A/N- Again, sorry for the delay, had to do some tweeking, not to be confused with twerking ;-)

Everything and Nothing 11

"You alright? " Frost asked as the man before him swiped at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand.

George Harris looked curiously at Frost and nodded a little. A night in a cell had not served to make him anymore forthcoming with his account of what had happened to Sophie Whitemore.

Frost pushed a polystyrene cup of water toward the lumpy looking man. "Here."

Harris snatched at the cup and drained it quickly, each swallow clearly audible in the silent room.

"Thanks." Harris mumbled.

Allen had taken a break, she wasn't getting anywhere with this guy, her fury had made him defensive, he had closed up and she was only getting more frustrated. Now was Frost's chance. It wasn't easy playing the good cop, it was much easier to tell these guys exactly what you thought of them than it was to be understanding and empathetic. The only way it was bearable was with the knowledge that with every connection you made, trust you earnt, smile you shared, you were taking the bastard down.

"You must be getting tired." Frost commented.

"Yeah." Harris agreed. "She's relentless. " he shook his head.

"She wants to get someone for this. A young woman is dead. And you are the only way we can find out what happened to her." Frost said calmly, hoping to appeal to this guy's ego.

"I keep telling her, I didn't hurt Sophie, I wouldn't, I loved her. "

Frost raised his hand. "I get it, you thought she felt the same way about you and then she changed her mind? Dropped you?" Frost ventured.

"No, it wasn't like that, she wanted to be with me too, things were just complicated."

Frost waited for more.

"That friend she lived with, Kelly, she was poison. She was jealous, she couldn't get a man so she didn't want Sophie to be with anybody. " Harris said bitterly.

"Women do tend to stick together like that." Frost put in.

"Yeah, Sophie was a good friend, too good to that bitch. " Harris snarled. A sign that he was already opening up to Frost. Letting him see a little more of the real him.

"That bad?" Frost coaxed.

"She was always calling her, I asked Sophie out time and time again, it was always...Kelly needs me tonight, Kelly and I are going here, Kelly has a work thing she wants me to go to...she can't possibly go alone. She was too kind to say no to her. I could tell she wanted to. And then that was it, she ended it, out of nowhere. Someone had been pouring poison into her." Harris' bulky frame slumped, going from anger to self pity.

"That sounds tough, like she didn't really give you a chance." The image of Sophie's lifeless body flashed before Frosts eyes and he pushed it back.

"So you wanna tell me who was with you? You have to be pretty close to a person to do something like that together. You have to trust. A brother maybe? You have two right? We'll be talking to them next. We'll have to drag in everyone close to you, friends, neighbours, colleagues, hell, we'll speak to the guy who serves you coffee in the morning if it helps us track this guy down. We will swab each and every one. So you're not really protecting anyone." Frost lent forward as if what was saying would be contained in the gap between them, he spoke almost regretfully, as if he really felt pity for this man.

"I don't want my family dragged into this." Harris said certainly.

Frost shook his head helplessly. "You are facing a murder charge." Frost reminded. "Everybody is going to hear about it. Everyone is going to have something to say. That they always thought there was something strange about you. All the ex girlfriends come around then, scrambling to sell a story. The public eats that stuff up." Frost said somewhat sympathetically.

"I don't want all that. I didn't do anything. It's like I have been trying to tell your partner, I just went out there to see that Sophie was okay, she wouldn't normally go out alone, I was worried."

Frost could almost hear the reaction that Detective Allen would have at hearing this. Sophie didn't go out alone because she was scared, living in fear, because of this guy.

"I pulled in on the road, I didn't pull into the car park, I didn't want her to worry about seeing me. I just wanted to see she was okay on her walk. I kept well back."

Harris had already relayed most of this information to Allen but in a more defensive manner, he had let his guard drop just a little, Frost could see it, hear it in his voice. He was trying to appeal to what he had decided was Frost's better nature.

