In her youth, Maura had always been fascinated with the distinctions that made humans different from any other animal. She'd found it odd but enjoyable to be a member of the only species that wore clothes (and thus could appreciate fashion), could create fine art, write music, write books, perform life-saving operations. She never failed to be grateful for a brain that was capable of retaining so much information, of allowing her to follow the most complex formulas, of accomplishing any task laid before her.

Yes—be it in a hospital or an art museum, Maura had never taken for granted the blessing it was to be a part of the human race.

But these were the things that went right out the window whenever she was around Jane, and Jane was in a particularly demonstrative mood.

After literally chucking Dennis into a jail cell, Jane had returned right back home to find Maura in the bedroom, removing her corset. Jane moved towards her, tearing off Maura's remaining garments and throwing her onto the bed.

And here it was, what Jane called the wild animal that was buried away deep inside of the refined lady doctor. Rationale was gone. Critical thinking was gone. Deliberate response was a joke: the only things keeping Maura vaguely connected to the ground were her fingers twisted in Jane's curls, tugging in an attempt to guide Jane where to go next because trying to verbalize it was a pointless endeavor. Every muscle was moving of its own accord, involuntary biological reactions that corroborated the thoughts flying through Maura's mind at one hundred miles an hour: more, more, more, more.

There was no restraint here, no efforts to muffle the sounds coming out of her that could only be described as, well, animalistic. And that was to say nothing of the low moans Jane managed to get out between her staggered breathing, careful to breathe through her mouth as much as possible in this position.

It wasn't long before Maura, relaxed but tense, begged Jane for a moment's peace. Snickering to herself, Jane kissed her way back up Maura's body, lingering over the pearl necklace Maura still wore.

"Y'know, sweetheart," Jane whispered, playing lightly with the necklace, "When we were in Boston, I had lots of people ask me about the Indians out here. A couple ladies asked if I'd ever come close to losin' my scalp. I told 'em no, 'cause I hadn't ever been close until now."

Maura made a weak sound that could have passed for either a groan or a laugh, her eyes still closed. "Is an apology warranted?"

Jane chuckled, leaning over and kissing Maura's neck. "I'll let it slide this time." She took a deep breath as Maura sighed in sated content, and she let her fingers trail down to Maura's stomach, tracing a light circle. "So… that still felt good sober, huh?"

Maura hummed, smoothing her fingers over Jane's hair as subconscious penance for pulling at it so hard earlier. "Jane, it was…" She shook her head tiredly. "Unbelievable."

Smirking, Jane kissed the spot just below Maura's ear. "Bet you Garrett Fairfield woulda never loved you like that."

"I wish you would stop mentioning his name so quickly after we've made love," Maura complained, her features scrunching as she tried not to picture the scenario Jane had jut proposed. It really was an unattractive habit Jane had, occasionally bringing up Maura's former fiancé as if she still needed to convince Maura that she had made the right choice.

"That," Jane whispered jokingly in a low growl, moving her hand between Maura's legs, "was not making love."

"Claim," Maura breathed, wincing and shifting Jane's hand away. "Staked."

A few long, silent moments passed as Jane tried to gauge how much of a break Maura needed, or if they were done for the night. Maura's eyes were closed, and once her breathing had fallen back into a gentle, regular pattern, Jane braved speaking up again: "Reckon you could take some time off soon, Maura?"

She sighed dreamily, the world still a hazy place. "I'm sure I could. What for?"

"I've got somewhere I wanna take ya. A place I ain't been to in a long time," Jane muttered. "A place I think Jake could die."

That got Maura back to her senses a bit, and she blearily opened her eyes. "Jane?"

"It's called Colt City, it's on the other side of Mesa. West of it. Big place, lots of money, Jake's been spotted there before." She sighed and sat up a little bit, pulling the coverlet over herself and Maura. "Funny thing. It's one of the oldest settlements out here, but you'd never know it. They advance quick, they're modern quick."

"Why haven't you ever taken me there before?" Maura asked.

"It's a day's worth of traveling."

"Is that all?"

Jane sighed again, staring determinedly at a frayed hole in her shirt. "I guess …when we were just friends, I was afraid you'd go there and love it so much you'd ask Garrett to move so you could live in a nice, fancy place. Not like our little water hole down here. I know," she said, anticipating an interruption, "you're happy here, Maura. I am, too. Colt City's just a hard place for me to visit sometimes." She swallowed hard, moving her gaze up to the ceiling. An involuntary shudder passed through her as Maura gently touched her arm, and Jane reached over to take her hand. "Come with me?" she asked.

