Maura spent her life believing that she was given up for some flaw she was unable to see, and when she was younger she scrubbed away at her skin, trying to find what part of her was wrong, what didn't fit inside her until Constance noticed and took her to a dermatologist, who made her sleep in gloves until the scratches from her nails clawing at her skin healed. She stopped after that; she didn't deserve that kind of attention, not when lots of other orphans had more problems than she did. Not when other orphans were in orphanages and foster homes, and didn't even have someone to take them to a doctor. When her object permanence featured, she realised it must not be a physical flaw; there must have been something wrong with who she was inside. Why else was she adopted so young, a new-born, to parents that hired nanny after nanny to take care of her, none of them ever staying long enough for Maura gain any sort of permanence? It was like balancing on the beam at ballet; if she was good, nothing bad happened to her. If she was bad, the woman that helped her dress and brushed her hair would be gone in the morning. And more mornings than not, they were gone. They'd seen what her parents had seen, and had left, unable to stay in the presence of someone so evil that their birth parents would immediately reject them.

Trish had stayed longer than most, never making eye contact, never affectionate. Some of the others had been, at first, then, puzzled by the shy, serious girl who never met their eyes, forgot to even attempt to interact with her beyond the basics. Maura could deal with Trish. They could co-exist peacefully as she took Maura to her lessons - piano, swimming, horseback riding, ballet, gymnastics and Lego. It was businesslike and perfunctory, the way Constance and Arthur treated her, and Trish was a relief. She never commented if Maura accidentally spilled something on herself, although Maura berated herself more than anyone else ever could.

Maura started school, and when she came home, Trish was gone, Constance out of town and another nanny in her place. Maura handed over her painting, wishing Constance had been the first to see it, or at least Trish. The new one looked Maura in the face, and it was like a slap after being left to her own devices for so long. She felt like this new one - Katherine - was examining her down to the bones.

"I know your Pa," she'd said cryptically. "You're safe with me."

And Katherine had been fun, at times. She cooked things that Maura didn't usually get to eat, like macaroni and brie with breadcrumbs, and a thick cottage pie full of vegetables. But she always had a stare that cut right through Maura, as though she knew something Maura didn't even know about herself. She was too young, biologically, to be Maura's mother, so she discounted that thought immediately; she'd been put up a grade on her second day, and they were talking about getting her to skip ahead again, the only concern being her size in comparison to her new classmates.

And then Katherine was gone, which gave Maura time to breathe again, not realising she hadn't for a while, not freely anyway. She'd been worried Katherine had seen it in her, whatever it was, whatever was in her genes, her heart, her brain, whatever it was that made her this way. The school had sent a report; technically gifted, but reclusive. CPS came by once, twice, saw that there was nothing amiss and gave the new nanny a referral to a psychiatrist that dealt with 'children like her'. Children who didn't make eye contact, that washed their hands too much, that recited information by rote, that didn't form connections with other children. There was a word for what she was, and it wasn't evil. But still, she wondered.

At boarding school, she got left alone, which was what she wanted. She wasn't bullied because she was too smart to piss off - she wrote the best crib sheets and cliff notes in the school - but no one sought her out, no one missed her in the common room or the dorm at night. No one whispered to her in the dark.

Not until Jane. Jane, the tall, dark detective. She'd given Maura the same stare Katherine had given her, and then she'd... smiled at what she'd seen. A genuine smile, the eyes crinkling; Maura had eventually learned to read expressions. Maura had never considered that there would be anything about her that would make someone smile at her like that - she knew people saw the outfits, the makeup, the hair, the general aura of attractivity she tried to send out to the world, but Jane had somehow cut to the quick of her, to her marrow, and what she'd seen hadn't frightened her, hadn't made her draw back. She leaned in instead, smile still soft on her lips.

"I believe we've met before," she drawled, extending an interesting hand. "Still no heart of gold, sista." Maura had shaken the hand gingerly, had introduced herself formally, but Jane's smile hadn't faded, her eyes gently amused.

