You've never been somebody who is strongly affected by other people's emotions. You understand their feelings and how they motivate them to do whatever it is that they're doing, but they don't get to you, personally. You don't feel them in your own heart. Its what makes you a great cop. They call it detachment and pat you on the back for it.

But you're worried you're going to drown under the heaviness of her sorrow. For the next few days, the sadness in her eyes scorches you, suffocating you. You feel like you've been wrapped in a down comforter and thrown into the ocean. You can't move freely, can't take a deep breath, can't save yourself. Can't save her.

She wants him. You want her. He wants everyone, including, but not limited to her.

And, the worst part is, you're pretty sure she might want you too. The quiet nights in your room. How she cried into your shoulder. How she seeks you out. How open she is with you. How her unthinking way of being with you is, apparently, flirty enough to give you a coronary. And, good lord, what the hell was with that hot tub thing? Because if she's not into you, then you don't want to see what she'd be like in a hot tub when she's actively trying to seduce someone. You're pretty sure humanity wouldn't survive the experience.

You try not to get your hopes up. Even if she is into you, she's also into him. Or at least into the idea of him, and she's made that perfectly clear. He's her priority.

You're not enough for her.


Jane does a spectacular job avoiding Maura for the next few days, partially because of the production schedule, partially because she keeps trading her shifts around with the explicit purpose of avoiding Maura, and partially because she spends an entire "personal day" at BPD going over evidence from the bomb with Barry Frost.

The bomb is a dead-end. No evidence, no leads, and the c-4 has proved be untraceable. This is turning into the most frustrating case of her career, and Jane isn't taking it that well. All she wants to wrap up the case, move out of the house, and do her best to forget a show called The Bachelor even exists until Maura is eliminated. Jane spends quite a bit of time daydreaming what it will be like when that happens, but decides that until then she's going to do her best to be 100% platonic with Maura. No more hot tub, no more late-night crying or heartfelt confessions. She needs to focus on the case, and, also, she needs to try really heard to not focus on the idea of Maura getting steamy with Brockton. Because that might just kill her.


Maura, recently eliminated, returns to her house in Beacon Hill sad, but somehow, not as sad as she was expecting. Her first night back, she orders Chinese delivery. The doorbell rings. She grabs her wallet, opens the door, and it's Jane, standing there holding her lo mein. Maura carefully takes the food from Jane, places it on the side table, drops her wallet to the ground and leaps up into Jane's arms, kissing her until they explode. And then sex. Everywhere.

Maura's driving, some kind of super sexy rich muscle car, and she gets pulled over for speeding. She's talking to the officer until an unmarked pulls up. A hot detective unfolds herself from it and swaggers over, dismissing the officer. She leans down, rests her elbows on the window, and drawls, "Hey little lady." Maura gapes, checks out the badge, and then throws herself out of the car and onto Jane. They makeout, and then sex in the car.

Jane is watching the Red Sox game at home in her underwear. A knock on the door. It's Maura. She's found out everything and, bonus, she's brought her entire sex toy collection that she won't even be mad that Jane doesn't know how to use yet. Sex.

They run into each other in the grocery store. Sex.

They meet up in some sort of running gathering. Sweaty spandex sex.

Also, maybe they just get married and have babies and are really in love, okay.


Her resolve lasts until about 4pm the next day, when Maura corners her and invites herself along for a run. As Jane's already in her running clothes, she can't really back out, so she just sighs and hopes that Maura decides to wear a really unattractive running outfit.

She doesn't. She's wearing tiny black shorts, thankfully not too tight, but they could certainly stand to be looser, and a super tight oh my god blue tank top. She's pulling her hair into a ponytail as she walks down the stairs toward Jane, and the sliver of stomach Jane can see brings back memories of the hot tub black-hole-of-majestic-cleavage incident, and she flushes like a sixth-grader at her first dance.

