Katherine's Apartment

[Katherine]

Her fingers tapped their way over her laptop's keyboard in a rhythm that she found soothing. No music played because it would distract her from getting her work done, but she did have a glass of red wine to her right which she took lazy sips from on occasion, when she stopped to think. A note pad and pen lay to her left, every so often, between typing and sips of win she would cross something out or scribble something new down.

Frank jumped up onto her desk and mewed pathetically at Katherine Rivera and she looked at him with a mix between disinterest and annoyance.

"I'm trying to work, you tub of lard." She spoke sternly but her right hand was stroking through the spoiled animal's fur softly. Frank looked up at her, licked his pink nose and purred. Kath sighed, as if giving up as he wormed his way onto her lap; she picked up her wine and sat back with a yawn.

It wasn't important, well all her work was important to her, but in the grand scheme of things it was not important, it was just something her compartmentalised brain needed to work through to stop the case swallowing her up. She looked down and rich auburn, almost black curls touched her cheeks, softening her frowning face.

"Next time that idiot brother of mine is here, he's taking you home so don't get too comfy," she said. She said it loud and often but somehow managed to forget to tell Marcus to reclaim the animal whenever her actually was at her apartment. The phone rang and she rolled her eyes, as if she had been expecting the call, "talk of the devil..."

She snatched up her cell phone, leaning over the cat who proceeded to digs his claws into her leg lightly, "Rivera."

"Hey Sis'."

"I'm working."

He made a derisive noise, "'Course you are. Just checking in, didn't see you today."

"I had a double Downtown." Their short hand was not that uncommon for cops, it was slightly more unusual for siblings in that they shared the same jobs and therefore had a little of work and family mixed into their everyday routines which conjured an odd relationship, "You're cats' digging his claws into my leg, if he tears these jeans you're buying me new ones. You coming over?"

"I can't, I'm on till six."

"You're what? Jesus..."

"Things snowballed, like I said, didn't see you today. Didn't want you to think I up and died or something."

She sighed into her phone, setting her unfinished wine down, "You're not funny, you now that right?"

"Shut up, I'm hilarious."

She snorted, "Like a kick in the teeth, yeah. See you tomorrow."

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Kath pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and exhaled. Frank, displeased that she had stopped paying him attention, leapt off her knees and padded heavily away across her floor. When she opened her eyes her screen was glowing accusingly at her and she knew she probably wouldn't get much sleep tonight thinking about her brother working all night, the over protective sister in her kicking up a fuss about it. At least for now she could work and her brain would have something to think about other than Marcus, she'd cross the bridge of being unoccupied when she came to it.

[Katherine]

She stared out of the window at the dark streets below her apartment and breathed out against the glass, the frowny face she had drawn moments ago coming back to life. It remained a given that Marcus was the only one who could pull her away from work, whether he was actually at her apartment or not. Once her thoughts turned to her younger brother they got stuck there.

Kath hated the thought of him on the job when she wasn't but he hated having the same shifts as her. Being the more senior detective of the two she usually had a choice over her shifts if she was desperate, so she gave him space. She loved the Rivera Family Madness, as Marcus called it, her brother needed distance form it once and a while and sometimes that included her.

Still.

She was his big sister. She was his protector and if he got shot, or stabbed or beaten over the head with a baseball bat.... that came down to her. Not only would her mother never forgive her for it, Katherine would never forgive herself either. She remembered when he was nine and fell down the stairs on her watch, broke his damned leg and she'd been guilty about it for year with her mother bringing it up at every family gathering she had her wits about her at.

She was debating going out and buying something to eat, taking some to drop off at the station house for Marc. He'd see straight through it, no way would she have just thought of him while she was out to eat. It would be blatantly obvious that she was checking up on him.

"Oh, we're friends again are we?" Katherine heaved a sigh and looked down. It seemed Frank was speaking to her again. He pushed up against her leg and she rolled her eyes, damned attention whore. "Screw it."

She was not spending the night locked up in her apartment with work that could be done another time while her brother was working down at that station with his idiot partner and a city full of crazies. She grabbed her coat and rammed her feet into a pair of flat boots hastily; going for her set of keys next and shooing Frank out of the way as she made a beeline for the door.

So she was transparent.

At least her mother wouldn't be able to scold her next time they talked.

Continued in: The Parking Garage