My hands are tied,

My body bruised

The funeral was in three days. Jane did the math from her spot in bed beneath her covers in her darkened room. Three days until the funeral. Three days until Maura was back on American soil, which ironically marked exactly eight weeks since Jane had physically laid eyes on her. And at least another week of administrative leave pending another psych eval.

Jane had survived seven weeks without Maura in an apartment that was spic and span, the product of her overactive mind and restless energy. It had taken just under a week for it all to go to hell, and now her apartment was walking the line between her typical level of lived in and questionable. She was tired, so tired. Between the yearning for Maura and the constant flashes of Detective Enders, whatever progress she could have made after her conversation with Frost had receded considerably. That seemed to be her theme lately: Come to a realization, backslide. Speak the truth, take two steps back. Start talking, admitting, believing, back to square one. It would have been laughable had it not been under absolutely terrible circumstances.

Her mother had stayed that first night. Jane hadn't even had the will to fight it as her mother cooked her soup, encouraged her into the shower, and later laid beside her in bed. Jane knew that her mother was waiting, hoping that Jane would cry into her shoulder and let it all out, but Jane's tears were all caught up inside of her, choked by anxiety and apprehension and worry and fear and a little thrill of anticipation. Maura was coming.

She still couldn't bring herself to pick up the phone. Frost had continuously assured her that Maura was indeed en route. She'd had to wrap up her training at the university and pack and book herself on a flight, and the soonest she could get in would mean that she'd arrive in time for the funeral, possibly the night before. Jane supposed she could call, start to broker some sort of peace and lay the groundwork for the big face-to-face reunion, but it seemed wrong somehow. They'd somehow survived so long on silence that Jane couldn't fathom a phone conversation. Small talk would be unbearable. Dissecting the truth across two continents seemed unwise. So Jane left her phone alone and balled her fists with impatience, wishing for the hours to pass as quickly as possible.

At the core of it, as Jane thought it over from her bed, she was uncertain. She had been direct with Frost about her suspicions and her own feelings, sure, but what if she was wrong? What if Maura was just upset over a betrayal of confidence and some rough comments during their supposed cat fight? What if Jane's guesses and hunches were all wrong? What if Maura did love her and miss her, but as a friend, and hadn't been angry about Dean on principle, but just because Jane had been a shitty friend in her time of need?

But that wouldn't change how Jane herself felt, she realized suddenly. Even if Maura didn't feel the same way, it didn't change the fact that she, Jane...loved Maura. And wanted to be with her, fully, completely, in every sense of things. And maybe Maura didn't feel the same way. Maybe she did. But most importantly, Jane wasn't going to know until Maura was back and they finally had a chance to lay this all out. Like they should have done from the beginning. Like Jane should have insisted on instead of leaving Maura crying over her own grave. Like Maura should have insisted on before running to Brazil, rupturing the fragile membrane that still held Jane and Maura together even with the hell they'd both been through.

It hurt. God, everything fucking hurt. Jane wished she could rewind and fast forward. Go back to the day at the cemetery and make herself turn around, to march back to where Maura was kneeling on the soft grass and crying, and hold her like she'd been aching to since the whole mess had first unfolded. Hold her and let her cry and refuse to let her go, even if Maura had raged and railed against her and yelled and fought. Let her cry it out, scream it all out if she had to, before Jane followed it with the simplest of truths. I love you. I never meant to hurt you. I am so, truly sorry. I will do everything I can to never, ever hurt you like this again. Or fast forward to the funeral, this dreaded, awful point in her future that would also be the moment she'd silently cried out for since she'd first realized that Maura had left. Left Boston, left the country, left her. Jane wouldn't screw it up this time. She was too beaten and battered and worn to put up a fight. All she wanted was to be able to wrap her arms firmly around Maura Isles, and quite possibly, if she was lucky, feel Maura's arms around her, holding her too.

-R-I-

The desperation was seeping through Maura's pores. It was in the air around her, smoking her out, choking her, overwhelming her. It was as if something had exploded, a bubble had burst, a chemical had been released and opened up the chasm inside of her that Maura had worked so, so hard to keep firmly closed.

One time, in the middle of the night when she couldn't coax herself to sleep, she had allowed herself to finally consider her eventual homecoming. Fully consider it, with every detail, the entire sequence pictured in her head as she tried to lull herself to sleep, Pedro laying unaware beside her. Maura imagined that she'd feel complete, ready, prepared even, when the day came to finally fly home. She'd probably do so a little wistfully, having enjoyed her time assisting with the new pathology program at the University, but she'd be looking forward to her own house and bed and the familiarity of Boston and the United States as whole. Maura anticipated feeling refreshed and relaxed, with her head finally in the right place and her heart eager for the reunions that awaited her. She'd be nervous, of course, about seeing Jane. Maybe even a little shy and apologetic during their initial greeting. But she'd be ready to move forward, file it all away as past history as she picked up her life in Boston as it was before.

