Author's Notes: You guys still here? Bear with me for one more primarily case-based chapter, because the next one is pretty much sheer M-rated fluff.

Does what happened to Charlotte count as a violent crime?

And if so, who was the real criminal here?

Someone killed Charlotte. Of that, there is no doubt. She was hit with a softball and she died. But that was an accident. That part of the story is forgivable.

What happened afterwards is not.

If you ask me, the real violence was ten years of uncertainty. The violence was not knowing what had happened to Charlotte. The violence was stealing away peace and stalling the grief.

The violence was the painful hope that everyone who loved Charlotte felt over the course of ten long, dark years.

- An excerpt from the finale of To Charlotte, With Love – S2E8: The Truth

This time when Jane, Korsak, Frost, Sally and Henry arrived at Robbie Dunbar's front door, they didn't call beforehand to let him know they were coming. It was after work hours and they could hear that he was in there, watching some sci fi movie on his big screen. They rang the doorbell, and he stared when he saw them on his front stoop. "Hello, Detectives," he said nervously. "What a surprise to see you again so soon. What can I do for you?"

"Who threw the ball, Robbie? Was it you, or was it Rich?" asked Jane, her serious tone and piercing dark eyes leaving no room for anything but honesty.

Robbie sagged against the doorway as though he was deflating like a balloon. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. "It was me," he whispered.

As the officers were booking him, Jane told him, "We're going to have to go through your house for evidence. It'll be easier on everyone if you can answer us honestly. I don't know how long you'll be away, but your home will still be your home when you get out. We can leave it neat for you or we can tear the place apart so you come home to a mess. So it might be better if you tell me right now: Are we going to find anything in there?"

With red-rimmed eyes, Robbie nodded. "I kept the ball. It's in the closet in my bedroom, hidden in a shoebox on the top shelf. But that's the only thing."

"Thank you, Robbie," said Jane. "I'll make sure CSRU knows to treat the place with respect."

She stood back and watched as the uniforms loaded him in to the back of the cruiser so he could be transported to the station for further questioning. Sally was by her side with her trusty audio recorder. "That was a nice thing you did for him," she said. A tiny smile played on her lips. "Are you going to let me print that, or does it make you look like too much of a softie?"

"You can print it," said Jane affectionately. "This was a strange case. I didn't have to threaten anyone. If your listeners don't think I'm softie by the time they get to this point in the story, they haven't been paying attention."

"Well, I suppose now would be a good time to say thank you for letting us be a part of this. I'm not trying to sound conceited, but if I can stick to my vision and tell this story the way it looks in my head, I think there's a pretty good chance you may have won us another Peabody."

"I won't have won you shit, Sally. You'll win it for yourself. I'm just doing my job." She tapped the badge on her belt.

Over their time together, Jane had come to think of the podcasters' audio equipment like it was their equivalent of her BPD badge. It was a symbol of their status and skillset. Like the badge, the recorder afforded them special abilities and privileges, and Jane had gained a deep respect for the way they handled that fact. They used their journalistic intentions to gain the trust of those they interviewed, and they treated all of their subjects as though they deserved to be heard. Jane wondered how much longer they would stick around now that the case had been solved. She would be sorry to see them go.

Inside the condo, Frost, who had never been here before, was looking at all the autographed head shots that decorated the walls and shelves in complete disbelief. Sally left Jane to join him. "Morgan Freeman? Steve Buscemi?" Frost said when he noticed Sally standing next to him, his mouth hanging open. "Are you kidding me?" They moved farther along, and then Frost noticed the glass case with the Game of Thrones sword. "Is that… Is that real?"

"It sure is," confirmed Sally, grinning at him. "Robbie bought it when he toured the set in Coatia while they were filming season seven. That's where they film all the King's Landing scenes. It was used by one of the extras in the Queensgaurd."

"You're telling me this is Lannister gold on the hilt?" replied Frost, staring with wide eyes at the prop sword.

Sally looked delighted. "Are you a Game of Thrones fan, Barry?"

