This is where it gets kinda angst-y. Sorry. But hey, at least we get to see Jane comforting Maura like she does so well.
"Learn some better insults, you vile undereducated drunkard." Maura spit out the cutting remark, the verbal attack flowing off her tongue so smoothly and quickly it took him a second to realize he'd been insulted
The kid's pink shade darkened to a mortified fuchsia. "Yes, ma'am." he replied, relieved, and hurried out.
From the sidewalk the women could hear one of the guys comment "Dude. She owned you."
Jane walked up behind Maura and placed an arm around her shoulders. "Hey. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Maura replied unconvincingly. "Yeah, I'm fine."
The cook, and also evidently the manager, hurried out. "I'm sorry about that. Really sorry about that. Sleazes like those kinda come with the open-all-night thing. Sorry."
"It's fine. Dealing with sleazes is my job."
"I know, thin blue line and all, but you shouldn't hafta… You know what? Meal's free. On us. Our apologies."
"Thanks. Really. Thanks." Rizzoli and Isles started to make their way back toward their table to collect their things.
"We're really sorry."
"We get it. Quit saying that." Jane replied with humor with a bit of seriousness mixed in.
"Right. Sorry. … Dammit."
Jane just gave him one last fake smile and ushered Maura back to the table, where the ME left a generous tip, and out the door.
Maura climbed into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt. Jane took her position behind the wheel but made no indication she intended to pull out any time soon, opting instead to turn toward Maura.
"Hey." Jane's voice was tender as she laid her right hand on Maura's left on the armrest. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Really, I'm fine." Maura insisted, breath hitching as she took a sudden interest in the floor mats.
"What was that? The thing you did with your breath?"
"What? That was…" Maura trailed off, sighed, and resigned herself to telling Jane something she wasn't sure she wanted her newfound friend to know just yet. "I can't lie. I start to hyperventilate. Often I lose consciousness."
"You can't lie? How does someone go through life without at least white lies?"
"Well, I don't always tell the whole truth, per say. I'll just say something that's technically true and let others jump to their own conclusions."
"But you said that you were fine. I can tell that something's bothering you."
"Well, I am fine physically."
"Tricky." Jane reached her right arm around Maura's shoulders and held her as close as possible in the car, reaching over to hold the smaller woman's left hand in her left. "Maura, if you don't want to tell me I understand. But if there's anything I can do…"
Maura once again laid her head on Jane's shoulder. Squeezing her hand, she decided to open up. "I just… it took me back to something that happened in college. I was a freshman at BCU. Spring finals had just finished, and I had been invited to an ABC party. Anything but clothes."
A sixteen-year-old Maura Isles maneuvered her way through a crowded frat house, turning down numerous plastic cups of beer. Clad only in a short dress fashioned from purple latex gloves borrowed from the lab, she was receiving more attention than she'd bargained for. Finally she spotted the older classmate who had suggested she come and hurried over.
"Hey, Lizzie." Maura greeted a blonde senior dressed only in a bikini fashioned from magazines.
"Hey, lil' sis!" Maura was embraced quickly by the taller girl and found herself looking at an article about who wore it best that was the only thing between her face and her zealous 'older sister's' breasts. "I was just beginning to wonder if you'd show. You look great, by the way."
"Thanks. It took me longer to put together than I expected. And longer to get into."
"Totally worth the effort. Hey, I want you to meet my boyfriend. He like, totally organized this whole thing."
The captain of the lacrosse team sauntered up, covered only by a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Maura, this is my Edward." Lizzie said, giving the tall, built young man a peck on the cheek. "Ed, this is Maura. She's a freshman here and she's only sixteen. How cool is that?"
"Hey freshie, what up?" Ed responded, holding out a fist for Maura to 'bump', which she did, responding "Presumably, the second floor."
"She's so funny." Lizzie beamed. "Hey, can I get you some beer?"
"Lizzie. I'm sixteen, remember?"
"Whatever. If you're old enough to go to cram your brains out for finals you ought to be old enough to get wasted afterwards."
"Come on," Ed added. "It's not like anyone's gonna know. You look twenty-one anyway." He added with a wink.
"No thanks." Maura replied politely but firmly.
"Whatever. I'll see if I can find you some lemonade, okay?"
"Thanks."
Lizzie wandered off in the general direction of the kitchen, leaving Maura with Ed.
"Lizzie's sure something, isn't she?" Ed gazed at his girlfriend's retreating figure. Maura simply nodded, wanting to appear in agreement without seeming as if she was checking out the muscular guy's girl.
