A/N: I thought about just posting this one with chapter ten, but figured it might be too confusing if I did that. Also, check out the song, "Odio," by Romeo Santos. It's the inspiration for the title and most of chapter eight.


The apartment door, number 313, blended in with all the others on the floor, save for one detail. It sported the same dark cherry color, the same gold and looping knocker, the same clear, efficient numbers to mark it in the sequence of apartments. What changed it, what caused Maura to fear the knock she knew she had to start, was the faint hum that agitated the wood. Did she imagine the hum vibrating against her fingers? Maybe it was the shaking of her hands themselves as she gave her three distinct knocks against the door.

She heard heavy steps stumble forward, louder and louder, the antithesis of Minerva's usual feminine and deadly gentleclicks. The two locks on the other side bump, bump clunked open, as though a bear paw had attempted the task. For a split second, her skin went cold: was it really Minerva on the opposite end of the door? All sensory signs pointed to no. Suddenly, she felt the urge to flee.

The emergence of a groggy face, most definitely Minerva's, stalled her.

"Maur- maura?" Minerva grumbled, hands at her sides, but a smirk, half-concealed by her sleepiness, belied her out-of-sortsness. Maura watched her girlfriend watch her: black eyes caught hazel ones and infiltrated them. Would she see everything before she even got a chance to speak? Her body felt free, her limbs itched to move, even run, but as long as her eyes were held hostage, all of this was of no consequence.

Minerva, of course, watched all of Maura's watching. She saw the ruffled jacket hanging on her slender shoulders, slumped in exhaustion. It was a faded navy, and a distressted Red Sox emblazoned the front of it – something that Maura would never pick out for herself, but something Jane would be loath to give up, unless it were to the woman standing here. Her heart sank at the dawn gray of mascara around the doctor's eyes, smudged and like putting her tongue in a dirty ash tray. The sun had set on them and was rising on something else entirely. Either way, Maura had done some dying very recently.

"And what is the ghost of the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts doing at my door?" When the doctor only smiled sadly, Minerva backed away, silk black pajama pants catching against the floor for each step. When the door closed behind them both, she abandoned all pretense and regained her glide about the room.

"We need to talk," Maura said, infusing her voice with as much sympathy and honey as she could. She observed Minerva moving about her natural habitat of spartanly furnished living and dining rooms, down the dark hall to a modern, stainless-steel filled kitchen. While she stumbled trying to find her way in the dark of it all, Minerva swung through it with ease, pulling down two shot glasses and a bottle of bourbon from a cupboard. I see, the pathologist thought, the clumsiness of before was a ruse, probably to disarm me if I were an intruder. Without even the notion that Jane would be proud of her detective work, she leaned awkwardly against the black granite of an island in the center of the tiled floor.

"I thought you were going to call me in the morning," Minerva responded, honestly surprised. She imagined it would take Maura more than three hours to come to grips with what she was feeling for Jane, especially since the clock had just struck one am. She put her hand over the other woman's and her thumb rubbed against the cluster of bone and vein it found there.

Maura accepted the gesture for what it was: soft, full of affection, but not passionate. Not meant to be passionate. Her heart ached. How much had her eyes given away back in the threshold? "I was, and I'm sorry that it's so late," tears crowded her consciousness again as she remembered what had just transpired, but at Minerva's dismissive nod, she strengthened herself to continue, even if just out of obligation to the kind soul across from her.

The kind soul poured her a hefty shot, nudging it into her fingers and seeing it into her mouth before she rose to turn on a light. "It's no trouble, Maura. Of course it's no trouble. I was just a little surprised to see you standing in my doorway so late and looking so... well, lost," she returned and poured her own medicine.

Maura winced at the burn down her esophagus. But once the taste was over, it lubricated her tongue, her limbs, her courage. "I honestly lost track of time, but I felt like it couldn't wait," she made the move to hold Minerva's gaze, the first time she had ever done so without sexual intent. An emptiness gnawed at the bottom of her stomach with the realization. For her lover, though, the murky boiling still raged in her eyes. Maura suspected that is was one thing the accountant could not hide. The guilt in her festered. She could not mislead anymore, because Minerva's eyes could not lie.