"Who isn't?" replied Frost. "Team Daenerys all the way, baby. How about you?"

"I'm a Jon Snow girl, myself."

Jane and Korsak stood witness to the scene, each looking scandalized. Eventually Jane rolled her eyes and hid the word nerds in a blatantly fake cough before heading upstairs to retrieve the softball.

She found it right where he'd said she would. She took it out of the old shoebox, holding it in the palm of her blue-gloved hand. Steps from the doorway alerted her to the presence of Korsak, and he came and looked at the ball. "What else is in there?" he asked, gesturing at the shoebox. Wordlessly, she handed it to him and they went through it. There were news clippings about Charlotte, and not just her disappearance. There was one from the school newspaper where, as the new girl, they had interviewed her about her interests and hobbies. According to the article Charlotte had wanted to be a journalist, just like her former best friend Sally Stark had eventually become. Also in the box were many photographs of Charlotte, usually with Robbie and Rich. She looked happy, and it was clear the three of them were great friends.

"You know, Korsak," said Jane, studying the pictures, "I think if I had to pick a way to go, playing ball with my friends wouldn't be that bad."

"Yeah, but if one of us ever accidentally killed you while playing ball, it would be traumatic. I don't think anyone ever really gets over something like that."

That was certainly true. "I don't know about you, but I got a hundred questions for Robbie running through my head. Let's go talk to him."

"Good idea," replied Korsak, and they bagged up all the evidence before heading back downstairs. As Jane went, she took out her phone to text Maura and let her know what was going on.

It was already long past the time when Maura would normally have gone home for the night, but the idea of leaving without Jane was unthinkable. When Jane texted that they were bringing in Robbie Dunbar for interrogation, Maura saved her progress on the autopsy report she was working on, packed up her things, and locked her office door as she left. The rest of her night would be spent on the third floor, observing Dunbar's confession from behind the one-way glass. They wouldn't need her in her official capacity as Chief Medical Examiner, but she would definitely be crucial to the success of the investigation in her role as Jane Rizzoli's emotional support.

As soon as Jane saw her step off elevator, she excused herself from the prep work the detectives were doing and went over to wrap Maura in a warm hug. It was late enough that most people had gone home already, but Jane found she didn't give a damn about people seeing them anyway. "Hey," she said, drawing replenishment from having Maura in her arms.

"Hey," replied Maura, wrapping her arms around Jane's waist and laying her head on her chest, content to hug Jane for as long as she needed. "How did it go with Dunbar?"

"He confessed. He's ready to tell us everything."

"Do you trust him to tell the truth?"

"Yeah, I do. He could be trying to pin this on his dead brother, but instead he took ownership of it right away. I think he's been dying to confess for years. Maybe even since it happened."

"I wonder why he didn't."

"So do we," said Jane, finally pulling away from her, dropping a kiss on her forehead as she did. "Let's go find out."

Korsak, Jane and Frost all went in to the interrogation room with Dunbar, with the former two seated at the table and Frost standing near the back with his arms crossed over his chest. Maura, Sally and Henry set themselves up in the observation room, solemn and focused and ready to listen.

"Robbie, why don't you tell us what happened the day Charlotte died?" started Jane, resting her arms on the tabletop and narrowing her focus on Robbie as though they were alone in the room. "Start from the beginning. Did you plan to play softball with Charlotte after school?"

The handcuffs around Robbie's wrists clinked as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes," he replied. "We did that a lot. She would go to team practice and Rich and I would wait for her to finish, and then we would meet at the Softball Spot."

"Where did you wait?" asked Korsak.

"Different places on different days. The library, Gary's office, the football field. But most of the time we waited at the Spot, and that's what we did that day."

"Did anyone other than Charlotte know you were there?" Jane asked.

"No. You saw the path, right? It was easy to sneak over there without anyone seeing you. Anyway, we sat on the grass and did homework. While we were sitting there, we saw a bat on the wall of the school."

"A real bat, I'm assuming," said Frost. "Not a baseball bat."

