James sat staring at the clock in his small apartment, it had been hours since he'd left the morgue where Laura had promised that she'd be round later to discuss her plan. He couldn't believe that Jean had gone, the reality of the situation was just beginning to sink in and he didn't like it. He'd frequently had days at work when he was so busy that he didn't see Jean but they always made up for it later that night, when she could sneak away. It was 7 o'clock though and apart from the letter, he hadn't heard from her all day. It wasn't that he hadn't tried to get through to her, he'd left numerous voicemails and he was pretty sure he'd broken the fair use policy on his contract regarding the unlimited texts on his phone contract in the space of one day, and yet she hadn't replied to a single one.

He'd ventured into his room earlier in the night to get changed but it had made him feel worse. His bedroom smelt strongly of her perfume mixed with the slight scent of her shampoo. Doing his best to ignore that, he'd walked over to his wardrobe to find something that was more comfortable than the suits he wore for work, only to see a selection of Jean's clothes hung up alongside his, for when she managed to get a whole night with him. All of this meant that he couldn't go into his bedroom, he hadn't even bothered with his bathroom after that as he knew that there would be more of Jean's things dotted around there. In the end, the living room had seemed more safe and even there one of Jean's books lay out on the coffee table, everywhere there were little reminders of Jean, from the way everything in his kitchen was organised to the things that she'd recorded on his TV for when she was there. She had infiltrated every part of his life and he wouldn't have had it any other way but now with a day without her under his belt, he was mourning her loss as if she was dead, only this was harder as she'd chosen to go.

The doorbell brought him back to reality from his thoughts, on his doorstep he found Laura with a bottle of wine, for which he assumed was for herself, a pack of beers for him and a take away.

"You didn't need to do all of this." James told her as he took the stuff from her hands and moved aside to let his friend inside. Laura took her coat off and placed it on a hook between one of James' coats and another that she recognised as her absent best friend's.

"I figured you've probably not eaten today and then I thought you'll need the alcohol and I wasn't going to let you get drunk on your own. While we're working ourselves towards drunk though, we actually need to consider my plan."

"Thank you Laura, take a seat and I'll plate this up and pour you a glass. You can start telling me about this plan of yours while I do." James replied as he started opening various containers that Laura had brought and spooning it onto the two plates in front of him.

"First I need to check a few things..."

"Go on."

"You do love her, don't you? This isn't just about sleeping with the boss or having someone to hook up with regularly but now you're ashamed at the thought of people finding out?" Laura asked, she already knew the answer to her question but she needed to hear him say it.

"Do you really think I'd be this upset if I didn't love her? She's constantly on my mind, she gives my life a purpose, I was made to love her. Her smile makes my heart skip a beat, the sight of her makes me want to use every word I could think of to tell her how perfect and how stunning she is. I wish she wasn't married and that we could have been together properly but life isn't that easy and we just wanted to be together however we could be. Take a look around, her stuff is dotted around as if it was meant to be here, just like she is." James sighed.

"Okay, can I have a look around please? I just want to see if there's anything that could give us any clues?" Laura asked, knowing that James was usually a very secretive person but as well as actually being helpful, this was a test because if he let her have a look then it further confirmed his love for her best friend.

"Of course you can."