I'm so grateful for your kind reviews and for all your follows. They managed to motive me to continue writing, so without further ado- here is chapter two.

"I'm here to see Doctor Maura Isles?" Jane's eyes flickered around the waiting room area. She could feel the other patients stare at her. Maybe they knew her from the paper. The cop that nearly became a victim of the serial killer, his first deviation from his M.O, the one that shouldn't have been alive if it wasn't for her partner.

She felt a desperate need to punch something.
"Maura will be with you in a minute, please take a seat."
Jane nodded, and went straight for the bathroom. She rushed inside, locked the door behind her. She still had a solid ten minutes before her session. It was all fine.

She punched the tiled walls repeatedly, her knuckles turning red with the impact. She kept punching, until the uneasy feeling of being pointed out in a crowd had disappeared. It didn't hurt.

The time between the punches became longer, and longer. Eventually she stopped, stared down at her swollen knuckles in disbelief. They were red, pounding, and she immediately knew she could not see the doctor with her hands looking like that.
"Fuck it."

Maybe therapy isn't for me. Jane decided to sneak out the door and go home and have a beer. She wanted her gun back, but not that much. She would not let herself go through the embarrassing ordeal of explaining why she had just punched a wall as if it was a life or death matter.
She unlocked the bathroom door and headed, with long strides, towards the exit. As she opened the reception door, someone else pulled the handle from the other side. Jane ended up staring into a couple of green eyes. They belonged to a certain doctor. Doctor Maura Isles. Just great.
"Jane. Lovely to see you. Isn't your appointment in about… five minutes?" Maura glanced at her watch.
"I had to check the parking meter. Not sure I paid for an hour."
"Oh, I see. Well, as you cannot pay for less than an hour in the meters, I am sure you will be fine. Coffee?" Maura handed her one of the two take-away cups she held in her hands, and then started walking towards her office. Jane, dumbfounded and embarrassed stood still, until Maura turned around.
"Are you coming, detective Rizzoli?"
"Uh. Yes."

They sat down, and Jane eyed the coffee in her hand. "Why-"

"I would feel bad about having coffee during a session and not at least offering coffee to my patient. It is decaf though, as caffeine can be a trigger of anxiety."
Jane looked sceptically at the cup of whateveritwas. She refused to call it coffee if it did not contain caffeine.
"It won't bite, Jane." Maura laughed. "So, how have you been?"

"Well-" Jane took a sip of the drink. "Hey- this actually tastes real."

"See, I told you it wouldn't bite. Again, how was your week?"

"It's been fine."

Maura paused for a second, and Jane shifted in her chair. The silence had been the worst thing with the people she had seen before as well. It felt as if they tried to force her to say something, but she had nothing to add. The question was answered.

"Okay- How did you feel?"

"I told you. Fine."

"See, 'fine' is not a feeling. You can have a 'fine' wine or a 'fine' shoe, but if you tried to explain the somatic-"

"-Somatic?"

"Biological… effects of feeling 'fine', there is nothing you could tell me. Because there is no such feeling."

Jane rolled her eyes. That was such a cliché. As the room fell silent, she did realize that she would have to produce some kind of alternative story though. "Okay. I have been angry that I am stuck."

"Stuck?"

"Yes. Stuck. I am not allowed to work."

Maura narrowed her eyes. "Is that the only reason you have been angry?"

"Yes. Look, doc, I do not need this mumbo-jumbo about feelings and whatnot. I need to be cleared for work."

"Okay."

"Okay?" Jane raised her eyebrows.
"Yes, I will sign your form." Maura got a pen from the pencil holder on her desk, and then seemingly hovered above her desk for a moment. She wasn't looking at Jane, but Jane could still tell that she was up to something. "…If you can tell me that whatever caused you to attempt to punch a hole into a wall will not cause you to hurt anyone." She turned around and looked menacingly at Jane's knuckles. "If you can tell me that your judgement isn't clouded. You work with people, and you have a responsibility."

