Sophia's keys clicked the lock back and then pushed open the door to her dark apartment. Her ears rang from the fireworks show, and with a pounding heart, she flipped on the lights, reassuring herself that no one had gotten in.

After redoing all of the locks, Sophia fell on the IKEA couch, still too stiff to be considered homey. New York City was never really silent, but her breath was the only sound in her ears, the only sound breaking through the stillness of the empty apartment.

Empty.

It wasn't just the fact that no one else was there that made Sophia feel so alone. It was the absence of anything that would make the apartment feel like hers. There were no signs of who she was; there were no signs of him, either.

"Shit, okay." She stood up, wiping at her eyes. "That's enough."

Sophia showered and got ready for bed and dug through her dresser to find a clean pair of pajamas. But just as she finished and was ready to fall into bed, something caught the corner of her eye.

Bad idea. She hadn't taken it out since she first got to the city and unpacked.

With trembling hands, Sophia lifted her L.A.F.D. shirt out from under the pile of clothing she hid it under. The material was as soft as she remembered, thinned out in several places from years of wear, but it was also the only thing she had that made her actually feel like she was at home.

Sophia pressed the shirt to her face and then stifled a sob. Except, after two months, she couldn't hold back those sobs anymore. Especially not now. She could always pick up a hint of Dean's scent on the shirt, no matter how many times she wore and washed it. But now, nothing. The shirt was still there, but Dean was gone.

The floodgates opened and Sophia couldn't take in air. She sank to the floor, clutching the shirt to her chest as she gasped for breath, dry heaving and feeling her tear reserve finally breaking free. Hot streams ran down her face as she began to hyperventilate.

She didn't want this. She didn't want to have fun watching fireworks with her new coworkers and joke around with FDNY members. She didn't want to be enjoying any of this. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were.

The geyser of emotion continued to unravel her until she was laying on the floor, curling up, the shirt in her vicelike grip. While her breathing eventually came under control, that only made way for sob after sob to wrack through her body. She shook with every breath, clenching into a tighter and tighter ball.

She missed Dean so much it physically hurt. Hell, she missed everyone so much it hurt: Raina, Alicia, May, Matteo, and Dean's crew. And that pain had built up over the months now hit her all at once, so much that she couldn't even function.

No one was coming to help her. If Dean were here, he would pull her into his arms and hold her, letting her clutch his shirt and sob and drool into the fabric for as long as she needed. He would rub her back and kiss her hair, not saying anything but just being the steady force that she needed.

But Dean wasn't there, and even imagining his arms around her made the hole in Sophia's soul rip open wider. She let out a strangled scream, trying to vent some of the raw emotion surging like a tsunami through her body.

Almost instantaneously, a knock on the door. "Sophia?" Jamie called out. "Is everything okay?"

But Sophia couldn't reply. Every time she tried to speak, the words stuck in her throat and another ugly sob came out.

"Sophia, if you don't answer me, I'm going to have to come in."

Sophia hardly cared. She didn't even have the capacity to care.

The locks clicked and Jamie's footsteps hurried into the apartment, and then to the bedroom, drawn by Sophia's cries.

"Okay, damn, okay."

Sophia continued to shake as she sobbed, barely aware of Jamie moving around her. The agent sank to the floor next to her and tentatively put her hand on Sophia's shoulder.

Sophia jerked away, not wanting her sympathy, not wanting her comfort, only wanting to be allowed to engage in her own misery.

To her credit, Jamie didn't try to do anything comforting again, she just sat on the floor next to Sophia's curled-up form in silence.

Eventually, Sophia's tears dried up, her body drained. The sobs continued, but they eventually turned into heavy breathing as Sophia's body worked to calm itself down. Her head buzzed, her eyes stung, and her mouth and throat were dry, but she pushed herself up, leaning back against her mattress.

Sophia looked down at the shirt still in her hands, now wrinkled and damp from her crying. She felt like someone had come and ripped out everything inside her that made her Sophia Shelby, leaving a hollow shell. Her gaze slid off of the shirt and to the floor in front of her, staring blankly at the textured rug.

"Why is this happening to me?" When she finally spoke, the words almost didn't come, her throat was so closed up.

Jamie's head jerked slightly in her direction, but she didn't say anything.

