A/N: Sorry for the massive delay in posting. Let me know what you think of this chapter. Hopefully I'll have another one for you lovely people in a day or so. As always, reviews are hugely appreciated. Peace.

Jane flexed her hand, wincing as the motion tugged at her swollen fist and pulled at where the unsub's teeth had split the skin of her knuckles. Though it had felt great to punch the bastard four times, now that agony was throbbing through her hand she was regretting the move. She hissed as the paramedic applied antiseptic to each cut, and then proceeded to bind her knuckles with a tight bandage.

When she had returned to the rest of her team, the police presence had doubled. Two ambulances had arrived and a group of firefighters were still attempting to extinguish the burning meth lab. It was an almighty mess. On top of that, Jane had found she was in a fairly significant amount of pain now that the adrenaline of the chase had worn off. Indeed, as soon as Korsak had clapped eyes on her, he'd immediately hustled her into the care of a waiting EMT.

The paramedic had wanted to take her to hospital, but Jane had refused him. She didn't need the hassle, and she sure as hell didn't need the medical bills. Instead, she was being treated in the back of one of the ambulances. It was cramped and smelt – like everything did – of smoke and burning chemicals. Though they had retreated a safe distance from the fire, the fumes seemed to be all-encompassing.

"Where else are you hurt, detective?" The paramedic asked. He had kind eyes.

Jane shrugged, unsure where to start. Her movement drew his attention to the burn on her shoulder.

"Shirt off," he ordered brusquely.

Too tired to care about modesty, she complied.

"Jesus!" Jane exclaimed when she looked down and saw an enormous bruise blossoming across the right side of her ribcage. It was already beginning to turn a nasty purple colour. She vaguely remembered the unsub smacking her in the side with his knee, but she hadn't thought for a moment that it would have done quite so much damage.

The paramedic scrutinised the contusion sceptically. "Does it hurt to breathe?"

Jane shook her head, and tried not to swear out loud as the man gently prodded her ribs. He pressed the cold metal of a stethoscope to her side and told her to inhale deeply.

"Doesn't sound like anything's gone too awry. You might have cracked a rib, but there's not much we can do about that. You need to take it easy."

"I will."

"I mean it – you got off lightly tonight, detective. Usually anyone who manages to blow up a meth lab winds up dead. Aside from the explosion, those fumes are lethal. I've seen what happens to officers who go in without Hazmat suits."

"I know. I keep getting lucky."

Jane glanced down at the old injuries that littered her body, eyes lingering on the souvenirs she'd gained from Hoyt's scalpel. The EMT frowned as he followed her gaze. His stethoscope brushed the knot of pale scar tissue that stood out visibly from the vivid bruising. He did a double take as he realised what he was looking at.

"What happened?" he breathed.

"Shot." She said simply.

Jane saw him do a quick mental calculation. She knew exactly what he was thinking – she was lucky to have survived that kind of wound.

The paramedic shook himself. "Someone upstairs is clearly looking out for you, Rizzoli."

She laughed. "It's a drunken angel – I have some pretty haphazard luck."

"Still, it doesn't look like it slowed you down."

She shrugged and awkwardly waited for him to move on. Only the people closest to her had seen her gunshot scar. She was pretty certain Maura was the only one who had ever touched it. Jane remembered the doctor 'high fiving' her with her own bullet hole. Jane's heart ached – she was desperate to get back to Maura. Desperate to explain herself. Desperate to relax into the other woman's arms and forget about this night.

"Can we hurry this along?" Jane asked. "I have somewhere I need to be."

Ten minutes later, the detective hobbled away from the ambulance. Her shoulder burn was coated with some kind of salve and bound with gauze. A tight bandage strapped up her bashed knee, and limited the mobility of her leg. Finally, the paramedic had put a couple of stitches through the gash across the top of her forehead.

She limped over to where Frost and Frankie stood conversing. They watched her sympathetically as she drew close.

"How's it going?" she queried, before either of them could pose the same question to her.

"All good. Our unsub is in custody," Frost told her. "And I've sent the three Walter Whites to lock up. Narcotics'll get around to booking them in the morning."

Jane blinked. "Walter Whites?"

"You know, the Heisenburg trio? Those meth heads."

"You watch too much Breaking Bad, Frost."

"No such thing," he smiled. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?" Jane asked quickly. "I thought I'd lost you in there."

"I'm fine. I got out the back way pretty quick. I told you that shit was flammable."

"I'm sorry," she said meekly. "I just reacted. I didn't expect it to explode like that."

Frost shrugged. "Easy mistake. We got lucky though."

Jane nodded. "True."

"So, back to my question – are you okay?"

"A bit banged up," she sighed. "But it's nothing I can't handle."

