"Maura, what're you doin out here?"
Startled out of her daydream, Maura sits on the frosty bench outside Starbucks and looks up to find Jane turning off her truck and running up to her before she can answer. She turns her head so Jane can't see her face.
"I'm reading," she calls out over her shoulder.
"I can see that. I just don't understand why you're doing it in below freezing weather." She grabs Maura's hand in hers, taking Maura's coffee in the crook of her arm, and starts for the car. When Maura doesn't keep up, Jane tugs a little bit. "C'mon, before you freeze your butt off!"
After Jane gets the heat going, Maura speaks more to the window than to Jane:
"Thank you for letting me get warmed up, but I would've been fine, Jane. My ride would've been here in another half hour or so. And until then, I had some light reading." She holds up a medical journal that can be considered anything but light.
"Usually, when people are waiting for a ride, they wait, you know, inside."
"It's been proven in certain studies that staying in cold air, or rather going back and forth between cold and warm air, similar to what I was doing, provides many health benefits. Among these being: improving blood circulation, regulating temperature, deepening breath—"
"Okay, okay, I believe you no need to lecture me." Jane laughs, but stops when she notices Maura doesn't join her.
"What's wrong?"
Maura turns to face her, finally. She's been crying.
In response to Jane's question, Maura gestures towards the crowded coffee shop.
Oh.
"Mau—"
"There were so many people. Just like before. I know it's an irrational fear because there is no possibility that just because one person laughs at me that I'll be transported back to days of merciless taunting by merely walking into a crowded area and not being sure of when I'll be able to get out—"
"But—" Placing her hand on Maura's, Jane cuts her off. "—that doesn't make it any less difficult."
Maura nods. But doesn't answer. Jane takes off her seatbelt, and scrambles into to the back seat.
Holding out a hand, she nods to Maura, "C'mere."
Careful not to spill her drink, Maura climbs over the glove compartment and lies partially on the back seat and mostly in Jane's lap. She rests her head near Jane's shoulder, tears spilling onto her sweatshirt. Jane rubs small circles on her back. Maura tries not to cry too loudly. They lie like that for a few minutes when Maura speaks up:
"I don't know what's wrong with me, Jane."
"There's not a damn thing wrong with you, Maura. You are amazing. You've got to believe that."
But Maura doesn't agree. She knows, there are thousands of threats, hundreds of curses, and dozens of people Jane would beat up, just to get Maura to believe that. But right now, those intentions aren't enough.
"They keep laughing at me, Jane. What if they never stop?"