"Too far back, it turns out, the next thing I hear is a scream, the dog barking, Over and over, yapping. I figure it found a rat or a stick or something, but it was more urgent than that, not a playful kind of yap, you know? It was like an alarm and then it stopped dead. I ran toward it as fast as I could, I knew it was something bad."

"Take your time, what exactly did you see?" Frost asked patiently.

"He was leaning over Sophie, she wasn't moving, no sound, the dog was gasping, making a small high wine, lying in the leaves a few feet away. It looked like he had been kicked there. Then the man moved over to the dog and picked it up by the scruff, one hand, he was wearing gloves, I noticed that then."

Frost nodded encouragement. "That's good." He flattered.

"When he took the dog away, I could see her properly, Sophie. She was dead, I knew that. I was too late. I knew somehow, deep down, that it would come to that. I always knew we couldn't be together, that someone would always get in our way."

"You owe it to Sophie to help me find that someone." Frost said. "Can we go back to what the killer looked like?"

Frost had found his way in and even if this was a pack of lies, he had established some kind of rapport, they would talk and talk now until thd truth came out.

Xxxx

Maura's eyes tripped over her phone again, had she heard a message tone? Probably not, it had only been moments since she had last checked. She glared at the cell spitefully before crossing and pushing it into a drawer, out of sight.

Maura returned to her samples, she needed to focus. Maura had heard of game playing, who hadn't? She would sometimes walk into the breakroom on two of her colleague's discussing their mates. She was familiar with the common phrases and terminology. "Playing hard to get." "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." "Treat them mean, keep them keen." She had never applied them to her own relationships. She had always firmly believed in being honest and direct. It had always seemed to her to be the most expedient and mutually gratifying way to conduct her relationships.

"Give them just enough to keep em coming back for more."

How much was that? Maura wanted to ask. Could you be more specific, could somebody quantify it? Could she be directed to a formula, an equation?

But now, here she was, longing to speak to Jane, in dire need of some real answers.

Commitment phobe. Maura had heard this diagnosis banded about on occasions too numerous to mention. A phobia is often a very serious, debilitating condition that can effect sufferers profoundly. In Maura's opinion, diagnosing a partner of this through a questionnaire in cosmo was unhelpful and often gave women false hope that someone who just wasn't interested in them would somehow overcome their fear and become marriage material overnight.

Fear of intimacy. That was another of the amateur psychologists favourites. How could Maura ever apply a term like that to Jane when she had shared moments that were far more intimate than anything Maura had ever shared with anyone else.

All this second guessing was getting to Maura, she felt she was holding back what she really wanted to say to Jane and denying that part of herself that Jane had made clear was one of her most attractive traits, her honesty, her no nonsense attitude, she had always been direct. So who was the one who was afraid?

"Dr Isles?"

Maura had been so engrossed in her task and in thoughts of Jane, that she hadn't noticed anyone enter the lab, she looked out through her goggles, to find a sheepish looking Detective in her doorway.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you." Allen began.

Maura hated when people used this phrase, as they so often did. It was a blatant lie, if people didn't mean to disturb you, they wouldn't knock or call your name or even come in search of you in the first place. Allen had absolutely set out to disturb Maura. Maura peeled the goggles from her face and turned a questioning look on the red head.

Maura missed Seargant Korsak, he had always been a stable, paternal influence for Maura, but more than that, Maura felt that he was the only other person who understood Jane as well as she did. Frost was getting there and Frankie tried his best but he would never be able to get away from the fact that he was her little brother, family can seldom be objective when it comes to their own relations.

Allen moved a little awkwardly into the room. "I am sorry I got so worked up earlier." She began. "This case has really gotten under my skin, I am not normally so..."

Insulting? Impatient? Rude? Maura didn't find out, instead Detective Allen looked guiltily at her feet and took one step closer.

"To be honest I feel a little like I am trying to live up to the ghost of Jane Rizzoli with this one." The redhead confessed.

Allen had Maura's interest now, she tried to conceal quite how much as she asked.

"How do you mean? Did you know Jane before? When she worked here?"

