"Do you see her? Do you see her yet?"

Olivia rolls her eyes, putting her hand on Jane's shoulder to stop her bouncing.

"You're just as tall as me," she responds. "If you can't see her, chances are I can't either."

Jane stops bouncing with some difficulty, and takes Olivia's hand in her own. Even as she nears her thirteenth birthday, she continues to do things like this.

The contact makes Olivia's stomach turn over.

"Summers in Rome," Jane says, managing to sound both wistful and dismissive at the same time.

"Summers in Rome," Olivia echoes, and Jane glances at her out the corner of her eye.

This is the third summer they have all been friends. The third year coming to an end, and in Olivia's opinion, it is the one in which they have all changed the most.

She'd felt it, towards the end of sophomore year. Emily and Jane, even three years younger, had both shot upwards, as though their bodies had heard some secret, whispering song that Olivia's limbs were not yet privy to. Jane had continued to grow all summer, and afternoons of sun and hours of pedaling her bike around Roxbury gave her muscles definition that made Olivia's heart beat speed up whenever she thought about them too much.

Now, as Jane stands on tip toes again, scanning each face for Emily's, Olivia has to admit to herself that she'd liked having Jane to herself for three months. She'd liked being her only confidante, riding bikes down to the corner store and trying to talk Sal into giving them two popsicles for a dollar, hanging around the precinct downtown hoping to get a glimpse of a perp being dragged into the station.

She'd liked the feeling she got when her phone rang in the middle of the night, it was Jane, calling her first, because there was no one else in the picture.
But Olivia does not have any more time to dwell on these thoughts or feelings much longer, because there is Emily, looking older and gorgeous and…sad. And Jane runs forward and throws her arms around her friend's neck with a screech of joy that makes other travelers stop and look around.

Emily flinches, and although Jane doesn't seem to notice, Olivia certainly does.

"We missed you!" Jane is saying as Olivia gets nearer. "My travel team won first in regionals, did you get the pictures I sent?"

Emily nods, and smiles at Olivia.

"Hey, Liv."

"Hey, Prentiss. Good summer?"

Emily's face goes hard. "Uneventful," she says flatly.

Olivia is struck by the certainty that this is a lie. The first lie that Emily has ever told her.

"Cool," she says, striving for the same casual, unaffected manner.

Emily's expression almost cracks.

"Ready?" Jane asks. She is oblivious, already heading towards baggage claim, already off and talking again, about her summer, about how ready she is for high school.

Olivia links her arm with Emily's as they follow behind.

She wonders if any of them are really ready at all.

…

…

They've arrived at the bar first (Alex's doing of course, not Olivia's) but the ADA balks at the door, concerned.

"The Dirty Robber," she says, eying two uniforms as they step around them to enter.

"Yeah," Olivia responds, excited. "We used to hang out here all the time when we were rookies. Before Emily got picked."

"It's a cop bar." Not a question.

Olivia shrugs. "So?"

"I'm a lawyer," Alex says reasonably, a small smile pulling the corners of her mouth.
"Not in Boston," Olivia argues. "You don't have jurisdiction here, plus, who's going to know?"

Alex smiles a reserved smile. "When do I not look like a lawyer, Liv?"

Olivia laughs, which makes Alex's shoulders relax. "I'm serious," she says, although her eyes are giving her away. "They will smell lawyer from 100 feet away."

Olivia puts her arm around Alex's waist. This is one of the things that made her fall in love with the blonde in the first place: How little she gives away and how well one has to know her to be able to read her. The ability to do so makes Olivia feel strong.

"Stick with me," she says. "You'll be fine."

Alex's snort is one of affection and pride, Olivia can tell.

They pick a booth towards the back of the bar that will fit six people, and when Olivia waves at the familiar bartender, he waves back with a look that says he think he should know her, but can't quite place her.

"Beer?" She asks Alex.

"Something dark, please."

Olivia's phone buzzes as she heads to the bar and she pulls it out, praying it's not from the precinct, even though there would be nothing she could do if it were.

