Her apartment was not the place Laurel went immediately after leaving work. She needed to make a couple of pit stops before she went home. Before she went anywhere else Laurel drove to the first coffee shop she could find and ordered the biggest latte she could and the best looking scone in the display of pastries. She had managed to force herself to eat a few mouthfuls of yogurt that morning, but the twisting uncertainty of where she stood with the bureau robbed her of much of an appetite. She didn't really feel all that better, even after learning she had not yet lost her job, but she was starving and she could no longer ignore it. She needed a scone, and she didn't care what kind. She ended up ordering an orange cranberry one, and she sat there in the shop for a while, wearing her professional FBI slacks, blouse, and jacket, slowly sipping on the coffee and nibbling on the scone. Laurel tried to focus on nothing except the taste of the drink and food, hoping that for a few moments she could find peace. It didn't exactly work.

After the coffee shop she went to the market, which was where she often went when she was in distress and needed some kind of comfort. It was usually a bad idea. Laurel ended up walking back to her car with a reusable grocery bag on her shoulder that was filled with a lot of things she probably didn't need, but she didn't really care. These items included the cheapest bottle of wine she could find, as well as an expensive box of chocolates, a few frozen pizzas, a roll of cookie dough that she would only bake maybe half of and then eat the rest with a spoon, as well as other food items, a few magazines, and a mediocre looking romantic comedy DVD that she had thrown in last minute because had been three dollars and the main guy looked cute. 

She called Ben when she pulled into her parking spot outside of her building and informed him that while she wasn't fired she wasn't out of the woods just yet. He sounded relieved that she hadn't lost her career while remaining concerned for the uncertainty of her immediate future. She also told him about the family gathering that weekend and he assured her he'd get the day off so he could go and support her. 

"Want to come over tonight after my shift? Or I could come over? I could cook?"

She managed a smile as she eased the building's door open and went inside. He was great, and she could always depend on that. "I'd love that, but I have paperwork I need to do. The incident report and that kind of thing. Tomorrow night, though?"

"Perfect. It's a date. I'll make tiramisu for desert." Tiramisu was her favorite. 

"Hey," Laurel said, pausing outside of the elevator before she pushed the up arrow button.

"Mmm?" She heard Ben ask.

"I love you."

She could almost hear the sound of his smile. "I love you, too. See you tomorrow?"

"Definitely, Bye, Ben." She ended the call and stuck the phone in her pocket, before pulling the shopping bag more securely onto her shoulder and pressing the elevator button. Laurel stood in the elevator as it rose, suddenly exhausted and wishing for a chair or a bed to lie on. The trip up to her floor seemed to take longer than usual, and she was sighing with relief when she finally got to her door and pulled her key from her pocket.

She came through the door, eyes downcast as she turned slightly to close and lock the door behind her. Then she turned towards her loft's narrow but homey interior and her head rose until she locked gazes with James Weller. There was a heartbeat, and then she let out the same startled sound she had the night before when she had first seen him. 

Laurel almost fell backwards in her rush and she felt her back collide with the closed door. It was lucky she hadn't let the shopping bag slip from her shoulder and smash wine all over the rest of her provisions, but she couldn't think about that right now. All she could think about was that he was back, that she was hallucinating again, that she could feel the desperate panic kicking in. He was there, standing in the middle of her room looking just as he had the night before. He looked real and conscious, but she knew he was neither of those things. The real James Weller was in a hospital bed miles away, and this thing in front of her was a fragment of her imagination, fueled by the unbearable guilt. And she was scared of it, absolutely terrified. She was hallucinating again. She had wanted to write the previous night off as some sort of dream, but it was happening again and she could not deny it or make up some sort of excise for it.

Did this mean that she had gone insane?

Suddenly Laurel wasn't as scared as much as she was angry. She had done a horrible thing, she wasn't going to deny it. She probably deserved punishment of some sort, but this... "What do you want?" she blurted out, not sure if she was talking to James, or her own brain, or if they were one and the same. "What the fuck do you want with me? Why are you here? Is this to make me feel more guilty than I already do? To constantly remind me that there's a man out there whose life I took away from him? To drive me insane? Is this my punishment?" Laurel's hands curled into fists and she felt hot tears of anger well up. She was unable to prevent them from sliding down her cheek and she moved over to the counter so she could set her things down somewhere before she dropped them. Or threw them.

"I don't deserve this," she announced, her voice cracking with anger as she turned around to look at her hallucination. Laurel was pale and all but quivering in guilt and rage. "I don't fucking deserve this! I know you're not real, so stop fucking staring at me and just...disappear. I don't deserve to be driven insane by a hallucination, do you understand me?"