Though she knew it would happen, Maura was caught off guard when her progress was tested the very next day.

With a smug look on her face, Maura confidently picked up her rook and placed it back on the large marble chessboard.

"Checkmate."

"I saw it coming but I'm still devastated," Arthur laughed as he held his hand out to shake his daughter's. "Congratulations on yet another win."

"You were smart not to make a wager," Maura smiled as she shook her father's hand with mock formality.

"You proved to me long ago that betting against Maura Isles is not a wise decision."

Maura smiled as the comment, slowing returning her pieces to their respective squares on the board. She wondered silently if her father had intended for the comment to have the multiple meanings his daughter heard in the statement.

"You look contemplative," Arthur noted.

"Just thinking," Maura replied softly. "If you had asked me a month ago if I would bet against myself, I think the response would be vastly different than if you asked me today."

"I'm sorry we weren't there earlier on," Arthur said gently. "I wish we had been there for you to remind you how strong you are and how much support you have behind you."

"You don't have to apologise," Maura instructed. "You couldn't have known. I didn't let anyone know how much I was struggling until it was almost too late."

"I'm sure Jane knew."

Maura remained silent, as she often did when the detective's name was brought up.

Checking his watch, Arthur decided to change the subject.

"I think if we steal your mother away from her studio now, we can make it to the patisserie for a pain au chocolat," he offered. "What do you say?"

Maura smiled widely, for a moment reminding Arthur of his daughter as a young girl spending hours in that very library with him, as she nodded.

"That's my girl," he smiled. "I'll meet you downstairs."

Rising from the chessboard, Maura disappeared from the library and made her way through the large Isles Estate towards her mother's studio.

When she reached the studio, Maura paused outside the partially open door and listened for the sound of her mother's humming as she painted. To Maura's surprise, she was met with the sounds of her mother engrossed in conversation.

"That's understandable," Constance said. "Myself and her treatment team have tried to get her to reach out to you but I believe she has picked up some of your stubbornness, detective."

Maura's eyes widened as she realized who her mother was speaking to. Though her chest tightened at the thought of Jane's face as Maura left her standing in the Dirty Robber, the doctor couldn't stop herself from gently pushing the door open and quietly moving to the chair in the far corner of the room.

Constance caught her daughter's eyes and, with a knowing glint in her own eyes, continued her conversation with Jane.

"She's making progress," Constance said as she locked eyes with Maura. "I am not at liberty to say much else, but she speaks of you often. I hope you love my daughter as much as she so very clearly loves you."

Maura rested her head in her hands, guilt washing over her for the way she had abandoned the woman she loved and cut all contact. As the pressure inside her head once again began to grow to painful proportions, she made a move to stand up but froze mid-rise. For the first time in weeks, Jane's voice met her ears in something other than the brief voicemail she had left.

"I love your daughter very much, ma'am," Jane said, her voice echoing through the room. "I know she'll reach out when she's ready, but can you tell her I said Merry Christmas? Let her know that her presents will stay wrapped under the tree and the lights will stay on as long as she needs."

For a brief moment, Maura tried to speak. She fought with her vocal chords to please, please just work and say something.

Nothing came out.

Maura watched as her mother finished the phone call with Jane, though the words sounded muffled through the water sloshing in her mind.

"I'm surprised it took her this long to contact you," Maura finally found the ability to say, tracing a large paint stain on the chair she sat on.

"Jane loves you, and with her love comes respect. You said you needed time so she gave it to you, no matter how much pain it caused her," Constance replied as she walked to her daughter and brushed a bit of her hair off her face.

"I would have caused her pain if I stayed," Maura replied. "I already was causing her pain."

"The price of love is pain," Constance told her daughter. "But we pay it anyway."

"Please," Maura said as she shut her eyes. "I can't."

Hearing the strain in her daughter's voice, no doubt from the constant fighting and introspection of the past weeks, allowed her daughter a holiday respite as they linked their arms together and made their way to the foyer, en route to chocolate pastries.

The smile felt tight on Maura's face as she thanked the baker and handed a pastry to both her mother and father. Hearing Jane's voice hadn't had the effect on her it once did and instead of feeling at ease, Maura's chest felt pained as she pulled her knit hat down to protect her ears from the December chill.

