Della opened the door to one of the spare bedrooms that she and Perry used as a storage room for their files. She had the entire house to herself, and until just now, she had no idea what to do with her unwanted free time.

Perhaps it wasn't necessarily unwanted. If she was being honest, Della was rather glad that she was alone. Perry had been moody, brooding, and uncommunicative for days, and the worst thing was, he wouldn't even tell her what the problem was. Oh, she knew it had something to do with Laura, but what that was, she wasn't quite sure. Initially, she had tried to be understanding and compassionate, urging him gently to tell her what his issue was, but that didn't work. After a few days of that, Della found herself getting impatient and resisting the urge to smack some sense into him.

Perry had taken a drive - to run some errands, he said. No, he didn't need Della to come along with him. He was perfectly capable of running errands on his own. No, she needn't wait lunch for him, he probably wouldn't be back that soon. He needed some time to himself.

Della's irritation - an emotion she wasn't used to feeling, certainly not towards Perry - was growing. Hadn't he always insisted that she come with him to do something - anything - with him, if she wanted? Perry hadn't "needed some time to himself" before. Not when it didn't involve a case they were working on.

She was being unfair, and she knew it.

Though she could understand that it would bother him somewhat that Laura was gone, this was too much, his cutting himself off from her.

That was the deepest cut of all.

Perhaps if she kept herself busy, did some chore around the house that she had been putting off, it would relax her to some extent, and then she could keep from biting his head off when he came home.

Dusting was obviously out; she avoided that whenever possible. So much so that Perry had decided he would add it to his list of domestic chores approximately one week after they had moved in together. She could vacuum, she supposed. The noise of the machine would keep her from thinking too much. The only other thing she could think of was - yes. It was absolutely perfect, was what it was.

For a few months now, Della had been considering clearing out the files from their cases. It was a standard procedure that she went through annually, but since it took so much time, she had rather procrastinated doing it. Perry, despite being a more mature age, was still going strong, and though they could afford to pick and choose the cases they took now, he still had a soft spot for a deserving underdog, and so subsequently, they were busier than ever. Files needed to be moved from the office to their home, and the files from home needed to be purged to make room.

Making her way towards the filing cabinet, a small box caught her eye. Forgoing the idea of file purging for the moment, Della took a deep breath and gently lifted the lid off the box.

Paul.

His smiling face beamed up at her from the front of his PI license. Once Junior had taken over the space, Della had removed everything she deemed important from his office, and carefully tucked it away in this box for safekeeping.

This was how she remembered Paul; young, vibrant, handsome, and willing to do anything for his best friend - and for her.

Della truly missed him in moments like this. Once he had been told about her relationship with Perry (Paul was a brilliant detective, but he had missed so many obvious clues with regard to this particular subject that both Perry and Della had begun to wonder about his abilities), Paul had become even more of an overprotective big brother figure to her than he was before. Gertie had once told Della that she had overheard Paul tell Perry on more than one occasion that he'd better treat "Beautiful" right, or else he'd have Paul's wrath to deal with.

What she wouldn't give to have him with her right now. He always could make things clearer for her, and cheer her up. Perhaps he would have been able to get Perry to open up about what his problem was.

Della took the license from the box, and held it briefly against her lips, before brushing a tear from her eye and taking a deep breath against the wave of emotion. She replaced the box and its contents to their original place, then steeled herself against the filing cabinet. It was time to get back to work. She couldn't allow herself to wallow in sadness; she had things to do.

Quick work was made as one file after another was glanced through, then placed in an empty container for shredding. The sight of some of the case names made her smile, others caused her to pause and reminisce for a moment or two, and still others didn't even warrant a second look.

Two hours had gone by before she came to it.

The City of Los Angeles vs. Laura Robertson

The name on the file stuck out like a sore thumb, and Della bit back the decidedly unladylike comment that she had been about to make. There was no need to resort to vulgarities when they weren't necessary, now was there? Besides, there wasn't anyone there to appreciate her creative cursing anyway, since that person was currently out God only knew where, doing God only knew what.

Laura Robertson could no longer say or do anything to irritate Della, could no longer try unsuccessfully to make her feel insecure about Perry and his feelings for her. Except for the fact that this was exactly what she was doing. Della was beginning to think she had been foolish to believe all of Perry's protests that Laura had never really meant anything to him, and that he had been well over her before he met Della, and most assuredly after.

"Damn you," Della muttered. File in hand, she drew her arm back, and much as she had as a girl when she would play baseball with her brother in the backyard of their home, lobbed the file as hard as she could, landing most of it inside the wastebasket a decent distance across the room. She smiled with the satisfaction of knowing that her aim was as impeccable as always, Still, there were a few pieces that hadn't quite made it in. Then too, she knew that she would take even greater satisfaction in shredding this file personally than she had venting her frustration at it.

Picking up the few errant pieces was a quick job, and Della shoved them hurriedly back in the folder before getting up from her kneeling position. Turning to deposit the file in the container with the others, her eye caught the corner of an envelope that she had missed. She bent down, and was hit with a sudden sense of realization. Della knew exactly what it was at once, though she had almost forgotten its existence. She carefully extracted the letter from the envelope, and unfolded it, blinking in surprise at discovering not only her handwriting, but the blue inked handwriting that she would have recognized anywhere. No one else used ink in that particular color, nor made their "D's" in that particular way.

She sat on a nearby sofa, and began to read.