Author's Note: Thank you very much for all the reviews and messages (hopefully they'll solve their glitch before 2020, that'd be nice).

Chapter Nine:

Maura.

I went to a boarding school when I was ten years old. I asked for it. I filled the applications and got everything ready. I thought that it would solve a couple of things but it didn't.

I had come to the conclusion that my adoptive parents wanted to be alone and that if I went away then I would cease to be a burden for them. It turned out that my mother began to suffer from my absence, just like my father. They didn't tell me about it because they thought boarding school made me happy. The three of us pretended everything was fine until my graduation. Then we never talked about it.

I learned about all these regrets a couple of years ago. By accident. One of my aunts reproached me my attitude, and how I had abandoned my parents. Little do they know that boarding school wasn't as nice as what I used to say. My classmates mocked me and I didn't make friends. They thought that I was boring. The typical straight-A's student. I locked myself into my own little world to escape from their immature remarks which only worsened my socializing skills.

I was lonely.

If the situation has now changed, it is thanks to Jane. She swept away this latent sadness that had darkened my life for years and she made my existence brighter. She is the most caring person I have ever met, the most loyal one too. She was my best friend before we got married. My only real friend, actually. Isn't it funny how one person can make you see this world differently? I am not lonely anymore. I don't feel sad. I feel loved, and happy. I am at the right place, with the right people.

I am lucky.

"It's a television, Maura. Not a Picasso."

Maura closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. Jane was grumpy and still stuck in bed which only made it worse. The washing machine had died on them earlier in the morning and Maura still had to revise a good dozen of medical files. She had better things to do.

"You have already hurt your neck. If the television you're eager to watch is not hanging right on the wall then you'll have a very sore neck at the end of the day."

Jane sighed but at least she didn't say anything back. Maura grabbed the television set and tried to set it better on the wall. She had drilled the wall after making sure that every hole would be parallel to each other but the television was nonetheless hanging funny. She hated it.

"There! You got it. Don't move."

Of course, Jane's sudden and loud remark made Maura jump. Maura liked her wife a lot but she had to admit that Jane often lacked tact and it didn't make life easy. Unconvinced, she nonetheless made three steps backwards and looked at the television. It wasn't good enough.

"Oh boy." It was a nightmare. A nightmare caused by a few inches. "It isn't..."

"It's perfect. Really."

No, it wasn't. But Maura had other things to do. She grabbed the remote control, turned around and walked to the bed. Jane wasn't lying down anymore. With the help of fifteen pillows, she was more or less sitting now. Against Maura's very own opinion.

"There..." Maura froze. Jane was rubbing her neck and she looked in pain. "Does your neck hurt? I told you that it was too soon, Jane. You need to wear your neck brace." A sigh of frustration passed Maura's lips. She didn't want to be mean but she was tired of Jane's childish attitude. Her healing depended on her behavior yet she didn't seem to understand that. Worse, she didn't seem to care. "And you shouldn't be sitting for so long either. This television will be the death of you."

Maura pursed her lips. She had never wanted them to have a television set in their bedroom. She had read studies on the matter and she knew what a bad idea it was for a couple to have a screen in the bedroom. Besides, they had enough of them with their tables and smartphones. Society was overconnected.

"At least I'll get killed by images and not by the annoying boredom of staring at a white ceiling all day long."

"The ceiling isn't white but beige."

Maura was sure that the presence of a television in the bedroom was the cause of many breakups. It was the death of couples. She angrily glanced at the television and clenched her teeth. She had been psychologically too fragile. Jane had managed to convince her to buy a television set and she had done it.

Now she deeply regretted it.

"Whatever. It's just one plain color. May I have the remote control now? And what happened to your busy schedule? I thought you had plenty of things to do. C'mon, give me the remote and go back to your work. The morgue needs you."

Maura held back a wave of cries because she and Jane didn't need television to ruin their married life. They had done it by themselves with a confusing easiness. They hadn't taken care of their couple. She was realizing it now that they both had to stay home. They had let it die slowly and it freaked her out.

"You could read. You could listen to the radio. You could do some painting. But no... You choose to become a television junkie instead. This is sad, Jane. Sad and dangerous. You know what I think about this whole potato couch thing."

"Yeah and you know what I think about it too. Now give me the freakin' remote control. Please." Jane winced in pain. The tension of her body only made her pain grow. "Ouch."

"See? You aren't fine. You aren't fine enough to watch television."

They were both yelling now. Jackie O trotted in the bedroom but froze as Maura's loud voice suddenly filled the room. The anxiety caused by Jane's accident was now gone. It had got replaced by frustration. Loving someone was one thing but being 24h/day with this person was another one.

Especially under these circumstances.

"I. Am. Fine. Now give me the remote."

"No, you aren't fine! I'm not fine. We're not fine! Nobody's fine. You're stuck in bed, I'm stuck..." Maura had lost control of the situation. Her emotions were twirling at light speed and she felt dizzy. "I'm stuck in this house and we're stuck in our life! Nobody's fine." With a shaking hand, she threw the remote control on Jane's lap before walking out of their bedroom. "Here's your goddamn remote control. Have fun with your ficticious life."

She rushed downstairs only to realize that she needed some fresh air. The house had become too small and she was suffocating right now. She grabbed her keys and slammed the door in her back.

It was still quite early in the afternoon and Beacon Hill was quiet. Maura began to walk down the street. Aimlessly. She hadn't even taken her bag with her. She had no money, nothing. As she reached Louisburg Square, the dark clouds that had lit up the sky until now opened and a curtain of rain began to fall. She stopped walking and looked down at her feet. She wasn't wearing any jacket and she was cold.

She mistook her tears for rain drops until the first ones reached the corner of her mouth and the salty taste slid on her tongue. She was crying in the rain, alone in the middle of a public garden.

Her outburst was justified but it had come up at the wrong moment, and very awkwardly. She wasn't accusing Jane as much as she was accusing herself. She had just been coward. Yelling at a third party was easier than yelling at oneself.

The downpour was a typical downpour of July. The drops were hot and the air was humid. It stuck to her skin in a very unpleasant way, like an echo of her bitter feelings.

She was mad at herself because she hadn't noticed anything. She hadn't seen it come. She had ruined the most precious thing she had in her life and she now hid behind an endless list of excuses and ridiculous carpe-diem mantras. But it wasn't how it worked. It wasn't how she would make it better. She had read Cailyn's articles and she had to admit that her half-sister was right.

You don't solve your issues by running away from them. On the contrary. You have to face them with all the courage that your determination can bring you.

She ran a hand through her soaked wet hair then resumed her walking. She couldn't care less about the rain and the mess she must look like now. She needed to walk, to have a moment for herself. She needed to see something else than the living-room and Jane being forced to lie in bed.

She needed time for herself, and to think about the situation. To analyze it. Because if she didn't react now then it would be too late. She knew it.

She could ask for help but her shame was such that she didn't dare to. Cailyn was nice and she wouldn't lecture her with some I-told-you-so remarks. Her advices would be wise. Yet Maura's bruised ego was too big for now.

She and Jane had their responsibilities. Thus they had to solve the issues by themselves. It would be a challenge, even perhaps the biggest one of their lives, but if they didn't want to let whatever was left of their happy married life die then they had to change of attitude.

It depended on nobody but them.

Crying was immensely relieving but it was just a stage and Maura knew it. The satisfaction she now felt was temporary. She was in love with Jane and she didn't want their relationship to come to an end. So it was time for her stop pretending that everything was okay. She had done it in the past with her parents and it hadn't turned right.