"Oh? And what could not wait til the morning?" she responded.

"After you left, Jane texted me. She said that she needed to speak with me," Maura began. Somehow the rest got stuck in her voicebox.

"Is she alright? Is her family alright?" Minerva asked, for a moment all business. Muscles tensed, a spine went rigid.

"Yes, yes everyone's fine, please don't worry," the doctor shot a hand to the Italian's forearm; the Italian instantly melted into a calmer state of being. Shit. Maybe she shouldn't touch anymore. "she wanted to talk about us."

"Me and you?"

"No. Well, that came up, but more about her and me," Maura whispered softly, head bowed.

Rizzoli beat her to it. "Ah. And what did you talk about that you needed to run right here?" Minerva whispered back, holding Maura's head up by the chin so gently that Maura could not tell who initiated the action of her looking up. "Maura. My dearest. You don't have to tell me anything, but I hope that you will. I hope that you will tell me what has been eating away at you. Maybe, maybe if you vomit it up, it won't consume you anymore," her voice trembled with the most emotion Maura had ever heard in it. Granted, the timbre of her words only heightened for the most fleeting of moments, maybe a non-scientist would not have noticed. But the tears returned to the back of Maura's own throat at the plea.

"I'm actually not quite sure how to summarize it all. I think that, in her way, she told me that she's in love with me," Maura admitted weakly, sighing at the words as they left her lips. Even the admission of that something so new (so old, too) between herself and Jane blew a fire into her belly, not unlike the bourbon she had swallowed not long before. She felt a little lighter, a little more able to look Minerva in the face. But the accountant had other plans.

"That's not what I meant, you know. I figured that much. The way she molds herself to you, everyone with eyes can see that she loves you. Maybe, if you tell me, you won't feel so exhausted, and maybe it will be a little freeing," Minerva stared hard into Maura's eyes, which were still ablaze with arousal from her thoughts about Jane's confession. It had to be said, and she and Maura both needed it to be said aloud.

Suddenly a wet cold sunk onto Maura's skin. Minerva would not settle for half-truths, she surmised, not like so many in her life had before. "What do you mean? I just told you. I went to Jane's, and she wanted to speak to me to admit that she loved me." She started to shake, the pre-quake to the oncoming 10.0.
"I mean," Minerva started and stood from her perch on a barstool, "that you need to say the thing coming between us. Say it aloud," she filled both glasses and pushed them both toward Maura. Maura did not take. The accountant sent her a look that insinuated that she would need them both soon.

"I don't... I..." she stammered, white-knuckle gripping the island. Her pulse ricocheted inside her whole body for very different reasons than hours ago. Fear rode the fast track of proteins and alcohol in her blood.

"Maybe," Minerva gulped, presumably to swallow the emotion before it swallowed her, "maybe if you tell me that you are so helplessly in love with Jane that you don't know what to do with yourself, you'll start to feel a little better. And stop looking so damn broken-hearted all the time. Cause that's breaking my heart."

By the time she finished, Maura found herself in the throes of hiccuping cries again. Her voice cascading in the silent nooks and crannies of the kitchen, cutting jagged edges into the air, artificial with the light up above the both of them. She couldn't help but sob all over again when she saw that the tumult in Minerva's eyes had bubbled over onto her face: crow's feet prominent, mouth pursed in worry. God, she felt like a fuck up. "But... but you l-l-love me..." she managed to croak before her voice became mangled by her own emotion again. She let herself be drawn into the embrace of the woman across from her, the woman who wanted her, the woman she, much to her sorrow, she did not want anymore.

