"Sandra?" Strickland asked a surprised tone to his voice as he came down to put some possible case files on the desk only to find a slight glow coming from Sandra's office.
"Sir." Sandra said emotionlessly as she didn't even bother to look up at him.
"I didn't expect to see you here. Gerry rang me the other day and told me you'd given birth."
"I did but I can still work."
"A little girl was it?" Strickland pushed.
"Yeah, Chloe." Sandra smiled.
"Congratulations Sandra."
"Thank you sir." Sandra smiled and for a moment she was genuinely happy because in that moment she was like anyone else who'd recently given birth, being offered congratulations. Delusion, that's what it was, in that moment she'd deluded herself that Chloe was still alive and instead that happiness that she should have felt when she gave birth crept up on her. In her mind Chloe was at home asleep and although her feelings were ones of exceptional happiness all the while she was setting herself up for a harder fall with every passing second.
"Have you got a picture?" Strickland asked, clearly pleased for her. The question was enough to bring her crashing down, to Strickland the tears falling from her eyes were tears of joy but to Sandra they were the tears of realisation that she had no pictures and that in fact she'd barely even got to see her daughter.
"No…"
"Sorry I need to take this." Strickland told her as his phone began ringing from in his pocket, he stepped outside into the main office, shutting Sandra's door as he did leaving her completely with her own thoughts.
"Strickland." He said as he answered the phone.
"Sir it's Gerry, is Sandra there?" Gerry asked worriedly.
"Yeah…"
"Oh thank God." Gerry sighed the relief evident in his voice to the younger man.
"Is everything okay?"
"No. She's not coping, well none of us are but I don't think she's even acknowledging what's going on." Gerry told Strickland over the phone, it was the first time Strickland had ever heard Gerry cry.
"Coping with what? She's just telling me about Chloe with a massive smile on her face."
"This is worse than I thought…"
"What's going on?" Strickland asked, his confusion growing with every word Gerry said.
"Chloe passed away." Gerry told him as he broke down sobbing.
"Oh God, I'm so sorry. I didn't know, I wouldn't have asked her if I did. I'll bring her home."
"She obviously doesn't want to be here right now… just make sure she's eaten. If she needs time to herself then that's fine but make sure she's looking after herself."
"I'll make sure she's home by half 6."
"Thank you sir."
Strickland had just stepped outside, the unexpected phone call and the conversation prior to it had brought her crashing hard into a reality that she didn't want to be in. Her whole word was falling apart for the third time in so many days and this time it didn't feel like something any amount of delusion could fix.
She moved the mouse of her computer so that she could lose herself in work instead of losing herself falling through the bottomless pit that seemed to be her life just now. Instead of that a picture of her, Gerry and Alexis came up, a picture from her wedding day. It should have been an image that offered her comfort instead she couldn't even bring herself to look at it. She couldn't look at her daughter because she reminded her too much of the daughter she'd just lost and she couldn't look at Gerry because he'd gotten her pregnant in the first place. In this moment she had no hope.