ZOMG you guys this chapter is super M at the end...so...fyi...

Authors note at bottom


"Jane?" Maura rolls over to empty sheets, and an empty side of the bed. She sits up, looking at the clock, 3:52am. "Jane?"

Nothing.

Maura throws back the covers and gets out of bed, trying not to let panic sink in just yet. But the bathroom is empty and the kitchen and the front hall. she checks the guest room and the pantry before stopping in the door of her bedroom to try and control her breathing.

"JANE?" she calls, louder now, but the house is silent and shadowed in the predawn light.

Maura looks out the window into her driveway, trying to decide if the fact that Jane's car is still there makes her feel better or worse. She has to be in the house, Maura thinks, and quick like lightening, she is visited by the vision of Jane pinned to her kitchen floor, scalpels through her palms, mouth open in a scream. She sinks down to the sitting position in her doorway, hands grasping at her head, trying to focus. She's fine. She's fine. She's here somewhere. You just have to find her. You just have to think rationally.

But it is hard. As the days stretch by without any sign of Emily Stern, without any leads on who Hoyt's new apprentice could be, Jane seems to sink further and further into herself, and Maura has to work hard for the smile she is so used to seeing.

Three nights ago, Maura had forced Jane to sleep in gloves, as she had rubbed the scars on her hands raw. Maura had noticed as the detective had washed her face for bed. The water in the sink had swirled pink, and Maura had grabbed Jane's hands, appalled.

"They're fine," Jane had said dully, starting to rub them together again without even thinking about it. Maura had kissed her forehead, knowing that she wasn't going to get much of a fight. Jane's forehead felt hot against her skin. "I'll cut the fingers off so they're not too warm in the night, okay?"

Jane had merely shrugged.

Cavenaugh had taken her off the case the next day.

From her sitting position in her door way, Maura tries to focus on what she knows about Jane when she feels cornered or afraid.

She fights. The answer comes to Maura so easily that she feels foolish. She hurries down the hall and flips the light on to her basement stairs, seeing that the light to her workout room is on. Relief washes over her like a warm blanket, and she rushes down the flight of stairs, ready to throw open the door and be indignant and scolding, ready to yell at Jane for worrying her half to death in the middle of the night. She rounds the corner, hands on hips. "Jane, it's the middle of the night, do you know how worried I was when I-" but Maura's sentence is cut short by the scene in front of her, and the cry that it pulls from her throat.

Far from working out, Jane is huddled in the corner of the room, knees pulled up to her chest, with her head one her knees.

"Jane!" Maura rushes to her and kneels down in front of her, taking a delicate wrist in her arms to feel for a pulse. it's there, strong and fast, Maura feels her own speed up to match it. "Jane. Sweetheart. Wake up. What are you doing down here?"

Jane's eyes flutter open, and Maura knows immediately that she's not seeing her. her face is clouded and tormented.
"Jane," She says, more firmly this time, watching the brown eyes focus and widen and soften towards tears in the space of a few seconds. She wraps her hand around to the back of the detective's head, and pulls her forward onto her shoulder. "Oh, honey," she says as she feels wetness on her skin. "Oh, Jane."

"Maura," Jane's voice is so small, but she wraps her arms around Maura and holds on like it's her lifeline.

Maura makes her decision right then. Hauling the taller woman to her feet, she leads her towards the stairs.

"I can't go back to sleep, Maur." Jane whispers.

"I know," Maura says, trying to remember where she put her cell phone. "Don't worry."


Frost jogs away from where Frankie and Jane are still playing and comes to sit next to Maura on the park bench. The sun is starting to rise, and the only sound in the still morning air is the sound of the basketball slapping against concrete, and Jane or Frankie's occasional grunt or shriek of laughter. Maura blows into cupped hands as Frost takes a seat. Summer is definitely over, and at 5:30 in the morning, the air feels cold against the exposed parts of Maura's body. She'd bundled Jane up and put her in the back of her car, texting Frankie and Frost at the same time. Praying that as law enforcement, they never turned their phones off. She'd been right, and less than an hour later they'd met here, at the park, Frankie carrying a basketball, Frost a thermos of hot chocolate. Slowly, working as a team. the three have them had coaxed Jane out of her catatonia. First to drink the warm chocolaty drink, and then, finally, with a bashful smile, onto the concrete court to play Frankie for beers.

"Thank you," she says, smiling as Frankie catches his sister around the waist and pulls her away from the basket, trying to keep her from scoring. The brunette's laugh, hidden in a squawk of protest, makes Maura's heart much less heavy.

Frost shrugs, "I know we were both relieved when you called us. Neither of you should be dealing with this alone."

Maura frowns, "I'm not dealing with anything," she says quickly. "Hoyt's not after me."

Frost scoffs, his eyebrows shooting up when she turns to look at him, "C'mon, doctor, you know as well as I do the difficulty of taking care of someone with post traumatic stress disorder." He reaches out and takes her hand, and Maura is too surprised at the sudden showing of friendship to pull away, "No one's immune to it. Not even the great Doctor Isles." he says, giving her hand a squeeze. "But we're a family. And I'm glad you called."

Maura swats at the tears in her eyes with her free hand, not knowing how to convey the overwhelming gratitude and affection she feels for this man. "Thank you, Barry," she says, when she can find her voice.

He nods, glancing at her and then back out at Jane and Frankie, letting her compose herself. "So you're holding up alright?"

"I...yes...I mean..." Maura pauses trying to collect her thoughts. "She's having nightmares again. And not just one's about Hoyt. Ones where she believes I'm just in her imagination. That I haven't come back." Maura shudders, although she can't tell if it's from the chill in the morning air, or the memory of Jane, eyes wide open, blinded by sleep, struggling away from her, terrified.

