Bailey wandered over to Shapiro’s desk carrying two steaming cups of coffee. He handed one to her without a word while looking around nervously.
She accepted it cautiously. “…You’re bribing me.”
Bailey looked at her through his aviators “No.”
“You only bring me coffee when you want to talk to get me to do something for you or to get yourself out of work.”
Bailey looked genuinely offended. “I bring you coffee because we’re partners!”
She sighed. “What happened?”
Bailey looked around the office. Several officers were filling out reports. Someone was arguing with dispatch over the radio. Nobody seemed to be paying attention.
He lowered his voice. “I found something yesterday.”
Shapiro raised an eyebrow. “What could you have possibly found yesterday to feel the need to tell me?”
She took a sip of the coffee, trying to be patient with him. “What’d you find?”
Bailey looked around again nervously.
She slowly lowered the coffee cup. “…Bailey-
Bailey accidentally cut her off without realizing “Listen.”
“No, like… actually listen to this.”
“I am Bailey. Now get to the damn point. We both have work to do.
He leaned closer and took his aviators off to look at her. “So yesterday I decided to start cleaning my basement, right? Wanted to see if I could get it cleaned out before my mom and nephew got back into town. But when I finally got a decent amount of everything cleaned, I went to go lean against the wall for a small break but somehow I just… fell through it.”
“And I end up in this huge, like, titanic sized office building! The whole place looked abandoned or something’! And that doorway thing! I just fell through a wall like, like it wasn’t there! Like it was Invisible or somethin’ and I could just faze though the wall like it was nothin’!…”
She nodded once. “Uh-huh.”
Her expression remained perfectly neutral.
Shapiro took a slow drink of coffee. Then another. She carefully set the cup on her desk. Then she reached across and placed the back of her hand against Bailey’s forehead.
He frowned. “…What are you doing?”
She just looked at him “You’ve been acting weird since you walked in.”
“I fell through a wall yesterday! I couldn’t just sleep after something like that! I-”
She folded her arms. “Bailey.”
“Trust me. I know you are.”
She spoke gently now. “Genuinely. I believe that you believe that’s what happened.”
Bailey’s face fell. “You think I hallucinated it or something??”
“I think you were cleaning in a dusty basement for several hours and hit your head or something.”
“I wasn’t hallucinating.”
Shapiro decided to play it safe. So she smiled sympathetically to try and avoid Bailey having an outburst. “I know.”
Bailey looked down at his hands. “It felt real.”
She gave him the look that showed him that she was utterly unconvinced.
Bailey angrily puts his aviators back on his face before mumbling. “You know what Shapiro? I can prove it! I know I can, and I will!”
Shapiro asks how he can prove it before telling him to go back to work. Bailey just stomped off back to his desk before glaring at a report he needed to fill out. Bailey eyes then wandered to a blank note book. Bailey then gets the idea that he’ll go back in, make a map and collect samples of the place.
He has a whole thing set up in his basement. One of the walls is just a huge map made out of note book paper taped together. Bailey has foldable tables out that have notes scattered across them. Imagine if Bailey wanted to be a detective but never really had the skill set for it? So he takes this as his chance to prove to himself that he can do it?
He hasn’t slept in days so he can do all of this. Which has really only made him look more insane to Shapiro.