Maura had chosen her field so she wouldn't have to deal with people, and for a long time that had worked. Socially, people liked the idea of her, and never sought to delve deeper. She was left alone most of the time, other than meetings and the court cases and the detectives filing through, impatiently waiting for her to wrap up autopsies. And then, one day Jane was at her elbow at the autopsy table like an impatient puppy, the scars on her hands so fresh and raw. Everywhere Maura turned, Jane was there, picking up evidence, looking through microscopes, joking with Maura's team until Maura snapped one day.

"What do you want from me?" Maura asked, setting down her scalpel, halting the autopsy. Jane looked up and shrugged.

"Right now? The bullet, please, but after that you can come down the The Dirty Robber. Frankie and Frost and Korsak will be there."

"I have a prior engagement," Maura said, nose scrunching in confusion.

"Next time, huh?" Jane asked, watching as Maura cut into another human being as though it didn't bother her. As though Maura cutting into humans was normal, as though it wasn't something a heartless monster would do. Maura nodded, handing over the bullet, letting Jane take it to the lab. If she didn't Jane would just hover impatiently and ask inane questions about Maura's family and romantic life as though she cared. Maura shook her head and turned back to the body.

There was a next time, and it was easier to let Jane drag her along with her, easier to let Jane adopt her like the stray puppy Korsak landed her with. Easier to bump Jane's nose out when she asked, easier not to wonder when Jane had started touching her the way she did, a hand on a shoulder, rubbing her back. She wondered if Jane even noticed, or if it was natural for her to be so physically affectionate, if she noticed that Maura flinched every time, if Jane took that as rejection even as Maura relaxed a moment later. It had been easy to let Jane in, but Jane would go one day, like everyone else had. Jane would walk into the morgue one day and see what everyone else had - that Maura wasn't worth her time or effort. When Maura pointed out the similarities between herself and Hoyt, Jane had laughed in disbelief, but that didn't make the comparison less true. If Maura ever found anything that made her feel fulfilled, she knew she'd pursue it, and if it was illegal? If it was torturing people and killing them, and then torturing the families left behind? Maybe she'd do that, one day. She couldn't predict the future, and she knew enough medically to wreak a lot of havoc, if she wanted to. But then Jane smiled at her, her scarred hands in Maura's, and Maura felt something new. Something she couldn't identify. When it turned out Maura's ex-fiance was a murderer, Jane only expressed relief that Maura hadn't married him, knowing he might have killed her for her fortune. She hadn't made any connection between Maura and the kind of people she dated being murderers. She hadn't made the connection that Maura had once loved someone capable of murder. She didn't see that Maura must have known, somehow. Had been drawn to him because of it, the thrill of darkness in him matching her own.

Her DNA showed up on her table one day, and she ran the tests again and again. She had a blood relative. She could have run her DNA at any time, but what if... what if they'd been right? Her birth parents, in abandoning her? Look at her brother, a career criminal. She'd been right all along. There was something wrong with her, if she shared a bloodline with this man.

Finding out about Paddy reinforced that belief, her cold, awkward parents reinforced that belief.

But Jane - Jane didn't. Jane only needed to look at her to see her pure, aching heart, one so worried she was a monster that she secluded herself so she wouldn't be tempted to harm anyone. And Jane was rough and tough, she was harsh and brash, but the moment any of Maura's doubt spilled out, Jane was bailing out the boat of insecurity so hard and so fast that there was no room left for anything except the way that Jane believed in her enough for both of them, until Maura could trust herself, believe in herself. Jane took both of Maura's hands and looked her in the eyes and told her she wasn't like them. That she could never be like them. She told Maura all the things she liked about her, all the things Maura hadn't realised were inside of her as well, along with this corrupt set of genetic material.

