DISCLAIMER: Rizzoli & Isles is owned by Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, TNT, and so many other people and entities that we can't keep them straight. Then again, they can't keep Rizzoli or Isles straight, either, so that's all right.

One Shot: Jane, Korsak, and Frankie get blown up. Romance and misunderstandings ensue.

Type: hurt/comfort, romance

This was originally started with GoogleMouth, but when she went on hiatus and some real life things hit me harder than expected, I had no energy to finish it. Now I do. The story idea came after I was at a burning building and just failed at getting the smell out of my clothes.

I'm also violating a cardinal rule of mine. This story is not finished at the time of initial posting. I can't even promise I'll finish it. I'm going to try.


"Please?" Maura begged for the umpteenth time, managing to look both hopeful and mournful, as if trying to figure out which expression would wheedle Jane into doing what she wanted. "It's so long and pretty, and you never let me play with it. Five minutes? At least let me braid it or something." Her fingers were already twitching, Jane observed, clearly itching to get themselves tangled up in her already disorderly mop of hair.

It was going to be easier just to give in.

Jane sighed. "Okay, fine! You can braid it. God! Five minutes. No spray, no gel, no turning it into an entire hour with a curling iron or hot rollers, and absolutely no scissors." That was a lesson she had painfully learned in high school during one of her few experiences with sleepovers: never let the other girls have free reign with one's hair. Too-short bangs and uneven sides had been the price she paid for a full school year until it all grew out again.

Before she could even get the entire list of conditions out of her mouth, however, Maura had already sprung from her lounging position on the couch and sprinted to the bedroom, with a sigh of what sounded suspiciously like relief. "Thank you!" she gushed as she returned with a hairbrush, comb, and ponytail holder.

Within moments, Jane found herself sitting on the floor, in front of the couch, while Maura made quick, but gentle, work of the mass o'tangles Jane called hair. Far be it from Jane to admit that she actually enjoyed the attention, and certainly she wasn't going to announce to Maura the warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of her … stomach. Just call it your stomach, Rizzoli. Your best friend doesn't need to know.

It had become increasingly awkward as of late. Maura just made Jane feel good. Loved. It was all the things her mother had told her she'd find, just not with a guy. And one might think Jane could just be happy about that, but she found herself getting increasingly more irritable, every time Maura went on a date. While the medical examiner was excellent at self-sabotaging her dates via diagnosis, Jane had taken to 'helping' her out by pointing out their shortcomings.

I am a jealous shrew, thought Jane as she sighed.

Maura echoed the sigh. "It's just so amazingly thick," she sank, knuckle-deep in curls. "I always thought it must be mostly just curls that made it look so full, but it's really not, is it?" Her voice was admiring, even as she added, "It's like a pelt!"

Jane sighed, eyes rolling heavenward. Sometimes Maura's compliments sounded insulting, if you didn't know her well enough. "Thanks for implying that I'm some kind of wild animal, Maura. Yes, I'm hairy. Okay? Hey, at least I wax."

"You do?" Maura's hands paused, and she leaned far enough over for Jane to see a raised eyebrow full of implication.

Blushing to her ears, Jane snapped back, "My upper lip and between my eyebrows! God!" She was sure that Maura was envisioning a Brazilian or god knew what. Not that Jane hadn't tried that. Once. It was like anal sex, though. Never again.

Maura just giggled, as if her theory was confirmed, and went back to what she clearly thought of as playtime. She tousled, brushed, fluffed, brushed again, finger-combed. It seemed she just could not get enough of getting to hold Jane's hair. "It's so soft, too," she marveled. "I thought it would feel kind of dry, because I know you don't take very conscientious care of it, but it's really very healthy, except for a few split ends that need to be trimmed."

"Again with the backhanded compliments," Jane groused, resisting the urge to check her watch. The hair petting felt really nice. The annoyance was more because this was all things would ever be.

When her phone rang, Jane was suddenly annoyed at the interruption, and awash with contradictions. I need to get laid, she lamented mentally, And I need to stop dating idiots. Maybe I'll just get a better vibrator. "Rizzoli." After the initial greeting, she remained silent while Korsak gave her the relevant details on their perp, who had knifed and shot a total of three people so far, one of whom had just come out of post-surgery anesthesia and given information as to his hideout. "Maura, I gotta go. Someone spotted our guys." She hopped to her feet and checked her hair... which was totally unbraided and possibly messier than before. "Really, Maura?"

