"I don't know how we are going to get everything back without a car." Maura frowned at a rapidly growing pile of suitcases and boxes accumulating on the porch. "And I haven't even emptied the refrigerator yet."

She drew her brows together, tapping her finger against her lips in deep thought.

"Let's load everything into the kayak and we can carry it between us."

"No, babe, leave the freakin' kayak. I will carry everything like a pack mule. I'm the ass who left the truck across the Sound, so I'll be the ass who hauls the burden. If I can carry you, I'm sure I can manage to carry your suitcases."

Maura smirked. "I'm certain my luggage weighs more than I do."

Jane wasn't paying attention. She was staring out across the pine scrub where the late afternoon sun glanced off the ocean. Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides.

"Jane, what's wrong? Don't say, 'nothing.' I can tell by your posture that you're agitated."

"Nope, not agitated at all. Just sad to be leaving."

Maura stepped in front of her and looked up into her huge dark eyes, her own narrowed in absolute concentration.

"You're hiding something, Jane."

"I'm not, but if you keep looking at me like that, there will be no hiding the wet stain in my jeans."

"Don't try to distract me with sex. Your eyes keep moving to the left which is a clear sign that you are trying to make something up to deflect from the real issue and your blinking has slowed."

"Which…," Jane interrupted, "is a clear sign of sincerity."

"Unless…," Maura countered, "the suspect in question knows the sign and is purposely refraining from blinking, hence the tension in her orbicularis oculi and the outright twitch in her temporalis."

Jane sighed. "Get me a beer, Maur. C'mon it will be one less thing to carry."

"We are not carrying all that beer onto the ferry, Jane. It can wait here, safe and sound until you return at a later date to drink it."

"It will get skunky. There's nothing worse than a skunky beer. Blech."

She shuddered. Maura rolled her eyes, but stepped into the kitchen to get the requested beverage.

"The patented Rizzoli eye roll. " Jane said to her disappearing back. "I guess you learned that by osmosis."

The doctor spun around, looking smug.

"The movement of soluble particles through a permeable membrane with the goal of equalizing the distribution of said particles throughout the solution?"

"It's a saying, Maur."

"A highly inaccurate and patently impossible saying. It does a disservice to both science and the English language."

Jane waved her toward the door. "Just get my beer, Stephen Hawking."

"Stephen Hawking is a theoretical physicist, Jane. Osmosis is a biological process."

"Science plus English. I thought it was a pretty witty choice for something I just pulled out of my ass."

The doctor wrinkled her nose and slowly waggled her hand in the universal gesture of mediocrity.

"Beer, Maura." Jane rasped, swatting the curvy, denim-clad ass as it finally disappeared into the kitchen.

"Everyone's a fuckin' comedian." She muttered. "I'm the funny one in this relationship. Remember that, Dr. Isles."

Bickering with Maura relaxed her. It felt so normal, reminded her that Maura was still her best friend despite the new and extremely satisfying path they had begun to walk together this weekend. She was in love with Maura, but what did that mean for the rest of her life back in Boston?

She had never been in love, but she was old enough to know that love did not, in fact, conquer all.

Would Maura want me to live with her?

She couldn't imagine sleeping apart from the doctor ever again, not only in a sexual manner, but because she would physically ache as for a missing limb if she couldn't reach across and feel the heat coming off of her mate or listen to her soft whistly breathing as she slept.

But Maura is so persnickety with her home and her things, and she might not want me there with my tacky taste and sloppy ways.

She imagined going home several nights a week to her messy apartment and drinking beer on the couch with Jo. The image that would have seemed the height of relaxation, having an evening alone, now seemed sad and lonely. She'd lie awake all night staring at the unmoving blades of her ceiling fan and brood.

I want a home with Maura. Maura is home. Maybe Maura would want a family. A big, noisy bunch of rowdy Rizzolis to make up for her own solitary childhood. We're probably too old, but maybe we could adopt some Rizzoli-esque kids someplace.

She pictured the long dining room table in Maura's house filled with a United Nations ensemble of children, all with dirty faces and mischievous grins. Maura would sit primly at one end of the table in her frilly, yellow apron and Jane at the other, egging the children towards a food fight.

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.

What a fuckin' pussy you've become Rizzoli.

She sat heavily on the steps and Jo Friday immediately sat beside her, resting her head on Jane's thigh. She scratched the silky ears of the little yorkie.

"Sorry, Jo. Mommy has been distracted. I haven't given you the attention you needed this weekend. I don't think I even fed you yesterday."

She grimaced. She was daydreaming about a family with Maura and she couldn't even remember to feed her dog.

You don't deserve this Rizzoli. You know you don't deserve her.

"I know I don't." She said out loud.

"You don't what?"

