The train fills up quickly. Looking up from her piles of flashcards, Maura realizes that she will be lucky to continue sitting alone. The aisle seat next to her is one of the few remaining open seats, and people are still streaming in from both ends of the car.

She sighs heavily, wondering why she'd argued with her mother, insisting on taking the train back to school like she'd overheard the other girls in her dorm discussing.

No. She knows why she wanted to do this. She'd been hoping to sit next to one of them on the ride back, to strike up a conversation that lasted for the entire four hour train ride.

She'd wanted to make a friend.

"Z'anyone sittin' here, darlin'?" a tall, overweight man with a potbelly looms over her empty seat, his breath reeking of garlic.

"Well," Maura says quietly, feeling herself already flush at the idea of lying. "I-I had hoped to-"

But the man has already turned away from her, and is hoisting his bag up into the overhead carrier. He has wide dark pit stains on the underarms of his striped button up.

Maura closes her eyes, but she can still feel herself grimace. This is not how she'd planned it at all.

"Hey!" A voice makes Maura jump, and she opens her eyes and looks around.

The man is just about to lower himself into the seat next to her, but he has stopped because of the speaker, a tall, dark haired girl who has come jogging up the aisle, backpack over her shoulder.

"That's my seat," she says brusquely, and her eyes scan Maura and her belongings quickly. "She was saving that for me." She throws a cocky grin at Maura. "Thanks, I didn't think I'd make it."

The man half straightens to look at her, and she avoids his eye, hoping he won't read in her face that the other girl is lying.

"This is your friend?" He asks, and it's clear that he's noting her ripped Jeans and "The Killers" t-shirt, in contrast to Maura's designer dress and diamond earrings.

The other girl shrugs her shoulders, not looking put out. "Well," she says, "roommate. We're not cut from the same cloth, but we get along okay, right, Maura?"

Maura nearly drops her pencil, she's so caught off guard. "Y-yes," she stammers. "Though, I do wish that you'd been on time. It makes me anxious, having to sit here and wonder if you're coming."

This is the truth, although the 'you' Maura is referencing could be anyone.

Jane raises her eyebrows at the man, and with a disgruntled sigh and a significant grunt, he hauls himself back into the aisle, and heads off in search of another seat.

The brunette drops into the vacated seat and smiles at Maura openly. "Hope this is the better alternative," she says quietly, still grinning. "I saw your sad, grimacing face from the end of the train, and thought I'd spare you. It was like Niagara under those pits, huh!"

Maura blinks at her. "How do you know my name?" She asks.

The other girl sobers a little. "Uh…it's on your," she points, "it's monogrammed onto your briefcase."

Maura looks down at her feet. "Oh," she says. "I see." And then, without thinking about what this might say about her, she reaches down and turns the bag the other way, so that the name faces away from the brunette.

"Ooookay," the other girl says, pulling a pair of earbuds out of her pocket. "Message received."

Maura doesn't understand what she means until it's too late, and then when she turns back to the girl, to apologize, and maybe even say thank you, she's already looking away, head bobbing slightly to the music in her ears.

Maura sighs, and goes back to her chemistry flashcards.

.

They ride this way for almost an hour, Maura engrossed in her Chemistry, and her seatmate lost in her own head. Every once in a while, a song will come on that is loud enough for Maura to catch a few bars, or Jane will tap her shoe to a beat that only she can here.

After a while, Maura finds her presence almost comforting. But then, the train stops in Hartford, and the train empties significantly. The two people in the seats across from them exit, and as the train starts to move again, the brunette stands with a little sigh, and slides across the aisle, into the window seat.

Maura lifts her head at the movement, and watches her go, flashcard still in her hand.

She hadn't meant to be rude. In fact, she should have been grateful. She should have struck up a conversation. Isn't that the whole reason she'd ridden the train to school anyway?

The brunette looks around at her, probably because she's felt Maura's eyes, and without stopping to second guess herself, Maura opens her mouth.

"I didn't mean to be rude," she says.

The girl takes an earbud out. "Huh?"

Maura swallows. "I didn't mean to be rude, earlier," she repeats. "You just caught me off guard."

The girl nods, reaching to take the other earbud out.

"No sweat," she says, with a tentative smile. "I didn't mean to freak you out. Just wanted to sell it, you know?"

Maura blinks. There is too much slang in that sentence for her to answer in the affirmative.

The brunette does not seem to require a response. She slide over to the aisle seat and sticks her hand out.

"I'm Jane," she says. And when Maura opens her mouth to respond, Jane nods. "And you're Maura. I know. It's nice to officially meet you."