When Maura found out about Paddy, she wondered about her mother. Had she been part of the mob? Or had she been a hostage, had she been coerced, was that why she'd been given up, a product of rape, something so awful that not even a mother could love her? She didn't say anything to Jane, couldn't say anything to Jane, but she found Jane's hands rested on her more often, that Jane was showing up at her office at the end of the day more often and taking her out to dinner - sometimes at the bar, sometimes just takeaway at Jane's and sometimes dinner with Jane's family, who'd scared her when she met them - so loud and emphatic, their conversations like screaming matches to Maura, but always Jane was there, a hand on Maura's forearm to reassure her. Maura knew Jane had to know and share her suspicions, but Jane never flinched, never looked away. Never once looked at Maura like she disgusted her.

And then Jane shot herself. She'd managed to coax Maura into working on a live patient, one she had an emotional attachment to, and then she'd gone and shot herself, and Maura hadn't realised how attached she'd grown to Jane until she was running to her side, holding her together until the paramedics came, moving aside reluctantly as they started work on her, stepping in to help them stabilise her. She'd needed to be told to work on Frankie, but for Jane her hands worked on instinct alone. The paramedics let her work on her, let her ride in the bus, her bloody hand smoothing Jane's hair back from her face. Jane's eyes opened once, and Maura whispered "if you die I'll never forgive you," and Jane had nodded seriously, as though it was the only thing to keep her from dying.

Later they said that Maura had saved Jane's life as well as Frankie's, but she shrugged it off. Bad people could do good things, and she was a doctor. It wasn't like she saved lives every day, but it was something expected from a doctor, which she was. It didn't help. It didn't make the feel of Jane's blood on her hands fade; neither did scrubbing said hands.

Maura knew Jane had to report Ian. Maura never broke the law, unless it was for Ian, because he did good work. Perhaps her mother had been like her, perhaps she'd fallen for a criminal, perhaps it was in this wretched bloodline of cold, hard killers and cold, hard doctors. But when she told Jane to arrest her, Jane merely laughed as though the suggestion was ridiculous.

"He fixed my toe, Mau," Jane said, and there was no logic to that, but Jane appeared to think any obligation she had to report Maura for harbouring a fugitive had been repaid by that simple favour. And that hurt; Maura deserved to be punished. She'd broken the law, and the law enforcement wasn't enforcing her. Jane looked up, saw her consternation. "Maura. You told me what he does. I don't want to get in the way of what might be the only legitimate charity left in the world. Him being out there does more good than him being in a federal jail. And you," Jane said, taking Maura's hand. "You are worth more than a hundred of him." Maura smiled uncertainly, wondering how it had come to this. The Rizzolis had slowly crept into her heart, her home - the way Angela looked at her, took her side against her own children, the way she protected her and cooked for her, the way she hugged Maura as though she was Jane, her own daughter, as though she was someone... someone worth hugging. Someone who could do no wrong. Someone without a shred of evil in her body. Even when Paddy had come to be patched up and Tommy had been tied up, Angela hadn't been mad at her. Angela had given her a cuddle and made her a hot drink, even though she was related to... one of the worst criminals in the city.

"I'm a criminal, Jane," Maura said, trying not to cry. "You don't see it, but I am."

"Hey, sweetie," Jane said, tilting Maura's chin up, pulling Maura's legs over her lap so they were in close to each other. "There is not a criminal bone in your body."

"My marrow," Maura mumbled. "It's in my blood." She remembered how she'd scrubbed and scrubbed and the blood wouldn't go away. She longed for a shower, a bath, anything to sluice off her old skin.

"Your blood isn't who you are," Jane said dismissively, as though she knew more about biology than Maura. "Would a criminal be this upset?"

"Maybe," Maura said uncertainly.

"They only cry when they get what they deserve, which is usually jail time. Maura, you have to be easier on yourself. You fell in love. That's not a crime."

"Tell that to my mother," Maura mumbled, turning her face away. Jane had seen her cry, too many times to count. She deserved some kind of punishment, not Jane's soft hand rubbing over her thigh over the blanket, the other one rubbing Maura's back. Instead Jane's hand drew Maura's face to Jane's chest, where she could sob in private, Jane a silent witness, her hands soft and loving. Maura didn't deserve softness. She didn't deserve love. She deserved to be in jail, far away from the warmth and comfort of Jane's embrace.