But by the light of the next morning, Maura had recognized the naivete that had overtaken her midnight musings. Part of it might have been true; the beauty of planning a departure date meant that she could truly decide to leave whenever she wanted, when she was ready to face it all, and not a day before. And she probably would be happy to be back at home and get back to some sort of routine that was similar to the life she'd left behind. But Maura also realized that no matter what positive attitude or good feelings she attempted to bring back with her, she couldn't control how Jane would react or what Jane would feel. Just because she might be willing to leave the past in the past and not want to revisit the shooting and the investigation and Dean didn't mean that Jane would feel the same way. And as the sun rose in the sky, Maura also had to face a second reality: besides the chance that Jane wouldn't be willing to let it all lie, maybe the truth was that it shouldn't. Maybe they had to deal with it, clean out the wound, pour in the peroxide, say the difficult and terrible things they'd carried that had burned them both from the inside out, and then maybe start to say the deeper things, the things that were soft and tender and meaningful but still carried great potential for pain and discord.

After that, it was like the valve had opened. Maura slowly felt Jane slipping back into her thoughts, her psyche, and her heart. But in all actuality, she let herself recognize Jane's presence there since she also realized that Jane had never really stopped occupying space in these places deep inside her. And as she allowed herself to think and reflect and dig back through memories that sustained her and punished her all at the same time, Maura became more and more certain that she was right about one thing. Whatever reunion she and Jane were on a collision course toward - good, bad, or anywhere in between - they couldn't go back to what they were before. Not because their problems were insurmountable or because their friendship wasn't valuable or because either of them changed so much that they were no longer compatible. Jane and Maura couldn't go back to being friends, Maura realized, or to put it more directly, they couldn't go back to being just friends. They were more than that. They had always been more than that, she and Jane, but neither of them had realized it fully or been brave enough to face it if they had. But now the time had come. Or it would, anyway, whenever Maura mustered enough strength to get herself back to Boston. And maybe that was why she continued to drag her feet even after she began to hear the siren call of home, of Jane. She wasn't afraid of seeing Jane, per se. She was afraid of what would happen next. And so she'd delayed and delayed and hemmed and hawed and waited, in theory until she was well and truly ready.

But one thing Maura hadn't counted on, she thought ruefully, as she tossed and turned in bed for yet another sleepless night, was that much like Jane had had absolutely no control over her departure from Boston, Maura now had little control over her arrival back home. She'd counted on control, relied on it for comfort, used it to reassure herself that her reappearance in Boston wouldn't be so bad, just as long as she had it at her disposal. But now that control and all the security it provided had been stripped from her. It felt like a cruel illusion, a jinx like no other. You wanted control, the universe seemed to say. You wanted to control the shots? Here's some grief and angst and a whole lot of trauma and worry, let's see what you make of that. And so everything she'd relied on to get her through had disappeared in an instant, in a single moment of terror and clarity and emergency and all-consuming desperation. And it was this desperation that had seemingly merged with her whole being, taking over her mind and directing her body as the minutes danced their terrible, contradicting dance, ticking faster and faster and moving Maura closer to zero hour even as they seemed to drag on forever and ever and keep her heartbreakingly away, all at once.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would get on her afternoon flight out of Brasilia. She'd spend nearly twenty four hours en route to Boston across three stops, hopefully giving her enough time to crash land at her house and put herself somewhat together for the next morning. For the funeral. For Jane. For the entire spectacle that she suspected was assembling around them. It wasn't Frost's fault, or Frankie's, or Angela's, but she and Jane's issues had been laid out with enough of an audience that it was only natural that their reunion would take place in much the same way. But no matter how or what or when or why, Maura didn't care. She needed to get to Jane. She needed to somehow try to capture and hold and carry at least some of the pain she'd inflicted on Jane and the trauma that Jane had experienced on top of everything else. And she needed to finally be able to release her own pain and hurt and truths and repressed desires that she'd carried so long. But not by hurting or accusing or yelling or fighting. Somehow, Maura had a sense that by even having Jane in her sights, to be able to see her, to hear her, to finally touch her, it would start to dissipate, leave her body, help her finally start to feel whole again.

Maura could indeed feel the desperation radiating throughout her body, but instead of driving her into reckless decisions like the anger she'd wielded or eating away at her like the guilt that had settled within her, this desperation fueled her, quelled her leftover worries and anxieties and jitters and pushed her forward. She closed her eyes then, not ready to completely give up on sleep before the night was done. She let her mind empty and her thoughts float away, focusing only on the memory of Jane's arms around her. Maura would give anything for that, to have Jane within arm's reach and to finally, finally be able to hold her tightly. And hopefully, God willing, it wouldn't be long now. An end was in sight. It had to be.

A/N: I know, I know, slow burning and you're all screaming. But get ready, it's coming. Once I pull it out of my head and put it officially into words, that is. No more than 48 hours until the reunion, I swear, but tomorrow might be tight, just warning you all now. Thanks for the reviews and the love!