Jane woke up early the next morning determined to talk to Maura. She realized that she'd royally messed up her friendship, but she was sure that if she could just talk to Maura, sober, face-to-face, they could work it out. She'd beg, Maura would forgive her, and they'd start putting the pieces back together. Last night had been horrible, but it was serving as a wake-up call, and Jane was grateful for that.

Jane chose not to think about all the other thoughts that were swirling around just outside her reach. She chose not to dwell on her possible overreaction to Maura's choices last night. She chose not to dwell on the looks on Frankie and Frost's faces last night. She chose not to dwell on why seeing her very best friend in the world, rather than her partner, in a compromising position would make her act so differently. She saw that she had very nearly destroyed her best friendship. A best friendship for the ages. She would fix the friendship. She would fix it really really well. She had to

By 7:00am, Jane was in the car. She knew it was much to early for a social call, but Maura had always been an early riser and Jane couldn't wait another second. Jane focused how Maura was totally already up so it was fine, rather than on how desperate she was to get over there, see Maura, and make this right.


Maura woke up slowly. The four consecutive hours she'd slept (all sober) was the longest uninterrupted chunk of sleep in a long time. It felt really good. She felt really good.

She shifted slightly. Oh wait. Just kidding. She felt awful. She looked around herself ruefully. She'd fallen asleep on the kitchen floor after her heart to heart with Bass, and apparently hadn't woken up to make her way to the bed. While her brain hadn't noticed her location, her back and neck certainly had. Her body screamed in protest as she tried to peel herself off the floor, taking what felt like eternity just to gather her legs under herself. WE ARE TOO OLD TO SLEEP ON THE FLOOR, her vertebrae shouted at her.

Just as she finally made it to her feet, promising her vertebrae a nice long bath, her doorbell rang. She shuffled over to the door, rubbing her shoulder and making incoherent noises of sleepy discomfort. Without bothering to check who it was, the disheveled doctor opened the door to find an eager detective.

Maura instinctively took a step backwards, her hand falling from her shoulder to hover awkwardly around her stomach. Her face froze and her entire body tensed.

Jane winced at the reaction. She had to make this right. She had to make everything go back to how it had been.

"Maura. Hi. I mean, good morning. I, um, I'm sorry to barge in like this, but I really wanted to talk to you." Jane awkwardly fiddled with her hair.

It was way too early for this. Maura wasn't ready. She didn't have her game face on, and she refused to show Jane her real face. Not anymore, not ever again.

"Jane. It's early."

"I know, Maur, I know. I'm sorry. But I'm really really sorry about last night, and I need to make it better." Desperate.

Jane's use of her nickname sent a jolt of ice water into Maura's veins. She could barely hear Jane through the rushing in her ears. Her body buzzed like she'd taken a triple espresso on an empty stomach. She was forcefully reminded of why she had to be drunk around Jane now. She physiologically could not handle Jane anymore.

Get her out. She had to get her out. Maura spun on her heel and walked into the house. Jane didn't take the hint. She quickly let herself in, closed the door, and followed Maura into the kitchen.

"Maur, look, please, let me apologize. I overreacted last night. I know I did. I'm sorry, okay?" Not the best apology ever, but Maura's weird behavior had Jane all flustered.

Maura stood at the sink, hands gripping the counter. She kept her back to Jane. "Okay." Anything to get this over with, to get Jane out of her house. Anything to keep herself in check.

Jane started to panic. Maura was completely terrifying her. "Maura,. Please." Jane was begging. It nearly broke Maura. "Please turn around and talk to me. Tell me what's going on. Please, Maur."

Don't yield don't yield don't yield. Maura had never been able to control herself around Jane. It was how Jane got in so far in the first place. It was how the loss of Jane was able to so completely derail her. Maura used to find it exciting. Now her lack of control was making Maura's hands shake. She needed a drink. She needed to take some schmuck to the bathroom and control him. She needed to be somewhere with air that wasn't so hard to breathe. She could not do this.