A few months later, when Maura faced Hoyt for the first time, it wasn't until Maura was threatened that Jane finally took him down for good. Maura watched, knowing the nightmare was over for now, knowing Jane would protect her. After a surprise birthday party, Jane asked her to stay over, and Jane wept in Maura's arms for half the night. It was a conundrum. Jane was a killer, and Maura was descended from killers. But Jane killed so more people wouldn't die, Jane killed to protect - twice now she'd shot someone for the sake of Maura, for the sake of Frankie. And Paddy killed for personal gain. For power, for control. Maura had never had sleepovers before Jane, but by now she was used to Jane's bed, Jane hogging the covers and Maura's torso like she was part of the bedding. And now she was used to being the safe space Jane needed to decompress, to react to all the terrible things they saw.

"He can't hurt you any more," Maura said, smoothing back Jane's hair again, knowing that while it was technically, physically true, Jane's scars were prominent on both her hands and her mind.

Jane's trust in her made Maura start to believe that maybe whatever evil was at her core had started to melt, to be replaced by what Jane saw in her instead. When Jane was curled up like this in Maura's arms, clinging to her as though she was the only hope Jane had, Maura knew how intimate it was. She knew Jane didn't let her walls down for anyone else. She knew Jane saw something in her that made her feel safe enough to be vulnerable, knew how much Jane hated being vulnerable. Jane killed people and filed her reports with a straight face, but she cried later, when they were alone, and part of it was that Hoyt would have won either way. Either he'd have gotten to torture and kill Jane and her... whatever Hoyt thought Maura was, or he'd die at her hand and live on in the guilt that plagued her for taking a human life, even his. So Maura smoothed her hands over that strong back, trying to be the person Jane mistook her for.

And then Jane shot Paddy, and Maura took his side, the pull of blood stronger than water, reinforced when Angela went with Jane. Maura needed Angela; Angela had been kinder and more supportive than any person she'd ever met, barring Jane, but even now Jane's eyes when she looked at Maura, they looked like they understood.

They looked like her heart was breaking.

If Jane had just apologised at the hospital, if Jane had... and Constance too, Constance... Jane had won Constance for Maura. Jane had shown Constance how she saw Maura, made her change her perspective so she could see her too. Constance wouldn't have been hurt if Jane hadn't reconciled them. All of it was Maura's doing. Two of her parents, gravely injured. All because of her. Paddy had been there to protect her, and so had Jane, and Dean was there because... because Paddy was evil, and so was Maura. She had to be, to cause this much pain and destruction.

Nonverbal communication was hard for Maura, but Jane - Jane's face was easy enough to read. The regret, the anguish, the love. The love? Where had that come from? Maura wasn't used to love, didn't know if she was right, but the earnest longing in Jane's eyes when she looked at Maura was more than she'd expected, more than she'd ever seen, even from Ian.

It was no use. Jane was good. Jane was inherently good, and Maura had corrupted her, put her job, family and livelihood in jeopardy for her own mob connections. For her own selfish gain. If Maura relented, just a little, Jane would come back, and Maura would get all those hugs, all those soft tender moments with Jane back. Waking up in her bed, Jane asleep, her hair mussed and neck exposed. Jane's hand on Maura's back while she processed new information. Jane's hand in hers to clear the way through the crowd like an icebreaker. She could have all that back in a moment. But she didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve something as good as Jane in her life. She'd dragged Jane down to her level, and kept digging, and Jane was worth so, so much more. She didn't need the complications of a friendship with Maura.

But Maura had to know, so she asked Paddy if he'd have shot Jane. And he would have. Jane had been right, and Maura had been wrong. She saw the look of respect between them, that they'd both recognised that they'd shoot anyone that so much as threatened Maura's existence, and it was awkward. To have so many people so protective of her was strange. It felt wrong. And even though they weren't friends, not any more, Jane took Maura to the cemetery, to her own grave.

