7

A full year had passed since Maura left Boston, left the Rizzolis and Jane. Three hundred and sixty-five days of changes and breakthroughs for both women. It was a year of firsts, of laughs and heartaches, memories to never be forgotten. The world was moving on, even if they had wanted a little consistency. Maura and Jane were moving forward and away from each other, whether they wanted to or not.

Jane stood at the podium uncomfortably, she hated speeches, and it didn't help that she had to wear her uniform for this one. The last time she had been at an award ceremony, it was because she'd shot herself to save others, to save Maura. And then there had been an explosion and a young woman's untimely death. This time however, she would not be getting an award but giving it- to her younger brother.

Cavanaugh cleared his throat from behind her, she'd been standing there for an awkward amount of time without speaking. Last time she'd been there, Maura had been sitting in the audience cheering her on, but this audience was unforgiving. Frankie sat next to Angela, who beamed at her son.

"As most of you all know, the award for bravery during action is a very important award. As a recipient of this award several years ago, I know what an honor it is and I never in a million years suspected I'd be here to give it to my younger brother. While I never imagined it, I know beyond a doubt that he deserves it. Frankie has always been the strong one, always the glue that kept us all together, I guess that's what being the middle child is all about. And now he's getting his first award and I am honored to be able to give it to him, so Frankie come on up and get it."

Frankie smiled at Jane and jumped up, practically running to the stage. They hugged as Cavanaugh handed Jane the pin and Frankie the plaque that went along with it, spending the next thirty minutes taking pictures for numerous magazines and newspapers. Eventually Jane broke off from Frankie and grabbed a beer from the bar, sitting at her table next to Korsak. He smiled sadly at her.

"It's different when you're not the Rizzoli they're all talking about isn't it? When the ones you trained are outshining you."

"JANIE!" Tommy screamed as he burst through the front door. Jane was up in Maura's bedroom, in her bedroom, when she heard him. The family had taken over the house as if it had always been theirs, but the traces of Maura still remained. Jane hadn't let Angela redesign anything, the living room, dining room and kitchen set up the same as the day Maura had left. "JANIE!" Tommy yelled again.

"Yeah, Tommy, up here!" Jane screamed back. Tommy ran up the stairs two at a time, bursting into her bedroom. Jane was in the closet, trying to rearrange the mess her mother had left while she was gone. Angela felt the need to color coordinate while Jane had her own system going.

"JANE." Tommy's eyes were wide as he ran into the closet, stopping in the door frame.

"Dude, what's wrong?" Jane became alert, immediately wishing her weapon wasn't stuck in the nightstand. Tommy smiled up her, and while he seemed happy, it didn't make her any less at ease.

"Janie, you're gonna be an aunt again."

Jane smiled widely. "You and Lydia making nice again? Finally giving TJ a younger brother?"

Tommy straightened up, finally catching his breath. His smile was apparent and Jane was extremely happy that Tommy was finding happiness in his life. "No, he's getting a younger sister. I'm having a baby girl, Janie."

When Casey had come back to Boston, Jane knew she would be distancing herself from him to see where her feelings truly were. But she had never expected that the nurse she'd set up for him would end up being his wife. Yet there she was, at Casey and Leila's wedding. Leila had been excellent for Casey, he was up and walking with his prosthetics without even a limp.

The invitation in the mail had been a surprise but Casey and Leila owed Jane for their meeting and wanted her to be there to share in their special day. The only thing that made it difficult was the date. The couple had decided on a Friday evening in November, transforming a hotel ballroom into an elegant affair. Since Casey was still in recovery, the ceremony was shortened and the time made it easy for the couple to have their family and friends, but still enough that Casey wouldn't overexert himself. The problem was that Angela Rizzoli's formal catholic wedding was the next day.

It was a hectic weekend for Jane, who had agreed to be Angela's maid of honor and watch her mother marry her boss. Angela had begged Hope to send an invitation to Maura, or even call and tell her but Hope had refused, always being jealous of Mrs. Rizzoli's relationship with her daughter.