"Maybe that's selfish, I mean, what makes me so special that this couldn't happen to me? Or that it shouldn't happen to me compared to someone else?" The words rushed out of her, rage replacing her distress in a blink of an eye.

"Fuck him. Fuck him, why, God why couldn't I have dated someone normal in high school? Why did he have to get some obsession with me? Fucking bitch, I fucking hate him. I want him dead. I want to fucking kill him."

There was no precedent for the rage that burned in Sophia's veins. She hated him. She really did. And she wanted him dead. Hell, if she saw him walking out of the streets of New York, she doubted she would hesitate to kill him with her bare hands.

Before all of this, Sophia had thought she hated him. But now she realized that she didn't even know what hate was before all of this.

She hated that she also felt like she hated herself. Hated how she wasted so much time on him, both while they were dating and after they broke. Hated how she wasn't able to see him for who he actually was. Hated how she had gotten into this mess without any sort of support system around her.

"Here." She flung the shirt at Jamie. "I guess you'll want to confiscate that, go store at your F.B.I. building or something."

Jamie turned the shirt over in her hands, examining it as Sophia watched her out of the corner of her very angry eye. The agent carefully folded it and handed it back to Sophia. "If he's going through your dresser, we've got bigger problems than him finding an L.A.F.D. shirt," she said flatly, but not unkindly.

Sophia gripped it and ran her finger over the symbol printed on the left corner. "Why are you here?" She didn't mean for the words to be rude, but that's what they were.

"I could hear you. I needed to make sure you weren't being attacked. I wanted to make sure you're okay."

Sophia let out a bark of laughter, cynicism dripping. "I'm great," she exclaimed sarcastically. "There you go, you've done your duty as 'someone who cares.'"

Jamie let the barb roll over her, going back to sitting beside Sophia in silence.

The rage slowly ebbed, and a silent, hollow grief rushed back in. Her hands smoothed out the fabric of the t-shirt in a constant motion. "Why is this happening to me?" This time as she asked the question, Sophia's voice cracked and the tears returned, this time running silently down her already stained cheeks.

"There are a lot of things I know you already know," Jamie finally said. "But I'm also wondering if you need to hear some of them. None of this is your fault, Sophia. I can't answer why, because there is no answer other than Dempsey is a piece of shit, but it's sure as hell not your fault."

Sophia let the agent's words sink in. She knew that, of course. But, as much as she would hate to admit it at that moment, it did help to hear someone else say it.

"And all the pain I left behind in L.A.?" Sophia asked. "How is that not my fault?"

"Because it's still his fault," Jamie said sharply. "And you're not going to believe that with just me telling you, but it's true."

Sophia supposed it was. Whether or not everyone else would see it that way was a question for another day.

"Here."

Sophia sniffed as she accepted Jamie's offering of a tub of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food and a spoon. "You had to make sure I wasn't being attacked, but you stopped to grab ice cream?"

Jamie shrugged. "I'm very efficient."

Sophia continued to cry as she took small bites of the ice cream into her mouth at a time, still too activated to be embarrassed about the way she occasionally drooled onto her pajama top, chocolate, caramel, marshmallow, and all. Jamie had the tact to look away.

"Any updates for me?"

Sophia's heart sank as Jamie shook her head. "No, not now," the agent said. "They're still in Chicago, closing in on him."

"He's good at hiding."

Jamie didn't bother to deny it. "That he is. But you've made it this far, Sophia. You know what they said. 'If you're going through hell, keep going.'"

"Didn't Winston Churchill say that?"

"He would know. It might be old but it applies to a lot of situations."

"I don't know about that. Going through hell implies that you could turn around. I don't have the option to turn back time."

"True. But you do have the option to just give up. And where would that get you?"

Sophia sniffed, a gross, phlegmy sound, and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "No, giving up isn't my style. But right now, I don't really feel like keeping going."

"Then take a pause. Get some rest. Call out of work tomorrow. Watch a movie. Do something to keep your strength up."

Sophia digested Jamie's words. "Thanks," she grumbled. "Thanks for, you know," she held up the ice cream carton, "caring, I guess."

Jamie got herself up off the floor. "I mean it, Sophia. Rest. You're getting there, but you're not at the end of this journey."

If Sophia had to guess, she would say that Jamie's idea of her getting rest didn't involve her falling asleep curled up on the floor, one hand clutching Dean's shirt, the other a melted container of ice cream, but it was good enough for Sophia.