elliot still hadn't returned, so they both went up to a small room to attempt the homework.
Olivia stood up and winked, "I'll go get some scrap paper- God knows we're going to need it!" Kathleen wanted to get some of the work done, try and show Olivia she could do it. When Olivia came back, with a handful of paper and a handful of pencils, she noticed Kathleen had attempted the math but hadn't succeeded.
"It's hard," Kathleen whined.
Olivia shined a smile and sat down beside the young girl. Handing her one of the newly sharpened pencils, she said, "Let's try it together."
At last Elliot and Fin arrived at the station, with much good news.
Cragen walked up to the two. "So what did you find out?"
"More then we thought we would," Elliot replied, with a hint of suspicion in his voice.
Cragen's eye brow lifted a bit. "And by that you mean?"
"We think she's lyin'," Fin interrupted.
The captain frowned and asked, "Why would she lie?"
Fin and Elliot shrugged. It was Elliot who answered, "Just what we were trying to figure out." After a second he and Fin heard something that almost sounded like laughing.
Looking around, Fin tried to pinpoint the sound. "Who is that?"
"Oh, that's Olivia and Kathleen," Cragen answered, shaking his head in amusement. "They've been laughing like that for an hour now."
"Kathleen?" Elliot had forgotten about the whole situation at her school. Angry with himself, he walked up the stairs to see Olivia and Kathleen still trying to figure out the homework. He stayed out of sight for a second, it had been the first time in a long time he'd seen Kathleen having such a good time. It was nice to watch Olivia, too, rarely did he see her laughing or smiling so much. He could tell Olivia cared for Kathleen as if the girl was her own, and it seemed Kathleen counted Olivia as part of the family, too.
"Daddy?" Kathleen called out as she noticed a figure on the stairwell.
Elliot smiled and walked up the rest of the way. "Hey you! What's going on? What happened at the school?"
"Olivia fixed it all," Kathleen told him and smiled at Olivia.
Elliot looked at Olivia and couldn't help but smile, too. "Oh really?"
"It was nothing really," Olivia filled him in. "It was all a misunderstanding in the first place."
Elliot nodded. "So what are you two doing now?" he looked to see what all the scrap papers were for. Olivia tried to stop him but he was quicker and grabbed a pile of the papers before she could.
"Oh, this is interesting, I see you two started working on the math… but oh what's this… not a very good picture of a dog… oh, but it has a name, aw, his name is Elliot. How ironic," He looked at Olivia and she started to turn red.
"Olivia drew that one," Kathleen told him proudly.
He smiled, "I'm sure she did."
"Hey…" Olivia tried to think up of a distraction, "We got to work on your daughter's math here, so stop bothering us while we are working," Olivia grabbed the pile of papers out of his hands. He grinned, holding on to the one with the picture of the dog.
Elliot started to turn away to leave, but couldn't help adding, "I love how you define 'working'," Olivia rolled her eyes at him with a big smile on her face.
After he got down the stairs he could hear them starting to work on the math again. He looked at the picture the two had drawn. Some of it was doodling, some was hardly what you could call art but it was all wonderful in Elliot's eyes. He smiled when he saw 'drawn by; Kat & Liv' on the bottom, like a professional painter would do. What a pair they made.
TBC