For once, Maura almost wished that the raging tidal waves would attack her mind once again. The white noise, she felt, would be a welcome break from the thoughts swirling in her mind. Silently, though, Maura fought.

Against the guilt that came with the knowledge Jane's worried voice was caused by her. Against the longing to once again feel calloused hands in her own under the Christmas table. Against the doubt that lingered surrounding how long Jane would wait for her and the desperate hope that the detective would hold out just a bit longer.

As the trio walked towards the Champs-Élysées to take in the festivity of the city, Constance and Arthur noticed that with each step Maura's body seemed to shrink as she pulled herself back into the shell she had only just broken out of.

"Darling," Constance said, finally stopping in her tracks and moving to stand in front of her daughter. "What is going on in that mind of yours?"

The blonde looked up from the pastry she had been staring into as they walked and realized just how far they had traversed while she was lost in thought.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't realise we had made it so far."

"You have nothing to apologise for," Arthur soothed as he placed a hand on Maura's back and guided her to sit on a bench, a parent on either side of her.

"Talk to us, cherie," Constance urged.

"There's so much to say," Maura admitted, clenching her eyes shut to stop the tears from forming. "I wouldn't want to-"

"You could never be an imposition."

Maura opened her eyes to look at her mother, her father's hand on her back, and nodded her head.

"Is it Jane?" Constance asked.

Maura could only nod.

"Jane called earlier today," Constance explained to her husband. "She just wanted to know if I could tell her Maura was safe. I thought it might be a smart idea for Maura to hear Jane directly, so I put the call on speakerphone. Now I realise that may have done more harm than good."

"No," Maura quickly said, attempting to sooth her mother's guilt. "I would have felt these things regardless."

"Can you tell us what it is you're feeling?" Arthur asked.

"So much," Maura laughed sadly, wiping a tear from her eye. "I've been in survival mode for so long that it feels incredibly overwhelming to feel anything at all, let alone everything at once."

"I can't imagine how difficult it must be," Constance admitted. "To go from feeling nothing but the threat of drowning to feeling the full gamut of emotions in such a short period of time."

Maura looked up at her mother, for the first time hearing the matriarch of her family put into Maura's own words what she had been feeling.

"If you allow us, I think I speak for both your mother and I when I say we will gladly help carry the weight of your emotions until you feel strong enough," Arthur offered.

"I miss her so much," Maura gasped as she dropped her head into her hands, the pastry falling to the pavement below her. "I shouldn't, because I was the one who left her, but I miss her so much."

"Oh, darling," Constance whispered.

"And I feel so guilty for leaving her and not even telling her where to find me," Maura continued. Though Jane had been an integral part of her treatment thus far, she had struggled to talk openly about her in the facility. Jane and her importance to Maura was impossible to put into words, so when asked about the detective, Maura had to settle for lacklustre definitions of her. "I love her and I just want to be with her, but would you want to be with someone who kicked you out and then ran away?"

Both Constance and Arthur placed a hand on their daughter's back, allowing her to release her pent up emotions yet reminded her she wasn't alone.

"We should be wearing matching Rizzoli Christmas sweaters and watching ridiculous movies and having a snowball fight but instead I'm here and she's there and it's all my fault!"

"No," Arthur said firmly. "You came here to get better. That is nothing something you can take fault for."

Maura's head spun to look at her father when she heard his firm words, startled by the power he put behind them.

"I just miss her so much," Maura admitted softly.

"Just say the word and I'm certain we could get her here in time for Christmas morning."

Maura shook her head vehemently.

"No," she answered, a gloved hand coming to wipe her eyes. "As much as I desperately want to see her, I'm not ready. Not yet."

Accepting her daughter's reply, Constance took Maura's face in her hands and wiped the faint traces of makeup from her daughter's face.

"Would you like to keep talking, or would you like to be distracted? I don't want to force you to talk if you're already overwhelmed but I also don't want you to feel you can't talk."

Maura smiled at her mother.

"I think I would like to be distracted," she admitted.

"Fabulous," the older woman smiled as she stood up and offered her hand to her daughter. "Shall we pull in a few favours at the Louboutin store and drag your father on a shopping spree?"