A/N: I had intended a nice long chapter, but then my muse took me down this path. Once again appreciate all feedback, and if we are all lucky, I will have another chapter to follow shortly.

Chapter Twelve: One Step Closer

I find the answers aren't so clear
Wish I could find a way to disappear
All these thoughts they make no sense
I find bliss in ignorance
Nothing seems to go away
Over and over again

- Linkin Park, "One Step Closer" from the album "Hybrid Theory".

When she hadn't received a reply straight away from Jane, Maura had set about keeping herself busy. She lost herself in the paperwork she finally had time to catch up on, not noticing initially that she was no longer alone. She looked up when she heard the door to her office close and noticed that the blinds on the window between the office and hall had also been closed.

Maura's eyes moved from the blinds to the tall Italian woman standing arms crossed across her chest and let out an exasperated sigh. Detective Rossi was the one Italian woman she didn't want to be seeing in her office. "Detective?" her tone professional.

"A transfer Maura, seriously?" Valentina's voice was choked with varying emotion, caught somewhere between anger and sadness. She had come straight down to the morgue after being told by Lieutenant Martinelli that he had no choice but to transfer her out of homicide.

"I did not instigate the request." Maura spoke calmly; in her mind she had been forced into playing the hand she had been dealt. Valentina had given her no choice by making the differences between them so clear to everyone they worked with.

"So telling my boss that it was you or me isn't instigation?" Rossi fought hard to maintain her composure, as all the feelings of anger and resentment and a love that now bordered on hatred bubbled under the surface.

"I did not have a choice in the matter detective. I was presented with an order to talk things through with you. I did not see this as an option that would have a positive outcome for either of us." She paused for a moment searching the face of her ex-lover for any shift in emotion, "You have made it abundantly clear that you have nothing constructive to say to me."

Rossi slammed her palms down on Maura's desk and leaned forward with a piercing gaze. "No Maura, I have so much to say to you." She pushed back angrily from the desk and started pacing the room, fully aware that Maura followed her every movement with calm eyes. Swinging back around to face the Medical Examiner she hissed, "How the hell can you just erase everything we had like it meant nothing to you?"

"How could you accuse me of infidelity?" Her words were accusatory, but her tone remained pleasantly calm, which she knew would only infuriate Rossi more, but she couldn't allow the woman to force her into revealing any real depth of emotion, it would bring her undone.

"What exactly do you call what I walked in on Maura? You were in her arms and you were so damn comfortable." Her anger was moments from erupting, but as usual she didn't care. She had things she needed to say and damn if Maura wasn't going to take her damn medicine and listen.

"If you had thought to use more than just your visual sensory you would have heard what she was telling me." Maura maintained eye contact wanting to be very sure that Valentina paid attention to the next thing she was going to say. "Jane was doing the honourable thing and stepping down from any potential contest for my affections. She was choosing to respect our relationship Valentina."

"Bullshit." She spat vehemently, "You don't hold a woman like that if your intention is respect for their relationship."

"She acted more honourably than you did." While still calm, there was a little more force expelled with this statement. Standing she made it clear that in her mind the conversation was over. "Go back to work Detective, or packing up your desk, whatever it is you are required to do." She hadn't meant to, but there was venom in her final sentence.

The eruption of anger came with arms sliding across Maura's desk, sending everything flying across the room. The laptop slammed surprisingly hard into the wall beside the desk, while papers from file folders fluttered to the floor. "After everything I did for you?" Her voice getting louder until she was almost yelling, "How damn cold hearted are you?"

Maura involuntarily flinched when the laptop crashed against the wall, but she quickly regained her composure and stalked out from behind her desk and pressed an index finger into Rossi's sternum, "Get out."

Rossi grabbed her wrist and pulled the hand away from her chest. Her grip remained tight as she stepped in closer to the Medical Examiner, forcing her arm to bend at the elbow. Her other hand flashed out and grabbed Maura's other wrist, forcing it into the same position, so that she now held both arms between her and the pathologist. "God, I should have listened to him, he told me not to fall in love with you." She had spat the words out bitterly before realising her stupidity. She dropped Maura's hands and retreated quickly for the door, "Forget it, I'm fucking done."

Him. One word and Maura's brain started putting things together in ways she had never wanted to. Part of her wanted to stop Rossi so she could question her further, but she knew that for once in her life she would have to trust what her intestines had to tell her. Besides, an educated guess wasn't really a guess was it?

The buzzing of her phone brought her attention back to reality and away from her disturbed thoughts. Kneeling down beside her desk she dug through the mess of papers and found her cell phone. Reading Jane's reply she wanted to smile, but she couldn't. There was now so much more that needed to be discussed and she felt sick about it. Because if her hypothesis was correct, she had allowed herself to fall for a woman her father had manipulated into her life. Forgive me, Jane.