Jane and Charlotte are sitting on stools in the fast food restaurant. The wall in front of them is made of only windows and they watch the cars and people going through the intersection just outside.

Charlotte kicks her feet which dangle down by the metal pole of her seat. They have finished eating, a meal that went by mostly in silence. They are both sipping what is left of their sodas watching the strangers in the cold outside. It's the end of November now, almost Thanksgiving but it's clear that winter is coming.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Charlotte gives a look to her mother out of the side of her eye.

"Tell you what?"

"That you were Dr. Pollack's patient too?" Charlotte anxiously chews on her straw.

"I don't know. I didn't think it was all that important."

"You didn't think it was important to tell me you were in therapy?" Her voice remains calm but she scoffs at her mother's incredulousness. "And you didn't think it was important to tell me your therapist was my therapist?"

"Char, baby, I wanted this to be your decision, and solely your decision. I didn't want to sway you one way or the other so I said as little as possible."

"Still, I thought we told each other everything."

She understands where her mother is coming from and respects that decision. She wasn't able to choose the way her life had ended up. This decision, no matter how small did make her feel like she had some semblance of power back. Her mother, the detective, knew that too.

"Hang on, I left my phone. Wait here, I'll be right back." Jane says, signaling to the wall outside of the restaurant. She disappears back inside and Charlotte leans against the wall.

"Excuse me," A man, wrapped in a dark coat approaches Charlotte. She instantly backs as far into the brick as she can. She instantly starts shaking, her eyes widening. In the dark, with very few people around Charlotte doesn't know how to react being approached by this man. He reaches into his pocket and she readies herself to run. She relaxes only slightly when he pulls out a cell phone. He clicks the top button but it doesn't light up. "my phone died, do you happen to know what time it is?"

"Oh, um," her voice is shaky and she tries to control it. "it's 7 o'clock."

"Thank you," He waves his hand. "have a nice night."

Once he walks away she releases all of the built up breath and wrings her hands together. Jane walks back outside a minute later. Charlotte looks to her mother, eyes still wide, body still shaking, unable to control her body as much as she would like to.

"Hey, what happened? Are you alright?" Jane's voice is defensive, as if something bad was happening to her at this moment.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Charlotte's voice is breathy. "Can we go now?"

"So what happened last night?" Dr. Pollack asks, sipping coffee from her mug.

"A guy came up to me. I was outside alone, waiting for my mom. It was dark so I couldn't really see him, but he approached me, all he wanted was to know what time it was. I freaked out. My whole body started shaking, I felt like I couldn't breathe and I could barely see. I don't know what happened. It started and was over so fast."

"It sounds to me like you had a panic attack."

"Panic attack?"

She has heard this term before but never thought it would happen to her.

"Yes. Your Post Traumatic Stress symptoms caused your sympathetic nervous system to kick in, sending adrenaline through your body which caused…" Dr. Pollack trails off when she notices Charlotte's eyes glaze over. She adjusts her approach to explaining such a scary subject to the young girl in front of her. "Panic attacks aren't uncommon after a traumatic event. It's your body's way of reacting to something when it doesn't really know how."

"Is this gonna happen for the rest of my life?" Charlotte takes the deck of cards from the table next to her, dealing half of the deck to herself and half to the doctor.

"No, usually they last until the person suffering from them has learned coping skills. I'll help you learn your triggers and how to tell when you feel one coming on. That way we can prevent them rather than just stop them while they're happening."

Dr. Pollack throws a four to Charlotte's two.

"What's your first name Dr. Pollack?"

This question seems to come out of nowhere, but one look at Charlotte's furrowed brow and curious eyes and the doctor could tell, for whatever reason, that this was important to her.

"Angela." Charlotte smiles.

"That's my grandmother's name."

"It's a good name." She agrees. "But you on the other hand are not very good at this game."

They play in silence for a little while. In their two short sessions Dr. Pollack had learned that Charlotte needed to be the one to initiate the conversation or else it wouldn't happen. After Charlotte loses another card she blurts out.

"I yelled at my best friend."

"Why did you do that?"

"I don't know." She shrugs. "Some stuff happened with Casey," Dr. Pollack gives a confused look. "my biological father and I felt like he wasn't on my side. I felt like he didn't understand and it just made me mad."

"You're right Charlotte. He doesn't, because he can't understand. Well, not really. No matter how much you want him to or how much he wants to, if this has never happened to him, he won't understand it. The odds are whatever he said, or didn't say, or did, or didn't do, it's not because he doesn't care. It's because he cares so much."

Charlotte doesn't react. Dr. Pollack sighs and shifts closer to the edge of her chair.