Her own grandfather hadn't wanted her to live. She'd had to be smuggled out of her mother's arms - a mother that the complicated man Paddy Doyle was had loved - and away to safety. Her abandonment hadn't been because she was flawed, or not good enough. It had been about her parents, not her. It had been for her own safety. Maura remembered Colin, wondered if she'd have turned out like him. Another body on a steel table. Another pawn in a dangerous game. Jane was hovering awkwardly, and Maura told her to tell Pike to clear out. She could do more good as an ME than by any other means she could think of. She had a lot of things to make up for, and penance was only fair.

When Maura met her mother, she saw what Paddy had seen in her. She saw what she'd wanted as a child, as an adult. She saw what she'd hoped to be, a definitive beacon for good. But this woman had willingly been involved with Paddy Doyle, had carried his daughter. Said it was better that the baby had died, and part of Maura died at that moment. There was no way to reconcile this. There was no way she could let Hope know that she was the baby she'd lost, that she wasn't dead. Maybe it would have been better if she had died at birth; it would have saved people a lot of trouble. Even when they reconciled it was so Hope could have Maura's kidney for her other daughter; the daughter she loved. She asked Hope if she saw evil when she looked at her, and Hope said she saw many good things in Paddy, but she didn't say the same for Maura. She felt like a bird pushed out of a nest by a cuckoo, always ready for the impact of the ground beneath her rising up. Always waiting to be removed, replaced. Always hoping no one would see why she didn't belong, why she was so awful that her own biological mother had said such things to her. That her own biological mother hadn't been pleased to find out she hadn't died at birth, that she was alive and successful and... the urge to scratch at her skin rose, and she picked up her computer, buying random things until she could stand being in her own skin.

Dennis, in hindsight, had been a mistake. What was it in her that drew people like him to her? Did they see it in her, the core of evil, the corruption eking through her veins? He'd said it had been her healing hands that made her a target, but maybe he'd thought... the women he killed where prostitutes with children who were using drugs. Not great people, based on that modelling, based on the abuse he'd suffered at the hands of his own mother. She hadn't fit the profile, but she felt just as bad as someone knowingly shooting heroin with a breastfeeding infant a few feet away. She knew what happened to those babies, knew what kind of life they had ahead of them, the abuse, the strange men coming and going. She knew addiction was a disease the healthcare system wasn't adequately treating, that those women weren't inherently evil, but the net result, their actions led to so much pain, so much anguish. And she was worse than them. If she hadn't saved him, so many of them would still be alive. The children had mostly been taken away from their mothers, but Maura later found one had died, alone, unloved, unnoticed until the police had finally taken the missing persons report on a prostitute seriously enough to do a welfare check where she'd been living. So many lives lost because of her. Jane said she couldn't have known, holding her well into the night, but Maura had been drawn to him because of something inside of her, by something that drew her to felons and murderers.

Maura had seen what evil lurked in the hearts of man. She believed she could have killed someone when she had no memory of being with him before he died. Because she knew people, knew she was also just a person, knew that some day the penny would drop and she'd realise she was the evil she feared all along. But she looked back as she was escorted out of the precinct, and the way Jane looked at her didn't change. She still saw her precious, terrified, unloved best friend, and that was the only moment of the ordeal in which she could believe, just for that moment, that she might not have killed him.

And when Jane hugged her, her name cleared, in front of most of the BPD, all the whirring thoughts in her head settled down into: Jane loves me. Jane is a good person, and she loves me, so by the transitive property, I must also be a good person, and I must be worthy of that love.

It never lasted long, only as long as they were touching, only as long as a smile, a hug.

But late at night, when Maura wondered if she'd have to take over the family business someday, if they'd bring the fight to her door and she'd have to defend herself, her home, her Angela - Jane's smile echoed in her mind, and she knew she'd deal with it if the time came.

With Jane by her side, she could make the right choice, if the time came.

Jane was sprawled on Maura's couch, the rest of the Rizzolis long gone.

"You want me to stay?" Jane asked, yawning, and Maura nodded.

