Maura glared at Jane, her teeth gritting against each other, reminding her she had to go to the dentist soon. Her jaw had been clenching a lot lately, and she needed to have her TMJ checked. Frost and Korsak looked nervous, uneasy. They were used to Maura being nice, being compliant, being polite. And here she was, glaring up at Jane in front of the whiteboard, sniping about her winning a camp award.

"Oh, you wanna fight? It's on," Jane said, her jaw set, talking to Maura the way she talked to a perp. Jane tied her hair up and Frost whistled, then looked away as Jane glared at him. Jane was stunning like this; fluid in motion, her anger almost pheromoneal. Maura shivered when Jane landed that gaze on her again, then nodded and led the way.


Jane hauled Maura into a closet on the way to the carpark, pushing her back against a storage rack, and Maura slapped Jane's hands off of her.

"I thought we were fighting," Maura spat out from between her teeth. She was going to need some anti-inflammatory medication soon.

"Cameras in the parking lot," Jane said, and she didn't sound angry. Just sad. She rose to Maura's bait each time, but when Maura caught Jane looking at her, Jane's eyes were so wide and liquid brown and filled with regret and loss and longing, moments later hardening as she saw Maura looking at her, turning away from her. If Maura stepped down, Jane would stand down too. But so much had happened, and Maura wasn't sure she could let go of her anger yet. It had been boiling inside her for decades. Thinking she wasn't good enough for her birth parents, then finding out they weren't good enough for her. Paddy promising to tell Maura about her mother and then refusing to see her. Paddy getting shot, her visceral reaction to it, almost animalistic. Jane rushing forward, apologising, trying to help him, help her. Paddy saying he'd have shot Jane given half a chance. Angela being gone, her house empty and lonely. No Jane, no Jane at all to hold her as Constance was released into Maura's care for a few weeks. Jane, even knowing how mad Maura was at her, taking Maura to see her own grave, asking if she needed anything. Helping her even though Maura was mad. "What can I do?" Jane asked, her voice cracking, and Maura felt her anger cracking too. No. She needed it. She needed it to keep herself together - she was so close to crying all the time now, so close to being ashamed of how she'd treated Jane - the way Jane had come running to the hospital when Maura had called her, even though she'd been on a date. The way Jane had held her in the hallway as she'd cried, the tenderness of Jane taking her hand at Constance's bed. If only someone else had pulled the trigger. If only Jane could be holding her now.

Maura swung almost without thinking, and Jane easily caught her arm, caught the other too, pulling them to cross Maura's chest and turning Maura away from her, so she held her from behind, holding Maura's wrists. Jane's left hand was pressed against Maura's right breast, compressing the tissue, the lace scratchy against the skin with the pressure. Jane had to know, had to have noticed.

"You know, I heard somewhere that anger and sexual frustration are deeply linked," Jane said, and it sounded like a taunt, like Jane had felt Maura's nipple harden through her shirt. "Maybe we should get it out of the way," she purred into Maura's ear, and Maura shuddered, then shook her head.

"You're too sexually repressed to be making a serious offer. You're just trying to piss me off, now that I can't fight back."

"Maybe," Jane conceded, shifting her grip, brushing against Maura's chest with her knuckles, pressing closer against Maura's back. "But you'll never find out for sure unless you calm the hell down." Maura flung an elbow back, catching Jane in her abdominal scar tissue, hearing Jane suck wind. "I hope it still hurts," Maura said bitterly. Maura used the distraction to wrench her hands free, turning and pressing her hand at the spot where she knew the scar tissue was, pulling Jane's shirt out and up to push her thumb up against it, readying herself to press down on it. But she knew this skin, this scar. She'd had her hands pressed to Jane's stomach and back for what had felt like hours on the precinct steps, holding Jane's blood and organs in. She couldn't. She couldn't. Her grip loosened, her thumb just brushing the scar as Jane looked up at her, bent over from the wind coming out of her, and she grabbed Maura's hands again, holding them between them. "You shoot yourself, you shoot my father, who are you going to shoot next? Frankie? Angela? Me?" Jane shook her head, holding on as Maura struggled again, hating herself for missing the opportunity, hating herself for being caught again, hating herself for not struggling more, scared of being let go. She glared up at Jane, her eyes burning. Jane looked serious enough, and it made Maura pause. Was all this anger just a hormonal response? Did she really want Jane? Or her response, the tug in her belly just been a fluke, like all the other flukes?

"Do you hate me?" Jane asked quietly, looking down at Maura's mouth. Maura struggled a little, but Jane was used to restraining perps. Jane was so strong, and it was doing something for Maura. Maura looked away, looked down. If she lied she'd get a rash, and Jane would know either way. Even so, Jane watched as Maura's lips drew back as she tried to say 'yes', failing twice before sighing and going limp.

"No," Maura said finally. "No, I don't hate you," she admitted quietly, and Jane let go of Maura's arms, pulled Maura close against her as she started sobbing into Jane's chest, letting go of her anger for a moment to allow herself be held, to be held by Jane, who hadn't held her for weeks, who felt just as good and safe as she always had.

