Despite a remarkably good night's sleep, Maura's body had not yet recovered fully from the long succession of bad nights, nor had she quite gotten past the contrariness of dressing deliberately below her formerly-regular standard. The dusky mauve dress worn beneath Maura's lab coat was lovely, as usual, though the cut was not quite as flattering as what she usually wore. It didn't quite take full advantage of her curves, and, if she was honest, the color wasn't quite perfect for her skin tone. Despite the unquestionably high quality, it almost looked off the rack. An expensive rack, sure, but a rack nonetheless, and without the additional tailoring Maura regularly had done in order to achieve the custom fit she preferred. Her beige pumps had a slightly lower heel; they were slightly chunkier than her usual.

Her hair suffered as well from the recent neglect. It was just as shiny and smooth as usual, but not quite as bouncy, and it wanted a quick touch-up to her cut and color. Even the peach-toned nail polish did not go with the pale pink-purple of the dress at all.

When not giving her compliments disguised as insults, Jane often said she looked like a million bucks. Maura evaluated herself in the full-length bedroom mirror, turned this way and that, and said with a certain dry satisfaction, "You look like a hundred bucks. Not like it matters."

"Maura, good morning, would you like a cup of tea?" Doctor Vincent Sorin asked, his gentle baritone voice reverberating lightly through the morning quiet of his office. "I must admit," he continued, his slightly British accent more pronounced as he talked conversationally with his patient, "I was surprised that you asked for an extra session for this morning." He gestured for her to take a seat where she pleased in his office, waiting to see if she would choose the dark leather sofa or the over-stuffed chairs in the corner of the room. Her preferences varied depending on her needs for that particular week.

Immediately after the shooting, Maura had come to Dr. Sorin with a straight back, emotions tightly held together, energetic in her pursuit of mental peace. Increasingly of late, however, her posture had become tighter, not looser, eyes downcast, voice subdued. "Please, and thank you for seeing me this early," she replied this morning, quieter than ever, purse clutched to her abdomen for a little longer before she could hang it up on the rack. "I know it's not a true emergency on my part, Doctor, but I just… I need…" As had happened with growing frequency during their sessions, the self-restraint she practiced so assiduously slipped off like a coat at the door, and she found her eyes misting and her throat closing, precursors to tears. So tense was her vocal mechanism that she could only whisper, not speak aloud. "Jane was drunk again last night."

"I see," the middle aged man said, voice devoid of anything to indicate his particular thoughts on the matter. Instead, he led her to the dark burgundy overstuffed chairs in the corner before going to the oak side bar to make a cup of tea for each of them. "Would you like to discuss your feelings regarding this specific incident," he asked, accustomed to his patient being exceptionally in tune with her emotional needs, "or your overall feelings regarding the broader scope of what is happening?" He set the delicate white china cup and saucer down next to a box of tissue on the table beside her before taking up residence in the opposite chair, tea cup and saucer in hand.

"Both?" Maura replied as she took her seat at the edge of the chair she preferred, hands clasped together on her lap as if she was being graded on comportment. As had become apparent, however, this was simply her way of sitting, no matter in what emotional state she was immersed. A sip of tea soothed and loosened her throat enough to enable true speech again. "Actually, I think they're the same. I'm having a classic…" At the doctor's raised eyebrow, she lowered her gaze in apology. "I'm sorry. Leave the analyzing to you and speak in small words." The quote came easily; they had been over the concept before of how she hid behind her vast intellect. She took a deep breath. "I miss my best friend. I'm worried, and I feel powerless, and I hurt."

"Have you discussed your feelings and concerns with Jane?" Dr. Sorin set his cup and saucer down, picking up a leather-bound notebook from where it rested on the table beside him and opening it in preparation for notation.

Caramel locks jostled one another as Maura's bowed head shook lightly. "She won't speak to me," explained the petite woman. "She doesn't answer the door or the phone after work anymore at all, unless it's her mother, or if she's on call and it's work. At work, she avoids me entirely except for crime scenes and autopsies. When I ask her to stay after an autopsy and talk to me, or to go out for lunch or coffee, she claims she has other places where she has to be. It's hard to argue when I know that families need her to get justice for their deceased members or when a serial killer needs to be caught before killing again. I hate to whine, or cry, or nag, and I feel like that's what I'm doing. Even though it's for her sake that I want to talk to her these days, I just… We've talked about this before, haven't we? I don't know how to ask, and she's the one suffering for it."

Sorin made a few notations before speaking. "We've also discussed how much responsibility you ought to shoulder on behalf of your friend's personal decisions." Taking a moment to quietly observe his patient, the doctor's jaw flexed. Setting his notebook in his lap, he tilted his salt-and-peppered head slightly to the left, indicating what most would consider genuine curiosity. "Maura, if you were able, sans any perceivable blockade provided by Jane, yourself, or any other outside factor, what would you wish to express to Jane?"