"How did you know I didn't kill him?" Maura asked finally. "The evidence was pretty compelling."

Jane scoffed, cutting herself short when she realised Maura was serious.

"Mau, c'mon."

"I'm who I am," Maura said simply. "I could have done it." She wandered off to shower, careful not to scrub too hard, not to make the water too hot because Jane would notice, Jane would make that noise she made when she spoke to Jo, the high whine she made when Jo had hurt herself, the soft, soothing voice she used on victims. And Maura didn't need that. She didn't deserve that. She'd been stupid, so stupid. He wasn't even the first murderer she'd dated. She started when the door opened, Jane coming in and propping herself against the sink.

"You're harder on yourself than anyone I know, and you don't need to be," Jane said, trying to forget the comment she'd made about the women's showers in prison. She'd been worried violence would be done to Maura in there, not violation, but sometimes violence was more than physical. She shrugged. "I just wish you could see what I see in you," Jane said sadly, watching Maura's hands as though to ensure Maura wasn't using too much pressure, and she knew suddenly that Jane knew that this was how she punished herself, that she was monitoring Maura to make sure she didn't hurt herself. When Maura turned off the water, Jane picked up a towel and starting drying Maura gently, staying away from patches of red skin Maura hadn't wanted her to see. She hadn't been toweled dry since Trish, who'd known not to look her in the eyes, who'd known how to communicate with her. She felt like that little girl again, lost and alone, even with Jane. Maura looked down, ashamed that Jane knew. Jane tilted Maura's head up, made Maura look at her. Maura could get lost in those eyes, so soft, so gentle, so loving was Jane's gaze. "There is nothing wrong with you," Jane said, as though she was proclaiming a well-known peer-reviewed fact. "You're not evil, you're not just waiting for a chance to kill someone, you're not..." Jane sighed and pulled Maura close. "I don't know how to get you to believe this, but you're a good person. You're not your father's daughter. You're your own person. All the choices you made led you here."

"I don't know what you see in me," Maura said, her voice low, arms by her side as Jane held her, the towel between them. Jane sighed as though she was disappointed, pulling away and grabbing Maura's robe, holding it out for her, then holding her from behind, like she had in the Gilbreti garage. Maura sank back into her, drank of the warmth of her. If she didn't have to look at Jane, she could accept this, she could accept some of the comfort she was trying to offer. She could accept that some of this had been random happenstance, that she'd been targeted because of her profession and family more than once. That she didn't really have much in common with these killers, serial or otherwise. That perhaps she could let Jane hold her, comfort her. That perhaps she deserved to be comforted, after an ordeal like that. The way she comforted Jane after Dereck, after Hoyt. Jane wasn't evil, but she was targeted by it too. They really were a pair. Maura nodded, relaxed, and let Jane lead her to the bedroom. Maura discarded the robe, watching Jane pick it up and hang it where it belonged as Maura slipped on some underwear. Jane stopped Maura from pulling some pyjamas on in deference to Jane's presence, held out a tube.

"It's, uh, aloe vera," Jane said nervously. "It's supposed to be soothing." Maura nodded, and Jane uncapped it, rubbed some on the rough patch of skin above Maura's hip, turning Maura to check, kneeling down for the patch above Maura's knee, looking up, looking stricken. Maura looked away, and Jane got to her feet, checking Maura's back, rubbing it over the skin here and there even though Maura hadn't caused any damage there. When Jane faced Maura she met her eyes before she looked down, touch so gentle that it was almost a caress as she continued even though Maura had no more raw patches of skin left. Jane looked absorbed in her task, didn't look up.