And then, for the love of god, Maura blatantly checks her out, clearly running her eyes over Jane's (admittedly very short) shorts and (rather tight) t-shirt. To keep herself from ripping off her own clothes and laying down her body as an offering to the goddess, Jane chants to herself: she's checking out my clothes not my body, she's checking out my clothes not my body, clothes clothes clothes.

Maura reaches her, and, finding Jane's eyes a bit glazed over, she touches her arm. "Are you ready, Jane?"

At her touch, Jane panic yells. "They're from Target!"

Maura quirks an eyebrow. Jane stumbles through an "I mean, right on target. Right-o. Let's do this run thing" in the most awkward way possible, and then literally runs away from her problem.

Unfortunately, her problem is just as fast as she is.

But Maura, blissfully, says nothing as she catches up. She just silently matches Jane's stride and settles into herself as they take their usual route around the neighborhood.


About three miles in, and Jane is finally relaxing. The exertion of running is taking just enough of the edge off her drowning/scorching feelings and calming the buzz in her veins from Maura's presence. Maybe I should just run in place every time I'm with her. Outside, in the sunshine, Jane finally starts to feel like herself again. Not like a person who is desperately crushing on someone totally unavailable. Not like someone undercover who can't talk to anyone she loves about this crush. Not like a maybe lesbian with lots of confusing feelings. She's able to shake off Jane the PA and Jane the detective and just be.

As they round a corner, she looks over at Maura, and grins. Maura meets her eyes, and flashes a real smile back. Jane reaches out for her hand to squeeze it, just once, as a silent apology for being so weird.

But before she reaches it, two shots ring out, shattering the quiet afternoon.

Jane acts on instinct, grabbing Maura around the waist and tumbling them down to the grass off to her left, careful to make sure her body is the one to hit the ground. She rolls them, quickly, pinning Maura underneath her. Maura's face is pale, frightened. She's holding onto Jane, one hand on her hip and the other gripping her neck.

"Stay down." Jane orders, pulling herself up.

But Maura holds her firmly down, refusing to give an inch. "What are you doing? You stay down too!" Her eyes are equal parts terrified and determined.

"Maura, let me go!" Jane wiggles out from Maura's grasp and, crouching, runs to behind the nearest car. Cursing herself for leaving her gun at home, she peeks around the car to see a deserted street. She notices fresh skid marks on the road, and the sight of them makes her realize that, as she was protecting Maura, she heard tires squealing and men shouting.

She runs out into the street, ignoring Maura's strangled cry of protest from behind her, but the shooters are long gone.

"God fucking damn it!" She kicks the street, furious, before trotting back over to Maura, who is still sitting on the ground in shock. Jane kneels down next to her and rubs Maura's arms softly. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Maura makes an effort to meet her eyes. "N-no. No, I'm not hurt."

Before they can say anymore, two cars pull up, and a man hurriedly pours out of one of them, holding a gun out in front of him and pointing it all around with precise movements. "Shots fired! Anybody hit?"

Jane stands, turning to face him, unfazed by his gun. "No, nobody injured. Two shots."

A second man has slid out of the other car, and is ambling towards them. "Well, hot damn, if it isn't Detective Rizzoli. What the hell are you doing out here, so far from home? And dressed like that, to boot."

Jane's face drains white, and the other man hisses, "Crowe!" but he keeps going. "Is that the new uniform for narco detectives, Rizzoli, cause, I gotta say, I'm not looking forward to seeing Cavanaugh in those little shorts! But you would certainly brighten up headquarters like that, yes indeed."

The other man advances on him, getting into his face and forcing him back to his car. "Shut the fuck up, Crowe, and get your drag ass back to the station and get me some motherfucking crime techs."

Crowe does as he's told, but not before looking at something behind Jane, smirking, and licking his lips at it.

"Watch your fucking face, Crowe." Jane snarls it at him, but he just smiles and ducks into the car.

"Jane?" The voice behind her is soft, hesitant. Jane closes her eyes for a second, gathers herself, and turns to face the music.