But both weddings went off without a single problem. Korsak had stood up with Cavanaugh and Jane with her mother, Frankie and Tommy and had been perfect gentlemen the whole evening, Tommy chasing after TJ who ran around like the happy toddler he was. It wasn't a large affair, Angela and Sean had found the perfect catholic chapel and then held the reception in Jane's back yard, still lit from Frost's funeral.

When the partying had been done, and Angela and Sean were ready to leave on their surprise honeymoon, Angela pulled Jane aside. She handed her daughter a huge list of reminders and chores, the top of which was the name and phone number for the woman running the cafe while she was gone. Jane smiled at her mother, and told her to go have fun, all the while grossed out knowing what her mother and boss were going to do on their honeymoon.

Frankie stood next to her as they watched their mother drive off to the airport. "Shitty weekend huh?"

"You've no idea." She stated, turning to walk back in her house.

"Jane?" Frankie called. She turned around to look at him, her hand on the door knob. "You'll have your day, I know it."

Jane smiled lovingly at her brother. "I had my chance, Frankie, I'm the one who screwed it up." Frankie shrugged, used to his sister's recent masochistic, self-loathing attitude. Jane asked him to help clean up in the morning and then disappeared back into Maura's house.

"Rizzoli." Jane mumbled into her cell. It was early, almost five in the morning when her phone rang. She wondered to herself why murder never waited for a good time, always interrupting her life at inopportune times. She tried to be quiet, her red-headed girlfriend stirring against her.

"Jane, do you want a puppy?" Korsak asked unhappily from the other end.

"Korsak? Do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, but I have to find all my animals homes before noon. So do you want a puppy?" He was unhappy, his sister was moving in with him and she was allergic to almost every animal. Korsak begrudgingly decided to give up his animals but not until the final day.

"No, Jo Friday doesn't really play well with others." Korsak grumbled on the other end. "But I know Tommy has been looking for something special to give TJ and Lydia for Christmas, if you call him, I know he'll take two puppies at least."

"Thanks for the tip Jane!" Korsak actually sounded excited to hear that he could multiple animals to a single home. And Tommy knew Lydia wanted a farm for their children. Jane hung up the phone and turned over to stare into bright green eyes.

"Did I wake you?" She asked quietly, running her hands through her girlfriend's red hair.

"Oh not at all, Jane. It was obviously the alarm I set for an un-godly hour." Jane grumbled at her girlfriend and pulled her close.

"Now I remember why I decided to date you, Tempe." She said against her girlfriend's neck.

"And here I was thinking it was my devilishly good looks." Tempe laughed at her.

Jane's family had been surprised when she brought a woman home. Yet it wasn't lost on them that she looked nothing like Maura, and had none of the same personality. They soon realized it was like having two of Jane, only one was a homicide detective and one was a yoga instructor.

Jane had taken Tempe's class, now that Maura was gone she didn't have anyone to personally teach her so she signed up for a class with Frankie. It had been Frankie who noticed Jane's attraction to the instructor and pushed her to ask Tempe out after several weeks. Tempe had been flattered and immediately said yes. Their first date was a quiet evening at Jane's home, Angela had cooked them a wonderful meal and left Jane to heat it up.

Their connection had seemed instant and both women were enjoying the company. They'd been dating for a few months and Tempe was having trouble with Jane's cell phone interrupting their sleep at all hours. So much in fact that she had spoken to Jane about it. Jane confided in her that with Frankie trying to permanently transfer to homicide a spot would be open in the drug unit. While she would still be a detective, she'd work more regular hours.

Tempe had seemed very excited at the prospect of having Jane around more often until she got the bad news. Being a detective in the drug unit meant that they often had to go undercover, and for long periods of time. Eventually though Jane did transfer over to the drug unit with Martinez, leaving Frankie, Korsak and Cavanaugh in shock. It was a depressing day for BPD's homicide unit when Jane Rizzoli voluntarily left them. But they were starting to realize that Jane was happy with Tempe, and if leaving homicide kept her that way, she'd do just that.