"You're so..." Jane started to say, and they'd been here before. Not here exactly, with Maura mostly naked and Jane touching her, although they had been there, getting changed in the car or the precinct in a hurry. They'd been here, where Jane was on the cusp of pulling back, realising that a moment could be a little too romantic, a little too sexual. And Maura, she didn't deserve Jane. She'd never pursue her. But if Jane started it, if Jane acknowledged it, if Jane wanted it, wanted Maura, flaws and all, Maura wouldn't be able to resist. And that was selfish, that was wrong. Jane could do better. Jane had done better. Jane should do better. But Jane was still watching her hand trace over Maura's skin, smoothing over Maura's ribs, watching the goose pimples rise in her wake, watching as Maura's nipples reacted to the shift in mood, watched as they tightened even though she was nowhere near them. Jane looked up, finally, and Maura looked away. She could push Jane away any time she wanted. "You're so gorgeous," Jane said finally, pulling away, checking Maura's arms last, seeming satisfied that she'd found every area of herself Maura had attacked. "I know we aren't... I know you're not, but it hurts when you... when you date people. I don't know why." Jane was the one avoiding eye contact now, and Maura almost laughed at the audacity of Jane's lie. They both knew why. But it was an easy way out Jane was offering, and Maura moved to put her pyjamas on, ignoring the pout on Jane's face as she pulled on a singlet. She pulled out the pyjamas Jane usually wore when she stayed over, and Jane hesitated.

"I want a shower, but I don't want to leave you alone," Jane admitted.

"You could have joined me," Maura said, biting her lip as soon as she'd said it. Jane's eyes were wide with surprise.

"I could have?" Jane asked cautiously.

"You were already in there, watching me," Maura shrugged, turning it back on Jane, whose shoulders slumped. There she was again, she couldn't go more than a few minutes without hurting someone, using Jane's own concern against her. Jane disappeared, the shower turning on and off again quickly as Maura went to the kitchen for an evening tea, still unsettled.

"I'm glad you're not in prison, where else would I get this delicious leaf water at this time of night, huh?" Jane asked, taking her mug and jostling the hip Maura hadn't rubbed raw. Maura shrugged, seeing Jane's attempt to lighten to mood but unable to bring herself to let the mood be lifted. Jane sighed. "I'm sorry for perving out on you back there. I don't think you know, or appreciate... if I tell you I love your skin, will you stop..." Jane looked up, concerned she'd crossed a line, and Maura shrugged.

"From anyone else it'd be a line."

"I'm serious. I understand why you do it, you feel like you need to be punished." Maura looked at Jane in shock. "But there's nothing - Maura, you didn't do anything wrong."

"I let a man toy with my affections so he could desecrate both a woman and child's skeleton as well as an open murder investigation," Maura said calmly.

"Yeah, but you figured out who she was, that she'd been pregnant, and you got the man who killed her and her unborn child, as well as the man who drugged you. Doesn't that count for anything? Can't you just see the good you do for once," Jane said, and she sounded frustrated. "It could have been anyone, but he chose you because of your access. You fought him, even while under a drug that causes compliance. You found her killer. You found - three victims, that's a serial killer, Mau." Jane tilted her face towards Maura's downcast face. "Net sum of whatever. You know the good outweighs it all."

"There's so much 'all' to me though," Maura said, leaving back against the counter. "My parents, the amount of murderers I date, my..."

"Net sum," Jane said stubbornly. "You've saved my life. And Frankie's. And Cailin's. So every life the three of us save, that's on you too. You can't say... you can't... do you..." Jane swallowed. "Do you want to see someone?" she asked. "To see why you think this way? You're logical in every single other way, but you can't see past your own inherent bias here."

"Inherent bias?" Maura asked. She'd never looked at herself objectively. If it had been, say, Susie who'd been targeted, would Maura blame her like this? Would she scrub Susie's skin to get the evil off of her? Of course not. Maura exhaled, finally looking back up at Jane. "Maybe I should," Maura said.

"I shoulda said something a long time ago," Jane said ruefully. "When Paddy came on the scene, it was a lot to process. But I didn't want to, I don't know, insult you?"

"You could if you wanted to," Maura said. "You do often enough anyway."

"But I don't mean it. Not like this." Jane let out an anxious laugh. "Why so this so hard to talk about?"

"Because you're trying to tell me that a belief I've held my entire life is wrong," Maura said finally, meeting Jane's eyes again. "And you're right. But I can't change overnight."