"Right," confirmed Robbie. "It freaked Rich out. I thought it was funny. It flew away, but I kept messing with Rich, saying it had come back, making him look over his shoulder, that kind of thing. When Charlotte showed up, we started playing catch."

Jane pulled out one of the pictures of the Softball Spot. "Who was standing where?" They watched as he pointed out everyone's positions. Rich and Charlotte had each been standing on one of the bald spots in the grass and Robbie had been off to the side, closer to the wooded area behind the school. "Where did the ball come from?" Jane continued.

"She brought it with her from practice. It was a team ball, I guess."

"Okay," said Jane. She glanced over at Frost. "It's a long shot, but we should check with the high school, see if they have any inventory records from that time."

"I'll call tomorrow morning," said Frost.

"Thank you." Jane turned back to Robbie. "Please, continue."

Robbie was getting to the hard part. He cleared his throat. "So we started playing. I was throwing to Charlotte, her to Rich, Rich to me, and so on. None of us were wearing gloves so we weren't throwing all that hard. The sun was behind me, and I could tell it was in Charlotte's eyes because she was squinting and blinking a lot. It must have been about six PM by then and the sun was going down."

Jane noticed that he was offering details unprompted now, maybe hoping to avoid additional interruptions so he could finally get this off his chest. The details also served to further convince Jane that he was giving them the truth because he was coming up with them so quickly and effortlessly, as though he'd played them over in his mind many times. She knew Frost would be making notes on his notepad of all the little details so that they could subject Robbie to repetitive questioning later to see if he reiterated or altered them. If they remained unchanged, they were probably true.

Robbie's voice was bitter and pained as he continued his story: "Then I had the funny idea to mess with Rich some more. I pretended to see the bat again. I tried to warn Charlotte beforehand that I was kidding by winking at her, but I don't think she saw because of the sun in her eyes. So when I pointed, she turned to look too. I was laughing at Rich, and by the time I noticed Charlotte wasn't paying attention, I'd already thrown the ball.

"She… She dropped like a ton of bricks. I'd never seen anything like it before. I hadn't even thrown the ball that hard." He blinked and tears spilled out of his eyes, his voice thick and hard to understand. He was having difficulty speaking and his lungs stuttered as he drew breath, a sign that all three detectives knew meant that the tears were genuine. "One second she was looking for the stupid bat, and the next… she was dead. I could tell she was dead right away. I'd never seen a dead body before, but you can just tell, you know?"

In the observation room behind the one-way glass, the atmosphere was heavy and tense. Maura couldn't help herself. "Death would have been instantaneous for Charlotte. He would have been able to discern her complete lack of limbic control as she collapsed," she explained to the podcasters whether they liked it or not. "She probably fell in an unusual position, one that her body would naturally prevent if it were capable of doing so. And he would have instinctually, if not consciously, noticed that she wasn't breathing."

Henry stared at her in horror, but when Maura reached up to surreptitiously wipe away a tear, the horror transformed to compassion. This, he understood, was Dr. Isles's defense mechanism. He and Sally exchanged glances. Maura didn't seem to notice them at all. But when Sally reached over to touch her arm comfortingly, she glanced over at her and smiled sadly.

In the interrogation room, Jane asked softly: "Can you show us where the ball hit her?" And she stood and released him from his handcuffs. He looked at her gratefully, then raised his hand to indicate where on the head he'd hit Charlotte. It was precisely where Maura had shown them on the x-rays. "Thank you. What happened next?" She went to sit back down, leaving Robbie's wrists un-cuffed.

"What happened next?" repeated Robbie incredulously. "The world ended. The earth split apart and ate me starting with my shoes." He went silent for a long moment, and the detectives said nothing, instead waiting patiently for more. They were looking for remorse. They wanted to see if Robbie's statements in this moment of confession were going to be about Charlotte, or about himself. "It was like a nightmare. I'd killed my best friend. She was the friendliest, most beautiful person I'd ever known, and I killed her. It was unreal. I wanted to die right along with her. I wanted to walk straight in to a jail cell and rot there for the rest of my life."

