Disclaimer: I own jack.
She woke cold and stiff on the familiar couch in the now unfamiliar apartment.
Lifting her head brought a sudden rush of nausea and sent her rushing to the bathroom to throw up.
After remorsefully emptying the contents of her stomach she splashed her face with cold water and rinsed out the offensive aftertaste with mouthwash.
She stared at her contemptible reflection a full two minutes before leaving the bathroom in search of aspirin to ease the raging hangover.
She had found Ray's liquor easily enough to drown her sorrows so why the hell was finding the damn aspirin proving so difficult?
She paused her search to make herself an industrial strength coffee, then preceded, foul tasting beverage in hand to the only place she hadn't yet checked, Ray's bedroom.
She opened the door hesitantly; it seemed such an intrusion to be there when he wasn't.
The subtle presence of him soothingly everywhere within the typically masculine yet uniquely Ray room.
She focused on the objective of finding painkillers rather than the thought of her currently absent ex-roommate.
Finding nothing on the dresser she chanced a look in the top drawer vowing to give up if they weren't there.
Pushing aside various bits and pieces (the thick leather cuff, studded belt and other things) she managed to find a small tub of aspirin in one corner next to a strip of condoms.
She tried to ignore the sudden jealous flare that rose in her at the question of how many he had got through in her absence, thinking of him lying on the bed she was sitting on with some other woman wrapped around him.
She found herself briefly contemplating how she would have to sit by and endure the ache of seeing him with other women if they did ever manage to repair their tattered friendship.
Sure they would be brief and many, but there would always be that jealous little voice in the back of her skull wishing it was her.
Chucking back two aspirin with the strong black sludge she grimaced at the bitter taste on the back of her tongue.
She'd found she what had needed and knew she should be leaving now.
Hell she should have left last night but she had been a mess and the prospect of getting all the way across town to get wasted seemed pointless when Ray had a perfectly good half bottle of Jim Beam sat there.
'Had' she reminded herself, she must replace it.
She lay back on the bed savouring the silence of the empty apartment. Her quality of sleep on the couch had been somewhere between poor and non-existent and here was as good a place as any to remedy that.
She had four hours and forty-seven minutes before her next shift at county. She had the brief notion of calling in sick, but instantly dismissed it, she was already considered a lot of things by the rumour mill she didn't want to add "slacker" to the ever-growing labels they gave her.
Instead she set Ray's alarm clock for three hours from now and sank back into the soft pillow that smelt vaguely of him.