She smiles, and Maura finds herself smiling back. "Do you go to B.C.?" she asks. Thin little wisps of hope are starting to wrap themselves around her insides.

But Jane shakes her head. "College?" she clarifies. "Nah. Not for me."

Maura can't help herself. "Not for you?!" she says, shocked. "How can college 'not be' for someone?"

Jane pauses, clearly trying to decide if this question is innocent. "Welllll," she says slowly, "I want to be a cop."

"There are police officers with college degrees," Maura says, unsure why she is pressing the point so aggressively with a stranger.

"Yeah," Jane says, running her hand through her hair. She hesitates, glancing over Maura again before sighing shortly, apparently making up her mind. "Well, I can't afford it. So the point is mute."

Maura cannot stop herself from giggling.

Jane looks at her, curious and a little miffed. "What?"

"You said the point is mute," Maura says, laughing again at hearing it repeated.

Jane blinks. "It is. Mute. We don't have to keep talking about it. We should both go mute. It's not important."

But this only makes Maura laugh harder. "It's moot!" she says, still chuckling. "It's a different word than mute…moot." But the smile slips off her face at Jane's humiliated blush.

"Oh!" She says, dismayed. "I didn't mean to make fun of you." And before she can think, she's stood up, and crossed the aisle to sit next to the brunette again.

Jane presses back against the window, looking surprised at the intrusion, but not altogether unhappy.

"Well," she says, still huffy, "It's both. Mute and moot."

"Okay," Maura says, smiling. She looks down at the flashcards in her hands. "Well, I didn't want you to move away," she confesses after a moment. "They only reason I rode the train today was to try and make a friend."

"So that's why you were so upset I made that man move away," Jane says, and when Maura looks around at her, ready to argue, she laughs. "A joke," she says quickly, waiting to laugh again until Maura has started smiling. "Just a joke."

They pass the rest of the trip together, trading stories.

Jane has been in New York at a conference for young women entering the police force. She tells Maura she is nervous and excited and determined, and the last emotion shows on her face when she speaks.

Maura tells her, "you will make a terrific cop. I'm sure of it."

Jane beams.

For her part, Maura talks about college, and her worries about not fitting in, her love of forensic science and her desire to make a discovery that changes the world. Jane listens with rapt attention for the most part, although Maura catches her staring more than once, at her lips, her neck…lower.

"You're like a genius," Jane says, her eyes snapping back up to Maura's in the silence that falls at the end of her sentence.

Maura blushes, though not just from the compliment. "Yes," she admits, "but I'm finding that in higher education, that is not all that matters."

Jane nods sympathetically. "You'll be fine," she says, her voice full of conviction. "You just gotta take the plunge. I mean, look at you and me. You started the conversation, and we've talked the whole trip away."

Maura looks out the window, startled. "Oh," she says, "I guess we have."

They gather their things in silence, and Maura can feel Jane's eyes on her as she stacks her flashcards.

"Hey Maura?"

Maura looks around to see Jane looking down at the cards in her hands. "Yes?"

"That equation there, it's wrong. It should be a 2 before the Hydrogen…I think."

Maura looks down. She nods slowly. "You're right." She says, hoping Jane will understand her tone to be delight, and not surprise.

To her relief, Jane grins.

They both stand as the train comes to a stop, and when Maura lurches forward, caught off guard by the sudden halt, Jane wraps a hand around her arm and catches her.

The contact makes Maura's heart race.

They step off the platform and at once someone calls Jane's name. Maura turns with her companion to see a skinny boy with dark hair waving wildly at them.

"Yo! Jane!" He calls. "Over here!"

Jane turns to Maura, who is trying to find a way to extend their time together.

"Jane-"

"I'll see you around, maybe, Maura, okay?" Jane sounds breathless, rushed.

Eager to get away.

Maura tightens her jaw against embarrassed tears. Of course. It had just been to pass the time. How stupid she'd been.

"Sure," she says curtly. "It was nice to meet you."

Jane is already hurrying away.

Maura manages to wait until she is safely ensconced in her cab to wipe at her eyes.

…

It is not until later that night, as she flips through her chemistry flashcards, trying to focus on them and not on the way it had felt when Jane had touched her, that she finds it.

A slip of paper, different than the cardstock, and the handwriting on it, long and narrow, not hers.

She gasps, and then blinks to make sure she is really seeing it.

She pulls the little piece of paper up to her eyes, so happy she could kiss it.

Jane Rizzoli

(617)555-3257

good luck on your test!