"It was tangled," protested Maura, getting up to come with.

Rolling her eyes, Jane grabbed her jacket. "You're not coming."

Maura looked surprised, and half-pouted. "Because I messed up your hair? Don't be childish, Jane."

"No, because we don't have a body or even a crime scene yet. Just a rendezvous point." Jane smiled and buckled her gun on, then corralled her hair up into her ass-kicking ponytail of justice. "We want to get his supplier, too. I'll call you as soon as we take him down, but it probably won't be till tomorrow. But I'll tell you what. If we get the guy and his supplier, I'll let you do that again sometime. Ten minutes."

Though somewhat mollified by the promise of more girl time with Jane's hair, Maura sighed in disappointment. All she said was a simple "Be safe."


Silence.

The world was silent save for the pounding in her ears that assured Jane that she was actually alive, and the high-pitched whistling of tinnitus. The whooshing and pounding was her own blood, her own heart. Jesus, who dropped a house on me? wondered Jane. The world was vibrating, as if she'd been inside an enormous bell while it was forcefully rung. There was no way she was going to try sitting up just yet.

Closing her eyes tightly to the vertigo, Jane concentrated on breathing, feeling more than hearing the air whoosh in and out of her lungs. Okay, Rizzoli. Inventory. Hands? She opened her eyes and lifted her arms. Two hands, scarred as expected, but abnormally filthy. Good; they were still there. Clothes? Yeah, I see my jacket. She carefully lifted her head and saw she had on pants and shoes. Wiggling her feet, Jane assured herself that she wasn't paralyzed. Everything hurt, however. Her back was killing her, both knees throbbed, and her arm felt like the time Tommy ran over it on his Big Wheel.

"Crap, I hurt," she muttered. Or thought she did. There was no sound. "Hello?" she tried louder. Still no sound. "Oh my god, I'm deaf!" she yelped, and hauled herself up to sitting. The world spun for a moment, threatening vomit, and Jane spotted a dazed Korsak, face in the dirt, left ankle sticking out at a painfully strange angle. Oh, God, no. Vince! She crawled over, trying to ignore the fact that the world was wobbling (do they have earthquakes in Massachusetts?), and pressed two fingers to his neck. Before she found a pulse, he batted at her hand.

Jane could have cried in relief, but instead helped Vince sit up. His mouth moved, but Jane heard nothing. Just as she was about to explain how she'd gone deaf, Vince's face paled and he mouthed, clear as day, "I'm deaf!"

There was a slight ringing in Jane's ears, and on the edge of her awareness, a siren. A fire truck, if the pattern was what she thought it was. Grabbing Vince by the shoulders she shook him and shouted, as loud and as clear as she could, "Are you okay?" It was like listening through cotton. She could hear sound, faintly, but not words.

"What?" shouted Vince, and she could just barely hear him. They both mimed pointing at their ears, looked relieved, and then turned to see what had happened.

The warehouse was leveled. Please don't let them blame me, prayed Jane, and she remembered what had happened. We followed the killer into his lab. He shot something by Frankie and... Oh shit! Frankie! Ma's gonna kill me! How could she forget her own brother?

Panicked, Jane got to her feet by pure willpower and swayed. Don't vomit, don't pass out, she ordered herself and looked around. There was a shoe... There was a foot with a sock. The socked foot was attached to a leg. The leg was still attached to a person who was slowly moving into a sitting position. The unmistakable head of her younger brother rose from the ground, bloody, dazed, and entirely bewildered. Jane flashed him a thumbs up, which he returned, shakily. Good. Everyone who mattered was alive.

Sitting back down, because it just felt better, Jane pulled her phone to and texted Cavanaugh. I think we need the EMTs.

Seconds later, he replied. I should have known that boom was you.


By the time the firemen arrived, put out the fire, and got the detectives wrapped in blankets sitting on the bumper of the ambulance, some hearing had returned. Enough to have a conversation, though the ringing in her ears was monumental. Korsak's ankle was broken, and they were going to take him to the ER, along with Frankie, who'd hit his head on something. The EMT told Jane she should see her doctor, but she seemed all right. Of course, the others were all getting their hearing back, and Jane still felt half deaf. Her right ear was useless.

"What kind of lab was it?" she asked Maura, who looked adorable in a blue Tyvek suit, booties, and a mask dangling around her neck. She was like a human-sized, blue bunny. Okay, there was a distinct possibility Jane was a little loopy.