"You're a detective?" Maura seems less mad than Jane had anticipated. More curious, with an odd note of hopefulness in her eyes.

"I—yes. Look, I swear, I'll explain everything in like two minutes, okay? I just really need to talk to Barry, alright?"

Maura nods, softly, but grabs Jane's arm to keep her from walking away. "I'm going to have to examine your back later, Jane. You hit the ground pretty hard."

Images of herself, shirtless, and Maura's hands running all over her. "Um, yeah, good idea." Maura drops her hand, and Jane turns to the man, waiting by his car.

"And Jane?" She turns back. "Thank you for protecting me."

They just almost died, so Jane doesn't swallow back her response. "Always."

Maura's smile is blinding.


Jane walks over to Frost, who is cordoning off the area with crime scene tape. Jane helps as she talks him through what little she saw and heard. They check the area for bullets, and find both rounds embedded about ten feet up a tree trunk that was a few feet behind where Jane and Maura were at the time.

They stand underneath it, staring up at the bullet holes. "Huh," Jane says. "He's a bad shot."

"That's not conclusively true."

Jane and Frost both whip around to the sound of the definitive voice behind them. Barry takes in the small gorgeous creature in front of them before turning to Jane for an explanation.

"Uh, Maura, this is Barry, he works with me. He's trying to earn his badge. Barry, this is Maura. She's one of the ladies on the show."

Undaunted by Jane's cursory introduction, Maura merely sticks out her hand to him. "Doctor Maura Isles, forensic pathologist with Mass General."

Frost shakes it enthusiastically. "Officer Frost, BPD forensic computing division. And I prefer to go by Frost, which Jane knows and simply chooses to ignore."

Jane rolls her eyes. "I told you, Barry. I'll call you Frost when you make your shield. Until then, you get to choose between Barry and turd."

Frost rolls his own eyes, turning his back on her and refocusing on Maura. "Hey, are you that new pathologist everyone is talking about? The one with the new way to determine cause of death in burn victims?"

Maura's cheeks flush and she ducks her head a bit. "Well, yes, I suppose so."

"Damn! That's awesome." He seems like he's about to ask why such a successful pathologist took a leave of absence from her job to be on The Bachelor, so Jane interrupts him.

"Okay, but, Maur, what do you mean this isn't a bad shot? It's 10 feet in the air! We were nowhere near here!"

"You're assuming he was aiming for us."

"Uh, what else would he be aiming for?"

"Well, I clearly cannot answer that question, Jane, but I will say that if he were in a car, which I believe is what I heard you tell Officer Frost, it would be very unlikely that he could have hit this tree while aiming for us."

"What do you mean, Doctor?" Jane wants to laugh at Frost for calling her doctor, until she realizes that maybe its disrespectful that she never has. At a loss for words, Jane merely follows the two of them to the middle of the street.

Maura makes quick work of analyzing the tire tracks burned into the pavement ("well, I can't say conclusively, of course, but it looks to me to be a late 1990s model Cadillac") and then squats slightly, putting herself in a high chair pose. Jane does her best not to be distracted.

"Taking into account the average height of a seat in a sedan such as late 1990s Cadillac, as well as the average height of a male person, I can roughly estimate that the gun would have, most naturally, been held at this height to hit us with the bullets." She points her fingers like a child playing cops and robbers. "However, to hit a target that high up, at this close range, I would have to angle the gun quite steeply." She raises her fingers significantly. "It is statistically improbable for an inexperienced shot to hit two targets as close together as the marks we see in the tree, so I feel comfortable exploring a scenario in which the shooter is relatively practiced, unaffected by common issues such as recoil and even the movement of the vehicle. Thus, due to the steep angle required to hit the tree at ten feet, four inches, as he did, the shooter was, most likely, not aiming at Jane and myself. He could not have hoped to hit us with the gun angled this way."