Summer and Maura were enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon in their Washington home. Maura had spent a lot of money installing floor to ceiling windows on two walls at the back of their home, bordering the forest. It made them feel like they were outdoors while enjoying the warmth of the sun and central heating. Summer was reading various new studies in psychology, she'd been able to find a job with the same university as Maura who had tried unsuccessfully to tell her partner she'd had nothing to do with it.

Maura was grading the recent tests on the endocrine system she'd made her students do, unable to focus. It had been almost a year since her phone call with Jane but it never got easier. Ignoring the feelings had been easier each day, getting caught up in her every day life. Teaching was taking a huge toll on her and she missed the consistency of life in Boston. And as she was flipping restlessly through the tests, to see which students provided the long, paragraph answers Maura loved to read, her engagement ring kept striking the sunlight perfectly to hit Summer's eyes.

Summer set her papers down in her lap loudly, turning to look at Maura who'd stopped at Summer's outburst. "Maur, when will you take that ring off?"

It had been a source of frustration between them for months now, Summer not quite grasping why Maura was so attached to it. But every time Maura looked at it, she saw Jane. Jane, reflected in every single facet of every single diamond around the band. They were different snapshots of her detective, naked on the bed, drying her wild curls stepping out of the shower, drinking a beer with Frankie at the Dirty Robber, interrogating a suspect, practicing at the firing range. It was Maura's menagerie of Jane Rizzoli, all the components that made her up.

Maura studied the ring in question. "It's just a ring, Summer. I really like it."

"It's your old engagement ring. It has significance, it has weight, Maura." They were quiet for a couple of minutes, letting each other's words sink in, trying to formulate responses. Maura twisted the ring on her finger fondly, it was the one piece of home she'd had left. Not only was it her direct link to Jane, but to what life in Boston had represented- family. "You miss her."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement, an admission they'd been dancing around for months. Summer could see it, when she'd stop by to bring Maura lunch and she'd sit in her newly renovated office full of Jane-like objects staring at it. "I like it, the flower, it feels like me. How I'm opening up to the world, to you." She had purposefully avoided Summer's statement.

"Maura- we both know what it means." Summer twisted her body to face Maura, her papers being displaced to the empty space. "You've been repressing your feelings for Jane the entire time we've been together, and even more so now that you're a country apart. If you could just face those feelings-"

"Stop psychoanalyzing me, Summer." Maura spat. "I'm not one of your patients, I'm your partner."

"How can we be partners if you won't let me in? If you keep hiding your true feelings from me? You refuse to even mention her name."

"You refuse to mention your husband's name." Maura said, her tone flat and unfeeling. Summer visibly tensed at the statement, she hadn't spoken to her husband since the final divorce proceedings, it felt like forever ago for them both. He'd called them filthy whores when Summer showed up to court with Maura gripping her hand, forgetting that he had been the one to cheat on her.

"I may not be able to get over certain things, Maura. D- Daniel did a lot of damage for me, he knew I was vulnerable and he took advantage of me and cheated. I am moving forward though, I tell you that I miss my old life, I'm nostalgic. But you refuse to mention anything about your old life, we left in such a hurry, you never even told me what happened when you dropped off the letters, you just cried the whole way to the airport. I'm frustrated, Maura."

When Maura said nothing in response, Summer sighed heavily, grabbed her papers and stood up. She began to move to the door when Maura reached out and grabbed her wrist. "I'm sorry." She mumbled. Maura still wouldn't make eye contact with her, instead she just stared numbly out at the forest.

"I miss Boston, I miss the life I had there. The stability of my job and that it never ceased to amaze me, the small, petty reasons people killed each other. It intrigued me, there was a puzzle that only me and my team could solve." She paused. "And yes, I miss my old family. That's what they were to me, Summer. Family. The past few years brought so much out, my biological parents, half-siblings, but the Rizzoli family was there with me through it all."

