Hey all,

Quick note! It was noted that I had not yet established a definite age for Miss Isles. Honestly, that's a very good question. Originally, I had designed the character to have the maturity, and life experience of someone a little bit older (perhaps late 30s to early 40s). Having said that, I wanted the two to be relevant to each other, which brings her back to about 24-25. I intend to keep her in this age range, and she will just be a little more understanding and mature than most (but that's nothing new for Maura Isles).

Over the next few days, Jane's thoughts often came back to her next session with Miss Isles. She wanted them to be useful, and she wanted to concise with questions so she could get as much discussion in as possible. She had thought about writing some of the questions she had down, but in her head it seemed pretty silly. I mean, the whole process of writing stuff down in order to remember it, that she was okay with. It was just that it all felt so dorky and that was something she couldn't quite get her head around.

One night, as she sat at her computer for the socially required idle chatter with friends and/or acquaintances, she decided it might be fun to see if any of her teacher's had Facebook pages. The first name to be searched was, of course, Miss Isles. Crap, what is her first name? I'm pretty certain that when she was born her parents didn't christen her 'Miss', she joked to herself. E-mails! She remembered. Quickly opening up another tab to her school e-mail, she found one from Maura! That's her name! Without wasting a second she switched back to Facebook and typed in "Maura Isles". She was a little surprised to see that there wasn't one. After all, she was young, she thought, and most people nowadays have some social media presence. She shrugged it off though and instead went on to search some other teachers. Not too surprisingly, she was entirely bored by all of their pages.

With no more homework, nothing interesting on Facebook and nothing constructive she could think of doing, she decided to go to sleep. It was 10:30pm. Not that late, but she simply wasn't that motivated to do much else.

Laying down to sleep, she stared at the ceiling, watching the room darken the long she focused on a single spot until she had to blink. She mightn't have had anything better to do, but she wasn't that tired, either. I wonder how old Miss Isles is anyway? Is she married? Did she get along with her parents? How'd she end up at Santa Sabina?
With unusual and irrelevant thoughts beginning to envelop her mind, she decided it was definitely time for sleep. She grabbed her mp3, scrolled through the artists until she found Pearl Jam, and picked one of her all-time favourites, "Yellow LeadBetter", stuck it on repeat and eventually drifted off to sleep.

•••

Jane still felt kind of strange about going to Miss Isles for tutoring. She loved to learn, and always wondered why things were or how they were, but that wasn't necessarily something she was outspoken about. She considered herself more of an observer, and only asked questions when she was comfortable with the company. Regardless of the reasoning, she figured it'd be good to tell Frost and Vince just so there weren't any assumptions made.

"Hi guys," she said walking down the corridor to their lockers.

"Hey Jane," Frost said with a smile.

"Hey," Vince mimicked. "How are you?"

"I. Am. Tired!" She remarked honestly but playfully. "How about you guys?"

"Yeah, I'm good." Frost said with a smile. "Kicking Korsak's butt at Bullshit," he laughed.

"He's having a lucky day," he said frankly, as Jane sat down.

"Yeah… my entire life." Frost was always smug with Korsak.

"Why is everything a pissing contest with you two?" Jane laughed.

"It's not," he paused. "But if it were, I'd be the winner," Frost smirked.

"Oh ha. Ha." Vince was obviously unimpressed. "I'm only letting you win 'cause I've been wiping the floor with you all week." He turned his chin up in smugness.

"Oh grow up," she said maturely. "I'd kick both your butts," she laughed.

Frost and Vince shared a look before saying almost in sync, "deal again!" Officially issuing the challenge to Jane.

As Frost dealt the cards out again, Jane took the opportunity to mention tutoring. "Hey, so, remember how I didn't do as well as I usually do on tests for history earlier this semester?"

The two nodded idly.

"I decided to get Miss Isles to tutor me," she hesitated. "Just so that way I can keep on top of all my work. Like I can do history at school and do the rest at home."

"Fair enough," Vince said, not too affected by the matter. He knew if Jane needed anything she'd ask.

Frost though, a little less resigned to Jane's personality, asked, "is everything okay?" There was a puzzled look on his face and it was unjustified.