Frost shakes his head, "If you tell her I told you this, I will deny it up and down." he says quietly. Maura looks at him, "When I went to see her that first time, after Hoyt...she was so completely out of it. The pain medication, and the stress from being trapped down there..." He pauses, and for a second he looks the way Maura remembers him as a scrawny fourteen year old. "She kept talking to you. Like you were there. But then she'd snap out of it for a while, and cry. Fall back into it..." He trails off, looking as shaken as if it was yesterday.

Maura looks up at the rapidly brightening sky, as if that will keep her tears in. Frost sighs, "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know you feel like you're letting her down, when you don't know what to do for her. Or when you feel like you gotta call me or Frankie. But her comfort is so wrapped up in you, Maura, that you strengthen her just by being there. This," Frost gestures out at Jane, laughing as Frankie tries to dribble around his back and trips over his feet. "This wouldn't have worked without you here. Believe me. We tried."

As if she's heard Frost's words, as if she knows she needs to prove their accuracy, Jane calls out to Maura from the basketball court, and jogs over to her, looking much more like herself.

Maura stands, and Jane slips her arms around Maura's waist and buries her nose in her neck. Maura shivers at her cold skin.

"I won," she says into Maura's neck.

"Congratulations."

"Maura?"

"mm."

"Take me home."


Naked. They are naked. Skin on skin on skin on skin and Maura has never been so lost for words in her life. She lies where Jane has pulled her, on top of the long slender frame from so many of her dreams, out of breath from the speed with which she's disrobed. She looks down at the woman underneath her and can't help the surge of affection and desire that sweeps through her body. She kisses Jane's jaw, pulling back to make sure that her actions are received well. Jane smiles with her eyes closed and arches up into her, slowly and deliberately, making Maura sigh.

Jane wraps her arms around Maura, pressing a kiss, both tentative and needy to her mouth. Like she's testing the waters. Maura can't help but let out a tiny moan, letting her hands wander up and down the smooth skin of Jane's sides.

"Jane," she pulls away as the other woman tries to deepen the kiss, and waits until she's opened her eyes. until they are looking at one another. "Honey, you don't have to do this because you think it's something I want," Maura says this even though her entire body is screaming with desire. Even though she's not sure she could physically obey if Jane told her to get off of her right now. "I want you to-"

But Jane shakes her head impatiently, and pulls Maura's lips to hers again, pulling her body down as well, so that they are flush against each other, navel to navel, making Maura gasp and groan and squirm against Jane, trying to fit her like a puzzle.

She trails kisses down the detective's throat, to her clavicle and around to her shoulder. Jane's fingers knot in Maura's hair and she arches her back, offering more of herself. Maura acquiesces immediately, Jane's soft whimpers and moans only serving to spur her onward. She lets her hands slide lower and lower, over the rib cage and the flat toned stomach...

Maura caresses the inside of Jane's thigh and feels her tense. She pulls back at once, already starting to feel guilty. "I'm sorry."

But Jane shakes her head again, catching Maura's hand and pushing it back towards her pelvic bone, her eyes shut tight as if steeling herself for something.

"No," Maura says, resisting. "Jane, I won't do this if-"
But Jane's eyes open, and focus on Maura's, deep and passionate and full of want. "Please, Maura," her voice is quiet, shaking. "Please, take me away from him. I don't want to belong to him anymore, I want to belong to you. Please," Jane bites the edge of her lip not looking away from Maura's face, her dark eyes intense, begging, open and vulnerable. "make me yours."

Maura obeys at once, with a desperate moan, two of her fingers slipping inside Jane easily. "Oh God," Maura could not have imagined this sensation in a million years, and Lord knows she's tried. "Oh, God Jane," she presses her own desperate need against Jane's leg, finding a rhythm that suits them both.

"Maura," Jane's voice is strained, and she clutches at the blonde's back, feeling her fingernails break skin. "Oh," she tries to say sorry, but all that comes out is an elongated moan.

"It's okay, pretty girl, you can let go." Maura's voice seems to be coming from a long way off, as Jane's climax builds and builds.

"Maur," Jane forces her eyes open, has to find Maura's face before she knows it's okay.

Maura doesn't look away, she leans in, curling her fingers inside Jane as she presses her forehead to brunette's. "You're safe," she whispers. "You're mine and you're safe. Janie, sweetheart...you're safe, It's okay...let go."

And she does, Maura right behind her, she feels Jane go rigid and then slack in her arms, but she doesn't let go, following the slim form as it collapses underneath her.

She feels Jane heaving, working to regain control of her breathing, and she moves to press a kiss to the detective's sweaty temple. Already her breathing is slowing, her muscles relaxing.

"Maur," she struggles out, fighting unconsciousness. "I love..."

"Shhh," Maura says, feeling Jane surrender, "I love you too."

For the first time in a week. Jane does not dream.


okay so...whatchu think? I couldn't do boogie man in one go, because theres no way that it would affect our duo that minimally, especially the way I've written them thus far.

Jobee and the others that asked Constance and Jane will get to have words...oh yes. :)

rebelliousflower, thanks for reading! I haven't seen your shiny handle around my reviews! hope you'll keep coming back. lisahomeandaway i'm so glad you're enjoying.

cheree and fallen austin you brought a little tear to my eye. I'm so glad you're all enjoying.

We're gonna be doing updates at about 12 hour intervals as long as I can sustain them, so...hope you'll keep comin' back!

happy reading

t.c.