A/N: I don't own 'Skins' or its characters, clearly.
"Sorry, s'cuse me...fucking hell. Would you just...I'm short not invisible; Christ."
Katie Fitch smirked without turning towards the voice painstakingly approaching her barstool, taking another long drink from her gin and tonic, wincing at the lack of the latter and the overwhelming ratio of the former, just like she'd asked. The pub was absolutely packed—there were multiple Premier League games playing on the various screens throughout the establishment; by the looks of things, half the patrons were a viewing party as an entire swatch of the pub was decked out in banners, scarves, hats, waving jerseys, and prone to erupting in boisterous chants every few minutes. In short, precisely where Katie knew Emily did not want to spend her Friday evening.
The younger Fitch twin huffed as she shouldered through the last two bar-goers and hastily hid her clutch in her lap as she sidled onto the stool next to her sister. Katie fidgeted with the coaster under her drink, letting Emily stare angrily at her profile for several moments. Finally, just as Emily was about to unleash a torrent of curses at her sister for dragging her down to the claustrophobic, cacophonic pub, Katie flagged down the bartender and ordered Emily a draft. The man nodded (Katie wondered if bartenders could hear on some different frequency than anyone else as she barely understood her own words with the boisterous cheering surrounding them) and placed the beer on a coaster in front of Emily.
Katie hoisted her glass. "To sisters."
Emily echoed the toast, clinked their glasses, and sipped slowly. Setting the drink back down, she rested her arms on the bar. "Why're we here, Kay?"
A groan arose from the red-clad fans over her shoulder as their team's forward sailed a free kick over the net and into the stands and trotted back up the pitch. Katie rolled her eyes and shrugged.
"Can't we just go out, us girls?"
"Sure, to some place reasonable. Not this..." Emily glanced around disdainfully. "...I don't even know what to call it."
"It's called a pub, bitch." Katie paused as she was about to take a drink, sighing at Emily's skeptical stare. "Fine, I wanted to meet somewhere nobody would recognize us. Satisfied?"
"No," Emily retorted, lips twitching into the hint of a smirk, and an eyebrow piquing with interest. "I want to know why."
"Can't you just bloody—fuck's sake!" She whirled around as a competing group of hooligans in blue and gold roared sarcastic approval that the referee finally gave a card to their rival's biggest agitator after a brutal takedown. "Some of us are trying to have a civilised conversation here!"
"If you want to do that, luv, go somewhere else," one fan said dismissively, waving her off and turning around to view the match on the flat-screen again, as if missing a single pass in the midfield was a travesty from which he could never recover, bumping one of his companions in the shoulder and muttering something amid a series of chuckles and condescending looks back towards the bar.
Before Emily could grab her arm and restrain her, Katie was out of her seat and crossing the narrow pub, rage emanating from her small frame in waves that seemed to clear her path to the offending fan. Her eyes narrowed as she reached the table surrounded by fans and she snatched the front of his kit in her fist, jerking him out of the booth and onto his knees.
"I'd like to see you fucking make me leave, tosser." In a burst of movement, she shoved him back, snatched his pint off the table, and provided him with an unrequested shower of hops and barley before dropping the empty glass in his now-soaking lap. She pivoted, a withering glare pinning her victim's mates to their seats. "And if so much as one of you tries to bother me or my sister the rest of the night...well. It'll make what happened to your bestest mate look like child's play. Clear?"
"Sure, miss, we just want to watch the match," said the most worthless of the bunch with a furious nod.
Katie rolled her eyes dramatically. "Then why the fuck did you let him say anything in the first place?! Don't answer that; just shut the fuck up and watch your match."
Emily was slow-clapping as Katie resumed her perch at the bar and finished the rest of her G&T in one long drink. She waved it impatiently at the back of the overwhelmed bartender as he worked on another patron's order. Shushing her sister's half-impressed, half-mocking congratulations on putting the hooligan in his place, she slammed her drink down on the bar and arched an eyebrow.
"Can I get you something, miss?" the bartender asked as he turned around, setting a trio of lagers to Emily's right and wiping his hands on the hand towel tied underneath the bar.