"Your killer was brewing meth and smuggling," sighed the doctor, pushing the hood off and letting her ponytail of justice bounce. Her voice was a little too soft, and Jane wasn't entirely sure that she'd heard things correctly, but 'smuggler' seemed right. Maura inspected Jane's face again, studying it carefully.

"I'm okay, Maura," Jane insisted. "Got my bell rung, and everything keeps tilting, but I'll live."

"You don't seem to have a concussion..."

"Lab. Topic. Please." Pressing a hand to her head, Jane wondered when the painkillers were going to kick in. She felt worse than she had when shot, though probably because she was still awake. "Meth and extreme stupidity is why it blew up, I know that, but what were they smuggling?"

"Synthetic deer urine."

Jane was sure she misheard that one, "What? Sorry, this ringing... I thought you said deer urine." And she just wasn't sure which was a worse concept. Pee, or deer pee.

"I did." Maura's lips moved precisely, clearly, enunciating every word without exaggeration, making it easy to understand. "Synthetic deer urine. Hence the smell."

There was a smell? Jane couldn't smell anything at the moment, but remembered that there had been a smell when she and the guys had gotten here. Something rank. "Oh." Well, she was going to have to burn these clothes, that was for damn sure.

Maura held up a finger and moved it back and forth in front of Jane's eyes. "You don't appear to have a concussion..." she repeated.

Wearily, Jane remarked "You already said that."

"I'm not certain. They can be hard to diagnose." This launched Maura on a long, complicated explanation of head trauma which, even if Jane hadn't felt like crap, she probably wouldn't have been able to follow. "And you're not listening," concluded Maura, looking put out.

"Maura, I just got blowed up," she whined.

"Blown."

"That's what she said."

Maura frowned at Jane. "You shouldn't drive yourself home."

"You offering?" Korsak had driven them there. Someone would take his car home, no doubt. This was one time Jane didn't have to think about it.

"I have to process the scene," Maura pointed out, and Jane sighed. "You should go to the hospital."

"Can't the evidence van just drop me off on the way?" muttered Jane, knowing that Maura would complain that Jane might contaminate the evidence. "Go process the crime scene, Maura. I'm okay."

Normally this would have begun a long argument, but thankfully Maura's technicians distracted her with questions, and Jane was left alone. In the end, Jane got a ride back from a uniformed officer who kept wrinkling her nose at Jane. It was all Jane could do, once she got inside, to shower and collapse on the bed, thankful that her mother had 'borrowed' Joe for some excursion with the other moms.


The first phone call Maura got the next morning was from Korsak, home with a broken ankle. The second was from Angela, who was angry and staying with Frankie who had been kept in the hospital with a major concussion. Jane did not call Maura or her mother, which attributed to some of Angela's annoyance. "Something's wrong, Joe," she told Jane's dog. "Come on, how about I take you home to Jane?"

As soon as Maura said 'Jane,' the dog barked happily and ran around in circles, circumnavigating the kitchen island, Maura's feet (separately and together), and the living room couch. After she saw Jane leave the crime scene, Maura knew there was no way her best friend would want to deal with a hyper puppy. Since Angela had gone to the ER, Maura simply took over dog sitting. Maura swiftly collected her supplies and drove to Jane's.

Thinking about the hours that had passed, and Jane had not visited the ER or her own doctor, Maura became more concerned that something terrible had happened. The explosion had caused considerable damage to both Vince and Frankie, both of whom complained about impaired hearing, and Maura was certain Jane had not escaped unscathed. The fear was high, and not unreasonable, that she was going to find a comatose Jane in her apartment. Or worse.

"Hello, Jane?" she asked as she unlocked the door. A powerful stench assaulted her, and both Maura and Joe recoiled from the pile of clothing sitting in a box in Jane's entryway. The box was clearly labeled 'BURN ME.' The shower was running and she could hear Jane cursing. "This is not good," Maura told Joe, "but at least she's alive."

Experience told Maura not to be quiet as she opened cabinet doors, fed and watered Joe, and made sure the smell wasn't a dead body in the kitchen. "Maura? Is that you?" shouted Jane, the water still running. "You might want to make a break for it. It's really bad here."

