A/N: My sincere apologies for the wait and for making you all so sad last time. I loved reading your reviews even though Maura and I really infuriated you. I hope we can begin to make it up to you. That last chapter said "fuck" 16 times, so I think we all have something to be proud of already. Also, just FYI, I don't like to write a lot of notes because I think it distracts from the narrative, but if you have any specific questions or anything you'd like to know, feel free to ask me in a review or PM and I'll do my best to answer it.

And 199 reviews? Guys, I'm beyond honored, really. But, just saying, if we'd gotten to 200 our class would have won a pizza party, so…


You've never felt like this. You've been alone before, you've been miserable before. But it's never felt like this. It's never cut so deep. You've never felt someone else's pain so strongly. You've never looked someone in the eye while you hurt them and watched them cry. You've never known what it feels like to crush someone so completely.

You'd never have guessed it would feel this awful.

Your whole life you've been the one crushed and tearful, watching people walk away from you. Other kids at school, potential boyfriends, classmates, coworkers. Your goddamned parents denied you every single day of your life, never failing to show you how disappointing you are. You've always been the object of the cutting remarks, the cruel words, the thoughtless dismissals. You'd thought nothing could feel worse than being rejected like that, day after day.

But then you rejected Jane and the pain in her eyes nearly killed you. It's clear now. It feels so much worse on this side.

This is the worst thing you have ever done.

But you still don't quite get it.

You spend the next few days desperately trying to get it. You withdraw into yourself, barely giving Brockton or the other girls the time of day. On a group date to the shore, you leave the group to go on a long walk by yourself. No one stops you because Jane is the only PA on the date and she doesn't look at you anymore. Out of respect for her you've kept your clothes on all day, but you know it's not enough.

You walk for what might be miles in the wet sand, letting the occasional wave carry fresh foam over your feet. You haven't been able to figure anything out these last few days, so you've decided to fall back onto your empiricism. You'll pull out every memory, every feeling, everything you've thought to be right and dissect them. Science will help you. It has to.

You lay out what you know: Jane made you feel more loved than you ever have. Just thinking about how she looked at you in bed makes it hard to breathe. The night she held you in her arms and you told her about Ian completely melted you. She'd kissed your head and called you "mchumba" and you hadn't understood where on earth all your organs had gone. It was scientifically impossible but your entire body had gone weightless and sung. And when she'd thrown you to the ground to protect you from the bullets you'd felt something else entirely. She'd tried to get off you and you'd tried to roll on top of her to shield her with your own body. You've felt protective of patients before; you'd shielded them with your body more than once, from bullets, from disease, from death. But never quite like this. Never so irrationally, never so emotionally. Never with nothing to offer but yourself.

And then she'd let you kiss her and everything in the world had shut off. You've had intercourse with a number of people, and before that night you'd have said that you'd made love before. But you hadn't. You really hadn't. Jane made you feel so many new things. First and foremost, she made you feel loved. Special. Precious.

And there were a lot of feelings swelling in your chest about her but you didn't let yourself look at them too closely. They scared you. Even in that space, in that tender moment with her, those feelings frightened you. Best to lock them away.

It was everything, that night. But then you'd woken up just before dawn and your hand had been wrapped in her hair and she'd had her back to you. Your body was wrapped around her back and you felt so much for her you were sure you were going to die. This feeling couldn't last. It wouldn't. It never had before. And those other times you had survived it, when they had turned their backs on you after whispering your name in the dark. But you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you wouldn't survive this one.

So you'd crept out of her bed and washed her scent off of you and neatly filed all of your feelings about her into your ever-growing DO-NOT-TOUCH folder in the corner of your mind. They joined all the memories of childhood torment, of lonely birthdays and empty chairs at performances and science fairs. Garrett's sneer and Ian's neglect are meticulously alphabetized among dead toads snuck into your book bag and whispers of "Queen of the Dead." Your father's empty chair and your mother's haughty disdain have lived there forever, and your mother's folder grows every time she doesn't call or refuses to let you talk about your job at the Club. The word "disgraceful" peppers her file.

No matter how hard you try, the word "disgraceful" leaks out and peppers your heart.

