Jane had never known a day so long. She was used to suspects giving her the run around, but having a high profile lawyer on her hit list meant that every last action she, Frankie and Korsak took had to be documented so the case was watertight. Cavanagh has even asked her to detail where and when she took bathroom breaks. Ridiculous. Tedious. Exhausting.

And if that wasn't enough Maura had informed her earlier in the day that she had a plan for their evening.

'It will be fun, I promise you,' Maura had said when pressed for detail.

The trouble with this description of the night's events was that Maura's idea of the word 'fun' rarely coincided with Jane's. Fun meant baseball games and laughs at the pub, not wandering around museums or calling a bunch of used staples superglued to a canvas 'art'.

She had consoled herself by suggesting that they meet in the Dirty Robber and informing her friend that she would be leaving an hour later than she actually was. Inebriation was the only answer to what was looking to be a long and boring night.

This line of thinking did not prevail for long, however.

She was in the bathroom. The dust coating the mirror had acquired over the years did not conceal the large bags under her eyes or that her hair was limp, and the lime green tiles behind her didn't help. She had the complexion of E.T.

She exited the bathroom, unsure of her reasons for entering in the first place. No room for vanity on a cop's salary and shifts. Having a beautiful redhead in a low cut dress standing next to her and tweaking her already immaculate makeup didn't make her feel any less inadequate. The green hue didn't even dent her beauty.

'Hey, baby, c'mere! I got somethin' for you.'

The man looked old enough to be her father and was far too ugly to think he would ever have a chance. The glass in his hand explained a lot.

Whiskey goggles. Jane rolled her eyes and headed back over to the bar, where Frankie was enjoying his third beer and Korsak was busy cleaning the glasses with a white cloth.

'Yeesh,' Frankie said as she got closer, 'that last beer may have been a mistake, Jane.'

'Really? 'cause I was thinking it had a little more to do with the double shift I just pulled. Maura here yet?'

'Haven't seen her,' Korsak replied, 'don't you think it would be better to call it a night? You look rough.'

Someone decided to start the jukebox up. Disco music. The only thing that could make this evening worse.

'It's a little late for that. She'll be here any minute.'

'Jane Clementine Rizzoli!'

Her mother's voice was very distinctive and far too loud. The drunken man now had the redhead in his lap, and they were both looking in her direction.

Jane turned and started hissing her retort.

'You look like crap. Get home and to bed,' she ordered after silencing her.

'Believe me, I would like nothing more. I'm meeting Maura. She said she has something fun for us to do tonight.'

'Well then you'll just have to tell Maura that you're too tired.'

'No, mum! She'll be all pouty for days-I'm just going to get this over with, and-'

'Heads up.'

Korsak nodded towards the door. Jane turned on the spot and there she stood, as resplendent as ever. Dr Maura Isles. Her cheeks still held their usual glow, her hair a shine and her smile lit up the room. Jane's frown became a snarl.

'How is it,' she began as she marched over to her friend, 'that we both pull a double shift and I'm the only one who ends up looking like Frankenstein's sister?'

Frankie's snigger lasted as long as it took for Jane to turn around and give him a death stare.

'H20,' Maura replied, 'Studies have shown that drinking a minimum of two litres a day-'

'No, Maura, I've had a heck of a day and my brains not up to another lecture on top of the one I got from Cavanagh this morning.'

'But-'

'No 'buts', Dr Isles. Just take me wherever you're going to take me so I can get into my bed as quickly as possible.'

'Not a problem. We're heading back to my flat,' she said with a smile.

'To do what?'

'To sleep.'

Jane stared at her.

'You kept me from my bed to tell me to go to sleep? I'm a big girl, Maura. I can do that in my own bed in my own home.'

'Yes, but not this kind of sleep. Goodnight, everyone! Come on,' she said, but she stopped after a couple of steps and added, 'I'm driving. You smell like a brewery.'

'I'm not that drunk,' she replied, 'unfortunately…'

'What was that?'

'Nothing.'

'Oh.'

Jane had intended to take the opportunity presented by a warm car and a comfortable seat to get a few minute's shut eye, but Maura had other ideas.

'You'll ruin it if you sleep now,' Maura scolded each time she poked Jane awake.