"You figured that one out, huh? I didn't even know until today," Minerva chuckled. She ran a smooth, long hand against Maura's back, feeling the worn-in fabric of Jane's sweatshirt. Jane had been everywhere with them since day one. This just happened to be a physical manifestation. The irony tightened her grip around the crying figure huddled against her, giving one last ditch effort to melt into her. The fires were nowhere near hot enough, nowhere near mutual enough.

"H-how? How could I say it and d-do that to you? Y-you've bbeen so kind, so g-good to me," Maura choked. Minerva smelled like laundry detergent and a faint, androgynous cologne.

"Maura, you need to look at me," confident that she was, Minerva began again, "I've been good to you. That's true. And I love you. But, you aren't anything without her love. I fell in love with someone's love for another. Remember when we met? The way you stood your own with us gangsters, the way you stood up for the law, for justice? That was Jane in you. And the way you carry yourself? With pride, and assuredness, and strength? You are so proud of all the things that Jane sees in you. Even then, you were in love, loving Jane with who you are," Maura stood slackjawed in her arms, tears no longer wracking her, only dropping fatly down her cheeks. "I fell in love with you while you were already in love with someone else. And it was not an integral part of your character – it was, is, you."

Finally, it was between them in a way that neither of them could hide away. Maura sighed, the fight gone from her. Everything gone from her, the outer layer of emotional fat burned away, leaving her exposed, leaving her raw, leaving her wanting Jane, if only to not have the ability to hurt this woman anymore, this woman who felt so true against her. So true, but so unable to strike the heat. Her eye caught the two shots by her side, and she downed them both.

Minerva laughed, her voice vibrating against Maura's forehead as the other woman returned to the crook of her neck. "I told you that you would need both of them!"

Maura grumbled, the tension easing out of her by the second. "I never argued. But it's not quite fair. Since it tasted so bad, I had to chase the first down with the second," why did Minerva seem so wildly ok with it all? Quick touches to latissimus dorsi and trapezii belied the confidence in the Italian's speech, the free flow of her laugh and speech, and Maura's heart started to hurt again – the woman's body showed signs of the loss she was experiencing. The loss of Maura. "But I think I drank a bit too much. All of the sudden I'm exhausted."

"It is almost two. Would you like to sleep here?" Minerva asked, knowing the answer, somehow, before she received it.

"No, I shouldn't. I should go home and sleep," Maura sighed, squeezing the body under her embrace. "I'm so sorry, Minerva. So sorry that I did this to you. That I'm still doing it to you."

"Eh. The heart wants what the heart wants, baby. You can't blame yourself any more than I can blame you; you were far gone before you even walked through Daniel's office door."

"You're probably right," Maura nodded. Reluctantly, she dropped her arms, afraid Minerva would crumble and she would not be able to sweep her back up again. No such thing happened. She stood, without Maura's help. "Well, I should go home, it's very late." Maura grabbed her keys from her purse, and moved toward the exit, intent to have Minerva follow.

She did. They walked all the way to the door before she spoke again. "Tell me something, Maura. I know that you and I, we're on our way out. But will you dance with me one more time? For old time's sake before we part? Our Spanish club downtown," she asked, almost timidly. Maura wondered at the sight.

"Of course. One last time, Minerva, one last time. Tomorrow night?" before she could finish her response, Minerva kissed her, long, but cool, with temperance. Friendly. Maura held the face moving against hers, kissed softly, shortly, sweetly back, and then exited with the same sad smile as before. She had her answer.


Tomorrow night the night of the dance, had come, and Minerva Portinari had come to know Maura's neighborhood and home well. When she stepped onto familiar cobblestone, crossing to the well-lit courtyard, she affirmed her decision of earlier in the night to forego the flowers; it seemed that Maura had plenty, and cultivating this new thing with Jane would take all of her pruning prowess.

