Jane and Maura sat in a large room with Frost, Korsak, Dean, Enderlene and Cleaver watching a feed from the interview room that had been set up by the FBI within the Medical examiners office. Rodriguez and the FBI medical examiner Anderson, were conducting the interviews with five potential criminologists for the Boston lab. Rodriguez was acting as the administrative manager of the Chief Medical Examiners Office, and Enderlene was acting the Chief Criminologist. They were conscious that the perp, if they had lured him out, was highly intelligent and well versed in lab procedure, and would likely see quickly through anyone lacking technical knowledge, leaving Anderson the only real option to add to Rodriguez to get some technical heft.

After looking at dozens of applications, they had three they were sure were genuine applicants, one they thought had a high chance of being their man, and one which they hadn't been able to exclude. Jane yawned as she watched them go through the motions with the second of the unfortunate bona fide criminologists who was unaware there was no actual job. They had spent ages trying to make this look as genuine as possible, and having a couple of nervous applicants in the wait-room seemed essential. Rodriquez and Anderson seemed to be settling in to their roles as the second interview went on. Jane looked at her watch. Five minutes until they were due to interview the possible. That meant the probable should be turning up soon if they were correct in their assessment of the application information. Jane paced around the room. On the one hand she hoped there was not someone targeting Maura. On the other hand, if this bastard did, she just wanted him to turn up and get him now.

Dean's phone buzzed quietly and he looked up at the room.

"Survelliance staff outside think they have just sighted our man entering the building. They have photographs they're sending for facial recognition"

Jane looked back to the interview room where she saw that Rodriguez and Anderson were politely showing the current candidate to the door. Mr Probable was certainly very punctual – 35 minutes until his interview was due. That said, with parking outside the BPD, better to err on the side of caution if you're a methodical, organised serial killer trying to land your job Jane thought, before wryly shrugging at the bizzare thought process behind that.

She was jerked from her thinking by Dean quietly confirming that facial recognition software showed a high probability match between the photos taken by the surveillance officers outside and emailed to Dean, and the stills they had previously made from security footage from the other labs.

Jane felt the tension move up in the room. Fifteen minutes of watching the now Not-Mr-Possible being interviewed.

The plan for the day had been that Rodriguez and Anderson knew that the third interview was a possible, fourth a probable. They weren't wearing wires, and had decided they would appear more natural if they knew nothing more about whether the facial recognition was a match or not – they were just to continue the interview process as scripted. And to try and get any further contact details they could from the candidate. The surveillance team outside would tail him as he left, unless Dean gave orders otherwise. At the current time they had tenuous circumstantial evidence only. Despite everyone's frustration, they all agreed if they pulled him in now, unless they got him to crack, they would have to release him and then he would go to ground. Hopefully being able to observe him a little, and have Enderlene's interview prompts delivered by the team, they could get some sense of him, and thus what they might do next as an in. And the surveillance may net some useful information. Jane was highly hesitant about Maura remaining out there as a lure, but accepted the logic that he wouldn't meet Maura yet, and that not only were BPD following Maura from their end, but the FBI would now be tailing him 24/7 from their end. In theory, whilst he would be moving closer to Maura, now they had a quarry, the risk to her should be reduced by being a known rather than an unknown. But still.

They watched as Anderson and Rodriguez showed out the third candidate, and met briefly to purportedly discuss the candidate. They then went back out to invite Mr Probable in. Back in the observation room, they nodded tersely to each other. This was their man, unless the hypothesis about the changing identities was the oddest, most inexplicable set of coincidences. Jane saw Dean fire a message off before settling down to stare at the screen with the rest of them. She imagined the message was to Marcia Grey who would now be authorised to chase any piece of data she could mine from any of the links on the CV that "Jarrod Gilbert" had submitted. They imagined the references would be fake, and somehow linked back to him so he could provide them himself. She would be trying to hunt down anything that might give away his true identity, or any other mistake he'd left in cyber space.

