Hey guys, so I'm not totally in love with this chapter but I figured I should get something up for you. Let me know if you have any ideas for where I should go with this because I am kind of stuck at the moment. Thank you for those of you who have stuck with me for so long, reviewed, followed and favorited, it means the world to me. Anyway, here is chapter 25! -CV

Jane and Charlotte collect themselves from the floor and move to Jane's bedroom. Charlotte stands still, arms wrapped around her torso. Her eyes are red rimmed and empty, hauntingly so. She can't seem to focus on any one thing, so she just stands staring at the navy blue comforter. Jane turns down the bed and pats the empty side. Charlotte slides under the puffy duvet and snuggles into her mother; her scent comforting and familiar. She closes her eyes and waits for the sleep she is so sure won't come. The guilt in her stomach about her overreaction is enough to swallow her whole.

She waits until she is sure her mother is asleep before opening her eyes again. They feel like they're filled with sand, like they're still closed and her eyelids are completely dried out. She looks around the room and can barely make out her mother's form right next to her; the darkness masking what she knows isn't there. She sighs, and turns to her side, closing her eyes again.

Somewhere in the distance she can hear a fire engine, its harsh siren honking and shouting at the nonexistent traffic on the streets at this time of night. She can hear a dog barking somewhere, probably in her building, making her wonder where Stitch ended up sleeping tonight. A car drives up the street, making sounds with the air it pushes out of its way, whooshing by in a hurry. Heading home to bed or to a place they've never been. Maybe Boston is the place they've never been.

Her mother's breathing is easy and light. In and out, a soft exhale following every silent inhale. She shifts in her sleep pulling the blanket over to her side a little more. When the comforter pulls back Charlotte feels an eerily familiar caress on her upper thigh. She is frozen, her bare leg in her shorts forcing goose bumps to form as the hand steadily moves up and down.

"Charlotte, honey, wake up." His voice is just as gruff and scary as she remembers it to be. "Come on, wake up." She can't open her eyes, she can't move.

His hand moves to her upper arm. Her left arm, still wrapped in her brace, tenses and causes pain to shoot through her wrist. She groans but is still unable to move. His fist tangles in her hair and the fingertips on his other hand brush over her eyelids and her long eyelashes. She tries to move her neck but it's cemented to the pillow as his hand wraps around it. His large callused palms gripping increasingly tighter, like a vice, around her windpipe making her gasp for air.

"Charlotte wake up, you need to wake up." The voice starts to sound less menacing, more sincere and urgent.

She opens her eyes, finally able to move, and flings her right arm up in the air. It's grabbed and to her surprise not forced back down or hurt, it is gently rubbed. She starts to move to get up, to run away but she's pulled into a hug. Mark Walker's voice turns to her mother's as she shushes and tries to calm her daughter.

"Hey, you're okay. It was just a nightmare."

Jane lays them both back down onto the mattress, never separating their two bodies. She rubs soothing circles on her daughter's shivering back. She can feel how tight all of Charlotte's muscles are. The way she shakes and jerks with every sob. There are sounds of forced breaths through tears of panic. It's enough to churn Jane's stomach.

"Mama?" Charlotte's small voice reminds her of when she was younger and would have nightmares, creeping into her bedroom late at night.

"Yeah baby?"

"Can you tell me again?" Her voice is a meek whisper as she clings to her mother tighter than she ever has in her life.

"You will survive this. I promise."

Charlotte woke up early Sunday morning, having not gotten more than an hour or two of sleep between last night and the night before. When Jane wakes up, her daughter is sitting at the kitchen counter staring at her cell phone on the granite countertop.

"Hey kiddo, how did the rest of the night go? Did you get any more sleep?" She asks, referring to the multiple nightmares Charlotte woke up from the previous night.

Charlotte just shrugs.

"I'll take that silence as a resounding no. Are you hungry?"

Charlotte shrugs again and wraps her arms around her calves, laying her cheek on her kneecap. The internal battle to call Cooper and apologize until he forgives her has been going on in her mind since the second he left the apartment the other night. Casey is on her mind too, but her anger towards him does not seem to be dissipating as quickly.

"I have to go into work today, so you're gonna go spend the day with Maura, alright?"

"What? It's Sunday." Charlotte groans at her mother's words and the disappointment is clear on her face.

"I know baby. I'm sorry, but we've been buried in paperwork ever since the new requirements have come in for the case files, we've pretty much had to rework all of our recent notes. But pretty soon, we're gonna have an intern to help with all of this crap." Jane gives a smirk but it isn't returned.

She looks at her daughter. Sleep is still in her eyes, despite her lack of rest. Her curls are wild on the top of her head, half in a ponytail, half hanging down her back. She is in one of Jane's sweatshirts, which despite her own skinny frame, swallows her up and soccer shorts that show off just how small her legs are. She's still losing weight. She looks so much different than she did just a few months ago.

"I'm gonna shower." Even her voice sounds different.

"Be ready to go in an hour."

Against her own best judgment, Jane drops her daughter off at Maura's house. She feels guilty about leaving Charlotte after the night she had but she needed to get work done. She had filled Maura in on what happened on the phone earlier and hoped that she could do her best to help her through the day until she could pick her up.