Jane had loved you that night like you weren't a disgrace. If she had found out what you truly are, all those terribly tender feelings about her, and the terribly disgraceful ones about yourself, would have exploded out of the folder, drowning you completely. Just the idea of Jane rattled those meticulous files, reminding you of all the pain you've already survived. You don't deserve Jane and you probably couldn't survive her anyway.

You don't deserve her, which is good because you simply cannot have her. Being a medical examiner is a disgrace. Being a gay medical examiner…you're a genius and you can't think of a word for it. All you can see is your mother's face the day you'd been forced to tell her that you had applied for, and received, a residency in forensic pathology. She'd looked disgusted, appalled, disappointed, horrified. Like she regretted ever taking you.

You would do anything in the world to never see that look again. You can never disappoint her again. She is always telling you to get married, to find a nice man with a good career who won't embarrass the family any further. Jane is not what she meant.

You don't deserve Jane, which is good because you simply cannot have her.


The next day you're sitting in the living room reading another forensic journal. You'd smuggled in a great stash of them when you first arrived, and you're looking for an excellent article on bullet trajectories from moving cars that you remembered reading last spring.

Right as you find it, the other PA hustles over and pulls the journal from your hands, telling you in no uncertain terms that you may not read this type of material in the house. He tries to hand you another fashion magazine but you are sick of this bullshit.

You leap to your feet, eyes flashing, and snatch the journal back from him. No one in this house (except Jane) has heard you speak with any sort of authority, and you take perverse pleasure in watching his face change as you snap at him with ice in your eyes. "No. I'm sick of this bullshit. I'm a medical doctor and you will respect that or I will walk out of this house. This pattern of disrespect stops now. You will never attempt to control my reading material again. Is that clear?"

He startles and scurries away, clearly shocked into silence. Being Queen of the Dead has its perks. But right as you start to smile, you see Jane standing across the room. She turns away quickly, but not before you see the start of tears in her eyes. And for once in your life, you figure it out.

Suddenly your whole body is filled with ice. Your organs have frozen and you can't get warm. Your medical training kicks in and you find yourself sitting in the hot tub, stripped down to your underwear before you can remember making the decision to get in. You tuck your knees up to your chest and hold onto your feet as you dissect what you've learned.

You've always fought for the science. You fought your parents and your teachers for it, you left Garrett when he wouldn't respect the career you'd chosen. You've fought everyone who thought a young pretty girl shouldn't want to perform autopsies and couldn't be good at them. You threatened to leave this house for the science. But you've never been able to fight for yourself like that. You're just some strange little girl. You don't deserve that sort of passion, not even from yourself.

The science is worth it, worth the sacrifice and the disappointment and the disgrace. But nothing else about you ever has been. And Jane doesn't know that you're worthless and disgraceful so she didn't understand why you'd threaten to leave for a magazine but not for her. But the problem isn't her. It never was. It's you. You're the one who is worthless.

You are not enough for her.

She deserves everything and you can't give her anything. Maybe you and Brockton really do deserve each other. She was right about him, but wrong about you. You're both worthless.

You put your disappointing head down on your stupid knees and you cry worthless tears into the steaming water. You don't notice Jane watching from the house or the few tears that run down her neck to disappear into her black shirt.


Three days and one rose ceremony later and you're on another group date. Everyone is on this one, and whomever does the best on it will win a one-on-one date, which, at this point, is basically just a humping session. The idea of it makes you a little sick. This date is a helicopter trip out to the Vineyard, which is a horrible waste of fossil fuels but you say nothing. Your parents are currently at their home on the Vineyard but you say nothing about that either. You refrain from mentioning that you've ever been.

The girls are nervously chattering about the helicopter before it takes off. None of them have ever been on one before and they're afraid of crashing.

"You don't need to worry," you say thoughtlessly. "There is very little wind today and this helicopter is quite large. The likelihood of a crash in these conditions is very small."

Everyone turns to look at you. "Have you been in one before?" Chloe asks. She's not forgotten what you did for her and she always does her best to draw you out. She's sweet. If you understood how to make friends, you think you would have picked her.

"Yes, quite a few during my time in Africa. Most of them were like this one, but I was in one much smaller one in rural Uganda."

"Why were you in a helicopter in rural Uganda?"