They were silent for a couple of minutes, Summer cupped Maura's cheek, happy that she was finally confiding in her. "And yes, I will admit, I even miss her. I miss, Jane. I loved her on some level since the first day I met her, I have been loving Jane Rizzoli for more than a decade of my life and she was suddenly gone. This ring is all I have left of her, of the woman who was not only my first real love, but also best friend and sister. My feelings are complicated, I can't separate the meanings most of the time. But when I see this ring, it no longer says that I am Jane Rizzoli's, instead it reminds me of who she was before, the woman I called my friend, not my fiance."

Summer finally understood the significance, it was not to remember that she had once loved Jane, Maura would always remember loving Jane. It helped her remember everything she had given up, she hadn't brought any reminders of her life in Boston like Summer had, she'd just brought that ring. The ring that would have made her a part of a family who loved and accepted her, with brothers who adored her and a protective older sister, and a best friend. Summer pulled Maura up from her chair, taking her in a deep embrace, kissing the side of her neck beneath her ear.

"I love you, Maura."

A single tear poured down Maura's cheek, she wiped it away quickly before Summer could see. "I love you too, Summer." She did not get hives, she was not lying to Summer, she truly did love her. It was the omission that killed her, she'd left Jane so far behind, she'd been so mad and hurt that she felt she could never forgive her. But she hadn't expected the terrible fits of missing her, the way her entire body felt drawn back to Boston as if her cells were telling her where she felt at home, in Jane's arms. She didn't lie to Summer, she did love her, but she would always love Jane the most.

The fog enveloped Maura as she drove through the quiet streets to her university. It was a dense fog, where all you saw was a wall of creamy white moving imperceptibly, swirling around. Some people loved the fog, while others were terrified of it- the road was full of drivers going ten miles under the speed limit. When Maura passed them she saw them hunched over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly with both hands, knuckles turning white.

But then there were the ones who loved the fog, who felt so at home swathed in a blanket they couldn't see through. Maura had lost count of how many times she'd been cut off that morning or cars speeding around her because they wanted to go ten miles above the speed limit on the winding roads.

Then there were the people like Maura, people who didn't mind the fog but saw it as a daily obstacle. For Maura, it also set the tone if the day. Her first year teaching was coming to an end, all her students had passed their tests and dissections, scored in the highest ranges for the state standardized testing and were passing her class- all of them but one.

It had pained Maura to fail this student, who tried as she might just couldn't quite grasp the anatomical structures. More often then not, she was mutilating her cadaver instead of dissecting it. She had passed all of Maura's written exams with perfect scores, while she understood the concepts presented in class, she just couldn't follow through in her lab skills. Maura had struggled through grading her final term paper (which had been excellent and received the highest marks) and was then forced to enter her final, failing grade.

Upon approaching her office in the make shift morgue, Maura saw a figure propped up against the wall, waiting. The tired ex-medical examiner sighed, she had posted final grades last night along with a notice that class was canceled for today and would instead have office hours for those who wanted to argue their grades. Maura knew exactly which student was waiting for her.

Kim had been waiting for two hours to confront Maura as to why she had failed. This was her last class of her final year of medical school and she had failed. Failing meant her residency program would not be receiving her this year- she would have to wait until she could repeat the class and hope the hospital would still take her.

Maura sighed and walked past the upset student, unlocking the doors to her morgue. She turned the lights on and headed towards her office, unlocking her office and flipping on the lights. "You can come in, Kim." Maura said as she approached her desk, stowing her purse in the bottom right drawer. Kim sat in the chair in front of Maura's desk, waiting for her professor to sit. Maura looked at her expectantly.

"Dr. Isles I don't understand why you failed me. I got perfect scores on all your written exams, you said my final paper was completely unique, something you'd never seen before!"

Maura inhaled deeply, trying to gain some control of the situation. "Kim, written tests aren't the only important things. You failed practically every dissection we had, your work brought down the grade of your partner, I had to compensate his grade."

"I don't understand."