Oh good, Jane wasn't nose-deaf. "That's why I'm here, Jane." Purposefully, Maura strode to the bedroom (was that a new bed? again?) and then the bathroom and hesitated outside the door, "How's your hearing?"

"A lot of ringing." sighed Jane. "Lot of stinking, too. Really, you should bail. I reek."

"I brought you body wash."

"Maura, honey, I don't think your froufrou body wash is going to help here."

"It's what I use to wash off the scent of dead bodies, Jane," Maura pointed out.

There was only a moment of hesitation, "God, I love you. Get in here and help a sister out!"

Maura pushed the door open, and paused. New shower curtain. It was no longer opaque white plastic, but a clear translucent vinyl that allowed the doctor to catalogue a series of rather impressive bruises all over Jane's body.

She must have catalogued for a few seconds too long, because Jane's voice was impatient as she demanded, "Well? Gimme the body wash!" Jane stuck a hand out from behind the curtain but kept the rest of herself behind it, as if she thought it was a much better shield her than it actually was.

In the sink already were a dozen desiccated lemons, a bottle of lemon dishwashing soap, and a near-empty bottle of Jane's normal shampoo. "I see you've tried the normal remedies," observed Maura, handing over the body soap and doing her best not to look too much at her naked friend, and make the entire thing even more uncomfortable. "Lemon is actually a wonderful choice for removing scents. It cuts the oils that carry the scents, and it encourages the hair shaft to release-"

"Hey, I remember what you say," grunted Jane, and started scrubbing again. She was moving stiffly. "The lemons stung like a mother, and I swear, I'm scrubbing my whole outer epidermis off."

It was so cute when Jane tried to speak scientifically. "You mean the outer layer of skin, which is dermis. Epidermis is the specific name for the outer layer of skin cells. The second-most layer is called the inerdermis-" Maura rambled on as she lingered by the door, trying to decide if she was supposed to leave now. It didn't any good to ogle, however circumspectly, her best friend. It wasn't easy not to, though, as Jane had an amazing body.

Jane cut her off, though not entirely un-gently. "I think my skin's okay, except for a billion nicks and bruises. Will you smell me? I can't tell anymore." The arm stuck back out of the curtain, but this time Jane's head followed. The other hand held the curtain back, in a veneer of completely useless modesty. At least her face wasn't bruised. (And, Maura remembered from her initial perusal, there was an entire lower leg that had somehow escaped the damage as well.)

In for a penny, in for a pound, sighed Maura and she sniffed Jane's arm. "Hm. No, you smell…" You smell wonderful, my friend. But that was something she would not, could not say aloud, no matter how true it was that the lemon scented bodywash complemented Jane's natural scent in ways that circumvented Maura's rational brain. "...fine. Give it one more wash and another good scrub with my body wash and a brush or loofah, especially around the fingernails, toenails, elbows, heels, and anywhere else you've got calluses. They'll have absorbed more of the scent."

"Oh believe me, I won't neglect my... horny elbows," Jane grumbled as Maura chuckled, vanishing behind the curtain. As she scrubbed, she kept talking. "I have to burn my clothes. Washed them twice before I realized nothing was going to help that. Thank God for incinerators in old buildings. At least it was my older suit, too, but damn, I was saving that money…"

"That's too bad." It wasn't really too bad that those clothes had been lost, but it was bad for Jane's finances to have to replace her clothing. Against all odds, Maura was learning to lie, in a manner of speaking. Well, not lie, her conscience corrected. Obfuscate. Misdirect. Lead Jane down the path of proper attire. "We should go shopping and replace them."

"Leave it to you to look on the bright side," chuckled Jane. "Besides, you hated that suit." All the lying in the world would never trick Jane, it seemed.

Clearly Jane didn't want her to leave, so Maura picked the lemons out of the sink and tossed them in the trash, then fussed about, neatening the placement of things on the sink surround. The smell was either lessening or she was getting used to it. "I did," agreed Maura. "The cut really didn't flatter you. But the color was nice. You look good in charcoal grey, and the pinstripe made it look retro and very sharp."

"Yeah, yeah." Jane stopped scrubbing and took a deep, very audible, sniff. "Damn it, I can't even tell anymore. Here, smell my hair." It was nearly a wail as Jane held her head out from the shower, dribbling on the bath mat, for Maura to sniff.