Maura drops her "gun" and stands up straight, turning to look at Jane and Frost, who are desperately trying to pick their jaws up off the ground. Frost recovers first, and jumps in to ask her a bunch of clarifying questions about angles and types of guns and barrel lengths.

Jane takes longer to recover. She's never been so enamored of anyone. She'd thought she had it bad for Maura the lonely genius, for Maura the sexy outcast, for Maura the socially inept flirt. But this? This Maura the badass boss of the crime scene?

Jane was completely unprepared for how hot and how awe inspiring and, somehow, still how goofy and adorable this new Maura is.


After the crime scene techs come and Jane and Maura give their official statements, they're released. They start to walk slowly back to the house, and, after a few quiet moments, Maura breaks the silence.

"So. You're a detective."

"Yeah. I, uh. Yeah." Jane clears her throat, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. To her immense surprise, Maura reaches over and takes her hand.

"I'm not mad at you, Jane. I just want to understand."

Jane looks down at their linked hands in complete shock. "I thought you'd hate me!" The words pour out of her. "You've confessed all these things to me, and told me all these secrets about yourself, and I like, forced my friendship on you, and I haven't even told you my real name!"

"Were you investigating me?"

"No. No, Maura, I promise."

"Did you lie to me about anything important? How you felt about things or," she falters for a moment. "Or how you felt about me?"

"No! No. Just about my job, that's it. Oh, and my last name. But really, that's it. Everything else, all the time that we've spent together, it's all been real. I promise."

Maura squeezes her hand, and Jane realizes she's been gripping it incredibly tightly. She slackens her grip a bit, but Maura squeezes back harder.

"Then how could I be mad, Jane? You were doing your job."

It seems too simple, but Jane's too pleased to care.

"I would like to know why, though."

"Oh, yeah! Of course." And, swinging their hands between them, they slowly walk the rest of the way back as Jane finally tells Maura everything.


It's later that night and you've just finished getting ready for bed. You're pulling back the covers as you hear the door to your room creak open, soft footsteps enter, and then the sound of the door being quietly, but firmly, shut.

"Jane." Her voice has never sounded like this. Low, wet, heavy. You turn around slowly, feeling like the air is suddenly made of molasses.

Maura is standing near the door with a look of determination on her face. As her eyes rake over you, something predatory shines out of them.

You take a step toward her.

"Jane." A little more desperate, with a hint of warning.

You take another step.

It's a small room. Only one step left.

You take it.

"Jane." It's a sigh, this time, as your body invades her personal space. She's a magnet, she's your magnet, and you can't even think about resisting her pull in this heavy darkness.

She puts her hands up on your chest, where your lapels would be if you wore a suit to bed, and manages to both pull you in closer and keep you away from her at the same time.

"Jane." Her voice sounds like it's coming from far away. Like she has forgotten how to speak and has to pull each sound from the recesses of her mind. "Jane, I'm so glad you're a detective."

Somehow your hands have floated to her hips. "Why?"

She shudders at the sound of your voice. "Because I have been so…attracted to you. I have—wanted you. So badly. But I couldn't understand why you would do this work you hate. Why someone I found so brilliant and compelling and driven…" She seems to get lost for a moment, distracted by how intensely she's staring at your lips. But after a moment she finds herself again. "Your job didn't fit with the rest of you. And until I made sense of that, I couldn't let myself move forward. But this, Jane? This." Tantalizingly breathy. "It changes everything."

And you don't need her to say that it changes everything for the better. Because you're drowning in each other's lips and you haven't kissed yet. Because you can finally take a breath.

But you have to ask. "Move…forward?"

"Yes, Jane." She breathes. "Forward." And she slips her hands around your neck for the second time today and she pulls you down to her again. But this time you don't resist. You sink into it and you let her kiss you.

At the touch of her lips, the icy blue shard inside of you turns to honey and melts your insides. And the air is molasses and language is forgotten and all there has ever been is her. And after some amount of time, she reaches over, snaps off the light, and walks you backwards to your bed. And you simply pray that your heart won't explode until after it's over.