"She doesn't have anything on you, though."
Maura was taken aback. Ed had turned his attention directly to her, gazing at her latex-clad form hungrily. Maura might've been flattered, might've been interested in the older athlete, but he was Lizzie's boyfriend. She couldn't do that to Lizzie; the older girl was like a sister, even if she was most sisterly when she needed help writing a BioChem paper. The sixteen-year-old didn't know what to do, and so stood still like a deer in the headlights.
"You're so pretty in an innocent way. Like you don't even know how fucking beautiful you are." Ed reached up to touch Maura's cheek and she shied away, heart starting to pound.
"Hey, don't be shy. Though it is rather cute on you."
He took a step towards Maura, invading her personal space, and she stepped backwards against the wall.
"Where do you think you're going, little miss?" Ed asked in a teasingly playful yet almost threatening tone. He stepped closer and leaned in so far Maura could smell the alcohol on his breath. The teenager's breath hitched and her eyes widened, and she began to have an odd churning sensation in her stomach.
"Look who has goose bumps. I think I know of something that could warm you up." Ed leered at her, his face less than an inch from Maura's.
In Jane's car Maura shivered, and Jane turned off the air conditioning in the car and hugged the clearly disturbed woman close with both arms, whispering "Shh, it's okay."
Maura's arms felt like useless lead as Ed placed one hand on her waist and the other on her upper thigh.
"In fact, I could keep you warm all night long."
Ed's left hand travelled upward toward the frightened sixteen-year-old's breast and his right shifted to cup the back of her thigh, pulling it upward and outward. He continued to press forward as the 'hem' of her latex dress inched higher, chafing painfully
Maura didn't know what to do. Any movement could shift the placement of his hands to where she really didn't want them to go, could result in her skirt riding up way above where modesty would place it. No movement could result in him groping her anyway. No movement could result in him continuing to push her dress up, giving him access to do something worse than grope. If only she had made a latex glove clutch purse like she'd thought about doing and put pepper spray in it. If only she'd come in a cardboard box instead of figure-hugging latex. If only she hadn't come at all. If only Lizzie hadn't left.
Lizzie.
"Lizzie's coming." It wasn't a lie; she had indicated that she'd be returning eventually.
It worked. Ed pulled off of her, straightening in an attempt to fool his girlfriend he hadn't just had his hands all over a sixteen-year-old. Maura tried to sneak away while he was looking for her, but wasn't fast enough.
"I don't see her."
Maura tried to cover. "Whoops. I wonder where she is." Maura faked a tone of curiosity, insinuating that she was going to go look for her. "Excuse me."
Ed let her pass. But not without grinning and slapping her ass as she passed.
Maura straightened, surprised and frightened. She wanted to turn around. She wanted to tell him off, or just slap him.
"But I was too scared. So I ran."
Jane gently rubbed Maura's upper arm as she held her close. Maura simply laid in Jane's grasp, eyes tightly shut, and continued to whisper her story.
"I tried to go to campus police. Immediately. They told me that I was asking for it by wearing a latex dress. They said that if I couldn't handle frat parties I should go back to junior high where I belonged. They wouldn't give me a jacket to cover up when I asked. They just sent me back to my dorm."
One tear escaping from Maura's clenched eye didn't escape Jane's notice and she wiped it away with her thumb. "Hey, it's okay now. You're okay. I've got you."
"I thought about telling Lizzie. I wanted to, but I was afraid she wouldn't believe me. She and Ed graduated about a week later anyway. I never really told anyone."
One tear had turned into streams cascading down Maura's cheeks, smudging her makeup onto Jane's shirt. Jane continued to cradle Maura and whisper reassurances into her hair.
"I always wondered what happened to them. If they lasted past graduation, if they got married. If he ever hurt her. If he ever… forced her."
Maura's tears had for the most part subsided, and she simply enjoyed the warm comfort of Jane's embrace while wallowing in her dark thoughts. Jane could tell her vocal reassurances weren't registering, and opted to provide silent comfort.
"Jane?" Maura's meek voice broke a comfortable silence.
"Yes, Maura?" Jane pulled back a bit to look at the woman in her arms.
Maura looked up at Jane. "Could we not do this in a diner parking lot?"
Kinda an abrupt ending, I know, but I figured this chapter was already long enough. More tomorrow, probably.
Thank you, my wonderful reviewers and viewers and 'favorite'-ers and 'alert'-ers.