"When something horrible happens to someone we care about, we as humans don't know what to say. We put so much pressure on ourselves to say the right thing or extend the right gesture but that's not what's important to the person in pain, is it?" This prompts a small shake of the head from Charlotte. "What's important is that we try. No matter how many times we say or do the wrong thing. If we keep trying eventually we will get it right. Even if we don't, the other person will see the effort and know that they're loved, right?" Charlotte nods again.

"I just don't know if he feels like I'm worth trying for anymore. I was pretty mean to him. He hasn't talked to me since the other night and I don't blame him."

"Maybe the gesture he's trying out right now is silence. Is it what you want?" Dr. Pollack smiles at her wide eyed silent response as she vigorously shakes her head. "Then you're gonna have to let him know, that way you'll see if he's gonna be worth the next chance you're giving him."

Dr. Pollack takes Charlotte's last card.

"I will beat you one of these days." Charlotte says with a determined expression on her face.

"I hope you do." Dr. Pollack returns with a gentle, open expression across her own features.

"Hey kid, how was your session?"

"It was good."

Charlotte smiles at her mother. She looks tired and she knows that this case is weighing on her. They haven't made much ground in the past few days and Jane hasn't been sleeping. Charlotte knows this because despite everything in her own mind telling her she shouldn't be, she's still sleeping in her mother's bed.

"No progress on the case, huh?"

Jane gives an exasperated look.

"How do you do that? You always know before I even tell you."

"You're more transparent than you'd like to think you are Detective Rizzoli."

"Alright, you've been hanging out with Maura and her psychological medical journal things too much." She smiles at her daughter, relieved to see her joking around and at least seemingly happy.

With both of them in the same bed tossing, turning, and sighing at three in the morning it's clear there's a lot on both of their minds.

"Yeah right, you spend way more time with her than I do. I just actually listen to her when she talks." They both chuckle. "Maybe I'll become a therapist one day and me and Maura will talk all day long about research and reports while you sit and listen to both of us rattle on about stuff you don't understand."

"Alright, alright, if I stop giving you a hard time will you go into a profession with less jargon for me to learn? Like coal mining or professional lip synching, that's a thing now right?"

"Why were those the two professions you decided to use?"

"I don't know, they sounded better than fly fisherman and Sears catalog model."

"Point taken. Where are we going?" Charlotte asks, looking out the passenger window noting that they were heading in the opposite direction of the police station.

"Home." Jane answers as if it were a foreign concept to her daughter.

"Why?"

"Because we live there."

"Yeah. But don't you have work to get back to?"

"Yes, but Maura and Frankie I guess bought us a new couch and the guy is coming to the building to deliver it."

"What's wrong with the couch we have now?"

"That's what I said."

They pull up their street and are shocked when they see first responder vehicles parked in front of the building and scattered through their neighborhood. They get out of the car and run to the first fireman they see.

"What happened?" Jane asks the man who barely looks up from his clipboard.

"Electrical fire. It spread through the entire building, went up in just a couple minutes. Do you two live here?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He answers, not sounding the least bit sorry.

"Oh my God." Charlotte's stomach drops at her next thought. "Stitch."

Jane grabs her daughter as she seems to be swaying, looking like she may pass out.

"Is that a pet?"

"Yes. My dog."

"There is an animal control vehicle parked right over there," he points, "with the animals we were able to rescue from the units."

She sprints over to the van while Jane is met by Maura and her mother.

"What happened?" Angela's voice bellows over the talking and sound of the fire trucks' engines. Before she can answer they are disturbed by a man's loud voice.

"You know a Rizzoli?"

Jane raises her hand as she sees the couch being brought down the sidewalk.

"What the hell am I gonna do now?"

"Mom!" Charlotte runs back over. "Stitch is okay! They got him." She has the small dog wrapped in a blanket in her arms. The poor guy is shaking visibly as she kisses his head and whispers sweetly into his ear to comfort him.

"That's great baby." Jane kisses the dog's head as well.

"Jane, you two can stay with me while you figure all of this out. I have plenty of space for you and for Stitch. It will be like our own little slumber party every night. Won't that be fun?"

"Oh yeah, tons of fun." Jane says sarcastically. "Except for a few voluntary nights of gossip and hair braiding, it's a necessary few weeks of frustration and hair pulling." She falls back into the plastic covered couch.

They had lost everything they owned; their clothes, their furniture, their computers and books. All they had now was each other, the way it always seemed to be with them.

Hey guys, so I'm still not in love with this chapter, but after the idea to use the fire story line from the recent episodes of the show I think it adds even a little more drama. I'm working towards other stuff, I'm just struggling a bit to get there. Thanks for sticking around to read this! CV