-/-/- Chapter 3 -/-/-

Jane knocked on the door to Eric's large, red-brick home in the Back Bay. After a couple of seconds of waiting, Eric answered in his pajamas, barely able to hide a yawn. It had been nearly three months since she had seen him at the trial but nothing had changed. The cool prosecutor still had the same sarcastic and ambitious personality except for his new grown out, wavy black hairstyle.

Well, that's different, Jane thought, unable to keep her eyes from Eric's new hairstyle. Despite how odd it looked to see him with hair, she couldn't deny that he looked more debonair than he did before.

"Maura made things difficult," Eric stated with an amused smirk as he took in Jane's harried appearance. "I'm guessing she wasn't too happy about me interrupting sexy time at Rizzoli-Isles home. And, from your face, I'd assume you're now in the doghouse and won't get any sexy time at all. Poor Jane. She just can't catch a break," he added sarcastically.

"Fuck you, Eric," Jane cursed through clenched teeth. Eric could always see right through her. She quickly pushed him out of the way to get out from the oppressive cold. "What was so important that you couldn't wait until tomorrow to tell me? It better be good or I'm going to kick you in your shin."

Before Eric could close the door and return Jane's threat, the sound of claws on the hardwood floor boomed from the general direction of the living room. She barely had time to process the noise before the droopy bundle of wrinkles had jumped up to her full height, happily greeting the detective with copious amounts of doggie kisses.

Jane laughed, lifting the exuberant basset hound up from the floor as if she was as light as feather. "And how are you, Justice? Jeez, you're getting a little obese, girl. Those legs won't be able to hold you up much longer, Jujubee."

Justice squirmed happily within her arms as Jane proceeded to scratch all of the hidden folds behind her ears that she couldn't reach. With a shake of the head, Eric made his way to the living room with Jane and Justice in tow.

"Stop calling her that. She never liked that stupid nickname. Justice is strong, powerful. Jujubee sounds like a designer dog breed like Cockatoo or Labradoodle. And I wish you wouldn't talk about her like that," Eric said. He cleaned away the numerous legal books and notepads from the sofa to give Jane a place to sit. "Unlike me, Justice is sensitive to your rude comments."

"Somehow I doubt that. You do remember that I picked her out at the rescue ten years ago. I made sure to pick a dog with similar characteristics to my own."

"And do you remember that Justice puked on you the whole ride home? Dogs don't normally puke on those they feel an affinity with."

Jane rolled her eyes before sitting down. Justice happily made her way back to her master's feet, falling asleep instantly on her long ears. A pleasant cacophony of snoring from the wrinkled mass of plush skin brought a smile to the brunette's face.

She had forgotten how much she missed the dog she used to think of as her own. After Eric left, the dog went with him. They never had a chance to say goodbye.

Eric frowned at the score for the hockey game on the screen. "Damn it, Chara. You've been on break for how many months and you come back like this? If I played like that in a game, I'd be on the bench for a while. Should have traded him to Toronto…"

"Eric," Jane warned, moving to turn the large television off. "Stop pissing around and tell me what is up."

With a slight sigh, Eric's mood shifted, his eyes darkening with intense focus. "The case ten years ago. You remember it?"

Of course I do, Jane thought. How could I not? That case had nearly ensured her early retirement. Even now, she still thought about how things could have gone if she had just played by the rules instead of being an overeager, inexperienced detective working undercover for the Drug Unit. If hadn't been for Eric's selfless actions, things could have been different for her career.

Jane nodded. "What's your point?"

"He's back," Eric said simply. "The Cisco Kid is back in town after flying underneath the radar since the trial. I want to start a joint operation to nab him, once and for all."

It had been awhile since she'd heard that name. Ten years ago, the Cisco Kid had decided to come into Boston to take advantage of the potential international transportation links with the ports. Cisco had been off the radar until his nickname had popped up in several gangs in the area, causing BPD to take notice. Little information had surfaced on the mystery leader of the drug operation coming to Boston, but BPD had decided to move forward with sending in Jane and a couple of other drug unit detectives.

Everything had gone well…until she made a rookie mistake by mishandling critical evidence in the case. There wasn't any other way to spin it: she had fucked up.

The lead prosecutor for the case, Eric Weiss, had nothing but that evidence to seal the deal and put Cisco away for life. He knew that without that evidence, the case was dead in the water. Knowing it was her fault for the screw-up, Jane had wanted to tell the judge and her superiors what she had done, knowing it would be tantamount to career suicide, but Eric had decided to bite the bullet, taking the brunt of the public outrage, knowing how much it meant to Jane to make homicide.

But it wasn't just the public that had reacted negatively. The judge for the case had reported Eric to the bar, leading to his subsequent disbarment and escape to Las Vegas. When he left, Jane had been left alone to pick up the pieces. Eric had been her safety net, fiancé, and, most importantly, her best friend. Luckily, she had met Maura in the café soon after while trying to get Stanley to give her a donut and coffee on credit in the middle of buy-bust. The goofy, smart medical examiner had quickly filled Eric's old spot in her life and Jane happily let her fill it.

"Hey, you with me?" Eric asked with a slight raise of an eyebrow.

