Jane Rizzoli firmly believed that whoever had invented housecleaning needed to be dragged out into the street and shot.

Repeatedly.

Then someone should call a Catholic priest or one of those Mormon missionaries and have him resurrected, so he could be shot again.

She growled angrily to herself as she dug her most beat up pair of blue jeans out of the dirty laundry pile on the floor. The ones with the encrusted white paint from when she'd pulled a supremely untalented Michelangelo and tried to repaint the ceilings for her mother. And the ones now nicely over stained horror movie style from all the blood when she'd had to practically carry Frankie into the ER after he'd ditched it hard trying to be some idiot Evel Knievel last week on some kid's skateboard.

Sure, she was used to having to do stupid crap in her life. She was a detective in Boston for the love of all the holy Saints. It was practically required in the job description. But of all the truly stupid crap she had to waste time doing in her already far too busy life, housecleaning was the worst.

Bar none, hands down.

Absolute worst.

It was worse than pulling a bleary frustrating overnighter at the precinct trying to catch a break in some impossible case and finding there was only burnt decaf left in the pots by three and the nearest pizza delivery place was boycotting cops because the owner had been arrested for dispensing marijuana with the bread sticks.

It was worse than all the nasty tasting, weird looking and disturbingly bizarrely named health foods Maura was forever trying to make her deliberately eat instead of the actually truly delicious stuff normal people liked to eat like burgers, fries, and beer.

And it was even worse than having to go all the way down to the morgue in the middleof a hectic overloaded shift when you couldn't actually spare the time for it just to get some absolutely critical bit of evidence desperately needed right now and finding Pike in charge.

Jane snarled to herself as she dragged out from the back corner of the closet her once favorite fan girl Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt that had never recovered from the horrific Oil Changing Incident when for some unknown reason she'd been temporarily insane enough to try and teach Maura how to maintain her own car.

How a woman smart enough to be a damn Vulcan could be that utterly dumb sometimes was truly one of the universe's unexplained mysteries.

She muttered choice words in English, then Italian and finally Spanish to herself as she brutally fisted her wild tangle of black curls back into a protective ponytail, remembering all too painfully with hot embarrassment what happened last time when they got caught in the drain and she'd had to yell for help at the top of her lungs until her jerk neighbor had stopped banging on the wall to get her to shut up and finally called it in and Korsak had kicked her front door in a panic with half the damn force behind him and then they all laughed themselves onto the floor before someone finally used a kitchen knife to cut her free.

Jane began rummaging noisily around, truly pissed off, in the chaotic mess of industrial chemical stinking cleaning supplies in the cramped cupboard under the sink.

In fact, while most people were dreaming wishfully of going on exciting vacations to exotic locations or buying some hot new car, Jane dreamed that if she ever actually got a proper raise instead of just being lucky to keep her job with all the Boston PD budget cuts these days, she'd hire a damn housecleaner and never do any of it ever again.

Just where the hell was a fairy godmother for an Italian Cinderella these days?

Someone knocked on her door, making Jane scowl blacker.

If this was one of those jackass window salesmen again, she swore she was going to need a shovel and an alibi.

Jane jerked the door open. "What do you--?"

Maura was standing there smiling cheerfully up at her, dressed chicly as only she could somehow manage in one of the crisp white coveralls from work complete with brand new protective goggles and bright pink heavy duty plastic gloves over her finely manicured hands.

Jane's brain had a momentary government shutdown because that was truly the last thing she had been expecting to see on the other side of her door or, frankly, any place else and then she stared, frowning in true confusion. "Maura, I, uh, what the hell?"

The smaller woman practically bounced on her heels excitedly and struck an exaggerated comic book superhero pose that was hilariously ridiculous in her current getup and utterly Maura geeky adorable at the same time. "I'm here to save the day!"

Jane couldn't help it, she snickered and then just started laughing and pulled Maura into a ferociously happy hug. "Yay! My hero!" Then she held the other woman out at arm's length and frowned, her black eyebrows drawing down. "Wait, how did you know I needed saving?"

Maura snorted and patted her arm like she often did when Jane said something truly less than brilliant. "Really, Jane?"

"Hey!" Jane squawked outraged.

"I do actually pay attention, you know." Her hazel eyes glinted mischievously, "Even when you're whining."

Jane sputtered indignant. "I was so not whining!"

"Oh, you so were."

"I was not!"

Maura lifted a warning eyebrow and put her pink gloved hands on her hips. "Do you really want me to repeat the entire conversation we had Friday?"

Jane's eyes widened. "Wait, can you actually do that?"

"Yes."

"How come you got all the cool superpowers?" Jane sighed. "Fine, I whined."