She had given up the fight. She meant what she had said the night before (or early that morning): the things she loved about Maura were the things that resulted from her love for Jane, and Jane's love for her. She had seen the two of them at work for the first time, that night she and Maura had started their singular foray into sex, and suddenly Minerva knew why her girlfriend wanted her so badly but then couldn't seem to find enough pleasure in anything they did: she didn't want her, she wanted another tall, dark, beautiful Italian. Oddly enough, the intensity of her feelings for Maura did not send her into a jealous rage, or the depression-fueled alcohol binge, as was the response of choice to stress for many in her family.

No, there was only a hollow, strong need for Maura's happiness. Minerva craved happiness for the other woman on a visceral level. It was much like a midwestern wind: weightless, invisible, but so overpowering on some days as to near topple her over. Her heart wanted Maura to be happy, her lungs wanted Maura to be happy, her bones wanted Maura to be happy, her veins wanted Maura to be happy. She knew Jane would make her so, simply because it was Jane, or lack of Jane, that had made Maura so sad. Only something with the capacity to bring you down so low had the capacity to swing the other way.

Minerva knew, that for Maura, she was a block of C-4. With enough heat and enough spark, she could have detonated the tiny woman. To give the doctor credit, she sure had tried – molding and twisting her to fit the Jane-sized hole within. However, all the heat necessary, all the vibrating and humming and pulsating necessary to get them going had been rerouted elsewhere: Jane. For Maura, Jane was an a-bomb. She rewrote her chemistry, decimated her for miles, and her radiation would color the doctor for generations, long after they were both gone – Maura's love for Jane would last for decades to come. Maybe centuries. Against that, Minerva had no chance.

And, if being the daughter of a mobster had taught her anything, she thought as she reached for the spare key in a place above the door only she and Jane could reach, it was to not fight a fight you could not win. In the real world, in the world where justice happened to be a thing, fighting against something much bigger and bound to beat you took on a noble timbre; people saw it as a sign of tenacity, a boost to your legacy. In the world where men burned the likenesses of saints to pledge loyalty to Patriarcas and Portinaris above everything, doing so got you killed, made you foolish. You are out to build an empire, not a monument to yourself.

She twisted the key and pushed open the heavy door, her nose assaulted by the smell of Maura's perfume. I have no chance. She took the steps two at a time, anxious to see the woman as much as she could in the next few hours. When she pushed into the bedroom, a place she hadn't seen since their failed night together, she saw Maura, applying jewelry in front of a mirror, deadly still in a strapless black dress, a red trench coat waiting to be slipped on her shoulders. "Hi," she breathed, unable to really articulate much more, and Maura smiled, more to the mirror than to the woman in her doorway.

"Hi yourself. Come here so that I can hug you," she returned. Probably not a good idea, Minerva winced, but before she could protest, the pathologist wrapped around her, squeezing her, tattooing her with the smell from the hallway.

She could only return the favor. Let them meld together one last time. "I hope it's ok that I came up. I actually didn't even realize until right this moment that I might no longer be welcome in this part of the house," she looked down at the woman around her until Maura looked up.

She just sighed. "Just because we are breaking up does not mean that I am going to ice you out, Minerva."

"I figured, but a ban from the bedroom is a far cry from cutting me out of your life," Minerva chuckled, a bit relieved that she hadn't overstepped. She surveyed the room, immaculate, bed made and spotless except for the cell phone near the pillow on the side closest to the master bath. Dressers and other furniture carried no dust, nothing seemed out of place.

"Give me a minute to freshen up and then we will go," Maura said. She released Minerva, and clicked the door and lock of the bathroom shut.

This left the mobster's daughter alone, and the silence had her ears pounding. This will be the last time, she reasoned to herself. She would not force herself into a life to complicate an already monstrously complex situation. Maura and Jane. Such a storm, such a shitstorm really, so tumultuous, grand, chaotic, that there was no way for it to fail, once it got off the ground. If it ever did. The two seemed content to torture themselves forever. That she could not help.