"Maura. You're scaring me. Please, Maur, I know I haven't been here, but I'm here now. Please." Jane walked up to Maura and placed a hand tentatively on her arm.

Maura's entire body went rigid at Jane's touch. She felt her meager control over her body and her brain and her mouth stretched to the limit, like an old rubber band one second away from snapping completely.

"Maur, you're my best friend. I need you to talk to me."

Snap.

Control shattered, decorum shattered. Only anger, rage, fear, self-loathing, self-preservation, and a desperate all-consuming need for control remained in Maura, vying for dominance. She whirled around and Jane actually recoiled at the emotion in her face.

"You need? YOU need? You need me, Jane? Is that it? You need me to be here for you? Is that what you need, Jane?" Maura spat out the words, fists clenched at her sides, eyes flashing with pent-up everything.

Jane took a step backward.

Maura took a step forward.

"So now I'm your best friend again, because you need something from me?"

"Maur, you've always been my—"

"NO. Don't you…" Maura's voice broke on the explicative as she shouted. "Don't you fucking dare to tell me that I've always been your best friend, that you've always been here for me. Don't you fucking dare to barge into my house first thing in the morning and lie to my fucking face, Jane Rizzoli. Don't you fucking dare."

Jane's brain couldn't process. She was crying and she didn't know it. She was shaking and she couldn't stop. This couldn't be happening. Maura was supposed to forgive her. Jane was supposed to beg for a while longer and prove herself and then Maura was supposed to come around. Jane was absolutely stunned by Maura's pain and fury. She was paralyzed by Maura's tears. All she could do was stand there, rooted to the ground, and watch as her best friend in the world started coming apart in front of her. Because of her.

"You have been NOTHING to me, Jane. For months you have been nothing. You've been too busy fucking Casey to be anything to me. So how dare you insult me by telling me that you've always been here, that nothing's changed. Stop lying to me, Jane, and stop lying to yourself." Maura took a dismissive step backwards. "Go back to your fucking boyfriend and leave me alone."

Jane reached out, not quite touching. "Maura, please. I know that I haven't been here for you. I didn't mean to do it, I promise, it just happened."

That was the wrong thing to say. Jane hadn't thought Maura's face could have gotten any worse, but somehow it became both more angry and more heartbreakingly tragic.

"It just happened, Jane?" Maura advanced on her again, shouting incredulously. "You think about me that little, that you could just completely abandon me and not even notice?"

Jane took an involuntary step back. "No! Maura, no! That's not what—"

Maura looked her directly in the eye, a calm fury swirling inside her. Jane felt like a rabbit caught in basilisk's gaze. Maura spoke quietly and carefully. "Fuck you, Jane." A beat. "I'm done with this. I'm done with you. I'm done trying to deal with your bullshit. Please get out of my home."

Something happened inside of Jane. She finally saw through the fury and realized that sad-small-Maura was behind the scenes, controlling everything. Like seeing the Wizard behind the curtain, Jane saw the rage as the façade that it was. For the first of four times that day, Jane felt her heart break. She took a step towards Maura and reached out her hand.

"Maura," she said softly. "What happened? What are you doing? Why are you so sad?"

No no no no no no no no. Maura swatted her hand away."Don't. Don't pity me, Jane. Get out." She cursed herself for the tremble she heard in her voice.

Jane was unrelenting. "Maura." Still soft. "Please. Talk to me, honey. What's going on? What were you doing last night?"

Maura absolutely shattered. She couldn't hear Jane call her "honey" like she was hurt and Jane was going to fix it. Like Jane loved her. Like Jane had any fucking clue. Jane would never love her. Jane would never heal her. She was too broken, too fucked up. Once Jane knew what she was really like, she'd be gone. Again.

Jane had to leave. Jane had to get out. This could not be prolonged another second. And the only way to get her out was to finally show her real Maura. Real horrible disgusting broken Maura. And then Jane would finally leave, forever, and Maura could start being alone again.

Jane started at the way the angry veil snapped back over sad-small-Maura.