You hesitate, but you remember one of the rules. Be intentionally vulnerable. Share something about yourself that you're not sure you should share. You're not sure you believe in the rules anymore, but just in case, you follow them. "It was a medical evacuation helicopter. I was with a woman that was dying in childbirth. We had to evacuate her to the hospital outside Kampala."

Everyone is listening now. "Did you make it?" Kelly asks breathlessly.

You grow cold at the memory, but you continue. "No. Her labor continued to progress dangerously, so I was forced to perform an emergency c-section in the helicopter."

"Oh my god!" Chloe leans in. "You cut her open in a helicopter?"

"Yes."

"Did you even have anesthetic?" Kelly's eyes are wide.

"No. All I had was a Swiss army knife and a bottle of vodka to disinfect the blade and incision. I didn't even have gloves. She was awake until she passed out from the pain."

Brockton laughs and stretches out his arms, hooking one around Kelly's neck. "Shit, man. That's so gross." He leans over and bites her earlobe.

You blink rapidly at his absurdly insensitive response. That c-section was one of the most frightening things you've ever done. You remember the look in her eyes as she told you to do it, how she asked you to care for the child, sure she would die. You remember her screams and the feel of her uterus in your hands. You remember how her blood squirted all over you, spraying the roof of the helicopter and steadily dripping into your hair for the rest of the trip. You remember holding the baby in your hands, desperately feeling for a pulse.

It's only Chloe who leans over to ask. "Did you save them?"

You smile, faintly. "Yes. They both survived."

Chloe's eyes brighten with pride. She's proud to have been saved by someone so accomplished. Brockton doesn't notice. He leans in and kisses Kelly on the mouth. It's sloppy and performative and it repulses you.

Chloe reaches over and squeezes your hand and you're so glad you were able to save her.


The helicopter touches down on the Vineyard and you immediately get out and walk away from the group. The producers leave you alone. They're done trying to control you, and it's about time because you are done with this bullshit.

Brockton doesn't respect you. That's clear. He wants your body and nothing else. And it wasn't until he disrespected your work right in front of you that you truly realized how much he repulses you. Jane was right: he is awful. He is awful and stupid and you hate him. And you hate yourself even more for playing this stupid game and chasing after him. Because he fucking sucks.

You look up the sky and it finally crystallizes for you. Fuck The Bachelor. Fuck it and fuck Brockton. Fuck this system that taught you it was okay to string people along like this. Fuck this system that taught you that what you did to Jane was okay. That you can love someone enough to marry them but they have to be okay watching you kiss other people up until you propose – that the end erases the middle. That women never get a choice but men don't have to choose until the end. That a woman in love has to share but he never does. Fuck that. Jane wouldn't share you because that's what it means to care. You and she fell deeply into each other quickly, more quickly than you'd have thought possible. But she couldn't share you because she wanted you so much. And Brockton kisses other girls in front of you and won't even pretend not to be repulsed by your work. And you can no longer pretend to yourself that you're not repulsed by him.

This isn't the science of people. This is the worst of people. He is the worst and science deserves better. You thought these were the rules of people but now you know they are just the rules of The Bachelor. And they are incredibly stupid and they taught you to destroy the only good thing you found here.

The only real person you've met is Jane. The only person worth knowing is Jane.

And you threw that away.

You hadn't thought being with Jane had anything to do with Brockton. You hadn't compared the experiences because they were incomparable. Winning Brockton was a war, a long campaign. It was a forced march in the Afghani heat, a series of distasteful maneuvers to be undertaken for the final outcome to be positive. It was very rarely pleasurable – you faced it with grim discipline and faith that it would somehow transmute itself into a good thing after you won. And being with Jane is dancing. Every moment with her is like that perfect moment on stage where you can forget the steps and the rules and you just dance. That moment where your brain shuts off and you just feel and it flows and its natural and you feel beautiful and powerful and just right. And you're completely in your body and you completely transcend it and you know, even before they applaud, that you've done something incredible. Something you're proud of.

It never crossed your mind to compare war and dance. It wasn't until Jane made you choose that you realized you would have to, that The Bachelor rules are not real. You've always been so good at compartmentalizing. You'd thought that was a good thing; it made you a good doctor, a good medical examiner. But now you realize it blinded you. Brockton is tank warfare and Jane is ballet but they are the same and you had to choose.