It's not, it's a message from Jane.

We're on our way. M got caught in the morgue. 10 minutes.

Olivia feels relief expand inside her, for several reasons. She doesn't trust herself not to scare Jane off, and so she just slips her phone into her back pocket, and leans against the bar to grab the drinks.

"What?" Alex asks, smiling at her as she returns with a Guinness and a glass of Cabernet. "You look like the cat that got the canary."

Olivia rolls her eyes as she slides into the bar. "I do not," she says. "And if I do, it's because Jane's bringing Maura. She just texted me."

"Ah, the doctor she's always talking about?"

"Yes, the Medical Examiner."

Alex tips her beer towards her, looking at it skeptically over her glasses.

"Emily doesn't care for her," she says after a moment.

Olivia puffs her cheeks out in exasperation. "Why is everyone saying that? She doesn't not like her-"

"You know how I feel about double negatives," Alex interrupts with a wry smile. "If you were going to say that Emily likes her, you would have just said it. Using a double negative is simply hedging around the fact that-"

"She's protective," Olivia persists, taking a sip of her wine. "We're all pretty protective of each other."

Alex takes a drink, considering this. "So I passed Emily and Jane's test, then?" She asks finally. "And Jennifer has passed yours?"

Olivia huffs, but answers. "You never had to pass any test, Alex. But yes, both Emily and Jane like you a lot."

"And if they hadn't? That wouldn't have mattered to you in the slightest?" Alex leans forward, fixing her sharp blue eyes on the detective. "You would have told them to, what is it you and Jane say to each other?" she makes air quotes, "get bent?"

Olivia laughs, and is about to respond, when a familiar voice over her shoulder makes her whirl around.

"Who needs to get bent? I'm assuming it's you, Liv, always putting your foot in your mouth."

Emily Prentiss has the shadow of a black eye and the hint of a limp, but she hugs Olivia back hard, wrapping her muscled arms around the detective's waist.

"You made it!" Olivia says when they pull away. "You look like hell!"

Emily laughs and pulls Olivia into a hug again. She's getting better at them.

"And you, you look amazing," Emily says pulling back to study her friend more closely. "Seriously, you look great. You been on leave or something?"

"She's stopped eating takeout four times a week, and she's using my moisturizer when she thinks I'm not looking," Alex says, rising from the table to hug Emily too. "Hello, Agent Prentiss," she says warmly.

Emily shoots Olivia a look over her shoulder that clearly says, moisturizer?

Olivia pretends to glare.

"Will you please call me Emily?" she asks, as Alex steps back. "You don't want me to call you Assistant District Attorney-"

"No!" Alex says, with a nervous glance around. "No, Alex is fine, thank you."

Emily nods, her expression serious except for her eyes, which dance with mischief. "Alex it is," she says. "And I'm Emily."

Alex nods, conceding. "It's good to see you, Emily."

"No J.J.? No Henry?" Olivia asks.

Emily glances back towards the entrance. "No, she's here…Henry has the bladder of a pea. I think they detoured the second we got here."

"Come sit," Alex says, moving back towards their booth. "Olivia will get you a drink, won't you honey? Wine for Emily? And what for Jennifer?"

Emily raises her eyebrows high enough that they almost touch her hair line.

"Honey?" She says, looking delighted. "You'll get my drink, honey?"

Olivia opens her mouth to respond, but at that moment J.J. appears with Henry, and it is her sweet, teasing tone that answers first.

"Don't tease her. Remember who you brought with you, Emmy."

Olivia guffaws as Emily blushes crimson, but neither says anything more.

"Hello, Alex!" J.J. says, letting go of Henry's hand so she can embrace the ADA, who looks a bit caught off guard by the show of affection. "It's good to see you."

"It's, ah, good to see you too," Alex says as Olivia bends down to say hi to Henry.

He smiles bashfully and then allows Emily to lift him up onto her shoulder, burrowing into him as naturally as if she were his own mother.

