[For Olivia] Jan. 23: just outside the door where it always rains

[girlsolo]

The game of 'I never' is about to get one item harder for Kate to win. Kate Freelander, ex-thief, ex-smuggler, is about to voluntarily surrender some bling that fell into her lap. Jewelry box. Whatever.

But it's not the novelty of it that has Kate's pulse elevated and her stomach in knots when she steps into the IPD Office. She's not even afraid of cops anymore. Two things about the silver bracelet with its blue stones have her holding it like a venomous snake.

One, just looking at hurts. She thought...god, she'd thought Declan gave it to her. That it had been an I love you, an I'm sorry, a please come home, Katie. But he's never seen it before. He didn't give it to her. Now it's weird. Yeah, they're good, but it's still kind of a huge fucking cosmic joke. The first time anyone gave her something like that, something pretty, just for her, and he didn't.

Two, she doesn't know whether someone lost it or someone put it in her jewelry box or what the hell happened, but it feels like payback on the stunt she pulled back in September. It's not even close to the first time she's been stolen from or had her space busted into or whatever. She just. Now she knows. She gets how it feels with to be messed with like she did. Maybe she gets a little more too why Trixa was pissed about how she did it. It was sloppy.

This bracelet's a mindfuck. One that's already taught her a lesson. All she wants is to get rid of it. But first she has to make sure it doesn't belong to someone so she doesn't end up in lock-up. She closes her fingers over it, lifts her chin and walks over to the pretty blonde she's seen around, walks like a Fed, not a cop.

"I need to report a missing item."

*
Title lyrics from Melissa Etheridge's Precious Pain.

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[gonnabefine]

Olivia gave Kate a quick look of sympathy for the explanation, knowing she couldn't have lived with much of dignity intact if she'd been through the same misunderstanding.

She turned the sympathetic look into a decent smile, setting the bracelet carefully back down on the desk before sitting back in her seat. "Thank you. We'll figure out some way to see if we can find the owner. I'll let you know if we do, I'm sure they'll want to thank you, too."

[girlsolo]

"Probably not. They'll just be glad I didn't steal it." If they even believed it. But Dunham's being nice and not in that fakey-fakey way, so Kate quirks her a little smile, the kind that says she knows who she is and what people think and she's not afraid of it.

"If no one comes asking for it in a week, maybe I'll put something up on the bulletin board." Usually when you turn shit in and no one claims it after awhile, they give it back to you. Kate's scored a bunch of sweet things that way but she doesn't want this. She's not going to explain to Dunham that she just feels weird about it, but from that flash of sympathy, Kate guesses she gets it well enough.

"Um, thanks." She wants to say 'for being decent about it' but Dunham probably knows that part too.

[gonnabefine]

"You're welcome." The way Kate smiled made it easy to realize she had personal walls up just like anybody else (Olivia was sure she didn't fool anyone with her own, but as long as they kept someone out, she was okay with that). It was still nice to know that there was something beneath that exterior, and even more to know that there was a real person behind the reports she'd read.

"Do you need anything else?"

[girlsolo]

There it is again. That thing Dunham does and Kate's not sure what it is exactly, but it makes Kate feel like maybe she could trust her if she needed to. Not just on the island, either. There's something kind of solid about her that Kate...likes isn't the right word but respects is as good a word as she had for it.

She just shrugs and, with a little twist of humor, says, "If you figure out a way to get out of her, put me on the top of the list to notify. Otherwise, I think I'm good."

[gonnabefine]

That puts a genuinely amused smile on Olivia's face, despite her complete and utter lack at reaching any sort of answer on how to do just that.

"If anyone figures it out, I'll make sure you're the first to know."