Maura never let herself be angry. When she was a child, Constance would just watch until she wore herself out of a tantrum, and then she would make Maura go to the art gallery or the opera anyway. She'd learned that expressing anger was pointless and gained her nothing so she internalised it, and now she'd started it was almost impossible to stop. And with Jane it was easy. Jane never hid her feelings, and Maura felt safe showing her own, no matter what they were. Right now they were mostly anger, but usually they were more positive. Nothing she could say to Jane would make things worse, would make Jane stop looking at her the way she did, with her eyes warm and friendly. Anyone else wouldn't take Maura's anger like this, would have shut her down or shut her out by now, but Jane was safe, and Maura was hurting her as much as she was hurting herself. But there was still so much anger inside her, all the bullying at school she hadn't realised was bullying at the time, too socially inept to recognise the backhanded comments. All the men who'd used her for her body and hadn't even considered her as a person. Her father - Arthur this time, not Paddy - being a coward, leaving her with his guilt for decades. And Paddy himself, for wanting to shoot Jane. Maura had never shot anyone, but if the tales had been turned, if Paddy had shot Jane, she'd have pulled Jane's gun from her hands and shot him herself. And the anger of finding out she had a brother too late to know him. Never being able to meet her family. Her birth mother still hidden from her. The loss of Angela taking Jane's side, even though Maura had taken Paddy's side first. She was so angry, and of all those people, Jane was the only person she could be angry at.

Because she trusted Jane, she realised, sobbing against her shoulder, vaguely aware that Jane was rubbing her back and making soothing little noises. Maura's hands were trapped between them, gripping Jane's shirt as it soaked up her tears. She'd been holding herself together for so long, and now that she had a safe place to fall apart, she was doing so with aplomb. And Jane didn't seem to mind, her hands just as strong and steady against Maura's back as they had always been.

"I've got you, sweetheart," Jane said, and Maura choked back a laugh. She'd been awful to Jane for weeks, and here Jane was calling her sweetheart.

"I'm not your sweetheart," Maura said. It was supposed to come out scathingly but it caught in her throat, sounded rueful instead.

"Right now you are, hush," Jane said, rocking Maura a little. "I've got you." And Maura, despite being comforted, continued to cry until the sobs faded to hiccups. Jane held her until she pulled away, swiping at her eyes.

"I'm still mad," Maura said, wiping her face. Jane held out her thumb.

"Lick it," Jane said, when Maura stared at it. When Maura didn't, Jane sighed and licked her own thumb, running it under Maura's eye. "Mascara," Jane said by way of explanation. "You can be as mad as you like, as long as you don't hate me. And if you need to be something other than mad, if you need me, if you need..." Jane gestured between them. "Text me and I'll meet you here if we're at work, or I'll come over if we're not. Whenever you need."

If Maura had any tears left they'd have started falling again, but instead she looked away and nodded, a little embarrassed.

"And since you're mad at me anyway," Jane said, cupping Maura's cheeks. She leaned in and kissed Maura on the forehead, and Maura's eyes closed, absorbing the affection. Jane tilted Maura's face up a little to kiss her nose, then up again to kiss her mouth, a soft, gentle press of lips that Maura reciprocated. "Might as well," Jane said when she pulled away, shrugging and stuffing her hands in her pockets. Maura tucked Jane's shirt back in, aware of the intimacy of the action, remembering what Jane had said about sexual frustration. Maura nodded, feeling significantly more relaxed, knowing despite their best efforts they were both rumpled and messy, that anyone seeing them leave the closet would assume they'd been having a nooner. But the anger had gone for now, leaving Maura deflated, relaxed and exhausted.

"Can I still be mad at you when we leave?" Maura asked, fiddling with Jane's buttons, reluctant to pull away. Jane nodded.

"I'm still going to be mad at you too," Jane said, quirking a bit of a smile, just enough to take any ire out of it. "C'mon, we got a lot of lakes to cover, I need you to go do your science thing."

"And you need to go do your detective thing," Maura said, and it was a relief not to be mad for a moment. The kiss she'd have to analyse later, along with Jane's theory. Maura stepped in close again, hugged Jane. "Thank you," she said sincerely. Jane nodded and let Maura leave, leaving herself a few minutes later to reduce office gossip. When she got out the front, her car was being towed, and she shot Maura an annoyed look as Frost pulled up, the sniping started between them again. But now Jane knew it was because Maura trusted her with her emotions, and it made it a lot easier to take. She smiled to herself as Maura complained about her driving.

"What are you smiling at?" Maura snarled suspiciously, but Jane shook her head. Maura didn't hate her, which turned the ugly arguments they'd been having from a heaving weight on her chest into light-hearted banter with her brothers.

"How stupid you're going to look when we don't find any pollution in our lakes," Jane said idly, turning right on a red, flashing her lights as Maura held on, glaring, to the door.