Charlotte is sitting at the kitchen island, her chin in the palm of her hand watching Maura cut up vegetables.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Maura asks without looking up from her task and is met by complete silence. "It's not good to keep things bottled up inside. You should talk about it before it gets too overwhelming. Keeping feels inside causes stress on your mind and your body, it will only slow your healing process."

"No thanks, I prefer to stew in anger. It's the Rizzoli way."

Maura stops and walks into the living room.

"Alright, come over here."

"Why?"

"We're going to meditate."

"Meditate?" Charlotte walks over to her Godmother as she says the word like it's a foreign language.

"Yes, mindfulness is a known coping mechanism for past trauma and a way to calm the mind to promote self-healing."

Charlotte scrunches her face up and crosses her arms as Maura lays out two yoga mats.

"Sit down here." She does as she's told and watches Maura place her hands on her knees and close her eyes, taking a deep breath before speaking again. "Now relax your body and close your eyes." Charlotte closes her eyes reluctantly but quickly opens her right eye to watch Maura. "This will only work if you do what I tell you. Close your eyes."

"How did you know?" This doesn't get an answer. She huffs and closes her eyes again. "Now what?"

"Clear your mind. As you find thoughts coming back, recognize them but don't dwell, then gently guide them back out."

"You really think this is going to work?"

"It might. If you just give it a try." Maura says, a slight smile coming across her face with her eyes still closed.

Charlotte groans, "Fine."

As she closes her eyes again, she listens to the beating of her heart and her steady breathing which lulls her into a state of clear mindedness. As she starts to relax she realizes how vulnerable she feels. Like a sitting duck, with her eyes closed, in the middle of an open room. She recognizes the thought, like Maura said to do, and tries her best to guide it back out. She is stopped by the image of her abductor's face; his smirk, his eyes that once seemed friendly but she now knows only held malicious intent, his scent. She shivers and tries her best to ignore it but she hears his voice in the back of her mind. When she begins to relive the night she was abducted she quickly opens her eyes and stands up.

"I don't want to do this anymore." She wraps her arms around her torso and looks at Maura.

Before she can protest she recognizes the look in Charlotte's eyes and stands. She wraps the young girl in a hug and starts to gently rock them back and forth.

"I saw his face." Maura doesn't say anything she just runs a hand through her hair and nods. "I felt him touch me."

This statement makes Maura step back and look intensely at her.

"Did he-"

"No, not like that." She defends, realizing how that sounded. "He just had his hands on me, on my legs and arms," She swallows. "on my neck. I still feel it, especially when it's dark, or quiet."

Her words trail off as she starts to speak of her tormentor. She barely speaks of the specifics of the attack because she doesn't want to relive the experience; however now it seems she has to relive it no matter what.

The rest of the day is spent in mostly silence. Charlotte is huddled up on the couch wrapped in a blanket. Maura is sitting at the other end doing work on her laptop. Charlotte watches Maura work. She observes the way her brow furrows as she reads something on the screen. Her reading glasses are perched on her nose and she has her fingers resting on her chin, in deep thought. Every once in a while she types a few words, her fingers moving gently and gracefully across the keys; the clicks echoing in the relatively quiet room. When Maura's eyes wander over towards her she averts her gaze and pretends not to notice. She's always enjoyed Maura's silent company. The way they could both work in the same area, knowing the other is there, and focus better than if they were alone. After another half an hour or so of watching Maura in silence she drifts off to sleep, wrapped comfortably in the fleece blanket on the couch.

When Jane arrives later that night Charlotte is still asleep. The two women sit at the kitchen island to have a drink. Jane rubs her fingers over eyes and then rests them on her temples.

"Did she talk to you at all today?" Jane asks, knowing the answer.

Maura can tell how tired she is from the tone of her voice and the bags under her eyes. If Charlotte hasn't been sleeping that means Jane hasn't been sleeping either. The worry alone is enough to drive the mother crazy.

"A little, nothing that we didn't already know." Maura says sadly, taking a sip of her wine.

"I don't know what to do for her. If she keeps having nightmares like this we're both going to go crazy. She's been sleeping in my bed, she doesn't want to leave my side. I feel like she's getting worse when she's supposed to be getting better." Jane shakes her head.

"I can't even imagine what she's feeling right now." Maura starts, "But, I think you're doing everything you can to help her. With therapy and time to heal, I think she'll be alright. In reality it hasn't been all that long since the abduction."

"You're right." Before Jane can continue they hear Charlotte's voice from the couch.

She is mumbling in her sleep. She is tossing and turning on the couch and the blanket has been thrown to the floor. Both women move over to the young girl. Her face is scrunched up like she's in pain.

"You?" Her voice is a whisper. Jane moves towards her, placing the palm of her hand on her forehead. "what…you…talking about?" Jane whispers to Charlotte.

"Wake up, sweets. Come on wake up baby." She gently grabs Charlotte's shoulder and shakes her awake.

When she first opens her eyes they are glazed over, then slowly the realization of where she is takes over and they become relieved and relaxed at the sight of her mother.

"Hi Mama."

"Hi baby, you were having another nightmare."

Charlotte sits up and wraps her arms tightly around her mother. Her head rest in the crook of Jane's neck. She kisses the top of her daughter's head, running a hand through her hair.

"Let's get you home, okay?"

Charlotte silently nods, following her mother out of the house.