Though somewhat puzzled, wondering what could make a place difficult for Jane Rizzoli to visit, Maura nodded. "Of course. I told you I wanted to be on hand, to approve the locale of Jake's demise."

"Right," Jane said, smiling. "End of the week, then. We'll go, and we'll take Frost."

"All right, Anna, one question. Does your husband know how to deliver, or does he know how to deliver?"

"It's…well, Barry, I'm not sure I know what to say."

"It's like home, isn't it?"

Anna smiled weakly, not sure that she believed that was a good thing. "We stick out like a couple of sore thumbs."

"Well, we do in the Creek, too."

"Yes, but…at least there, the Sheriff isn't afraid that we're going to rob the whole city blind at the drop of a hat."

Frost and Anna were walking down the main street of Colt City, as casually as they could with almost everyone they passed doing a double take, and several women clutching their husbands' arms tighter. Frost was accustomed to being looked at this way in other cities, mostly because of his association with Jake Wyatt—anyone walking so close to such a hardened criminal was someone to be feared. Anna couldn't help feeling that the immaculately designed, high-class clothing they wore was also drawing attention: instinct told her everyone who saw them probably thought the clothes had been stolen.

"Just smile and act natural," Frost assured her. "It is all going to be fine."

"I would be more inclined to believe you if I knew why we were here."

"I told ya! I've got an old friend down in these parts—"

"One you refuse to let me meet."

"—who I would like to spend some time with, and then introduce you to," Frost said. "Come on, Anna, this is what married people do. Spend time together, meeting each other's friends."

"Married people aren't supposed to have secrets, either," Anna said. "Although I suppose that's just something we'll have to work on."

Frost sighed, although Anna did have a fair point. While he had convinced her that he would never run off again, letting her know sincerely that she could trust him to stay, he had married her without divulging much of what had happened in the last ten years. He had offered a vague explanation of a selfish desire to carve out his own life, to make meaning of it himself without someone cracking a whip over his head. Jane had shown him how to make the most of freedom, and that was that. No mention of his ties to Jake Wyatt, or how many times his life had been in serious danger. All that mattered now was his willingness to bring Anna along for his adventures.

So, this was a step. He could not be fully honest with her without Jane's permission, as her alternate identity was not his to share with whomever he pleased. Every time he wanted to broach the subject with Jane, though, something seemed to come up. Or perhaps he was just scared. Whatever it was, Jane had been particularly tense this week about Colt City, and Frost felt the timing might be better if he asked once they had gotten back to Hollow Creek.

They stepped into the Sheriff's station together, and Frost sobered up when he saw the first and largest poster hanging by the door:

Wanted: Jake Wyatt, for the crimes of armed robbery, vigilantism, and general crimes against public citizens. Armed and extremely dangerous. $5000 reward if captured dead.

Anna couldn't help feeling a little wary when she saw Frost mouthing the words "five thousand dollars." She cleared her throat, and he looked over at her. Nodding at the poster, he said, "Ever hear of Jake Wyatt?"

"Considering he's only about as famous as any given President of the United States," Anna said grimly, "Yes. I have."

The Sheriff stood up from his desk at these words. "Whoa, there, honey. Don't you go comparing that scalawag to someone as respectable as the leader of our fine country."

"Oh, I didn't intend it as a compliment, sir," Anna said, looking at the poster with an expression of utmost dislike. "Rather as a comment on how easily misguided society can be by one handsome face. Nothing disgusts me more than a rogue swooned over by legions of ignorant, adoring females."

Looking impressed that someone like Anna could wield such a well-articulated vocabulary, the Sheriff nodded. "Right. Yes. I absolutely agree." He laughed. "How about it, little lady? Try your luck and bring him in for more money than your parents ever dreamed of?"

Anna bristled at the implication, but smiled nonetheless. "We'll see if it's in the cards for me, sir." When Frost raised his eyebrows, Anna barely refrained from rolling her eyes. "Gosh gee, Sheriff. There sure aren't very many wanted signs posted. You and the Marshal must do rather well, I suppose?"

