Grace Van Pelt sat bolt upright in her bath. She'd put extra bath foam in tonight, the bubbles floated on the water almost up to the rim so wallowing wasn't really an option, she told herself. She'd lit even more candles this evening, put them on plates all over the bathroom floor and the whole room had an attractive glow that she had hoped would be more relaxing than it in fact was. The bath had always been her special place. As usually happened, her thoughts strayed to Princess Ariel and pretending the bath was the ocean when she was little. Then, as night follows day her thoughts span around to the reason for all the stress.

'You're deeply repressed and emotionally shut down.'

She hadn't thought about it for years, her weird college freshman party blackout had never crossed her mind until now. Her focus had been on learning stuff, passing exams, getting good grades. After college she'd been accepted on the police graduate fast track programme, she had loved training to be a cop but even when they'd covered all the different classifications of assault she hadn't associated any of them with her experience. She'd been delighted when she heard her application to Serious Crimes in Sacramento had been accepted. No-one gossips like cops, news like Patrick Jane got around and she'd heard the same rumours as everyone else. The other trainees had mocked her wanting to join "the psychic squad" but she'd been intrigued by the setup and keen to join the team with the best closure rate in the state. She had always been ambitious.

'Because of a trauma in your past'

Ambitious, that was what she'd told herself. She really had always wanted to become a detective, she really was ambitious. She'd told herself that there was nothing wrong with having fun but she was too young for serious relationships, she wanted to be established in her job before she even thought about settling down with someone. She now realised she'd been running away from commitment and lying to herself that it was all about ambition. Jane had dug it all up again with a thoughtless handful of words and she wasn't sure she would ever be free of it again. At the time she had pretended it hadn't happened, locked it all away. Now she wondered why she couldn't do that again.

'That you've never spoken of'

She recalled being at the party at college, feeling like she was about to pass out. She'd had bruises on her shins and forearms but she remembered stumbling on the stairs, didn't she? Yes definitely, the sensation in her mind was of falling, landing on hands and knees, her face up close with the stair treads. Why had she felt she wasn't alone in that moment? She didn't remember seeing anyone, had heard no voice, felt no touch. Then she'd woken up next morning in bed in her dorm room, alone but naked under the bedclothes, her clothes dumped in a heap on the floor. She remembered finding them there next to her bed the following day. That was uncharacteristic, she usually slept in pyjamas, usually put her clothes away or threw them into the hamper. Would suddenly being taken ill make her behave so differently?

'To anyone'

She couldn't get the idea out of her head that she might have been drugged and… with no other phrase to offer the cop inside her head thought "sexually assaulted". No, there would have been evidence, she would surely have spotted something on the bedclothes the next morning or remembered something happening to her… If she had just been taken ill why did she only remember such small fragments, why would illness make her lose her sense of trust? The thoughts kept going round and round in her mind without ever coming to any conclusions. How could she get it all out of her head? Where would she even start?

'Ever'

Damn Jane! Why did his words get to her so much?

'Even yourself'