Jane tried her best to keep her mind active, to focus on the scenery. She saw a man walking his Dalmatian in the dark, his bald head given a warm glow each time he stepped under a streetlight. The dog looked as tired as she did.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but there weren't any stars, either. Jane frowned. She remembered Maura telling her something about pollution having a connection to this, but the details escaped her.

Poke.

Her eyes had shut for longer than thirty seconds.

Poke.

She had been looking down at the bottom of her car for the sweet wrapper she remembered dropping a couple of days ago but Maura seemed to think she was asleep.

Poke.

She had closed her eyes again.

Poke. And again.

Poke. Poke, poke, poke.

'Maura, I swear to god, if you poke me one more time-'

'We're here.'

'Why can't I sleep in here? It's warm and comfortable, and-'

'Jane!'

'You sound like my mother.'

Jane hurried into the house like she depended on it. In truth it was the bathroom with the clean toilet she was depending on.

'In here,' Maura said after she returned and had shrugged off her coat and placed it on the hook next to hers.

Maura's bedroom. Immaculate. Fresh coat of beige paint on the walls, nice new maroon carpet on the floor so deep Jane couldn't feel the floorboards beneath. King size bed with a memory foam mattress. Not a dust ball or cobweb in sight. Jane wondered what Maura would think if she asked to sleep on the floor.

Nothing she hadn't seen before, Maura had shown her the refurnished room with all the excitement of someone who had just won the lottery a couple of days ago, but the two pairs of fluffy blue earmuffs in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears with wires coming out of the tips on the duvet were unexpected, to say the least. Jane pointed.

'What the hell are those?'

'They're yours. And mine. We're going to try them tonight.'

Jane picked up the nearest pair and held them at arm's length by the tip of one of the 'ears'. She didn't think Maura would deliberately endanger their lives, but until she was sure the bizarre devices were not radioactive or designed to hypnotise you into being a serial killer they were not going anywhere near her body.

Maura appeared to sense her concern.

'Did Mickey Mouse get irradiated and chop his ears off?'

'Have you ever heard of lucid dreams?'

'Yeah. Isn't that where you have a dream and you know that you're dreaming, while you're dreaming it?'

'Exactly. The term was first coined by Frederik van Eeden in the late nineteenth century. These may look like earmuffs,' Maura said, and added, 'strange ones, I'll admit,' upon noticing the look on her face and then continued, 'but they're actually designed to induce a state of lucid dreaming. The earmuffs emit music which is supposed to carry you into a deep sleep and from there they measure the activity in your parietal lobes.'

'Will it work?'

Jane placed the earmuffs close to her ears and noted that they were emitting the sounds of raindrops hitting leaves. She closed her eyes and listened for a moment before opening them again and looking at Maura, who seemed amused.

'Well?'

'I don't know,' she admitted, 'these are actually part of a study funded by a company named NightGlow. They want us to wear the earmuffs and then send them back so the data they collect can be analysed.'

Jane placed the earmuffs back on the bed. She remembered Maura telling her something about sleep patterns and drinking, too.

'But I've been drinking.'

'Yes, and that's good, because they're actually looking to measure the sleep patterns of inebriated individuals as well as sober ones.'

Jane sighed and gave the earmuffs a suspicious look.

'They can't, like, record your dreams, can they?' she asked.

'Not exactly. They're looking for higher amounts of beta-1 frequency band brain wave activity that is commonly reported in lucid dreamers due to-'

'Maura!'

Maura frowned. Jane rolled her eyes.

'Fine. They're measuring your brain for signs that you're having a lucid dream, they won't be able to tell what you're dreaming about.'

'Good. I'm in.'

Jane picked them back up again and rubbed the soft blue fluff covering the contraption over the palm of her left hand.

'Why were you so concerned about them being able to see your dreams?'

'Because my dreams tend to be… vivid.'

'And by that I suppose you mean erotic?'

'However did you guess?'

'Because I know you.'

'Touché. Your dreams probably involve test tubes and mountains of textbooks.'

Maura laughed and made her way over to the light switch. Jane removed her gun and holster and placed them on the mahogany bedside table before throwing herself onto her best friend's bed like a small child. She noticed the old lamp holder had been replaced with a chandelier-like thing.