As Frost had predicted, the Sheriff appeared all too glad to boast of his various successes, and Anna stayed to listen to his droning while Frost snuck back out into town. Using back roads, he eventually got to Colt City's biggest ranch, where Jane and Maura were waiting for him. Of the three, Maura felt the worst about leaving Anna out of the loop, where silently thought it would be best for her to remain ignorant. Once Frost had assured Jane that Anna was somewhere safe, they all began walking towards the cottage on the ranch's land.

"Jane, you haven't changed yet," Maura said, sounding startled. "Didn't you say this man knew Jake?"

"Not quite," Jane replied. "He knows me and Frost. He thinks I'm one of Jake's, uh…"

"Conquests?" Frost offered.

Jane snorted. "Sure." She knocked on the cottage door, and it was instantly opened up by an older black man dressed in shabby cowpoke's clothing. "Rondo."

"Well, well!" he laughed, opening the door wider and allowing the three of them inside. "If it ain't Vanilla and Mr. Snow!"

"Rondo likes to talk in code," Jane explained in a whisper to Maura. "So those are our secret names."

"And who's this lovely young thing here?" Rondo asked, looking at the bemused Maura.

"A friend of mine, so you'd best respect her space," Jane said, taking a half-step in front of Maura and clutching her hand.

Rondo chuckled to himself, rubbing his hands together. "All right, all right, I ain't gonna take a bite of no Strawberry. She's all yours, Vanilla. So long as Mr. Wyatt don't mind—or is he takin' his coffee with a little Strawberry, too?"

"Does she look like the type of lady who'd give Jake the time of day?" Jane scowled.

"Oh now, you needn't lie for me, Vanilla," Maura said, and Jane jerked around to look at her, noting the mischievous look in her eye. She grinned somewhat impishly at Rondo, who was smiling wider (revealing a few missing teeth) in anticipation. "You say you have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wyatt?"

"Not the way you know him, Ma'am!—ow!" Rondo hissed when Frost and Jane both slapped him upside the head. "C'mon, y'all, don't beat on Rondo! She started it!"

"It's true, I did," Maura said. "I trust you know Mr. Wyatt is excellent at cards, Rondo? And you know what they say about a man who's skilled at cards." It was a correlation Jane had jokingly explained to her once, and Maura caught the mixed look of amusement and embarrassment that was on Jane's face. Frost didn't know quite where to look when Maura continued, "Jake's well-being is important to all of us, Rondo, but especially me. I don't know what I would do with myself if I had to go on… alone."

Jane coughed and stepped back in front of Maura, sparing a glance for Frost. "Look, Rondo. Jake's thinking he might come down this way. Can you spread the word?"

"He don't want it to be a surprise, huh?"

"Nope," Frost answered. "He's ready to fight anyone who wants a chance at the reward they got posted for him in town."

"How much?" Jane asked out of curiosity.

"Five grand."

Jane couldn't help whistling, but the sound was punctured when Maura gave her stomach a light slap. "Don't whistle," she chided. "It's so boyish."

Rondo didn't quite catch the fact that Maura was only teasing, as everything about Jane from her turquoise-studded boots to her fringed buck-skin vest painted the very picture of boyishness. Shrugging it off, he said, "All right, don't y'all worry. Rondo's on top of it. I know who to tell, and they'll know who to tell, and all the right people will know within the hour. But Vanilla? Think it might be possible for me to meet the man this time?"

"We'll see," Jane said, cuffing Rondo's shoulder. "See you around, old timer."

They split ways shortly thereafter, Frost returning to Anna while Jane and Maura got back into their borrowed carriage and Jane started driving. "So how did you come to know that man?" Maura asked. "Or, rather, how did he come to be in Jake's inner circle?"

"Well, he ain't quite in the inner circle," Jane said. "Otherwise he'd know Jake personally, and he'd know Jake and me are one and the same. Nah—I used to come here when I was younger, and Rondo got to know me 'cause I hung around so much. I knew he was a bit of a gossip, and he always knew what was goin' on and who'd done what and where they were hidin'. So when I started goin' around as Jake, I knew Rondo would be a valuable resource in these parts—and he was. Helped me catch quite a few villains, that fella. I owe him a lot."

"And yet you've never seen fit to tell him Jake's true identity?"

"Nah. I think it'd be a little too strange for him to know. We've known each other far too long."