Maura leaned in, saying, "It can't smell that ba- Oh, my God," Maura gagged midway through that big, healthy sniff, covering her mouth and backing rapidly away. While Maura had dealt with countless autopsies, including some of human soup, she never imagined such a rank smell would come from Jane, but apparently she was wrong: Jane could, and did, smell that bad. Maura thrust the shampoo bottle at Jane and turned away, trying not to feel betrayed by the power and objectionability of the stench.

Jane cursed as she scrubbed at her hair, again and again, until finally she announced, "I'm going to have to shave it all off, aren't I?" She slapped the water off and reached past Maura for her towel, scattering water droplets over the shorter woman's dress sleeve, and surprisingly unmodest. "I give up, it's a lost cause."

The idea of Jane bald wasn't entirely unappealing, given her best friend's strong jawline and other facial features, but she rather did love the detective's thick, dark hair. She was torn. "Perhaps all is not lost. You have the cheekbones... Let me call André."

"Why does that scare me?" sighed Jane, ushering Maura out of the bathroom and winding the towel around herself.

"Because you're a philistine."

Jane narrowed her eyes at Maura. "When I figure out what you called me, I'll have a snappy comeback." And she closed her bedroom door to, one hoped, put on clothes.

In the meantime, Maura dialed André and just hoped he had an opening. "Hello, it's Maura Isles, and I have an code red."

"Seriously, Maura, where are you taking me?" Jane was irritable, as she often was, but with more reason at the moment. She was still deaf in that one ear, still headachy, a bit waterlogged from the excessive showering, and insecure about the nasty smell in her hair. Also now that she wasn't in the hot water of her shower, or terrified about the smell that had turned out to be her, everything about Jane hurt. She hurt in places she didn't know she had places. The short car ride had conspired to make her muscles start to stiffen.

"I told you," Maura replied calmly as they turned off the freeway and onto a surprisingly quiet side street. "We're going to a specialist. André is amazing. He can get rid of any smell in hair, and he'll let you keep as much length as possible."


Jane groused about the cost, whining, "There's no way I can afford your hair guy. Come on, let me just go to Supercuts or something and shave it all off. I'll look stupid, but at least I won't go into debt."

Complacently Maura parked the car, then turned in her seat to show Jane the steel in her eyes: she was taking no nonsense. "My treat. It's not that expensive. No more excuses, Jane, come on." More gently she added, "I know you think you hate your hair, but you'd miss it if you shaved it off completely. Let me do this for you."

Eyeing her best friend, Jane knew a lost fight when she saw it. "Okay, fine," she grumbled, and snapped off her seatbelt. As she jerked the door open, Jane paused and looked back, "I'm sorry. I'm just in a really bad mood. I smell bad, I can't hear squat, and I feel like I got run over." Worse, though she didn't say it, was the little catch in her voice, indicating that she was perilously close to crying. Admit it or not, she was attached to her hair by more than just follicles and roots. It was a part of her identity. Change wasn't something Jane did very often, as Barry once teased her, referring to her shoes.

Thinking about Barry was not a good road to go down when you're already depressed.

"You are bruised all over," agreed Maura, confirming Jane's suspicion that the doctor had more than just glanced at her in the shower, though Jane was at a loss as to what that might mean, and certainly in no place to process. Maura looped her arm through Jane's and led her into the elegantly simple salon storefront. "It's okay. I'll forgive you your nastiness if you'll let me do this, and one more thing, for you."

Jane stopped moving. "What one more thing?" she demanded flatly.

"You'll probably need to sit for a bit with anti-odor solutions and then conditioners on your hair. It'll take a while. Instead of just sitting there, why don't we both get pedicures?"

"Pedi-" Jane stopped and looked down at her feet. Then her hands. No, not her hands, she decided in a heartbeat, clenching her fists. "Actually that sounds kind of nice," she admitted, almost ruefully. The soles of her feet hurt! "If I didn't feel like total crap, I'd probably not even complain about a day at that silly spa, too..." She sighed and shook her head, wincing and pressing one hand to her right ear. That was starting to get worse, too. Crap.

Maura brightened and took hold of Jane's hand once again, ushering her inside as she realized what that meant. "So you'll go with me again?"

Jane sighed and walked into the salon, where she was immediately faced with the fittest, tannest, gayest man she'd ever met. Not one to judge people on appearances, it was impossible not to look at this man and not have your brain shout 'GAY!' Jane blinked as André, for it was he, introduced himself in flamboyant style, kissed Maura's hand in a show of flirtation that was fooling no one, seeming to delight in the fact that no one took it seriously.