Jane, already halfway out of her seat, sank back into the chair again. "How-"

"Can you tell me that? Can you go back to work with a good conscience?"

Jane saw the possibility of holding her gun anytime soon slowly slipping through her fingers. Fuck, she didn't trust anyone with anything at the moment, least of all herself.

"No."
"Therapy is not mumbo-jumbo, Jane. Believe it or not, but it does help against- Well, it does help. Most people should do it, really." Maura sat down again, smiled at Jane. "So will you tell me how your anger has manifested itself?"

"I have had a few drinks too many, maybe. Watched a lot of sports and screamed at the television. Broke my phone when my mother called or the fourth time that day to check if I was dressed and had eaten anything."

"Do you still have the panic attacks you mentioned last week?"

"I do."

"Do you have routines? Food? Sleep? Social life? Exercise?"

"I try to eat, but food just doesn't taste anything anymore. Sleeping is difficult. Exercise-well no. I don't have the energy. I don't have a social life anymore; it is not like I'm going to show up at the station when I don't have my badge. I need to be a detective so I can shut them up, if I came back now, they'd make remarks. Maybe even be worried. That would be the worst. They would never be able to respect me if they saw me like this." Jane made a gesture to her unwashed hair, her sweatpants and the bags under her eyes. "Fuck, all I want is my badge, my gun, and to have the power to kill that fucking bastard. Then nothing would be a problem anymore. "
Maura didn't flinch at that remark. She didn't flinch at anything. Jane started to wonder what would actually cause this woman to lose her therapy face, how far she could take it. She wouldn't be the one to try, for sure. She had too many dark thoughts, loved her job a bit too much.

"See, for the sake of the anxiety, routines are the most important thing. First of all, I think it might be helpful for you to see me twice a week. Once here, and- well, I do home visits. That would encourage you to keep up with regular things, like cleaning, dishwashing, etcetera, and I would get an opportunity to work with you in an environment where you feel in control." Maura looked questioning at Jane. "Do you think that is a good idea?"

Jane bit the inside of her cheek. She had already said more than she had said to the other therapists. She had already let herself go. If she let this woman into her apartment, into her life, what would that make of her? She looked at her hands. They were still glowing red. It still didn't hurt.

"Yeah."

"Great. Secondly, you need to eat regularly. It is not about the taste of food, but it will help keep the anxiety away. About your sleep… How long time do you take to fall asleep? Do you wake up during the night? Nightmares?"

"Well, I take about 2 hours to fall asleep. A good night. Other nights I don't sleep at all. I can sometimes wake up, mostly because of nightmares, yes."

"What are they about? The nightmares?
"General things. Falling for great heights, being humiliated in a crowd, that sort of thing."

White lie. They were about Hoyt, all about Hoyt.

"Hm. It seems like you might have some depression-related insomnia. I will prescribe you some sleeping pills, take one about an hour before you go to bed and they should help you sleep through the night. Lastly, the exercise. You should really think about that. Scientist have found that engages inhibitory mechanisms in the ventral hippocampus, and that can help with anxiety regulation."

Jane shook her head, smiling at the doctors lingo."I did literally not understand a word of that last part."

"You should exercise often because it can help with the panic attacks. I do yoga, that could be great for you?"

Jane suddenly conjured images of her therapist in yoga pants and various positions and cussed at herself. Yes, she is attractive. She is also a pain in the ass. Get over it.
"I am not doing yoga. Sorry doc."

"Well, it would be good for you to do some sort of class, Jane. It would get you out of the house. Yoga decreases your pulse rate, improves hand-eye coordination, increase musculoskeletal flexibility and releases chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins, which can make you feel happier. Also, it is sometimes seen as a natural-" Maura blushed. "-eh- aphrodisiac."

Jane looked at Maura, amused with the obvious discomfort she felt. For the second time in a very long time she felt herself smile, genuinely. There was something about this one. Suddenly, she didn't feel terrible about having to see her again.