"Honey, I'm not asking you to," Jane said, her eyes so soft it made Maura want to cry. "All I'm asking is, if you feel like the way you felt tonight, you let me know, and I'll make you feel some other way."

"What other way?" Maura asked curiously, watching as Jane set down her tea, then took Maura's and set it down too. Jane put a hand on the counter on each side of Maura, leaning in. She'd expected her first kiss with Jane Rizzoli to be hard and fast and passionate, to be because they couldn't keep their hands off each other's a moment more, clothes being torn off in a frenzy but instead it was a soft, tender press of Jane's mouth against Maura's, conveying all the esteem and hope and faith Jane had in Maura, all the reverence she'd looked at her with earlier, all the love that had gone unspoken too long, and Maura could almost picture her smaller self watching them, could feel her younger self's core values shattering a little, because if she were truly right about being so broken that no one would ever want or love her, then how could Jane kiss her like she was something precious, like she was someone Jane valued? She kissed Jane back, almost as an afterthought, almost like it was the most normal thing in the world, like they'd been doing it for years.

"How did that feel?" Jane asked, pulling away a little, and Maura looked down to where her hands had grasped Jane's hips of their own volition.

"Good. It made me feel good," Maura admitted.

"You are good," Jane said, smiling as though she'd finally made a point. "You're the best, kindest, nicest, most generous, prettiest person I know."

"You must not know many people then," Maura said, but the bite behind the words was gone.

"I know so many," Jane said, sagging with relief that the confrontation hadn't gone poorly. That she'd finally kissed Maura, and Maura hadn't minded, that Maura'd said it had made her feel good. "You know I love you, right?" Jane asked, a little panicked. "I mean, of course you know, how could you not know, you're my best friend... but I do love you, all of you, all the weird little quirks and the long explanations and your nerdy sidebars and the way you love my family," Jane took a breath. "I love you, and whatever happens, I'm here for you."

Jane rarely, if ever, verbally expressed her feelings, but sometimes Maura needed verbal clarification. She looked up at Jane, who still held her against the counter in the cage of her arms. Jane was looking at her the way she'd been taught a woman looked when she was in love. Blushing, lips parted and a little swollen from the kiss, eyes dark and focused. Maura nodded, believing this truth and digging it into her chest, a neighbour to all her self doubt, one that she hoped would grow and overtake all her misconceptions. Jane didn't have to tell the truth, yet her she was, completely open and honest and vulnerable and slightly... expectant? Maura realised she hadn't replied, and after Jane had so thought out herself out there it seemed rude.

"Thank you," Maura said, pulling Jane into her she she was pressed between Jane and the counter, the counter at her back digging in a little bit not uncomfortably. "I love you too," she whispered, rubbing Jane's back. "So much."

Maura had spent her life thinking that there was something wrong with her, something evil deep inside her that put people off, that drew bad people to her, so it took some time to dismantle that defunct belief system and pack it away. It wasn't easy, or overnight, and there were still a lot of times she felt worthless or flawed, but Jane recognised the signs and easily slipped her hand into Maura's to comfort her, to remind her of her worth. To slip Maura a kiss in the blind spot in her office to give her strength to get through the day. To hold Maura at night when her whirring thoughts wouldn't settle. She no longer scrubbed her skin raw if she'd made a mistake during the day, because Jane was there to wash her as gently and reverently as if she made of porcelain, then push her against the shower tiles and make her feel some other way. Make her feel good, make her feel good about herself, make her feel like she was good. And afterwards, much later, Jane would fall asleep with her head on Maura's chest, the weight of her a comfort.

Maura knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men, but when it came to them, two women, there was no space between them in their hearts for anything but love.

Notes:

I don't really know. An uncollected collection of memories and events. I'm tired. I wanted to do a rewatch of the first four seasons first but I also wanted it out of my brain. I kind of wanted to end with a little spanking or something but it'd be better for Maura to seek help before unwrapping that can of worms.