AN: So, I am back...I know ya all missed me! ;) So, this one isn't super long. Enjoy!

Chapter One

Present day - Boston

Dr Maura Isles, by day the Chief Medical Examiner for Massachusetts, was the epitome of all that was good in the world. She was thorough, observant, and just. It was these very qualities that had drawn Detective Jane Rizzoli to her.

Their paths had crossed, and very soon they had slipped into the perfect friendship. There for each other in every way…every way!

She could still remember that first night they had tumbled into bed. Sleep was not on the agenda as they consummated what was the best relationship either of them had ever been involved in, and it had been a very happy 6 months so far.

Twenty-two official dates later though, Maura Isles was in a quandary.

You see, Dr Maura Isles has another life, one that she wasn't sure Detective Jane Rizzoli would understand or want to be a part of. She hated lying to Jane to hide it. She had gotten good at dealing with the vasovagal episodes telling a blatant lie would create, but still, bending the truth and sneaking around was hurting herself, and it would hurt Jane too if she ever found out before Maura explained.

For years, Maura had felt out of place. She knew that she wanted to do something with her life, for it to mean something. Knowing that, she also knew that whatever she did would have to help people in some way. She needed to do something that brought justice for those who had for some reason been forced to suffer at the hands of another.

She trained as a doctor, thinking that this would be the perfect way to fill the constant pull at her self-worth, her need to help and bring comfort. But, she found it rather difficult to connect with her patients. Living people were something of an enigma to her back then.

So, she retrained and put all of her knowledge towards becoming the best Medical Examiner that she could be. And for a long time, as she strived to bring each body on her slab the justice they deserved, she felt fulfilled.

However, that all came to a blinding halt with Sarah Gregson.

August 2011 - California

The mother of four had been involved in a road traffic accident. Her car had been hit by a man three times over the legal limit to drive, and she had been killed instantly. All four of her children had been devastated.

Skylar was seventeen, on the verge of womanhood and yet so very much a child herself. She was a straight-A student about to embark on a new chapter of her life with a place at Stanford. She was gifted.

Katya and Tennyson were in middle school, one just started, and one moving on to high school.

Little Carina was just six years old.

Their father was no longer on the scene, grandparents had all died years before or been absent so long that they didn't know them. It had hit Maura hard too. She had gone to the funeral and watched those four children mourn the loss of their beloved mother, knowing that the man responsible would never face a day in prison for his crime. A technicality had meant he and several other worthless excuses for humanity would walk, and that was something that Maura Isles couldn't abide.

Maura Isles had skills and an innate ability to use them.

Donald Tramp was a selfish, nauseating, and narcissistic pig of a man. He drank to celebrate every triumph he had, and he had a lot as a successful business man. He spent most of his time standing at the bar holding court as those around him listened to him regale them with stories of his prowess with women. Maura watched from her seat across the bar, scowling at the disregard for the crime he had committed, his lack of compassion for the life he had taken and the lives he had affected. She watched as one by one his cronies wandered away and he was eventually left by himself to prop up the bar. She drained her drink and stepped outside into the darkened parking lot. She already knew which car was his, having watched him arrive and enter the bar. This wasn't her first rodeo with a man whose guilt had been eroded by lack of evidence or a bit of bad luck.

Finding herself a place in the shadows, she waited, scalpel in hand, her eyes trained on the door of the bar for the overweight and overbearing asshole to stagger out. From her periphery to the right, she noticed something move, a blur of blackness as it moved quickly. Without making a sound, Maura turned her head in the direction and saw a figure crouching down behind Tramp's car. Squinting to try and focus better in the darkness, Maura observed the figure. Slight, not tall. A woman. She looked closer and caught the flash of blonde hair that fell from under the black cap, the slant of her nose familiar. Skylar Gregson.