"How is it you've known him so long? If it was before you began your life as Jake, you must have been very young."

"I was. My Pop used to bring me here pretty often."

They rode on in silence for a while (uphill, Maura vaguely noticed). She figured the reason Jane was sensitive about coming to this place was because it was rooted in nostalgia for her, full of sweet memories with her beloved father. It was probably as difficult to be here for her as it was for Maura to have been back in Boston without her own father's presence. At least Jane's wasn't buried here. Unless… oh, dear.

"My mother grew up in this city," Jane said quietly. "And she was buried here. Pop used to bring me to pay my respects. She coulda been buried in Hollow Creek, I guess, but he wanted she should be put some place else in case Hoyt ever came back." She suppressed a shiver at the name, and Maura gently took hold of her arm. "Not that he'd have robbed her grave or nothin' like that, but… I dunno. I guess Pop always sorta wondered if they hadn't moved, if mother maybe woulda lived …anyhow, he didn't want her to be put in the same ground she'd been killed on. So…"

Jane pulled the carriage to a stop and jumped out, running around to the other side to assist Maura in getting down. Maura gave her a quick kiss before Jane set her feet down on the ground, and she took a good look at their surroundings. They seemed to be near the top of a very tall hill—or what, Maura wasn't quite sure she would call it. While certainly too small to be a mountain, calling it a hill didn't seem quite fair to it. Jane took her hand and led her even further upwards, on a small path that would have been too narrow for their carriage to traverse.

When they at last rounded the final curve, Maura gasped softly. The top cropped outwards, and the whole city could be seen below them. It was a very solitary spot, and would have been empty were it not for two tombstones jutting out of the ground: one each for Tom and Maria Rizzoli.

"Jane," Maura whispered, feeling Jane's grip on her hand. "Wh… why didn't you tell me we were coming? I'd have brought flowers."

"I ain't ever brought flowers," Jane said. Instead, she pulled two rocks out of her pocket and put one on each marker. She saw Maura's confused expression, and rubbed the back of her neck. "One time me and Frost came across some, uh, Jews in our travels. We'd gone to pay our respects to a man who'd died fightin' Will Cole, one of Jake's first enemies. And we saw these people in the graveyard puttin' rocks on a tombstone."

"Why stones? Why not flowers?"

"That's just what I asked 'em," Jane said. "And one of 'em told me it was 'cause stones don't ever die. Flower do. They wither up and wither away, but a stone'll live on forever. Of course, I guess sometimes they get blown away," she chuckled. "But the point stays. Anyhow, the other fella told me a stone could keep away…" She squinted, trying to remember the word the man had used. "It was another language, and I couldn't ever recall what it was, but he said it meant demon. Stones kept demons from bein' able to get into the graves." She shrugged.

Maura had been weeping quietly. Jane gave her a handkerchief. "Well now I suppose I wish I had brought some stones," she said, trying to buck up in light of Jane's brave face. But it was hard to stave off more emotion when Jane reached into her other pocket and produced two more rocks, handing them over to Maura. They left small dirt stains on her white gloves, but she paid that no mind as she reached forward to put them on the gravestones. "There. Free from demons, and their souls will never die."

Jane nodded, and gave Maura's hand one more squeeze before letting go and dropping to her knees. She pushed her new brown hat back over her shoulders (now Maura understood why Jane had put so much effort into looking her best today), and clasped her hands together.

"Amata madre e padre… mi scusi, È stato un periodo di tempo così lungo. L'assassino è morto ma, cosa ancora più importante, mi sono innamorata.Il suo nome è Maura."

At her name, Maura settled herself down next Jane, her skirts pooling around her. "Ciao," she said. "I… amare… vostro figla."

"Figlia," Jane chuckled, correcting Maura's pronunciation of daughter but appreciating the attempt anyway.

"Oh goodness, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. It was nice, what you said."

"I only told them I love you."

"I know," Jane said, squeezing Maura's hand again. "And it was nice." She leaned towards Maura, resting her forehead against hers, interlocking their fingers. "Whenever I let myself think about my parents maybe watchin' me, I wondered if they worried. I mean, I must've always seemed lost to them, the way I seemed lost to Angela."

"What would you have them know now, then?" Maura prompted her quietly.

"I was lost," Jane whispered. She closed her eyes and gripped Maura's hand tightly again, giving her a short kiss. "But look what I found."