"You can't pass the written exams and fail your dissections. You're trying to become a doctor, and you can tell me what a hypothetical patient would have but if I put a physical person in front of you, you'd misdiagnose them." Kim frowned at Maura, she could no longer afford to sugarcoat her student.

"All I've ever wanted to be was a doctor, Dr. Isles. Now I can't even do that, my life is over."

"Sometimes our life paths change unexpectedly, Kim. I dreamed of being a prima ballerina and ended up a medical examiner turned professor. Life changes, expectations change, you will need to change with it." Maura hated to tell her favorite student she would never be a doctor, the words out of her mouth were daggers aimed at both their hearts.

"You're telling me to just give up on my dreams?" Kim was heartbroken, on the verge of tears. She had really expected Maura to change her to a passing grade. The medical examiner fidgeted uneasily at her desk.

"I'm saying that you should find a new dream."

Maura watched as Kim could no longer hold back her tears and run from the office. Maura couldn't hold back either, crying heavily into her own hands, realizing that she needed to take her own advice. She turned to open the top left drawer, grabbing a Manila envelope. Pouring it's contents onto her desk, a photo strip of Jane and Maura stared back up at her. There was a card Jane had given to her on her birthday last year, she opened it to see Jane's handwriting:

Baby, it's been the best months of my life with you. I love you more than anything. So what did I get the dumbest genius I know who owns everything? Well I credited your online shopping profile, you could probably use another pair of shoes ;) I love you, Maur.

There were other memorabilia of her romance with her detective. And slowly she took them, tore them in half and watched as they floated down into the trash can. With each piece gone, it was like Maura was tearing off pieces of her own heart. But that was destined to happen, Jane was like a cancer attaching itself desperately to her heart, holding on for dear life. She cried harder with each piece in the trash can, and finally she only had one photo left.

Maura stopped crying to pick up the photostrip, it had been an unexpected trip to the mall, Angela tried selling her most recent concoction. She had called Jane to pick her up, her car having been towed because she had parked in a fire zone. Jane had had enough of her mother's antics that month but reluctantly agreed, dragging Maura with her. Maura had just made a comment about how she had no photos of the couple after their months together when Jane dragged her into the photo booth and paid the steep five dollars.

It was Maura's most prized possession, besides her engagement ring, her first photo with her detective. Ripping it was like ripping apart herself, yet she forced herself to do it, to tear through her face and Jane's. It was ripping her apart at the seams, ripping Jane apart. Her heart began to throb, the things she was forcing herself to do. She gathered the bag from the can, tying it and leaving it out in the hall in front of the morgue doors for the janitorial staff. She knew if she kept the pieces staring up at her she'd try her hardest to tape herself back together.

Also in the top left drawer was the ring box for Maura's engagement ring. This would be the hardest thing she'd done besides leave Jane in Boston. But she pried the ring off her finger, surprised at how easily it came off. When it was inside the box, she'd placed it at the very back of the drawer out her sight at all times. And once it was there, it was as if Maura's heart had completely broken.

But as she had told Kim earlier, Jane was no longer her dream, there was no longer a viable spot for them to have a future together. She was with Summer, and had been holding back on her happiness waiting for Jane. Half of her always expected to open the front door and find Jane, out of breath, hair disheveled and begging for Maura to come back- she expected Jane to fight for her. Yet Maura realized that in her own way, Jane was fighting for Maura- by letting her go, letting her decide how to move forward with her life. It was the best thing Jane could have ever done for Maura.

Maura lost control once the ring was gone, crying the hardest since the plane home from California. She was crying Jane and their love out of her system, out of her heart. After about an hour of her Rizzoli detox, and no other students had shown up, Maura locked up her office and the morgue and left the university. On her way home she picked up a bouquet of roses for Summer, red ones to match her favorite color.

It was time to do what had left Boston for, it was time to forgive and let go of Jane Rizzoli. Now she was going to fully commit herself to Summer Capshaw, a woman she was falling in love with. And the change did not go unnoticed by Summer.