Author's Notes: thank you very much for the reviews, I highly appreciate them. And for the ones who might miss out the whole purpose of this story, I suggest them to read Rainbow345uk's review. I couldn't sum it up better.

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Chapter nine: Constance

Her name was Constance. Bittersweet name, for obvious reasons. And quite ironical meaning as well. She had curly – brown – hair and hazel eyes that she hid way too often behind a pair of glasses. She always wore stilettos, if only to compensate her short height and her soft voice that made her pass unnoticed a bit too easily. Or at least to everyone but me.

She was a high school teacher; very passionate about her job. She could talk about it during hours and hours. Her eyes would shine like diamonds as she told me about her future plans and where she stood before the current educative system. She had her opinions and didn't fear to tell them out loud. On the contrary, she seemed to find in them a way to provoke people and it made her even stronger; almost untouchable.

She told me that she was married but it was too late. For the second time in my life, I had fallen for a woman and couldn't even imagine going on without her by my side. No matters what.

We always talk about values and morals but we don't choose whom we fall for. Love is a strong, way too powerful feeling to ever be controlled by anyone. One can try and stay away from it, it won't really work out.

I became the other one; the third one. The woman in the shadows whom people ignore to her name, to her existence at times. It wasn't an affair but a very complicated love story, that I am sure of. There were feelings involved, and many other things. Constance simply couldn't give up all the rest, what she had already built.

I would lie if I told you that I didn't hold hopes. It was only human, after all. As much as she kept on saying she couldn't, a part of me was convinced that at some point, we would be able to live it out in the open. Freely. One would do anything for love. I did.

Secret rendez-vous – last-minute getaways – and the latent fear to cross an acquaintance when we walked together in the streets. I won't lie. At the beginning, the situation sounded exciting. But soon enough it took us in a suffocating whirl: unable to put an end to it, no mattered reality.

It was a dead-end relationship.

She started a sentence, I could easily finish it. A mere gaze was enough to understand what the other meant. Her hand fit mine. Naturally; with a bare logic. How many times did I smile in her neck just to push back the veil of tears that kept on blinding me... Tied to a deluded happiness, we were suffering.

Some people say that there is nothing more beautiful than a prohibited love. I beg to disagree.

Her husband found out about us and all of a sudden, I was alone. With nothing left but the bitterness of not having been able to protect myself from whatever my heart wanted. I didn't cry a single tear, though. Instead, I took a few resolutions and decided to stick to them.

I was twenty-nine years old. Time to turn a page and become someone else. We learn from our mistakes.

And sneeze. Without breaking eye-contact with the file she was reading, Maura grabbed her bag that she had previously abandoned by her desk and went for a tissue. Her fingers slid on a rectangular, firm object; thin. She took it out and lost contact with reality.

"Here's my number. Call me...

Jane"

She had found the card on the pillow next to her in the morning as she had woken up. Jane – the girl she had taken home from the bar – had left, leaving a note. For a moment, Maura had stared at the card and analyzed her feelings. For the very first time, the roles had been reversed and she had been the one waking up alone the next morning. Odd sensation.

Late for work, she had abandoned the note in her bag then rushed to the police station only to forget it as soon as the boiling effervescence of the case had wrapped up her brain. And there she was, now. Into a reality she had managed to put aside for long hours.

Her fingertip brushed the handwriting. Would she give it a try and call the girl? For the first time in a while, she was having doubts. For Christ's sake... Her name is Jane, Maura. Don't do that. Jane...

"Hey, Maur'..."

The honey blonde jumped as her friend's voice filled the space of her office. Very quickly, she hid the card under a pile of papers and smiled brightly. She hadn't even heard Jane come in, lost as she had been in her thoughts. She was losing it.

"Jane..."

Sitting on the edge of the desk, the detective grabbed a pen and began to play with it. She always did that; always needed to have something in her hands when she came there to talk with her friend. Maura saw it as a sign of nervousness – probably because of the symbolical aspect of the place. As much as Jane seemed to do okay with dead bodies, being so close to death wasn't easy.

"Dirty Robber at 7pm. The guys should come too, you're in?"

Enthusiastically, Maura nodded and was about to reply when her eyes caught the clock on the wall. She swallowed hard – froze – and widened her eyes. The reaction didn't pass unnoticed to Jane.

"What's happening? What is it with the panic face?"

Standing up suddenly, Maura looked around and hurried to grab her coat by the door of her office. She turned around to apologize and explain herself if only very quickly.

"I'm late! … Late, late, late, late... I didn't pay attention to the time and oh my... I'm supposed to have lunch in fifteen minutes on the other side of town and..."

Obviously surprised, Jane frowned and cleared her voice. She looked uncomfortable.

"A date?"

Putting her gloves on, Maura shrugged then shook her head.

"An old friend of mine... A professor, to be more exact."

The detective put back the pen on the desk and bit her lower lip. As much as Maura's private life was not really any of her business, she couldn't help but ask; given the circumstances, the case of Meredith Banks.

"Is it related to the investigation?"

She knew that Maura had gone to the same college; the same school of medicine. But they had already interviewed the student's professors and nothing had showed up from it. Maura made a face, uncertain.

"I don't know... Anyway, I'm late. I'm sorry!"

She was about to pass the door when Jane called her back. The detective was holding Maura's bag; like a piece of evidence of a lost object. The honey blonde rushed to grab it.

"7pm at the Dirty Robber, okay? I might be out and around in the afternoon so call me if you need me."

Completely hyped, Maura nodded – took her bag – and planted a light kiss on her friend's cheek before leaving; replying with a gesture of the hand by the affirmative to Jane's last question whether she could check the medical file of Meredith Banks one more time. The file Maura had been reading until now and that was still wide open on the desk.

Amused by her friend's sudden exit, the dark-haired woman went to sit behind the large desk and grabbed the file. Something fell on her lap; something light. Immediately, Jane looked down picked up what looked like a card. Had someone sent flowers to Maura here recently? A brief glance at the office and she didn't see any bouquet around.

"Here's my number. Call me...

Jane"

Of course, Maura could have her life and not confess her everything but Jane felt uncomfortable before the fact a woman she had never heard about let her phone number to her friend. Unless it was for the investigation but in this case, the medical examiner always told her about her moves.

Perplexed and out of automatism, Jane turned the card around. It came from a bar, downtown Boston. A bar she had never heard about, even less gone to.

"The 3W Cafe..."

Out in the air, her tone of voice sounded as perplexed and confused as her face looked like. And then she froze – utterly lost – as her eyes stopped on the small underline under the name of the bar.

"3W – Woman With Woman"