Olivia meets Emily's eye with raised eyebrows, but doesn't comment, and after a moment, both women follow their partners into the booth. Emily deposits Henry between herself and J.J., and Olivia is struck by how natural they look, and how insular.

She feels Alex watching her, but doesn't look around. They haven't talked about the future, about families or settling down, but sometimes Olivia can feel the topic close by, as if waiting to break into their almost content little lives.

"You both look good. I saw you on the news last week, Ms. Cabot, after the McKinney case? That was quiet a win."

Alex looks pleased. "It was a tight case," she says. "It was just a matter of presenting it so the jury could see all that he'd done."
Emily smiles appreciatively. "Way to go, counselor." She glances at Olivia. "Heard from Jane?"

Olivia tries to keep her voice light when she answers. "She got caught up in the morgue…They'll be here soon."

Emily's eyes snap back to Olivia's face, narrowing slightly.

"And what, exactly would hold Jane up in the morgue?" she asks, already looking a little sour.

"Jane is bringing Maura!" Olivia says excitedly, directing her statement at J.J. .

J.J. claps her hands together, looking excited, but Emily scowls. "Why?" she asks sourly, shrugging off J.J.'s hand.

"No, seriously," Emily says, her voice rising a little. "Why is she bringing that woman?"

"Hey, hon," J.J. says easily, "Your jealous is showing."

Emily's scowl deepens. "I'm not jealous," she says quickly. "I just don't think that…I…I don't think that Dr. Isles understands Jane."

"Why would you be jealous?" Alexandra Cabot has never been shy. She likes to know all of the facts about everyone and she has no qualms about asking.

"They had a thing," Olivia says, surprised that this statement still kicks up a little flurry of anger in her stomach. She slides closer to Alex in the booth, and sees Emily's face register this movement and file it away.

Damn profiler.

Alex does not hide her surprise. "A romantic thing? Emily and Jane?"

Emily's face does not betray any emotion at all. "It wasn't really a thing," she says quietly.

J.J. doesn't look ruffled at all, she presses a piece of cheese to her son's mouth with one hand, the other seeking Emily's on the table. "It was certainly a thing," she says easily. "Though perhaps not in the way you mean it, Olivia."

Olivia swallows back a retort that would be too harsh, and takes another sip of her wine. She can feel Alex's curious eyes on her.

Emily sighs. "A story for another time, maybe," she says. "When we've all had more to drink, and tiny ears aren't soaking up everything we say."

It must be a phrase she uses a lot, because Henry perks up and puts his little hands over his ears with a giggle. "Tiny!" he giggles. "Henry has tiny ears!"

The look on Emily's face when she grins at her girlfriend's son almost eclipses Olivia's previous irritation.

"You've got a black eye," Olivia says to Emily, realizing too late that this topic of conversation might not be any more appropriate than the last.

Emily's fingers move to press at the space below her left eye. "Yeah," she says after a second, and then, seeming to remember who is around her. "But we got them back alive and we got the basta-" she catches herself with a wink at Henry that makes him giggle, "baddies that did it."

And everyone at the table nods understandingly.

"And it will stick?" Alex asks, with a sip of her wine. "Nightmare over?"

It's a language that she and Olivia use that both lightens and acknowledges the weight of their jobs, but Emily and J.J. take the terminology in stride.

"Yes," J.J. says, her voice only slightly strained. "We don't get to stay and make sure. That's one of the difficulties of what we do…but I'm fairly certain it will stick." She looks at Emily, and her expression is something deeper and more painful than love. "Emily saved the day."

Olivia sees Alex's eyes soften the tiniest bit, as though she understands what J.J. isn't saying.

Emily shrugs uncomfortably, and then glances at her watch, doing a double take when she sees the actual time.
"Where is that idiot?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder towards the door.

Olivia laughs. "She's running on her own clock," she says. "You know she has her own…perception of time."

"And the good doctor can't bring her into the adult world at least?" Emily grumbles.