Or could she? The phone still sat there, unassuming, unused at the side of the bed. She drummed her fingers against the bedspread where she had taken a seat, the sure sign of a mind in motion. Moments like these bolstered her confidence in her upbringing: where people had black and white lines delineating right and wrong, good and bad, for her, it was muddled to gray. So much that something like this, like what she was about to do felt right in every way.

She awoke the phone, scanned it for a moment until she found the text messages, picking the most recent one from Jane. The one she must have sent not longer after Minerva left the previous night. The Italian opened it, chose reply, and typed a swift message to send off with seconds to spare before Maura returned.

Meet me at Club Caribe at ten thirty. No questions, Jane.

With that sent, Maura swung the door open. Minerva smiled, grabbed the phone and waved it, putting in her date's clutch. Maura nodded in gratitude, put the clutch under her arm, and off they went to Club Caribe.


"What?"

"I said, it's very warm in here, despite the fact that it's not filled to capacity," Maura observed in her partner's ear. Body heat, more specifically an amalgam of Minerva's and her own, traveled down the dip of her back. More serious partygoers hadn't arrived yet, and the majority of those who enjoyed salsa and Latin music more than drinking and grinding had started to leave Club Caribe.

"You were just shaking it somethin' pretty serious just now," Minerva breathed, her words cooling the sweat near Maura's temple, "I'll bet that skews your findings a bit." A calmer song, still with a dancing beat but with lethargic drums and weepy guitars, slowed them to a sway on the floor, in the arms of one another.

Minerva must have known it, the song, the way her shoulders slumped, the way her lips pulled into a tight frown until she found the wherewithal to swallow. She'd shown more emotion in the last twenty four hours than Maura had seen in her all their time together. The emotion on her face now looked almost like acceptance, with touches of grief and concession. Oh, the things that music could do, Maura mused. What memories swirled in her brain, twirled the way she twirled Maura now? The light was dim; they could make out faces, but details escaped. Maybe Minerva mourned the fact Maura's eyes, her mouth, her features, dulled in the lighting.

The medical examiner was about to comment on the melancholy mixed with ease, both exuding off of her dance partner, but then she stiffened. Stiffened in the way that Maura had seen her stiffen around possible enemies out in public before. She stiffened mid-sway, and Maura pulled her head back to see an unmistakable reflection in her eyes:

Tall. Lean. Dark. A wavy mane of wild black hair, if her mind was not playing tricks with her. All of Minerva's symphony of defeat now made sense, and she bristled with anticipation. Turn me, turn me, turn me, god dammit, she thought, pleaded, all but aloud. Even in the pupil of Minerva Portinari, that specter cut the finest figure she'd ever seen.

Finally, after thousands of moments that felt like thousands of years, she got her wish. Jane. It didn't matter why Jane stood there in the door, just having waved her badge to get looking at her, eyes raging, lips snarling, and she realized it was probably due in no small part to the fact that she stood behind the body of someone Jane saw as competition. Maura went to drop her arms, but a tickle against her ear stopped her.

"I'm sorry, Maura. But I couldn't just watch anymore," Minerva's words chilled the sweat on the doctor's back. "I texted her. But make no mistake: she's here for you."

Maura felt rooted to her spot, one Italian hanging on her and her little black dress, another crossing toward them with vehemence. God, the inferno between them raged, melted everything around them. Even Minerva felt hot under her fingertips considering the circumstances. Did her black blister? Did her skin burn from Jane's raw, rippling power? "Go, before she gets here and rips me apart," Minerva implored. Maura looked at her face, watched her eyes glued to the opposite wall of the club. Careful not to look at her, careful not to turn around and look at Jane. Maura shook her head to stave off tears, and kissed the woman's cheek the way she would have kissed her mouth only forty eight hours before.

Then she ran. She ran, closing the distance between herself and Jane, possibly forever. Jane caught her, hands clawing at the painted-on dress, fingers playing a possession sonata on her hips, her sides, her ass.

Good fucking God. "I take it you made your decision, Detective," Maura rasped, right before dipping her tongue to taste Jane's responding grumble.