"I didn't know her, but everyone knew of her. Especially the women. Not every woman makes a name for herself in BPD, even now...how many women are in homicide? She had a reputation. The women I work with, half of them wanted to be her, the other half wanted to be with her." Allen explained with a wry smile.

Maura was desperate to ask which half Detective Allen had belonged to. The M.E had never really considered how the women at BPD had viewed Jane. Before Allen the only women she spoke to at work were a couple of young women in the labs and only ever as their boss.

"And then?" Maura asked.

Allen shrugged. "I guess when your up on a pedestal you have a way to fall. A lot of the girls took it personally when she messed up, letting the side down. But she had a lot of sympathy too, most of us saw it for what it was...a whitch hunt."

"I don't believe Jane felt very supported at the time." Maura mentioned.

Allen squirmed a little under the straightforward accusation in the Doctor's words.

"Rizzoli wasn't... isn't the most approachable of people, I guess no one felt it was their place, and people want to keep their heads down, especially when families like the Carltons are involved." Allen admitted.

Maura frowned. She hated the thought that Jane had faced so much injustice, that no one, save sergeant Korsak, had bothered to put their neck on the line for her. Maura felt strongly that if she had been here, even without knowing Jane the way she did now, she would have spoken out. Maura was not afraid of men with money.

"I'm sorry." Allen said now, backing up a little as she noticed Maura's irritation. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought it up. I just didn't imagine when I was given this case that I would be almost working with Jane Rizzoli. "

"Jane is not working this case." Maura said quickly. "She has recently worked with Homicide as a consultant but she is not currently employed here."

"I know that. I'm just not convinced that she does." Allen said, not unkindly. "Look Dr Isles, I don't know what your relationship with Jane is, but whatever it is I hope that it won't get in the way of you and I working together. I know I am not Jane and I'm not trying to be."

"I appreciate your candour Detective Allen and I'm sure we can work sufficiently well together." Maura agreed.

Detective Allen seemed to be lingering. "I was also kind of hoping that we could be friends..." She began awkwardly.

Maura was a little taken a back. She had colleagues that she was friendly with, she had Jane, but the idea of a friend was something a little foreign to her. There had been a young woman, Susie Chang, who had invited Maura for a drink after work but Maura had been busy and felt it a little inappropriate due to their employer/employee status.

"Friends...?" Maura tried the word out.

"Friends." Allen confirmed, her confidence growing a little.

"I think I ...I am not really one for girl talk..." Maura said doubtfully, colouring a liitle as she recalled some of the instances that she had tried to get involved with conversations between groups of potential female friends. Maura found it much easier to communicate with men, it was as if women had their own secret language that Maura was not privy too.

"Well, we can work around that." Allen assured happily.

Jane had caught up with some sleep before she started her research, she wanted to find out more about the group that had been sending threats to Paul Adler. Fair Fight. A search found them right away, they were on twitter, facebook and Jane signed up to their blog.

The group seemed to be angry about everything, and there was plenty to get angry about, Jane realised. From chinese smog to saving the Artic, logging in the Congo and general raging against corporate greed. Jane signed a few petitions before logging into a chat room.

Jane mostly watched the other conversations in the room, adding comments here and there. There was a lot of buzz about an up and coming protest outside a large medical device making factory in Maine where workers were being paid less than the prevailing wage and were then being dismissed if they made any complaint. There was a lot of complaint and outrage but Jane didn't see any signs of the same kind of threats that had been made to Paul Adler. She decided she may have to get a little more acquainted with the group if she was going to rule them out of having anything to do with his death and she felt like she owed it to Jennifer to do at least that.

Jane shut down the laptop and got herself ready to sleep. This was the moment she dreaded, the time in her day that she missed Maura the most. It had only been a few days since Jane had seen her Doctor but it felt longer and rather than getting easier to deal with it seemed only to get harder. It was going to be a long night, Jane realised as she struggled to get comfortable.

A/N- Sorry if there are more mistakes than usual but I wrote this on the tablet which is a pain to use! I promise that the next chapter will contain some Jane and Maura interaction. Thanks all xx