'A chandelier in your bedroom, Maura, really?'

'Wait,' she said as she turned back around, 'you're just going to sleep like that?'

'Like what?'

'In the clothes you've been wearing since yesterday without even taking a shower?'

'Oh. Yeah. Too Tired.'

'Jane-'

She sat up and stared at the silhouette of her friend that the street lamps were illuminating.

'Hey, I could have been in my bed an hour ago if it wasn't for you, and-'

'You told me your shift finished half an hour ago.'

Busted.

'I lied.'

'So I gathered. Why?'

Maura's voice was sharp and the lights flickered back on. Jane sat up and faced her friend. She considered her options for a minute, pupils flicking form left to right as she did so.

'I thought you were going to make me wander around some late night art exhibition or something, so I decided to get a little drunk first to alleviate the boredom.'

Her mother always said honesty was the best policy. Time to put that to the test.

'I don't know of any late night art exhibitions,' she began, 'but I'd be more than happy to put in a few calls and see if-'

'No, no! Here's fine. C'mon,' Jane said, patting the space on the bed beside her.

The lights went back off.

'Do you really have to sit there and…spread your odours all over my brand new satin sheets?'

'Yes. I'm too tired to change. As I said, I could have been asleep an hour-'

'And whose fault is that? You could have told me the actual time your shift ended.'

'Not showering. If you can afford that chandelier you can afford new sheets, Maura. Besides, I skipped one shower, not a year's worth of them.'

'Fine. Stink if you must,' Maura snapped.

The mattress started shaking and bouncing as Maura, too, climbed onto it fully clothed and settled herself down.

'So now you're not having a shower, either?'

'I see no point. You germs will more than likely find their way onto me as we sleep anyway.'

'Fair enough.'

'Is the light from the street bothering you?' Maura asked after a brief silence.

'It's fine.'

The ceiling had taken on an orange glow courtesy of one of the streetlamps outside. The room had a stillness to it that the silence only added to. She had the earmuffs resting on her chest, the tip of the Mickey Mouse ears tickling her chin, and spent a great deal longer than she should have debating whether or not to put them on. Maybe they couldn't see what you were dreaming, but there was still a good chance of them being radioactive. Or something.

'Are you wearing them yet?' Maura asked after a few minutes had gone by.

'No. You?'

'No. Can I ask you something?'

Jane sighed.

'Go ahead.'

'Do you find all the events I take you to boring?'

Jane didn't answer right away.

'Most of them,' Jane admitted, 'Look, I'm sorry Maura, but wandering around in a cocktail dress or staring at an arrangement of plastic bottles that your mum would call art isn't my idea of fun.'

'It's fine. We have different tastes. Next time we should do something you enjoy.'

'You'd hate it.'

'You haven't told me what it is we're doing yet.'

'You'd still hate it.'

'Probably, but at least we'd be even,' she replied after a laugh, poking Jane in the leg as she said it.

Jane turned her heard towards Maura.

'How did you hear about these dream whatchamacallits anyway?'

'An offer for me and a friend came through the mail. It said NightGlow were particularly interested in professionals with high stress jobs taking part in the study.'

'And you naturally thought of me.'

'Naturally,' Maura agreed.

'Well, I'm fine acting as the guinea pig for one night if it means I get my eight hours. G'night, Dr Isles,' Jane said with a smile.

'Goodnight, Detective Rizzoli.'

She placed the earmuffs on, and found herself very pleased at the fact that Maura could no more see what she looked like than she could see what Maura did. The fits of laughter that would ensue at the sight of Dr Isles as a radioactive Mickey Mouse would ward off sleep for a few more hours.

She allowed the soothing sounds of rain to drag her restless mind into unconsciousness as the urge to laugh abated. The effect was almost as good as a sedative, but instead of forcing her to fall asleep it lead her down a long heavenly path that soothed and protected her from all the stressful thoughts of the waking world.

'JANE!'

Jane shot bolt upright.

The lights were on, and by the doorway there was a man clad in all black pointing a hunting rifle straight at her.

She glanced at the bedside table.

Her gun was gone.