"Another, yeah? And make it a double this time." She pointed at her first drink. "I've had stronger drinks made by primary school lunch ladies."
Blinking in surprise, the bartender nodded, snatched her empty glass from its coaster, and scurried down the bar to grab the gin. Katie shook her head dismissively as she sat back on the barstool. She cocked her head, appraising her younger sister.
"Ems? Emily, hell-oh!" She snapped her fingers and the detective—previously frozen in place by the ferocity of her sister's wrath towards the hapless bartender—shook away cobwebs.
"I just...what the fuck was that?"
"I wanted another drink."
"I've been to a hundred bars with you. You've never ordered a drink like that."
Katie paused, considering her sister's accusation, then shrugged. "Must not've noticed my tits."
Groaning audibly, Emily spun and hopped off her barstool, fighting her way through the crowd towards the door and leaving Katie yelling after her from the bar. As she disappeared into the mass of cheering football fans, Katie finally snatched her purse angrily and dove into the throng. Moments later, the bartender appeared in front of two empty stools, the strongest gin and tonic he'd ever mixed in one hand, and a nonplussed expression twisting his mouth into a frown.
Emily shoved through the door of the pub and gasped as the sharp crosswind stole her breath. Tugging her jacket tighter around her shoulders, she headed up the street towards the car park.
"Emily, wait!" Katie staggered out of the door a moment later, adjusting her clothes and affixing her hands to her hips as she halted on the brown cobblestones of the sidewalk outside the pub's front façade. Heart pounding in fear that Emily would just ignore her and continue on her way in the crisp evening, Katie swallowed and stood her ground.
If you turn around, you have to get answers. No half-truths or evasions, Emily warned herself as she slowed her furious pace and came to a stop in front of a boutique men's fashion store. She glanced left at the blank-faced mannequins dressed fashionably in open-collared shirts and jackets with artfully teased pocket squares: they stared back equally impartial. Slowing her breathing with a series of techniques mastered over her years on the police force, Emily rounded on her sister and closed the distance at a measured pace she prayed espoused confidence and zero tolerance for her twin's bullshit. As she finally stopped just out of arm's reach, however, she was still unsure of its success—if the strained look on Katie's face was any indication, she was too distracted to care how Emily returned and was just relieved she had, indeed, turned around and chosen to confront her.
"Don't leave," Katie said quietly, searching Emily's eyes for reassurance.
The younger Fitch worried her bottom lip, crossed her arms defiantly. "What the fuck was that, hmm? What's wrong, Katie?"
"I..." She looked around awkwardly, appraising the bouncer momentarily before meeting her sister's expectant look. "Can we go back inside? It's too quiet out here."
Emily let her arms drop ever-so-slowly, compassion overcoming her frustration. She extended one hand out to her sister and stepped towards the entrance to the pub. "Well?"
Katie took the offered hand and began to follow her sister back inside—only to realize the bartender was standing in the way, whispering to the bouncer. "Shit."
Emily threw a smirk over her shoulder and tugged Katie forward, placing herself in the narrow space between bouncer and bartender. She patted the bartender on the cheek admonishingly. "She's going to have that drink, now. Don't you have other patrons to see to?"
The gin and tonic was half empty and the match was approaching stoppage time with the score knotted at one apiece, but neither Fitch could be bothered to check the outcome. Emily rocked her pint back and forth contemplatively, digesting Katie's recollection of her afternoon job interview.
"I just...I don't know how to fix this, Em. I have to find a job somehow, but every time I get asked about the spring or I walk through an office building that reminds me of SSI, I lose it."
"And then you lost it again here," Emily observed sourly. "And almost got us banned for life."
"Right, 'cause we're here so bloody often."
"It's the principle of the matter, Katie. Don't be flippant." Emily finally took a sip. "Obviously we need to get you some help. This isn't something you have to do on your own, you know. I'm here; Naomi will—"
Emily paused as she saw the screen of her smartphone illuminate and begin vibrating in a circle on the polished surface of the bar. Frowning, she plucked it into the dense air of the busy pub and accepted the call.