Maura was standing behind her holding a frosty pilsner glass filled with an opaque honey-colored lager.

"No fruit?" Jane couldn't help herself. "You have your way with me and now all the niceties are out the window?"

Maura frowned. "All we have left is a banana. I didn't think that it would go well with a wheat beer and I fed Jo yesterday, so stop beating yourself up about that. Drink your beer, Jane."

Maura sat beside her on the steps, her body just outside of comfortable touching range. Jane would have to stretch out an arm to rest her hand on her knee. She didn't reach out; instead she worried at her glass with her fingertips, drawing random patterns in the condensation.

"Jane? Let's not go back with a lie between us. What's bothering you?"

"I'm scared, Maur. I'm worried about how things will be when we're back in Boston."

If Jane was expecting reassurance, it didn't seem to be forthcoming. The doctor had closed her eyes and was leaning her head against the railing, her hands folded tightly in her lap.

"Maur? I think this is where you say that everything will be just peachy and I have nothing to worry about. Everything will be exactly the same, but ...better and you love me. Right, Maur? You do still love me?"

She edged a bit closer and took one soft white hand in her own, gently tracing light freckles with her fingertips until they disappeared into the sleeve of a plaid flannel overshirt. When she looked up, Maura was staring out toward the sea, biting hard on her lower lip. She turned wet eyes to Jane.

"Are you ashamed to be with me?"

"No! God, Maura, how could you think that?"

She wrapped an arm around the doctor's waist.

"I am so grateful and astonished that you could love someone like me. I was speaking to my inner Jane earlier and agreeing with her that I don't deserve you."

Maura rested her head on the firm shoulder next to her.

"You deserve everything, Jane, and that's what I intend to give you, but sometimes I feel like half a person and I hope that what I have to give is enough."

Jane kissed the shell of her ear, small and pink and perfect. Maura had pulled her hair into a loose braid, leaving that feature exposed and begging to be caressed.

"I know I am only half a person without you, Maur, but maybe together we're a whole."

Jane pulled her closer.

"I don't want to spend another night alone. I don't mean that in a pervy way, just..." She struggled to find the words.

"...I want to come home to you."

"Yes." Maura smiled.

"So that means?"

"Yes. I will live with you, Jane. In your apartment, in my house, or if you prefer we could sell both and move somewhere together, someplace that will be ours."

The detective released the breath she didn't even realize she had been holding.

"You can do all the decorating, Maur. You can hang your creepy tribal masks everyplace and put up paintings that look like I could have done them but cost more than my apartment and I won't complain."

Maura nudged her in the ribs with her elbow.

"Oh, I'm sure you will complain. That's just who you are."

"Right, but inside I'd secretly be okay with it all. Maybe I could have a woman cave in the basement for my sports memorabilia."

"Sure, if there's room after I install my 5,000-bottle wine cellar."

"Sarcasm again, doctor?"

"No. I'm dead serious, Jane."

Jane patted her knee.

"Until we find this Barbie Dream House, I guess I will be staying with you."

"I would prefer that, but we could trade off if you like."

Jane shook her head, grinning.

"What?"

"I just can't believe that I am going to live with someone other than my ma. It's good, Maur. Good but weird."

"Surreal?"

"Yeah."

Maura took her hand.

"I've never lived with anyone either and I know I can be a little rigid, but I promise to try to compromise. I think we should have a safe word."

Jane blanched.

"Maura, I don't like to be tied up; I get panic attacks after what Hoyt did and I could never hurt you, even if you liked it."

Maura frowned, her eyebrows drawn in thought.

"Oh! BDSM! That's not my thing either. What I meant was I would like us to have a word that either of us could use out of context to let the other know that we are feeling pressured or overwhelmed or angry..."

Jane's eyes widened in understanding.

"So the other person would know to take it down a notch, maybe go for a walk and give the other some space."

"Exactly."

"It should be something that wouldn't come up in everyday conversation. How about...'touchdown'?"

Maura pulled a sour face.

"You and your brothers scream that constantly every Sunday afternoon. What about...'Agamemnon'?"

"Well, that's certainly not likely to be shouted by Rizzolis on Sunday or any other day. Fine, 'Agamemnon' it is."

Jane kissed the peerless ear again and worked her way behind it to the delicate creamy skin of Maura's neck.

"I love your hair, babe, but I think I love your bare neck more."

"That drives me crazy, just so you know if you keep kissing my neck we may never make it onto the ferry."

Jane pulled back long enough to catch Maura's eye and arch her own eyebrow before returning her lips to the flushed skin of the doctor's neck.

Maura shifted onto her lap, giving the detective easier access to her throat and the shadowy canyon between her breasts. Jane's tongue was flickering across her clavicle, leaving a warm wet trail that made her shudder as it cooled in the brisk sea air.