Back in the room they watched avidly. Nothing about his demeanor in the interview would have tipped off anyone unaware of the situation to anything unusual about this applicant. He looked exceptionally well prepared. He responded with clear evidence of having read up about Maura's academic interests when asked about reasons he might want to work in this lab, but kept his demeanor calm and unconcerned when discussing her. Jane knew Maura would be sitting looking for micro-tells in his behaviour, and would go back through the video later in slow motion for anything she couldn't pick up from the real time feed. Jane meantime just sat there using "gut instinct". And her instinct was this guy was top of his game. And he looked like just the person you'd want to employ for the job. Rodriguez asked him about reasons he was motivated to do the job, a question scripted by Enderlene. He talked generally about finding answers for victims, and speaking for those that couldn't speak for themselves. She then asked about anything in his early life that might have motivated him to follow this path, but he politely described nothing beyond a strong interest in police procedurals in his teens and a love of science.

Anderson was doing a great job of throwing in technical questions – on one occasion as they got in to an enthusiastic discussion on different suppliers of gels for running electrophoresis, Jane became fairly convinced Anderson had momentarily gotten lost in the discussion, and forgotten why they were there. That would all help the cover story though for the FBI. And certainly confirmed their man knew his way around a lab, well.

Rodriguez looked at her watch and commented "Well Mr Gilbert, we're certainly very interested. We are likely to decide in the next 24 hours if we can call references. When would you be able to start?"

"One week? Enough time to confirm an apartment. As I said, I've been travelling for a few weeks after getting frustrated by the inefficient lab systems in my last job, so I don't need to give notice. And when I saw this job come up, it seemed a perfect opportunity to work in one of the best respected labs in the country"

"that quickly? Excellent. We really need to fill the job promptly. So where are you staying currently?"

"Just staying with some friends for a few days to do the interview, I'll get somewhere more permanent if I get the role"

"can I get a postal address perhaps for the contract, in case?"

"look, email and cell are so much easier currently, I'm not sure how much longer I can impose on my friends – I can print the contract out"

"I'm a real stickler for getting genuine ink from your signature and mine on the same page Mr Gilbert – I can't do that by email"

"Look, if you're interested in me for the job please just call me, I'm happy to drop by the office, look at the contract and sign it in front of you so you get all the ink right" he calmly smiled back.

They showed him to the door and Dean whistled quietly in the observation box "Man, he's not easily ruffled is he?".

…..

Three days later they were all meeting again.

Dean summarised "so we are 95% sure we have our man, short any definitive evidence. However, he looks like he will be near impossible to crack. Grey has gone through every possible lead off that CV. We know all of his references are not bona fide, and the emails he gives all cleverly look to come from different institutions but then route back to a series of dummy emails he controls and replies to. They are undoubtedly not emails from the institutions reported, but they also are cleverly then hidden through several different ISPs and are effectively untraceable. The phone contacts are all re-routed to burner cell phones. The qualifications are all forged, although Anderson is convinced he has extensive lab experience and probably has a bona fide qualification somewhere. And the identity Jarrod Gilbert and social security number appears to be for a boy who was lost by the foster care system aged 7, 29 years ago.

Three days of following him and we know he has rented a room at a small motel on the outskirts of Boston. A quick perusal of this room whilst we knew he was offsite has revealed a suitcase of new clothing, a few bits and pieces, but nothing of note. Thoughts?"

Rodriguez looked up "if this is our guy, he must be the most organised, conscientious serial killer we have ever followed. I still can't see how we get him"

Frost added "short of letting him attack Maura"

Jane looked around and growled at him "what a STOOOPID idea Frost, what the f*"

Korsak touched her arm "easy tiger. Frost wasn't suggesting that as an actual idea, we're just talking"

Maura cleared her throat "I've been wondering. Enderlene, what do you think would happen if we did something to unsettle his plans?"

Enderlene "like offer him the job, then withdraw the offer?"

Maura "yes, or, what if we let him get a little closer, but then made me deviate from his profile? Do you think that might upset him enough to make a mistake?"

Enderlene "maybe, if it put him off enough. What were you thinking?"

Maura "look, I'm just an ME, not a profiler. But I was wondering – he seems to target successful, apparently single female MEs right?"

Enderlene "Hmm?"

Maura "So what if we unsettled him by "

Frost "the Jane being your girlfriend thing? C'mon Maura, you know how she freaked about that last time"

As Jane glowered at Frost, Maura continued "actually Frost, I don't think that would be enough now. But I was wondering about whether I could make him re-consider it all by throwing in something he wasn't expecting at all. Like pregnancy"

Jane spluttered "Pregnancy Maur? How are you going to pull that off?"