And you chose wrong.


You spend the next two days writing a series of letters to Jane. You write and re-write and re-write again because none of them are good enough. You have no idea how to tell her everything you want to. To tell her that you realize how horrible you were, the devastation you caused her. That you know now what she's always known about him, about you, about the show. About her. That she's worth so much more than you.

You don't know how to tell her those things because you have finally realized that you want her. You're doing some pretty impressive compartmentalizing again, focusing only on wanting Jane and not on what your mother will say. But you want her and you know that. But how do you say it? Jane, I fucked up so badly and I did everything wrong and I ripped your heart out and I know that, but will you be my secret lesbian girlfriend anyway?

It seems hopeless. But you write anyway. You try your best to show her that you mean it this time. That you're begging for her forgiveness and telling her that you choose her, even if she'll never choose you again. You try to explain that you're not assuming she'll want to be with you again, but if she might you'd really like that a lot. You try to tell her that she's too good for you but that you hope she might just take you anyway. It's hard because you're so fucking worthless and she deserves everything. But every time you see her she's sad and before you did this to her she was happy. And she gets to choose and if she's dumb enough to choose you, then thank god.

In the end, you've handwritten fifteen pages of feelings and none of them are good enough. But they never will be, and you never will be, but now you have to be brave.


You knock on her bedroom door. It's late, everyone else is asleep, and you haven't been here since you rejected her so completely. You've stopped talking to her, flirting with her, trying to get her attention, so she doesn't suspect it's you.

She opens the door.

She opens the door, and, god, she's so beautiful. She's wearing shorts and a tank top and you want to run your tongue all over her body but mostly you just want to spoon her again and cry a little into her hair.

She opens the door and you do your very best not to look at the bed but it's a very small room and if you don't look at the bed all you can look at is her.

She doesn't look pleased to see you, but now you have to be brave.

"I know you hate me. I know that. I deserve it, and I know that too. And I know that I have no right to ask anything of you. But I wrote, um, a lot, and I'm sorry it's so much but I just couldn't get it right and if I looked at it for another second I'd throw it all away and you deserve to know and I don't know how to tell you and I was confused before, well not confused maybe as much as wrong, but I'm not really confused anymore and I just want you to know that, I, um—" You trail off, realizing that you've been rambling so quickly and for so long and you maybe are going to pass out right here in her doorway. And you're not sure what words you've said, but apparently they were okay because she very slowly reaches out and takes the stack of papers from your hand. You hand her every page you've written, every re-write and every tirade against yourself.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. You turn around and walk back to your room, leaving her standing silently in her doorway.


Two days later you're in the living room that used to belong to you and Jane. You've been staking it out since you gave her the letters, trying not to hope that she'll show up. You put on the Red Sox game but you're not watching it. You've brought a journal and a Vogue (you do genuinely like Vogue. Just not when you want to be reading about forensics, honestly) but you aren't reading them either.

When Jane walks in, you wonder if you're dreaming her. But there is very little chance your imagination would have created that injury. You stand as you cock your head, slightly. "Hairline fracture. The nasal bone above the lateral nasal cartilage. It's not disfiguring."

She smiles, almost. She takes a step closer. "Can you pop this out for me?" It's the first time she's spoken to you in days and it makes all your organs switch places inside your body.

"What happened?" You can't stop staring at her face.

"I can't talk about it," she says, but not harshly. You raise an eyebrow in question and she nods in response. Police something something, then.

"Can't you do something safe? Like yoga?" You tease her like you would have before. She says nothing but doesn't run. You reach up and gently touch her chin. Your heart switches places with one of your ovaries. "Might hurt a little." You've already hurt her so much, but she nods.

"Okay." You snap it, quickly, and she recoils dramatically. "OW! A little?!" She bites back a swear and you bite back a smile.

"Put some ice on it for the next twenty-four hours so you don't look like Mike Tyson." You're a doctor. Be a doctor.

But then she grins at you from the doorway, and leaves you the sweetest peace offering in the world. "I will, but come on, Maur. We both know you're the biter."


You find her note on your pillow that night. It hardly seems fair that in return for your fifteen pages of emotionally exhausting word-vomit, you get three words. But then, you deserve even less than this.

You fall asleep clutching the note in your hands.

Give me time.