In truth, her whole body was singing with pain – in spite of the paramedic's ministrations – and she couldn't wait to choke down some painkillers. Her ribs ached every time she moved, and each breath rasped painfully into her lungs. She was fortunate she'd not inhaled anymore of the gases in the lab, otherwise she'd be coughing up blood in intensive care by now. As it was, her chest simply burned. The EMT thought that would pass in a day or so.

Korsak appeared at her side. "Your phone's been going crazy," he said, passing Jane her mobile. He didn't ask her how she was – the answer was obvious.

She had three missed calls and two texts from Angela. Jane sighed, and opened the first text.

'Jane, why the hell is Maura stomping around my guest house like Dirty Harry? What did you do to her?'

Dirty Harry? Jane frowned.

The second text merely read: 'Get over here now.'

She swallowed hard. "That's not good," she murmured, not realising she'd said the words aloud. Frankie and Korsak exchanged a look, but each prudently decided not to question her. They were all too worn out and battered to deal with any new drama. Frost, on the other hand, had managed to read the first text over her shoulder. He sighed.

"Do me a favour," he said.

Jane's head jerked up. "Anything."

"I don't know what happened between you, but for God's sake, shower and change your clothes before you go tearing over there."

She met his eyes sheepishly. "Thanks."

Shaking his head ruefully, Frost gestured. "Get going. She needs you."

Not long after this exchange, Jane found that showering and changing clothes was easier said than done. The gauze taped thickly over her shoulder and upper arm made it difficult – and painful – removing her shirt. She struggled half-heartedly with the garment for a few minutes, trying very hard not to put any pressure on her burns, but the movement sent jabs of agony arcing through her ribcage. Eventually, she grabbed her kitchen scissors and cut herself out of the shirt, starting with the charred sleeve, and then hacking her way free of the rest. The trousers she was able to simply step out of. Getting out of her bra hurt more than Jane would ever have admitted, but she wasn't about to cut that.

She reached up to take down her ponytail and the tie snapped in her hand. It would rough – as though the material had been burnt.

"Oh shit," Jane breathed as she caught sight of her hair in the mirror.

The left side – the same side as her burnt shoulder – was about five inches shorter than on the right. Where the hairs hadn't been burnt clean off, they had fused together in a melted clump. It smelt awful, and looked absolutely ridiculous. Jane belatedly noticed that most of her left eyebrow was gone. She sighed heavily.

Showering turned out to be just as challenging as stripping. It was incredibly tricky trying to wash her hair with one hand, while keeping all of her bandages dry. She stood on her good leg, with her wounded knee hanging out of the stall. Half an hour later, she'd all but flooded her bathroom, but she was blessedly free of the smell of smoke, dirt, sweat and methamphetamine. Now, she simply smelt like fresh lemon verbena and indeterminate 'shampoo' fragrance.

There was nothing she could do about her missing hair, so she simply snipped away the worst of the burnt clumps, and swished the whole lot back into a damp ponytail. It took some wriggling, but she eventually managed to wheedle her bandaged knee into a form-hugging pair of skinny jeans. Putting on a bra was thankfully slightly less painful than taking one off, and Jane was sure to make sure it matched her panties. She didn't know what was waiting for her at Maura's house, but she knew she wanted to look good right down to the skin when she found out. Almost like wearing armour, she supposed. She bit her lip as she slipped into a casual, soft, dark grey button up. The shirt had full-length sleeves, which she rolled up to elbow height, ensuring that the haemostatic burn gauze was all covered. She didn't want Maura to see she was injured. She didn't want the doctor's first response to seeing her to be on any kind of medical level. Indeed, she wanted their first conversation to be all about Maura. Sharing her victory in catching the unsub could wait until Jane had at least attempted to make peace with whatever had caused the other woman to scare the shit out of Angela.

The cut on her forehead was mostly above her hairline, and it wasn't particularly noticeable. After slapping on some basic makeup, she managed to draw on a fairly convincing replacement eyebrow with kohl and eyeshadow. The limp she knew she could probably disguise, or pass off as exhaustion. Unfortunately, Jane could do nothing about her bandaged hand save try and keep it in her pocket.

Done. Ready. Let's do this, Jane thought.

The cold weather was outweighed by the effort of putting on anymore clothes, so Jane simply cranked up the heat in her car. She drove to Maura's with mounting trepidation. She wasn't sure if it was the chill in the air, or the pain in her body, or the fear rushing though her that was making her hands shake.

When she pulled up into the driveway, Angela was waiting for her. The older woman immediately climbed into the passenger seat. Jane killed the ignition. Neither spoke for a long minute.

"What did you do to your hand?" Angela finally asked.

Jane met her eyes. "I punched the guy who shot Maura."

"You got him?" her mother breathed.