She reached down and unfastened the first three buttons of Jane's jeans.

The detective groaned against her chest as soon as her fingers touched the bare skin under her waistband. Maura slipped her hand further inside until she could feel Jane's cleft with her fingertips, hot and wet, and the damp warm seams of her Levi's against the back of her hand. She dipped her shoulder for leverage and braced herself with a hand at the back of Jane's neck.

"I'm going to fuck you, Jane."

"Maura!" Jane's dark eyes flashed in shock. "I've never heard you use that word...ever!"

"I use it only in its original Anglo-Saxon connotation, from an old Germanic root meaning to thrust or to rub. I'm going to do both."

She worked her fingers against Jane's clitoris until it grew thick against her hand and then with a last butterfly touch, slipped deep inside of her, stroking slow against Jane's slick walls.

The detective was panting, her sweaty forehead resting against the doctor's chest, her pelvis rising off the porch to deepen the penetration.

"Wait." She gasped.

Maura slowed her tempo, but did not stop.

"I want you to come with me." Jane fumbled at the zipper of Maura's jeans, finally getting it open and pulling the dark-washed denim along with a pair of satiny green panties down over the curve of the doctor's ass and onto her thighs.

She growled in frustration as she turned and twisted her arm around Maura's.

"It's not going to work this way, Jane. You're left-handed and I'm right. We'll be in each other's way."

Jane lifted her weaker, damaged right hand and slipped it between Maura's thighs, willing it to be gentle and dextrous. Her stiff fingers found Maura's swollen clitoris and began to move against it.

"Slow, babe, you have to catch up."

They built a rhythm, tongues sliding hotly against each other in counterpoint to sliding fingers below.

"Let me know, Jane."

Jane nodded. "Now, Maur, now, but I can wait."

"Don't wait." Maura husked, her voice nearly as low as Jane's.

The detective's head fell back, the veins and tendons in her neck bulging as she spasmed against Maura's hand.

Maura arched into her, shuddering in her own release as they tumbled backward onto the worn wooden slats of the porch. They lay on the decking, Maura sprawled on top of Jane, her bare ass to the ocean and sky. She moved her mouth a fraction of an inch and licked at the sweat that had accumulated at the base of the detective's throat.

Jane's own brine. Delicious.

She felt rough fingers running in a pattern from beneath the swell of her ass to the small of her back, up and down, elongated figure eights and then zig-zagging angles like lightning bolts. The patterns stopped and a new movement began, soft caresses on the inside of her buttocks and finally a firmer pressure deeper within.

"I want to do what you did for me earlier." Jane rasped.

Maura smiled.

"I want to do everything for you, Maura. I want to make you come and laugh. I want to protect you and make you a home and take care of you when you're sick..."

She growled in frustration, trying to put words to the emotions that were welling up inside her before they burst out in useless tears.

"I don't feel like we're just getting off, Maur. I feel like we're building something."

"I think we are, Jane, a life together, intimacy, trust...everything I've wanted but never had."

"Me too, babe."

She closed her eyes and breathed in the clean scent of Maura's hair.

When she opened them she was gazing into the warm brown eyes of Big Carl Timmons.

"Thoughtcha might need a ride to the ferry." She said.

"You look like a real New England dyke, Dr. Isles."

Jane laughed at her girlfriend's jeans, flannel shirt, and Birkenstock sandals worn with marled socks.

Maura wrinkled her brow. "That's exactly what I am, Jane."

"Please, Maura. You wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit in Boston."

"Probably not, but this is my working on the Vineyard outfit. It's perfect for strolling through brambles picking boysenberries or stacking wood for the fireplace or even hauling luggage off of the Cross Sound Ferry."

Jane pulled out her iphone and snapped a picture.

"Blackmail photo, Maur."

"I was a big fan of Birkenstocks in college. That and tweed suits."

"I hope you didn't wear them together."

"Alas, I did, though I had a large collection of saddle shoes and tasseled loafers as well."

"Sexy." Jane deadpanned. "Let's get a move on, Emily Dickinson."

Maura looked at her dubiously.

"Wasn't she a nerdy New England lesbian, Maur?"

"She was a reclusive New England poet who may have harbored same-sex attraction toward her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert."

"Exactly."

"How did you know that Jane? That's a rather obscure theory."

"NPR. Impressed?"

"Yes I am."

Maura stood on her tip-toes and planted a kiss on Jane's chin dimple.

"See. I'm not just a trophy wife, I have a brain."

Grunting loudly, she picked up the heaviest of the boxes and bags, leaving her own small duffle, a suitcase on wheels, and Jo Friday for Maura.

They trundled down the metal ramp of The Lady of the Sound and onto the wood planked dock on the mainland. Jane managed to haul her burden off the boardwalk before dropping in an exhausted heap on top of the jumbled baggage. She stood up red-faced and sweating.

