It had been a quiet day at the police station, despite the recent blackout. Ever since her imprisonment incident, the officers had treated her differently, handling her with kid gloves. She was insulated from chaos and noise, given quiet rooms in which to work. Normally, Daryl despised such changes in behavior, but this time she appreciated it. The quiet was a nice reprieve, a gentle insulator for her work.
By the time she came home, she was in a surprisingly even mood. There was nothing bothering her, nothing upsetting her. She considered visiting Adam later, and likely would. But in the meantime, she would work on bill payments. Without Jane to do them for her, she had learned how, and found the process frightfully dull. And yet she checked her mailbox dutifully, prepared to see a deluge of little white envelopes that would only serve to bring her boredom.
Instead, she saw a hand-addressed letter, raising a brow curiously. Touching the envelope gave her a flood of mail room procedures, and so she quickly replaced her glove, not interested in watching other letters in the mail bag. Opening the envelope, she slid it into her messenger bag, discarded, as she began to read the letter inside.
The comfortable, emotionless calm that had presided began to slowly fade away as she read. Tightening her jaw, she forced herself to read the whole thing, finally closing her eyes at the end. Removing her glove, she touched the paper's face with her bare fingers, mind's eye flooded with images. Her attention lingered on Tim's face as he wrote, studying all the subtleties in its creases and imperfections. They were, after all, the most fascinating things about a person.
By the time she realized that she was standing with her eyes closed in the middle of the Bathos lobby, Daryl felt something burning underneath her eyelids. She opened her eyes, feeling small tears leak over her cheeks. With a determined clearing of her throat, she replaced her glove, folding the letter carefully and sliding it into its envelope. The feeling of abandonment was still fierce, but it wasn't a surprise. He and Harry were embarking on a new life as a unit. It only made sense.
But it didn't explain why her chest hurt as she slowly climbed the stairs to her apartment.