"You want to know, Jane? You want to really know? Last night I was—God, I was just fucking trying to cope with being alone again. That's what I've had to do every single night for the last three months, Jane. Last night, like every fucking night, I was alone because you walked out on me. You replaced me with Casey. You replaced me like everyone else in the entire fucking world has replaced me. But you, Jane, God," she balled her hands into fists and pressed them against her eyes for a moment. "You'd promised that you wouldn't. You promised me that you were different, that you'd always be there for me. And I—I fucking believed you. I knew better, I knew I shouldn't have believed you. But I did. And I let you in, and I let myself believe in what we had. And I forgot what it was like, to be abandoned. And then you fucking left. You left me, Jane, and then I remembered.

"I remembered why I never trusted anyone. Why I never believed anyone. Because this, Jane, this was worse than I'd imagined. You were everything, Jane, and then there was nothing. And you know what the worst part of it was? Every other time, I'd done something wrong. I hadn't been smart enough, or good enough, or sexy enough, or funny enough. I'd pushed them away or didn't try hard enough. But with you? With you I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything, Jane. I didn't deserve to be left. But you left me anyway. You fucking walked out on me and I didn't do anything." A tear escaped and she furiously brushed it away.

"I will never let anyone do that to me again. I will never." Her voice caught, but she pressed on. "I will never lose control over myself and my life like that again. So you want to know what I've been doing, Jane? I've been seizing control of my life. I gave you too much power over me and so I've been getting it back. I can't make you come around anymore, but you know what, there are plenty of people desperate to be around me. To come around me. So yeah, I was going to fuck that guy last night. I've fucked a lot of guys, Jane. And I haven't always been safe and I haven't ever been sober, and most of the time it was terrible and some of the times it was too rough, but it was my choice." She stabbed her own chest with her finger, over and over, hard enough to leave a tiny bruise. "It was my fucking choice, Jane. I own myself, I'm only beholden to myself. You don't have any hold on me anymore."

"That's what I was doing last night. That's what I've been doing every fucking night while you've been off with Captain America." A pause where they just stared at each other. And then, quietly, "And now you can get the fuck out of my house." Maura spun back around and faced the sink again. Tears were pouring down her face and her pulse was racing and she was pretty sure she was going to vomit. Or pass out. She just waited for the sound of Jane's retreating footsteps, evidence of her inexorable revulsion, so that she could break down alone. Again.

Jane had never listened to anything more intently in her life. Not to a murder confession, not to Hoyt's description of how he was going to kill her. She filed away every sentence to be looked at later, especially the ones that screamed at her to take action. But right now, at this second, she was finally able to see past the words and see what Maura really needed. Maura needed her best friend. Not a lover, not a parent, not a friend who possibly had some confusing other feelings swirling around. Maura needed her best friend. Maura needed Jane to stay. Maura needed Jane to prove that she would stay.

"Maur." Jane put a hand on Maura's shoulder.

It was too much to bear.

Maura spun back around, one last futile attempt to control the situation. But it was too much. She screamed, actually screamed, as she slowly collapsed. "DON'T TOUCH ME. JUST GET OUT. JUST GET AWAY FROM ME." Her legs seemed to give out under her. She just managed to turn her back on Jane as she crumpled in the corner of the kitchen, huddled on her toes with her knees hugged in close to her chest. She wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed. "Just get out."

Jane's heart broke for the second time. She didn't touch Maura again. She put her back against the cabinets and slid down them, coming to rest on the floor next to Maura. She tucked her knees up to her own chest, and sat, trembling.

For a long time, Maura cried uncontrollably into her knees. Jane sat next to her, hands carefully folded in her lap, and told Maura everything she could think of. In a soft and comforting voice, she told Maura about her softball game the last week. She talked about how hard it was to teach Jo Friday anything. She described the ways Stanley kept trying to screw her mother out of tips. She had an irrational fear that if she stopped speaking for even one second, Maura would think she was gone. So she barely even breathed as she spoke nonsense into the doctor's back.