Jane shook her head out of the cobwebs of memory hanging in her mind. "Yeah, I'm here," she said. "Listen, Eric if you want me to get on board with this, I need to know everything you know. Don't skimp on details."

"A name has come up on from some of my old CIs in Boston concerning high quality product starting to roll in from all over the globe. Los Angeles, Toronto, Moscow, Istanbul…you name a city and it's received or sent a shipment."

"What about domestically?"

"The shipments haven't been picked up on local radars yet because Cisco is still using his alias from the trial." Eric leaned forward to grab his half-empty bottle of beer. He frowned at the taste. "Bone, that's what he's going by now."

"Bone?" Jane asked in a whisper. "But it could always be a copycat. The case was a big time publicity racket. Wouldn't be too difficult to take the facts released by the media and continue in Cisco's footsteps."

After taking a swig from the lukewarm bottle of Sam Adams, he set the bottle back down on the coffee table. "His alias was never released to the media. In order for a copycat to get information like that, he or she would have had to have an inside source. You know how hard that would have been? That courtroom was locked down tighter than Fort Knox."

"But why would Cisco come back now?"

"To take advantage of Paddy's departure," Eric said matter-of-factly. "He's been gone from the local scene for about a year, leaving a power vacuum waiting to be taken advantage of. Several of my friends in the Drug Unit have told me that a lot of new faces have come into town in the last couple of months to do exactly that. It's within reason that he would follow suit to lame claim to the open territory."

Jane shook her head in disagreement. "But those are small fries. They hold little weight on an international scale. Cisco already has the power that those guys are looking to get. Why risk everything to come back to the city he nearly got burned in ten years ago? Something seems hinky to me."

With a slow nod, Eric stood up to head to the kitchen in order to pour Jane a glass of water. She tapped her fingers on the couch armrest, her mind racing with the possibility to get a second chance to take Cisco down after all these years. The whole Cisco mess had left a chapter of her life incomplete and she was determined to finish that story.

"To me too, but I want to move on this while the iron is hot," Eric said. He crossed the room again to hand the detective the glass of water. "We wait to get all of the details and I guarantee we'll miss him."

Jane nodded, swirling the water in the glass. "I don't think I can do this, Eric."

"And that's understandable. I've heard on the grapevine that the brass put you on a limited rotation for catching cases and I know how much that sucks. But this is my chance to get the man who has ruined my life and took ten years away from me," Eric said. His voice burned with a level of fire Jane had never heard from him before. It scared her with its level of intensity. "No matter how much I want to take Cisco down, though, I care about you more. Going forward with this might bring up old…decisions that we made in the past. I don't want to throw blame your way if the shit hits the fan again. If you're out, I'm out."

Jane knew exactly what Eric was subtly referring to. During the trial, Jane had tampered with evidence before it had been properly inventoried. It was a stupid kiddie mistake that had haunted her. Eric's inquiring about whether she was in or not was basically him asking for permission to reopen a Pandora's Box that she had carefully hidden away from her family and friends. Hell, even Maura didn't know. To go forward with this operation potentially meant no more secrets. Was she ready for that?

Speaking of Maura…aren't the two of you trying to start a family together? You know? Fertilizing an egg with Frost's sperm… Eugh, thinking about is no better than saying it out loud.

Thanks consciousness for being my wake-up call, Jane thought miserably. Having a child put an unexpected damper on things. The detective knew her girlfriend better than she knew herself. If Maura was pissed now, she'd be a volcano of pure, unabashed rage when she heard that she was going to help out with an extremely dangerous operation investigating a drug lord with international ties. Part of me wants to see that and the other part is deeply concerned for my own safety, Jane mused.

But this was an opportunity that couldn't be passed up. She had to take it; she'd be a fool not to.

Jane sighed heavily, rapidly trying to put a compromise together. "I want to be on this op with you. And I can see how much you want this. But…I have to talk to Maura first."

"I keep forgetting you've got a ball and chain now," Eric joked in his usual dead-pan way, pointing at the silver engraved band on Jane's left hand. "I have to handle some things on my end regarding my CIs. It might take a minute. Call me once things have been sufficiently discussed with the missus. We'll move forward once you've got the clearance."

"Will do."

As Jane stood to get up, Eric softly pushed Justice onto to the floor. The dog huffed in complaint but quickly burrowed back into her pillow of ears. "I hope the Tomlinson family hasn't been making life miserable. I did my best to get them to cut it out. Told them we'd sue them for slander and libel. Their PR team shut up real quick after that."

Jane shrugged. "Maura and I went out of town for a couple of months so we missed the brunt of it."

Eric nodded, moving to open the door for Jane. "I'm sorry about Clementine," he said quietly. He understood the hidden meaning behind her departure.

"We're doing a lot better," Jane said dismissively. "Thanks for the concern, though."

"Good luck dealing with Maura," Eric smiled. He waved to the departing brunette in an exaggerated motion.

Jane frowned. "I'm going to need it. A lot of it."

As she made her way back to the Aston, Jane took out her cell phone. On the other end of the line, Maura picked up around the fourth ring with a sleepy hello.

"Honey, I know you're sleeping," Jane said apologetically. She aggressively opened the door to the car, wanting nothing more but to return home. "But do you think you can stay up for me? We need to talk some things out."