Jane expected unicorns to start prancing through the room, covering everyone in glitter. It gave her a headache.

Steering Jane to a chair, and seeming to understand her pain, André was soothing. His bald head and sparkling eyes gave him a roguish and ageless air; he could have been thirty or fifty. "Now, honey, Maura has explained everything to me, so just put yourself in my hands and I will give you back your confidence."

Jane decided to go ahead and trust him for his accent alone: he didn't sound like upper-crust Boston, but like a proud, working-class Southie. Maybe. She didn't trust her hearing today, and the idea of a flamboyant Southie guy was curiously comforting and possibly hallucinatory. "Did Maura warn you about the smell? It gets worse when it gets wet."

Maura pulled up a nearby stool and sat in the corner, with a fairly good vantage point but miraculously out of the way, as André nodded. "Yes, she did, so let me just get a sniff." He did so, and the face he made would have been comical if he had not been so thoroughly not exaggerating it. He swore beneath his breath and moved on to constructive things. "Right. I know exactly what we're going to do."

His hands ran through the curls, much like Maura's had the day before (had that only been yesterday?), but with more clinical interest; later, the contrast would be significant to Jane, but at the moment, she just waited for André's assessment. "Okay. Well, it looks like your hair's been damaged. You said," he turned to Maura, "it was normally very healthy, so this must've happened in the incident, or during the failed treatments afterward." Maura nodded. "So what we've got is damage up to about here." He placed a finger on Jane's shoulder blade, just about halfway between the shoulder top and the bottom of the shoulder blade. "What I have to do to get rid of the smell will probably turn anything below this level very brittle."

Jane frowned, not hearing half of what André said and understanding less than half of the other half. "So it's going to be pretty short, no matter what?"

André confirmed her fears. "That's the longest it will stay. But!" His hands slapped together excitedly. "If I cut it shorter, then straighten it, it'll look so sharp. Look at your cheekbones, though! Maura's no liar. You could carry off baldness or short hair, or a bob, or just about any length. So what would you like?"

Maura looked antsy, just barely refraining from giving input. She was squirming so much with the need to offer an opinion that it almost looked like she needed the ladies' room. Jane watched her via the mirror, and from her vantage point, Maura was behind André, wiggling like a first grader before recess. What on earth was she on about? There was no point in asking, Jane barely heard one word in ten of what André said, and she did not wish to explain her ear to Maura right now. "Damage. It's from the lemon. I was trying to get the smell out," she explained, stalling for time as she thought about what to do. Jane looked at her reflection thoughtfully. If her hair was just short, it would kink, curl, frizz, and balloon like Bozo the Clown. But if it was straight... "André, have you ever watched Law & Order? The one with Detective Benson?"

Maura's eyes widened as all her squirming stopped, the lack of motion catching Jane's eye.

"You mean Detective Butchy McFabulous?" André corrected with a wink. "Season one, or season two? With or without the D.A. in the back?"

"D... A?" She shook her head again and winced. Damn it. That still hurt. Why was the world wobbling every time she jiggled her head? "Uh. Two. Without the dangly stuff in the back."

"Without the D.A." André nodded firmly.

Before André picked up his scissors, Jane fished her cell phone out and pulled up a picture. "What about that? Just go short, and let it stick up? But kind of like this..." Finding a photo of 'Olivia Benson's Hairstyles by Season,' Jane was able show André what she meant.

A few more little concept-refining questions and comments, and André got to work in the quickest way possible: he pulled out his largest pair of scissors, took Jane's hair in hand as if making a ponytail, and simply cut it right off at the nape of her neck. "There we go, sweetie. Band-Aid ripped." Off it went, into the garbage.

Jane stiffened, her hands reaching up the back of her neck to find... nothing. "Woah... Did the world do something?" One hand crept up to the back of her head and touched the wisps of hair. "Oh my god... Ma's gonna kill me."

"Defiance of parental expectations can feel good," André promised with a grin as he switched from scissors to a set of razorblades, one on each finger like steel guitar picks, that made him look like miniature Edward Scissorhands. It was a bit nerve-wracking at first, but once Jane realized he wasn't even coming close to cutting her skin, it was freakishly easy to close her eyes and trust. And with her eyes closed, Jane couldn't see Maura's open-mouthed stare at the emerging style.