Maura "well they have these suits available at childbirth education centres, so the dads can try on how pregnancy feels at each stage. Usually the full-term ones are the most popular, but you can get small 13 week belly and breast sets. I figured even if he has been observing me a bit of late, if I were suddenly 13 weeks pregnant, it isn't such a big thing that unless you knew me really well, you couldn't be convinced you hadn't just looked hard enough. And I was thinking that if I were meeting him and let slip I was looking forward to maternity leave in 6 months it might unsettle him for several reasons. One is I probably am not single, especially if I say my partner is as excited about the news as I am. So he has to reconsider that I'm not single, the pregnancy has caught him out, and also he will have some time pressure regarding the maternity leave. What do you think?" she looked up expectantly at the room

Enderlene replied "Maura, I think in theory it may be as good an idea as we have. It certainly moves you some distance from his usual profile"

Jane grimaced "but risky. Maura might not be good at acting pregnant. And if she is, doesn't she risk enraging him? So we then have a crazy serial killer targeting her?"

Frost "so Jane do you prefer a crazy serial killer targeting Dr Isles, or a cold, calculated, organised one"

Jane "Oh for f**ks sake Frost. Can we not put it like that?"

Dean "look, lets give that idea some thought and see what else we can come up with. Any more thoughts today?"

…..

A week later Jane was standing behind Maura in Maura's office. Maura was wearing the pregnancy suit, and a gorgeous early maternity wrap dress over the top. Jane was pushed up again Maura's back running her hands over her tummy, and up over her breasts

"oh Dr Isles, you can't imagine how much I want to make babies with you"

Maura smiled "so you want to do baby making with me Jane, or you want to have kids with me?"

Jane stilled briefly "well I like to pretend baby make with you. And gosh Maura, I wish I could genuinely make you pregnant by making love with you. Because you are so fucking sexy pregnant. I love your curves, and I, ah, I can't believe your breasts could get any more beautiful….and ah, I think you'd be a great Mum, and if you wanted, only if you wanted, I'd love to have kids with you, but ah if you didn't, I'd be good. I mean I've actually never much wanted kids before I was…um…with you, because I don't think I could ever imagine it before. Being with someone long term. Wanting ah a future and maybe a family with them. Oh man. I need to stop talking before I freak you out. Ah, what do you want Maur?". Jane finally moved her neck to look around at Maura who tilted her face back towards Jane's to make eye contact, and Jane saw the tears running down Maura's cheeks and the warm smile

Jane "umm I'm sorry Maura, I didn't mean to upset you"

Maura "Jane, I'm not upset. I am overcome with joy. I never thought I'd find anyone that would think I could be an okay parent after my experiences, given my social clumsiness, and I just love you. I'd like to take this conversation further some other time. I'm now just worried though you will want me to wear the pregnancy suit to bed and I'm not sure my loan arrangements with the childbirth class had that in mind"

Jane laughed and wiped Maura's cheek removing the tears. She nuzzled back in to her neck planting small kisses against it whilst running her hands back up Maura's rounded belly to her very full breasts.

"whoa!" Frost commented as he walked in "you guys are certainly getting in to the roles of lesbian lovers expecting a baby"

"Man Frost, do you ever knock?" Jane retorted angrily, jumping away from Maura

Frost looked them both up and down and then stared at Jane

"dammit Rizzoli, you're doing the doc aren't you? And you didn't even tell me, you sly dog"

"Respect Frost!" Jane retorted "and we're not…"

"Yes Barry, we are a couple" Maura interjected "and well done on your powers of observation"

Jane grumbled "Powers of no manners to walk before barging in to the Chief medical examiner's office you mean"

Maura smiled at him "So yes we are a couple, and very happy to be so. However it would be great if you could keep it to yourself for a little longer yet please? We were hoping to wait for all this to settle before making an announcement, and particularly, we haven't told Jane's family yet"

Frost "wow. So how long guys? I really am happy for you – I think it is wonderful news"

Jane "Frost, how about we stop gossiping like girls and get on with the job at hand"