Finally Maura's sobs subsided. She just crouched there, head hanging, breathing deep shuddering breaths. Jane started telling her the important things. She told Maura about how much she loved her. She told Maura that the last three months had been a huge mistake, possibly the worst in her life. She talked about how their friendship meant everything, and how she'd spend every day for the rest of forever proving that. She told Maura that no matter what Maura had done, and no matter what she was thinking, Jane wouldn't leave her again.

Maura's legs started to cramp and tremble under her. Very gently, Jane helped her rock back onto her bottom and lean against the counters before bringing her own hands back into her lap. She didn't look up, but then again, Jane wasn't expecting her to.

"Maura, look. I know that I destroyed what we had together. I know that what we had was special and important and miraculous. I know that I took it for granted and I abused it. I know that I hurt you. I know that you blame me and hate me for what I did. I know that I deserve that. But I also know something else. I know that I am the most stubborn person I have ever met. And I know that you know that too. So I know that a part of you is going to believe me when I tell you that I will never give up on trying to make this right."

"I understand that you never want to speak to me or see me again. I understand that you're sure you'll never trust me again. But Maur, I swear to you that I'm going to be here. From now on, forever, I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to be the best friend you deserve. I'm going to prove to you that these last few months, they were the anomoly. They were the mistake, the fuck-up. They weren't what's real for us. The real thing, Maur, is what we had before, and especially what comes now."

"Maur, if you don't want me inside the house with you, I'll be outside. Every morning I'll leave coffee and organic fruiffy yogurt on your desk. Every day at lunch I'll bring you kale, or kombucha, or whatever new thing people have decided is amazing for you even though it tastes super weird. And every night I'll make sure you have dinner and that you leave work at a reasonable time. And every single night I'll invite you over for Chinese food and a documentary about bird watching, or microbes, or whatever. Even if you never come, Maura, I'll invite you every night. And I'll run background checks on everyone you go out with, and I'll hate both of your mothers on principle and I'll do my best to keep my mother out of your hair. I don't know if unrequited best-friendship is a thing, but I'm making it a thing.

"Maur, I'm not going to leave you again. You're my best friend, and the most important person in my life. And that hasn't changed, and it won't change, no matter what you tell me or how much you yell at me. I love you Maur, and I know I fucked up, but I'm here now. And I'll be here. For the long haul, Maur, I'm here."

Maura had been listening. She didn't trust Jane, she couldn't. But she'd listened.

"I—I don't…" Her head fell back to her knees. She was so tired. She couldn't process anything anymore.

"Maur, I know you're exhausted. Why don't you go upstairs and take a long nap, okay? I'll be here when you wake up."

"No, Jane…" Jane could tell she was protesting for the principle of it, not because she wasn't about to fall on her face. No one, not even Maura Isles, could handle this much emotion before 9am. Especially without coffee.

"Maura, sweetie, you're exhausted. Go on up, set an alarm for two hours from now, nap and shower. I'll have lunch ready when you're done, okay?"

"Please, don't."

"Maura." Jane found her eyes for the first time. She looked intently into them, channeling her commitment and presence into her gaze. "I know I abandoned you. I don't know how to make that right other than by being here. So if you think of something specific I can do to prove to you that I'm here again, just tell me what it is and I'll do it. I'll do anything. Whatever you want, I can do it. But until you figure out what that is, I'm just gonna be here. So go on and take a nap. I'll be here."

Maura didn't trust Jane. But she also didn't trust herself. A small voice had been growing in her head while she had tried to burrow into the kitchen floor. The voice was telling her that she shouldn't trust her own instincts. That she had completely lost her shit a while ago, and that she needed to dig herself out of this desperately destructive spiral she was in. That she needed to make a really serious change. And that she wanted to be with Jane so badly. That maybe she should, very very carefully, take hold of the lifeline that Jane had just placed in her open hand. That even though trust had been what destroyed her, it might be the only thing that could heal her.

But it was all too much. Maura slowly nodded to herself, to Jane, and to Bass, who'd watched the past hour unfold with an indifferent eye. She slowly peeled herself off the floor and, without looking at Jane, headed upstairs.