"Franks?"
"Emily? It's Devlin."
She rolled her eyes and Katie shrugged, taking a moment to withdraw her own phone and swiping her finger back and forth, tapping it decisively as she navigated from app to app.
"Yes, Devlin? I'm a bit busy at the moment—"
"Have you seen the news?"
"Uh, Ems?" Katie asked simultaneously. She turned the screen of her phone and showed Emily the headline, written in black typeface but practically dripping red.
ATTACK ON TRAIN KILLS 37; NATIONALISTS CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY
"The train thing?"
"Reports are that Vic Patterson was on that train...and that there's still one passenger unaccounted for. Erik called me directly and he seems to think..."
"Emily!" Katie dropped her phone on the bar as she screamed her sister's name and lunged forward, catching her as glass as it slipped from frozen fingers. Placing the glass back on the bar, she waved down the bartender. "Close our tab—now!"
The telly was running on a loop in the corner of the bedroom as BBC shuffled a parade of counter-terrorism and European security experts on and off their sets discussing the day's events in an isolated part of Montenegro, a country which Katie wished still sounded like some generic far-off land invented for creative purposes in a film and not like the last known location of her sister's fiancée and her own employer.
It had taken all of five minutes from the time she hung up on Franks, escorted her nearly-catatonic sister out of the pub and into her auto, and started home for her phone to chime with a news update identifying multiple British nationals among the victims including a missing Member of Parliament and a subsequent text from Erik demanding to know why Naomi was in a former Yugoslavian republic and not at the offices in Bristol that Friday.
It was a question she wasn't sure she would ever be able to answer; Katie ignored both notifications.
Now,three hours later, she stood rooted to the hardwood floors of Emily's bedroom watching the coverage and angrily jamming the 'Reject' button on her mobile while her sister lay curled in the fetal position on top of her duvet. In the background, from its banished position in the kitchen, Emily's phone rang accusingly every minute or two. The blinds were shut, all doors and windows locked—Katie double and triple-checked them while Emily took a long shower upon their immediate arrival home. Nevertheless, she still felt incredibly exposed and vulnerable in the flat, as if those responsible for Vic Patterson's death and Naomi's disappearance would be walking through the front door and up the stairs presently. Katie shuddered. She contemplated calling Cook, but until she was sure she and Emily could talk with him rationally about it (and prevent him from departing immediately on some cross-continent rescue mission), Katie was not willing to risk the consequences.
"It was him, I know it," Emily gasped, her voice coarse from sobbing. She took a stilted breath and squeezed the pillow tighter. Katie padded over to the bed and crawled under the duvet, slipping in next to her sister and hugging her ferociously.
"If it was, we'll find him. And when we find him, we'll find Naomi."
"I'm going to kill him," vowed Emily through tears. "I'm going to kill him and then he'll wish he were dead."
Katie chuckled and squeezed tighter. "I bet he will."
Emily rolled over, forcing Katie to wiggle backwards. She captured her older sister's eyes with an animalistic gaze. Revenge seemed to ooze from her, through her tears, and into the mattress and bedspread. "You'll help me, won't you Katie? Help me get my Naoms back."
Closing her eyes as she finally allowed the day's—and now the evening's—horrors to overwhelm her, Katie embraced her sister and let a sob of her own shake them. She'd never felt so small in the world, but after a moment realized Emily was grasping her in exactly the same fashion as they cried together and their phones continued ringing doggedly, their electronic beats weaving in and out of the dull murmur of the news broadcast.
"Of course I will, Emsy. Anything you need."
Emily hiccuped. "Turn off my fucking phone?"
Katie laughed and wiped hot tears from her cheeks. She nodded and extracted herself from the bed. For good measure, she placed her own mobile on silent and extinguished the telly. Her hand was on the doorframe when her twin added a final addendum: "And then come back? I don't want to be alone tonight."
Katie failed to stop another stream of tears, but nodded after making sure Emily was looking at her. A new round of rings echoed up the stairs and she cursed under her breath before making a hasty descent.