"Yeah," she said quite quickly. "To be honest it's not even like tutoring, it's like… I sit there and do my work and she does hers," she explained. "It just makes sure that I'm actually doing my work as opposed to talking to you guys or scrolling through Tumblr."

Frost nodded slightly before saying, "makes sense."

With that, her friends were informed, their concerns were held at bay and the card game was underway. She was relieved. She showed a small smile to signify her gratitude for their understanding. She loved her friends. They were awesome.

•••

"Hey Jane," Vince said chirpily as he came up to Jane who was coolly leaning on the brick railing next to the stairs.

"Hey Vince, what's up?"

"Not much, not much. You?" He said with an obviously suspicious tone.

Jane stopped and studied his face for a moment trying to figure what exactly it was that he was implying. Then, in a low tone, she said, "What?" This was the 'Jane Rizzoli takes no crap' tone and it was one that anyone who had spent more than an hour with her knew.

All the same, some people liked to see how far they could push the boundaries. "What?" He said innocently.

Jane's eyebrows practically became a straight line like in a cartoon. "Don't what me," she joked. "You and I both know you meant something by the question.' She said, unimpressed at his deflection tactics.

"Maybe you think there was something to the question because you know there is something that could be the answer that you don't think I know…" He mocked with a tongue-twisting sentence.

"Oh, okay," she played it cool. "I see what's going on here…" There was a subtle nod of the head as she spoke and an almost devious smile crept across her face.

"Is that so?" Still reeling her in.

"You heard that Frankie got grounded after I pulled a prank on him," she said smugly.

"What? No, I mean about you and Miss Isles!" He said quite quaintly.

"What?" She said in a harsher tone than was expected. "What do you mean me and Miss Isles? Jane was genuinely confused and a little annoyed that this was where the conversation was heading.

"Oh…" Vince became paler than a ghost in seconds as he realised he was wrong.

"What the hell, Vince? Come on!" Jane was certainly annoyed but a little hurt now too. "What the hell do you think was going to happen? I went to her for help with history! It was bound to happen!"

"Oh?" He was confused. "So… you d…?" When he had started the conversation he was just messing around by poking fun her, but now he's not sure what to believe.

"Korsak? What?" Her voice was loud and the anger in it would send shivers down anyone's spine.

Vince sighed with despair and relented. "Pippa said she saw you guys hugging?"

"What?!" Jane was mad. Not a little mad, not moderately mad, mad-mad. "That didn't happen!" She exclaimed still outraged. There was a silent pause where neither of them really knew how to respond before she said, "What the hell did I ever do to her!?"

Vince's face became eternally apologetic. "So, you didn't hug her?"

"No! I went to her office, sat on the opposite side of the room and then left!" Jane was not at all happy at this point.

Vince tried to make it less of a big deal, "Don't worry, everyone knows Pippa's a gossip…" He shrugged a little. "Honestly, it's not even a good rumour." He paused. "I mean, if you're going to spread a rumour, it may as well be something better than 'she hugged a teacher'."

Jane just rolled her, not too keen on taking this conversation any further. She was pretty mad, and for a moment thought about taking Vince's unintended advice and spreading a rumour of her own about Pippa. Unfortunately, even when mad, Jane had a conscience and common sense, and figured that, not only would no good come of it, it wasn't actually worth it. Trying to be a grown up, she said, "forget it,' absolving Vince of any guilt he might have been feeling. She, however, was not going to forget it.

Hello, hello lovely people!

Thank you so very kindly for reading. I really hope you've enjoyed this chapter but, hey, if you haven't please feel free to leave a comment with some feedback.

Also, if you enjoyed it, I'd really love to hear that!

I would like to genuinely pose a question to you all so, if you have any ideas (big or small), please let me know. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE HAPPEN NEXT? It can be an event, a destination, anything.

Anyway, I do hope you're all very happy and well.

Thank you once again for taking the time to read my story (and my blurb).

PS. Two things:
1. In case you didn't know, has an app for Androids and iPhones and it's actually spectacular. It uses minimal data, is very easy to use and gives you all the same access. And it's free!

2. If you're on Tumblr, please feel free to follow me on rizzoliandislesformiles. I like new friends, so don't be shy in saying hello!

Thank you again!