"Wait here with the stuff and I'll go get the truck."

Maura was staring at her arms, tongue slightly protruding from between her lips, eyes glazed with lust.

"Maura! Did you hear me?"

"Jane, the stress you placed on your biceps and brachioradialis has caused your cephalic vein to expand in a most attractive manner."

She stepped closer to the detective, tracing her index finger lightly over the prominent blue vein running from under the short sleeve of Jane's t-shirt down to her forearm.

"I'd like to lick it." She stated.

"Maura!" Jane looked around to make sure no one had heard. "If you watch our bags like a good girl, maybe I'll let you do that in the truck."

When she returned, the bags were piled up where she'd left them, but her girlfriend and dog were nowhere to be found. She busied herself loading the trunk and was surprised at how much emptier it was for the return trip to Boston. They had eaten most of the Italian specialties and left the rest with Big Carl, and all of the wine and beer had remained behind to be enjoyed at a later date.

Maybe I can get away for a few days in June. Jane mused.

She swung in the last bag and slammed the liftgate.

"Maura! Jo! Time to go."

She scanned the rapidly emptying ferry dock with a cop's eye, finally catching sight of Maura's purple plaid shirt down a side plankway at what appeared to be a small craft fair. She jogged the hundred yards to meet her.

"You left our stuff alone, Maur. No cyrillic veins for you."

Maura chucked softly, intent on a mason jar filled with what looked like boogers and slime.

"I'll take two of these please."

Maura smiled at the young woman behind the table and pulled out a fifty from her pocket.

"What is that?" Jane turned up her nose in disgust.

"Cloudberry preserves. I bought one for Angela and one for Susie."

She handed the jars to Jane and continued to stroll along the the tables, looking politely at beach plum candles and cranberry soap, lobster embossed tea towels and clam shell ashtrays. She stopped suddenly at one table, clutching at Jane's forearm.

"Fairy stones, Jane!"

Neatly displayed on a white tablecloth were a half dozen leather thongs, each beaded with a score of irregularly shaped grey stones, the centers of which were worn through by thousands of years of rushing water.

The doctor picked up one cord and held it up with a smile.

"My father and I would scour the beach looking for these each summer. On a good day, maybe we'd find one."

The short, round, grey-haired woman behind the table spoke up.

"Ayuh, my man brings them to me. He knows the places the fairies leave their holey-stones. These ward off the nightmares, they do."

"That's what my father used to tell me."

Maura beamed down at the small woman.

"Jane, I'm going to buy one to hang on our bed. No more nightmares."

She squeezed the detective's hand.

A loud voice called from behind them. "Hey, Detective Romeo! I see you've met my Maeve."

Jane spun to see Captain Ethan Timmons walking toward them, a glass bottle of coke and a hotdog in each hand.

"Timmy!" She beamed. "This is my Maura." She turned to the doctor."Babe, if it wasn't for Timmy, I never would have made it home to you last night."

"Then I owe you a tremendous thank you, Captain." She smiled at the old fisherman and he blushed.

"Lovey-girl, this is the big-city detective you bargained with last night and her lady."

"That so?" The chubby little woman smiled. "Our girl, Carla, she's the law out in Chilmark."

Jane laughed, remembering the half-amused, half-mortified look on Big Carl's face as she looked down at them sprawled across the porch with Maura's naked ass cooling in the breeze.

"We have had the pleasure of meeting Officer Timmons. In fact, she drove us to the ferry this afternoon. Timmy, when you speak to her, please tell her thank you from Big Jane."

"Will do." He said.

Maura picked up another thong and then another.

"I think I will just have to take them all, Mrs. Timmons."

"That's a lot of bad dreams you'll be fighting."

"They're not for me. I have friends who are police officers and they have all seen things that keep them awake at night."

"I understand." Mrs. Timmons touched her hand lightly. She wrapped each thong in tissue paper and placed it in a paper shopping bag, "Fisherwife Maeve" printed in blue across it along with a website.

They chatted with the Timmonses for a few minutes and then took their leave, walking hand and hand toward the waiting Jeep, Jo Friday at their heels.

"Detective Romeo!"

Jane turned around again.

"You ever need help with some big city crime, just you remember me and my girl are here to help."

She waved at him and turned back to Maura.

"Who's getting the fairystones?"

"One for us."

"For our bed." Jane smiled shyly.

"Barrold, Vincent, Sean, Frankie..."

"That's five, babe, you bought six."

"I thought..." Maura looked down. "...someday I might send one to my father."

"Good idea." Jane kissed her head. "Let's get going. We have a long drive ahead of us and I don't want to go right to sleep."

"Oh no?" Maura asked. "What did you have in mind instead?"