The detective nodded and then glanced in the direction of the house. "How bad did I fuck up with her?"

"Badly."

"How badly?"

"I was correcting your grammar, but yes, pretty badly. She wouldn't tell me much – she was crying too hard to get the words out to begin with. But I think that might have been because she almost shot me."

"What!?" Jane exclaimed fearfully. "Maura hates guns! What was she doing?"

"She burbled something about wanting to feel safe."

Jane's heart sank. "Jesus. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, maybe a little shaken up, but it's alright. She put the gun away pretty quick after that. Mostly I just hugged her and made her some tea. What happened?"

"I think made a mistake. I got a lead and I went after it. She was scared, and I didn't listen to her."

"How so?"

"I did what I thought was best for her, but now I'm not so sure I was right. She tried to tell me and I ignored it."

Angela sighed. "Jane..."

"But I caught the guy, Ma, I caught him. Maybe I shouldn't have left Maura like that, but I finally got our perp. Surely that counts for something, right? I had to – we're free and clear now. Everything's okay. I got to be her hero."

"Being a hero isn't always catching the bad guy, Jane. Sometimes you have to do a lot more than that."

"I know," Jane said in a small voice. "I never expected things to be complicated between us – it's always been so easy, you know? And now that we've― Well. Now that we've..." She trailed off.

"The last I heard, you two were going out on a date. Please don't tell me you had sex with her and then ran off."

"Ma!" Jane burst out. "I'm not talking about my sex life with you."

"You did, didn't you? Oh Janie, you idiot. I thought I'd raised someone slightly more romantic than that."

"That's not what happened!"

Angela threw up her hands. "You're right – I don't need to know. But I do need to know that you're going to make it right with her. So get your skinny ass inside and fix whatever it is you broke."

Jane opened her mouth to protest, but her mother cut her off.

"Now. Get inside."

Jane took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. Walked to the front door. It was a much shorter distance than she'd ever noticed. Knocked twice. She sensed more than saw someone look at her through the peephole. Jane swallowed.

Maura, she thought anxiously, Let me in. Please.

The door swung open.

"You left me," Maura spat before Jane had a chance to speak. She stalked away, leaving the detective alone on the front step. Knee aching painfully, Jane followed as quickly as she could, shutting the door behind her and making her way to where Maura stood with crossed arms in the kitchen. The doctor had moved so that the kitchen counter was between them.

"Don't you understand?" the detective asked frantically. "I had to go!"

"Are you even sorry?"

"Of course I'm sorry! But did you really expect me to just leave it til morning? I had no choice, Maura, and you know it."

For want of something to do with her hands that wasn't shaking Jane by the scruff of her neck, Maura picked up the bottle of whiskey Susie had given her as a get well gift. She wasn't sure why she chose that particular article to grab from her counter, but it served as a minor distraction. She needed to give herself a moment to breathe, to try and get her thoughts into words.

"Macallan single malt – 25 years," she said to no-one in particular as she unstopped the bottle and sniffed the contents.

"Right," Jane replied, hopelessly unsure of herself. For a split second, she'd wondered if the doctor was going to throw that bottle at her. It had been hard to keep from flinching.

Instead, Maura poured a generous measure of amber liquid into her empty coffee mug. "This is a very good whiskey."

Jane's eyebrows lifted incredulously. "Maura, it's ten in the morning."

"Perfect."

She took a mouthful and rolled it around her mouth. The strength of the alcohol prickled at the underside of her tongue and warmed the back of her throat pleasantly as she leisurely swallowed it. It was nice, but it didn't help.

"Come on, Maura―"

"Jane, no. Stop." The doctor's voice quaked with suppressed rage. "Do you have any idea how I felt? How I'm still feeling? Paddy Doyle is in prison because I persuaded Hope to testify. Because of me my father is rotting behind bars. Me! Then his man breaks in to your apartment and you just leave me there! Do you have any idea of Doyle's capacity for revenge? Do you?"

"Be real – you're his daughter. No matter what you did, he'll―"

"You have no idea what you're talking about," she spat. "You're lucky I haven't got an ice pick stuck in me right now, because I'm sure Paddy would love to put one straight through my heart after what I've done to him!" Maura's chest heaved angrily as her voice suddenly lowered fiercely. "Not to mention what you did to me last night―"

"I thought you wanted that," Jane cut in hotly.

"I did! We both did! That's the whole fucking point!" Maura felt hot tears brimming against her eyelids, but she refused to let them fall. "You let us get that far― You fuck me and then you fuck off into the night on the word of a felon to go chase a ghost!"

"I―"

"There's nothing you could say that would even come close to making that acceptable," she spat.

"I got him, Maura," Jane said quietly.

That took the wind out of her. "You― You what?"

"I got him."