J.J. laughs. Between her and Alex, it is J.J. who has spent the most time with Jane. "She's probably pulling a Rizzoli somewhere. Stopping an armed robbery on her way. Saving a kitten from a tree…"

"Is that what we're calling it now? Pulling a Rizzoli?" Like she's been summoned simply by their naming of her, Jane has appeared next to their table, looking tall and windswept and exactly the same as the last time Olivia laid eyes on her. She wears work boots over cuffed jeans and a t-shirt and leather jacket.

And behind her, looking drop dead gorgeous, and about as nervous, Dr. Maura Isles.

"You started the party without me," she says, and it could be Olivia's imagination, but she sounds raspier than usual, her voice a half octave lower.

She and Emily scramble from their seats to hug her, neither waiting for a turn, just simply throwing their arms around her together.

Jane laughs as they embrace her, stretching her arms to encircle both of them, and for all her apprehension about the meeting, for all her worry about all of them, together in one booth, Olivia has to admit that this moment feels exactly like home.

...

…

"Look at them," JJ chuckles, tilting her head back to the booth where Jane and Emily are laughing at something. She and Olivia and Alex have gotten up to replenish their drinks.

"I know," Olivia smiles, signaling to the bartender. "They could be sisters.

"We could be two sets of sisters," Alex puts in matter of factly. "Just two sets of sisters come together for a drink."

There is a silence, and Olivia sees that J.J. is mulling this over as well. "You three do seem to have a type," she says finally, and Olivia realizes that she could be either joking or completely serious. She will bend to whichever mood the detective wishes to indulge.
What a perfect match for Emily.

"I think," she says carefully, "that the more important thing to notice is that we've all stayed within our fields."

Alex blinks, opening her mouth to protest, and Olivia laughs, cutting her off before she can say anything, already knowing what's coming.

"I mean we've chosen people we work with, Lex. We've all chosen people that understand what we do. There's no need to tell us how much more schooling you've had then us." She puts on her sweetest smile to round the edges of her words, and the wry smile that tugs at Alex's lips tells her she's been successful…mostly.

J.J. laughs, but sobers quickly, and Olivia looks around in time to see Emily, the tail end of her jab still written on her face.

Dr. Isles seems to shrink back into herself. She looks away from the two brunettes, but not because she is looking for anyone to save her. She does not expect help.

"We'd better get back over there," Olivia says, though she doesn't move immediately.

J.J. sighs, the end of the lamentation coming out as Emily's name, a little sad and mostly affectionate.

"They had a romantic thing?" Alex asks again.

Olivia frowns, watching as Emily says something that makes the Medical Examiner blush. Jane's hand twitches, like she would put it on the doctor's arm, but she can't quite follow through.

"Honestly," J.J. says, having seen it too, "I can't leave her alone for three seconds. Will you-" she gestures to the bartender who is still mixing her drink, and when Emily nods, she strides back to the table quickly, slipping in beside her wife and putting a hand on the profiler's wrist.

"So," Alex says, eyes still on the booth. "Jane had a thing for Emily? But you had a thing for-" but her eyes move to Olivia's face, and something there stops her sentence. "Ah," she says quietly.

They watch together as J.J. says something that makes Maura perk up.

"Media liaison," Olivia says, and Alex makes a noise of agreement.

"So are you going to tell me why Emily is not fond of Dr. Isles?"

For a moment, Olivia thinks she can hear sirens.

"Liv?"

Olivia shakes her head.

"No? You're not going to tell me?" Alex sounds surprised and a little irritated.

"No," Olivia says, and then, seeing Alex's expression slide towards outrage, she shakes her head again. "No I mean, I'll tell you, just…It's too long to tell right now. It's too…"

The attorney waits for a moment before speaking, a holdover from the courtroom, where sometimes it's better to let a witness sit in silence.

"Does it have to do with Jane's feelings for Emily?"

"Jane doesn't have feelings for Emily anymore," Olivia says quietly, and she gestures with her chin so that Alex looks over at the booth again.