"I would say," Maura began, then stopped, reaching for a tissue. She was a logical person who dealt in facts, and the fact was that the blockades were there. Their removal was entirely hypothetical. "I don't know what I would say. What I feel is that she's hurting herself by drinking instead of accepting help and love from the people who want to give it to her. I'm afraid for her, and I want her to love herself as much as… as much as she is worthy of being loved. She's isolating herself, destroying connections with other people, and engaging in self-destructive behavior and… and I suspect," she was careful not to even use the words 'guess' or 'assume', "negative self-talk. In other words, if she treated another person the way she's been treating herself lately, she'd be considered a primary abuser. I don't want her treating my best friend that way. I want…"

Maura stopped to sniffle, but it was just a cover. Dr. Sorin had taught her the value of I-statements, things such as I feel, I wish, I will, and I want. She used one now. "I want her to treat herself like I would treat her, if she would let me."

"And how would you like to treat her?" Sorin glanced down at his notes, making another brief scribble before glancing back up to the pathologist.

Hazel eyes widened as Maura's breath caught, not forcefully, but perceptibly. She hadn't realized that her statement would lead anywhere, but of course, that was naïve of her. "With understanding and gentleness. She's… Jane would hate hearing this, but I think of her as being fragile. She's been through so much, Dr. Sorin, and I just want to protect her from ever having to experience any of that again. I told you about Charles Hoyt and his apprentices, and then there was Bobby Marino. Jane has come through all of that having to be stronger than she is, tougher than she is. She is tough and strong, the strongest and bravest person I've ever encountered, but she shouldn't have to be that way all the time."

Warming to her topic, Maura gradually forgot to cry, and her diaphragm relaxed enough to let her speak clearly. "I just want her to feel safe somewhere, like she doesn't always have to be on guard. She's such a gentle soul. I want to give her the same compassion that she gives… gave everyone else, before this latest trauma. It seems to me that she's given so much from her own meager store of strength and tenderness, and now that she needs some for herself, there's nothing left; and she won't accept it from anyone else, and I want so much to give it to her. She just can't see it."

Maura dabbed at her eyes, careful not to smear her eye makeup. It was water resistant, but there were limits to its powers. She sighed. "I should never have slept with Byron."

At the seemingly non sequitur comment, Sorin raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, made another note, and asked in his typically neutral tone, "What brings you to this conclusion?"

Introspection had its hold on Maura by now, and so she did not notice Sorin's expression. "Jane once called while we were engaged in intercourse. Since then, she hasn't called me, come over, or initiated a conversation with me. I knew she didn't like him, but I was so selfish that I didn't even consider how it would affect Jane, having her best friend unavailable and having an apparently good time while she was in so much pain."

Pulling pen from paper, Sorin held it in his hand, pushing the top down once to click it closed before asking in a his quiet way, "Maura, on a scale of one to ten where one is least important and ten is most, where would you rate the importance of your relationship with Jane?"

The answer was immediate, requiring no consideration at all. "Ten."

He nodded in acknowledgement of the answer. "Using the same scale, how would you rate yourself?"

This time, Maura's head tilted as her eyebrows drew together. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand the…" However, she paused as a possible interpretation occurred to her. "Oh. Yes. Nine."

"Do you feel," he continued, making no show of his thought regarding where Maura placed herself in her own life, "that you relinquish anything – physical, emotional, or otherwise – in order to carry on your relationship with Jane?"

This time, Maura nodded easily. "All relationships are about compromise. Jane took up yoga and running just to spend more time with me, and she's taught me a lot about how to relate to people who didn't grow up with the same social… choreography, I suppose, that I learned. I've opened her mind to trying new things, like foods and social interactions she might not have attempted. And, and, a-and I… Well, I try to be there for her, but she doesn't seem to want to let me do that lately. But I'll be there, when and if she decides she's ready for a friend again. I want so much to be as good to her as she always was to me."

"Maura," Sorin's intonation was patient but stern, "that is not the answer to the question I asked. Let's try again. Do you feel you sacrifice anything for the sake of your relationship with Jane?"

There was a long silence as Maura considered the difference between this wording and the one before, trying to find linguistic clues she had not noticed, some indication of what Sorin wanted. "Either I don't understand what you mean, or my puzzlement is evidence that there is nothing of import that would qualify as a sacrifice. I don't know which is correct." However, Sorin's continued air of expectation caused her to reexamine the question yet again. After an elongated moment she said, "Do you mean Byron?"

