Lunch consisted of sandwiches and several beverages prepared by the hotels stuff. They weren't bad and I took two with a glass of fresh orange juice outside. The weather was nice, and it didn't take me long to spot a peaceful place under a palm tree.

This would have been the perfect spot to work on my lecture, but I somehow kept getting distracted by the others. Some gulped secretly or not so secretly alcohol which wasn't served for lunch. Hence, it was safe to say that they had brought their own stuff despite the non-alcohol rule during the day for the conference.

My eyes wandered around further and stopped at Dr. Isles who shared a table with some science geeks.

It was somehow ironic on how at a conference that wanted to bring different departments together, each work group stayed amongst itself I thought while taking a bite from my sandwich.

Dr. Isles though even seemed to be an outsider to her own people. I noticed how she got ignored, her frustration that led to giving in and silently munching on her sandwich which made me feel kind of sorry.

I sensed her feeling of not being enough and could relate to it. Despite being the tough one to the outside, I often had to fight my own demons that kept telling me that I wasn't good enough. This credo might have also been installed by the constant ranting of my mother. Of course, I wouldn't say that she did it on purpose, rather because she wanted me to become my best. But her countless 'efforts' had very often left me frustrated and feeling minor.

Even now, she kept waltzing into my life and making me feel that way when trying to set me up with someone. As if I was an unworthy person when being single. And as if I needed someone else to make me whole.

Suddenly Dr. Isles eyes were on me, and I cursed myself for being caught staring. I instinctively gave her a reassuring smile that made her blush and look away. She probably thought that I was a moron I mused as I continued munching on my sandwich while observing the others.

Almost an hour later I took my spot in the audience again after freshening up in my room. While there, I had also fetched my name tag. Dr. Isles was a silent companion throughout the afternoon who as I found out didn't like to chat during the lectures. She didn't even like to exchange thoughts on cases in between them.

It felt as if some switch had turned over inside of her during lunch and she appeared to be cold which made me even more sorry for her. I knew the feeling of being excluded and unseen perfectly well. Even after proofing my worth in this job for almost ten years, I never got an invitation to join the baseball games or nights out of the guys.

Of course, I had Frost and Korsak and my little brother Frankie and we had a lot of fun. But never was I invited with the others. I honestly had no idea what to do to make Dr. Isles feel better which drove me sort of insane. The good thing was that it totally diverted me from my nervousness about the upcoming speech.

But it wasn't really deflection, I really cared about people and as mentioned before I could relate to her situation at least somehow. At the same time, I wished to have found a seat at the back where I could read or play some stupid game on my phone because sitting in the front and just listening was tiresome.

Some lectures were honestly boring me to death and so I kept my mind occupied on how to make Dr. Isles feel better.

I rose, when it was time for my speech and gave the USB stick with Frosts presentation to an assistant. Walking up the stairs to the stage I began to sweat and the scars on my palms began to hurt. All symptoms of stress.

"It's only a 30 minutes speech Rizzoli. I bet you have enough interesting cases to talk about. Never forget that you represent us, so don't do something stupid!" Cavanaugh had told me the day he had made me go.

"Well, you're a damn good detective Jane, but you have a tendency to not follow the rules and get into trouble." Korsak had said fatherly when I had ranted about Cavanaughs' words.

I reached the microphone and resisted the urge of scratching the scars in the palms of my hands while glancing down into the sea of faces. To my surprise they didn't look bored. Especially the detectives seemed to sit more upright now. Cavanaugh might have been right when he told me that I was one of the best detectives and that people would love to hear about my cases. Reminding myself that I couldn't disclose all of my actions in the cases because some of them were – well as Korsak had put it right 'not according to the rules' – I d greeted the crowd.

The first few minutes felt really awkward, and I thought that everybody would think that I'm an idiot, but after focusing on the presentation I easily fell into the right pace and spoke openly about the cases that had been outstanding to me during my career. One of them was Charles Hoyt. To tell the truth, I wasn't a fan of including it in the lecture, but I was sure that people knew about it and would ask question later.

Talking about the case in the lecture gave me some sort of control. While talking, I gestured with my hand, and I caught Dr. Isles giving the scars an interested look that bore something like empathy at the same time. What I hated most was pitty.

I wasn't disabled just scared – signs that I'm a survivor.

The 30 minutes passed quickly, and I was glad when I got the sign that I should wrap up. After thanking the crowd that was clapping furiously, I walked down the steps to take a time out in the bathroom. It was time for a coffee break anyways.

After the coffee break there was a workshop that demanded one detective to partner up with a forensic scientist. The task which was explained at lengths consisted of a simulated situation in which both could only solve a case together. Obviously, the organizers had gone so far to ask a psychologist to create cases as an exercise which made it impossible to solve one without the other.

It would be sort of a competition between the teams which were numerous. I listened intently to the distribution of points. Every team would get a different case to solve.

Dr. Isles stiffened next to me when the professor explained that the first task was to find a partner to work with which seemed to already cause fear and stress in the petite. I could only imagine her standing at the line, waiting to be picked last for a team when at school.

"We could work together." I said, finally seeing the opportunity to do a good deed and help her. The sad expression on her face lightened up before faltering again. There were a few people who wanted to do the exercise with me because I was fucking famous Jane Rizzoli. A phenomenon I still couldn't grasp or get. After declining all of the offers I walked the doc to the table where the cases were distributed.

We took the envelope and passed the others to find a quiet spot in the garden. We decided to go by the first name basis in order to make things easier.