Whatever J.J. has said has sparked conversation in Dr. Isles. She is leaning forward towards the Media Liaison, face alive with something akin to excitement, hands moving along with her story.

Jane is watching her with open admiration and affection, seemingly unaware of anyone else.

Alex inhales, eyebrows arching. "Ah," she says again.

"We're complicated," Olivia says, reaching for J.J.s refilled glass as the bartender sets it down.

Alex laughs, and she puts her hand on Olivia's waist, just lightly, before pulling away to grab her own drink.

"And here I was thinking it was only you."

…

…

Olivia fumbles with the flashlight, feeling the smooth plastic sides for the switch.

Next to her, Jane elbows her hard in the ribs. "Hurry up!"

A bit further into the darkness, Olivia hears Emily laugh. "Is poor wittle Janie scared of the dark?" she teases.

"Shut it," Jane grumbles. "I'm not either."

But Olivia finally finds the switch on the side of the flashlight and the little tent is illuminated. She sees Jane's shoulders relax.

She hasn't said anything specific about her trip, but Olivia has noticed an edge to her sarcasm that wasn't there before. A hollowness to her eyes that did not used to show.

"I missed you guys," she says, her voice almost breaking with her conviction. "I missed you guys."

Jane puts a bracing hand on Emily's upper arm, and Olivia can tell that their friend's new demeanor has not been lost on Jane.

"We missed you too," Jane says, and Olivia finds herself nodding.

It is true. It feels truer every day Emily spends with them. Whatever Olivia might be feeling towards Jane, their group is not complete without her.

"Let's do it," Jane says, and she scoots closer so that each of her knees touch the knee of the girl on either side. "Before we can think about it and it seems stupid."

And isn't that totally, entirely Jane.

Emily pulls the little red Swiss army knife from the pocket of her jeans. It was her idea, and so it was her responsibility to bring the necessary tools.

But she hands the little blade to Olivia, and then turns her palm upward, hand unshaking.

"Ready," she says, her voice devoid of emotion.

Olivia wants to ask what happened to her this summer. Even in the dim glow of the flashlight, Olivia can see Emily's eyeliner a little heavier, a little darker than it was when she left.

She is about to ask, her courage finally reaching its peak after three days of wondering, but then Jane sticks her own hand out, jaw set and determined.

"Me too," she says.

Olivia takes a breath and snaps the little blade out and into place. Both the other girls seem to be looking to her to say something about what they are about to do.

"A pact," she says, and because it seems to be the chivalrous thing to do, she presses the sharpened end of the blade into her own palm first, taking care to keep her face as neutral as possible. "That we'll always be there for each other. No matter where we go after high school, or on the summer. No matter how many days we go without talking to each other…no matter who we…fall in love with."

Jane makes a face and Emily smiles faintly, looking a little pained.

"No matter what," Olivia repeats. "It's a promise."

"It's a promise," Jane says fiercely.

Emily looks around at them, and maybe those are tears in her eyes.

Maybe it's just a trick of the light. Olivia can't be sure.

"It's a promise."

...

...

Thank you guys for all your wonderful reviews. I hope that from now on, these chapters are going to be a little less confusing. There should be one timeline, interspersed with flashbacks. Occasionally there might be one full chapter dedicated to one section of past or one aspect of the present, but less dueling presents….sound good? So, luckypenguinbuddy, matiky and others who expressed confusion, that should lessen now…

There was someone who asked about the rotating of perspectives. That will continue…Emily, Olivia, Jane. I mapped it out, and even though it's challenging sometimes, it works really well other times…at least for the next 6 chapters. J

Also thank you for sticking with me through this little hiatus. Had some struggles that took me away. But those of you who left encouragement played a huge role in keeping my head above water. Thank you to those who have stuck around all this time. I cannot express the depth of my gratitude.

Okay…so let's find out why Emily doesn't like Maura, shall we?

happy reading,

tc