Maura sniffed, obviously pleased at having won the argument so easily. "I was thinking we should start with the worst first, just to get it out of the way. Statistically, that would be the bathroom."

Jane gave her a horrified look. "Are you kidding?"

"Jane, how can you have no trouble facing the worst of crime scenes and yet fear your own bathroom?"

"Easy. I just look at the crime scenes; I don't have to clean them."

"Baby."

"From the woman who won't drink her coffee if it's a degree off of 'perfect' temperature?"

"Jane! Really, you are such a Philistine sometimes. Temperature is absolutely critical in experiencing the full sensory pleasure of-"

"Maura, its coffee not sex."

"I am slightly mollified that you at least understand the importance of temperature when-"

"Please, please don't finish that."

Maura laughed, blushing a bit. "Fine, I won't." She shook a pink plastic gloved finger at the taller woman. "Which means it's cleaning time. Stop stalling."

Jane groaned. "Yes, mom."

Maura frowned disapprovingly at the cleaners Jane had been pulling out. "Jane, none of these are natural cleansers. Do you have any idea what some of these chemicals actually do to the human body? Look, this one has 2-butoxyethanol, Jane. The EPA has warned that in improperly vented confined areas, the high inhalation rate of glycol ethers category products such as this can eventually contribute to narcosis, pulmonary edema, liver and kidney-"

"Ahh, Maura! I'm not snorting the stuff; I'm just using it to kill off the crud growing in my bathroom."

"Jane, a healthy home leads to a healthy body. The FDA-"

"If you don't stop, I'll drink one of them."

"Jane!"

"Oh, look, the pink one looks like that Beachside Peach thing I had last week. Hey, I think I have some Smirnoff-"

"Jane! That is ammonia based-"

"Oh, come on, Maura! I'm not three! I just don't care what the damn stuff kills as long as it makes everything clean."

"But I do and I'm taking you shopping for some safer products."

Jane rolled her eyes. And then suddenly perked up. "Awesome."

But Maura smiled sweetly. "After we're finished here."

She groaned. "Not so awesome."

Maura handed Jane three bottles. "We'll use these ones; they're the least toxic of what you have available."

"It's like you've never been in my bathroom before."

The other woman hesitated a moment and then sighed. "Point." She switched out two of the bottles. "Okay, less toxic."

"I am actually almost offended that you just did that."

Maura laughed.

The two women went down the hall.

"So do we do Paper, Rock, Scissors for the toilet?" asked Jane hopefully.

"Absolutely not. You cheat."

"I do not!"

"You do."

"Not every time!"

"In fact, since I'm your superhero today, I do believe we should restore some justice to the universe. You will do the toilet and I will do the shower."

"That's not justice, woman! That's vengeance!"

"That's kharma, Jane. And kharma is an Indian philosophy of justice which-"

"Figures I'd get the Boston version of Batman, it's so unfair."

Maura flicked on the bathroom light. She gave Jane a look.

Jane blushed defensively. "I have brothers!"

"That's alright." Maura straightened her shoulders bravely. "I can do this, I work in a morgue."

"Hey!"

"In fact, I think I'll do a basic wash of your shower first like I do for my medical cadavers."

"Oh, yuck, Maura! Now every time I look at my shower I'm going to be thinking about dead people!"

Maura just laughed at her and got in the shower. "Since we're following the order of hazmat levels in your house-"

"So funny."

"-that means we'll clean the kitchen next, followed by the living room slash dining room, and end with the bedroom."

"Yay. I'm so excited."

Jane's phone went off and she dug it out of her jeans back pocket. "Rizzoli. Hey, Korsak, what's up? Yeah, I finished it. Look in my bottom desk drawer in the green folder."

"Jane, hand me that bottle," Maura said, pointing. She turned the shower head carefully to the side and then sent the water through with a pull, turning the knob back and forth to get the temperature she was looking for. The bathroom starting filling with steam and the loud rushing sound of running water. Which meant she naturally had to raise her voice to compensate. "Oh, look! I've got the water perfect!"

Jane had to cover her opposite ear to hear Korsak and raise her own voice. "That sounds like Maura because that is Maura. Korsak says hi."

Maura smiled brightly and called loudly to him over the noise. "Hello, Sergeant Korsak!"

"Yeah, it's her day off, too. She's-"

"I'm in Jane's shower!" Maura gave a pink plastic thumbs up at Jane to show she was helping explain. "I've got it all planned out! We're going to start here and work our way through the apartment until we finish up in the bedroom!"

"MAURA!"

"What?"

Jane just turned off her phone and face palmed.

Yep.

Whoever had invented housecleaning needed to be dragged out into the street and shot.

"Jane? Jane? Is something wrong?"

Repeatedly.

"Jane?"