Now Korsak felt it was time to intercede. "You thought about turning yourself in?"

"We ran for help as soon as our legs worked," said Robbie feverishly. "We knew she was… But we ran for help anyway. We were hoping… We wanted her back the minute she was gone."

"Do you have any idea how long you waited?"

"I don't, I'm sorry," said Robbie, shaking his head. "It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. I was in shock. As soon as I could, I ran."

"Why didn't you call someone on your cell phones?" asked Frost.

"We didn't have cell phones," Robbie replied. "My brother and I grew up in foster care. We didn't have anything. And Charlotte didn't have hers with her. Our only choice was to find help, so we ran to find it."

Jane produced a map of the school and asked him to show which direction he'd run. It turned out he and his brother had run to the truck docks because it was the quickest way in to the school, and they knew there would be adults and phones in the school. She remembered Sally saying Robbie was a genius. It seemed he also kept his head in a crisis. "That was good thinking," she said, her voice sympathetic and complimentary. "It wouldn't have made a lot of sense to run back through those woods."

"It wasn't my idea, it was Richie's." Robbie gave a bitter laugh. "He was the future military man, not me."

The lack of hubris was another good sign to Jane. Her gut was telling her that Robbie was still being truthful.

"So you ran in to the school. Then what happened?" asked Frost. They were now reaching the part of the story that was haziest to them: How Charlotte got from the Softball Spot to the floor in Gary Hopkins's office.

"Then we met Barker," said Robbie simply.

"Where?" prodded Jane, perking up with interest.

"On the ground floor, almost immediately after we got upstairs from the basement."

"And what did you say to him?"

"I told him we were playing softball and I accidentally hit Charlotte."

"Did you tell him she was dead?" asked Korsak.

"No. But we were frantic, so he knew something was really wrong. He ran with us back outside. He saw her and he laid her on her back and he tried to do CPR, but it didn't work."

Frost said, "Did he call 911?"

"No. He did take out his cell phone, but I didn't hear who he called," said Robbie.

"Why not?"

"I was puking my guts out near the forest. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't. I was just waiting there for the cops to arrest me. I couldn't see or hear anything."

"What's the next thing you remember?"

"Barker came over, and he told me and Rich to go home. So we…"

"Wait," said Jane, holding up her hand. "He told you to go home?"

"Yes," said Robbie. "He told us to go home, and not to tell anyone about what had happened until he said it was okay. He said he would handle the police."

"Robbie," sighed Jane, shaking her head in disappointment. "You had to know that was bullshit, right?"

"I did," he admitted. "But I was so broken, and I couldn't make sense of anything that was happening. And Rich was so scared for me, he begged me to go along with it. He said he'd kill himself if I went to jail. And eventually Barker called us in to his office after everyone started looking for Charlotte, and he said he'd made it so no one would ever know and we were safe, and he said if either of us said anything, he'd take away our scholarships. I wouldn't have cared, but Richie… Richie loved that school, and he was so bright, and he was all I had. I couldn't do it to him. I couldn't leave him all alone like that. He was my twin, you know? He was like the other half of me." Robbie broke in to full, deep sobs. "It killed him anyway, though. He never got over it. He used because he could never forget what I did. I killed him the same way I killed Charlotte."

For a while his sobs were the only sound in the room. The detectives waited until he was marginally calmer. Then Korsak asked: "Did Barker ever tell you what he did with the body?"

"No," answered Robbie. "I begged him to for months, but he wouldn't tell me."

"Did he ever mention that Gary Hopkins was involved?"

"Never."

"Did he ever tell you why he covered this up? Why he covered for you?" asked Frost.

"No. He refused to seriously talk about it ever again after that day in his office. Every time I brought it up, he would threaten to hurt me or Richie and shut the conversation down. I stopped asking after he punched me one day when I was pestering him. He always said the less we knew, the better."

Jane had only one more question for him. "Robbie," she said gently, "why did you keep the ball?"

Robbie looked at her with wretched, bloodshot eyes and answered: "Because, Detective Rizzoli, I don't deserve to forget what I did."