"Hey" Maura's tone was gentle as she walked into Harriet's hospital room.

"Maura". Harriet croaked, her throat sore and weak from days of silence.

"How are you feeling, Harriet?" Maura watched her friend's eyes as Jane walked into the room, reaching out a hand to stroke her reassuringly on the arm.

"Awful." They laughed, relieving some of the tension.

"Harriet, we don't mean to pry, but the investigation into… all of this… is still going on. What's the last thing you remember?" Maura chose her words carefully, trying to balance her friend's medical needs with the urgency of their search for the truth.

"Tea. He… gave… he gave me tea." The sentence took Harriet much longer than usual, her shoulders sinking in relief as she reached the end. "Now this."

"So the last thing you remember is drinking tea? Who offered it to you?"

"Professor Kaplowitz."

"Harriet, we also need to know why you went to him. He… something obviously spooked him. What did you say?"

Harriet winced as she pushed herself up into a better position, her ribs still bruised from her treatment. "My emails. With Uxbridge. Everything you need to know is there… I ... I wanted to be sure before I told you. In case I was wrong."

Maura rubbed Harriet's arm gently, noticing her becoming upset. Looking between Maura and Jane, her eyes brimming with tears, Harriet spoke again.

"I'm so sorry".

Jane shook her head. "You don't need to apologise. Look, you're safe. You're alive. Your job is to recover while we try and catch this guy. Can you do that?"

Harriet nodded.

Picking Harriet's mobile phone out of her bag, Jane placed it on the historian's bedside table.

"If you need us, anytime, call us. Okay?"

Nodding, Harriet sank back down into her pillow.

"Now, you get some rest." Maura asserted, gathering her things. "We'll be back to see you tomorrow."

/

The midday sun burned bright through the long windows of the police headquarters as Jane and Maura returned to their task. Pulling a salad and a hot sandwich out of a deli bag, Jane settled into her seat and began to read.

"Wow, this guy went deep into the records! Vladimir and Elias' birth certificates, census registrations, immigration documents… From what I can see, Vladimir was born in Poland and moved to England in 1938- he would have been seventeen at the time. He appears to have been recruited to some form of translation unit, but not at Bletchley."

"No, but he must have been there at some point." Maura suggested, sliding a photograph across the table.

Picking it up, Jane gave the doctor a confused look.

"Behind the cabinet, on the table."

"That's Mercurius!" Jane exclaimed, pushing herself away from the table as she rose to her feet.

Maura nodded. "The original."

/

"So he stole it?" Detective Greenly paced the room as he listened to what Jane and Maura had uncovered.

"We think so" Maura continued. "There's a gap in the timeline- between 1944 and 1946. If he knew that the machine existed, that would be when he took it."

"And did what with it?" O'Neill's voice rang out from the speakers, his face projected onto a large screen at the end of the room. "What happened after that?"

Jane leaned back in her seat, the cogs in her mind still turning, still trying to work out every question left in the case.

"Sir?" She spoke up after a moment. Both Greenly and O'Neill appeared to look at her, waiting for her to continue. Looking across the room, she caught O'Neill's eye on the computer screen. "You have higher level access that we do. I… I've got a hunch. I mean, it might not be the right idea but I think we need to try and…"

O'Neill held up his large hand. "I trust you, Rizzoli. Go on."

"Sir, could you do a wider search for Vladimir Kaplowitz? The information that we have is all from public access archives. The surveillance photos are they key here- he must have been involved in something."

"I'll get my guys to look into it for you, and I'll call you as soon as I have anything new. Look, you guys have been working really hard. This is a tough case, and there's no way we could have done any of this without your help. Losing Rachel has been tough for all of us; I'm so grateful that you guys were there to pick up the pieces and join the task force."

Jane and Maura shared a smile as the agent spoke.

"I know Greenly will probably kill me for saying this, but you all should take the rest of the day off. I've got my guys looking for Kaplowitz Junior and Senior. Take some time to relax. I need you all back and ready tomorrow; this isn't going to be an easy win."

/

Walking out of Oxfordshire Police headquarters, Jane watched as Maura paused, uneasy, in the doorway.

"What's up?" She couldn't hide the concern in her voice.

"Just… Leaving in the middle of an open investigation. It doesn't feel right."

"Maur, we used to do it all the time. We wouldn't have had a life otherwise! Why is this any different?"

Letting out a deep sigh, Maura shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe it's the Harriet connection, or the fact that we haven't got our usual team to back us up. I… I just worry that, if something goes wrong, the people we trust the most aren't here to protect us."

Jane nodded. "I get it. But we have to have faith in Greenly. And in the FBI." Noticing her words weren't having much effect on the demeanour of the blonde doctor, Jane took a deep breath.

"Look", Jane shuffled her feet nervously, yet another tic that Maura had pointed out years ago. "I… I think we should make the most of our time off. We… I know we said that we wouldn't talk about any of this" she gestured between them "until the case was closed, but maybe we should take the hint."

Maura's expression slowly changed from anxious to confused.

"What… what I'm trying to say is, let me take you out for dinner. My treat. Let's not talk about the case, let's just be me and you. Like old times."

"Like always." Maura smiled, reaching out to take Jane's hand. Noticing that the tall detective didn't flinch, Maura felt a rush of warmth through her body.

"Dopamine." She commented as they walked towards the city, a firm smile stretched across her glowing face. "Very cool."