Sorin opened to an older page in his notes, glancing down for a brief moment. "Perhaps a different line of thought?" The middle aged man casually picked up his tea cup and took a small sip. "Can you give me one example in your relationship with Jane where you've put your own needs ahead of Jane's and/or your relationship with Jane?"

"Byron," Maura murmured quietly, evidencing regret that bordered on shame. "I put my own stress release ahead of Jane's need for me."

"Why do you feel that your intimate needs are less important than Jane's needs? You yourself have stated many times during our sessions that Jane has other support networks that she could and does turn to when you're not available."

Again, Maura looked mystified. She understood the words, even understood the concepts, but the irrelevance – from her perspective – stymied her. "I… well, but she nearly died. She needed so much more than I did. Nothing happened to me, except that I actually saw how people can wind up on my table. It was very jarring, but I was never directly hurt. Scared, but not… Well, not…" Suddenly, frustration caused Maura to snap out of the timid and defensive position she had felt herself to be in. "Look, you can't equate me being horny with Jane being nearly killed again. Besides, Jane doesn't need other support networks. She needs all her supporters, not just some of us. If we really are best friends, which we are, then I have to believe that Jane needs me as much as I need her. And I wasn't there for her, because I was screwing her surgeon. So yes, you bet I consider my need for sex less important than her needs."

Seemingly unmoved by Maura's emotional outburst, Sorin set the empty tea cup down, and cleared his throat. "Maura, as you well know, I never imply anything," he commented as he wrote in his notebook. "However, I believe you have, again, managed to not answer my question." He waited a heartbeat before continuing on. "I asked you about your intimate needs, not your need for sexual release."

Struck dumb, Maura stared blankly in Sorin's direction, lips parted but in no way looking as though speech might come out. Her skin became blotchy with redness, and soon her eyes welled and overflowed, leaking surprise and sorrow down her cheeks to drip from her chin and stain the front of her summery dress. It was far longer than she usually was able to be quiet even by effort, before the normally verbose woman whispered hoarsely, "But that's what I have Jane for." Only then did her crying become sound, a long, low moan as she crumpled, spine bowing down over her thighs, and sobbed into helpless hands.

Patiently waiting for Maura to compose herself again, Sorin handed her another tissue. After the sobs had subsided, he asked in his unassuming way, "Is there anything else additionally you'd prefer to provide for Jane?"

Pressing the tissue to her eyes, following it up by a less-than-ladylike nasal application, Maura nodded. "Anything. Everything." She lifted bloodshot eyes towards the therapist, the crying jag having permitted her to discharge enough emotion to achieve some semblance of calm, at least enough to speak clearly again. "But she would do the same for me, if she weren't… hurting this way right now, too. So you don't get to judge me for wanting to give to her right now."

"I'm not here to judge you, Maura. I'm here to help you help yourself." A light, neutral expression on his face, Sorin shifted, crossing his legs and balancing the notebook on his lap. "I want you to consider something. You are placing a great deal of energy into this relationship, I believe it's safe to say. By your own admission, Jane is not putting much, if any, energy into your relationship with her. I understand that you believe the reason for this is because of the current set of circumstances, and I respect your reasoning as always I have. However, you've told me you are here because you want to maintain a healthy mental state."

As he so often did during their sessions, he brought their apparently stream-of-consciousness conversation around to a point that, if one were to know his style, he was likely headed the entire time. "If you are placing the needs of someone else who, by your own observations, is acting in a self-destructive manner, ahead of your own to the point of sacrificing things which help to keep you mentally healthy, how can you adequately help either yourself or Jane?"

A heavy sigh met Sorin's question. Now she understood the point. "I can't, can I?" Maura asked rhetorically. "Now that I've had a best friend, I don't want to be without one. I've become dependent on this relationship. It's uncomfortable to need like this, but now that I do, how do I get what I need? Because what I need and want is Jane. I want my friend back. Not having her is what's hurting me. Whatever I can give her, whatever I can do for her, ultimately is for myself to the exact same extent that it's for Jane. I am being selfish in this case. I don't like that, you know. She's… I don't like feeling that the only reason I'm doing something for Jane is to benefit myself, but that's what I'm doing. This is self-serving, however altruistic it may look from the outside."

Sorin clicked his pen again and wrote more notes. "Those are very valid points you've just made." He handed her yet another tissue. "I want you to do something for yourself. When you've free time today, make a list of things you've given up to be in this relationship, things you've done in order to hold onto your friendship with Jane. Once you've completed the list, take inventory of how many of those things were compromise, how many were truly altruistic, and how many were for some other purpose. I think it would help you to visually see where your actions are most weighted."

Though she did not yet see the point entirely, Maura nodded. She had always been industrious in homework assignments. "I'll bring you the list next week," she promised, and for the final time that hour, dabbed at her eyes. "Thank you, Dr. Sorin.