Notes:

If you're following this live, you'll have noticed the gap between updates - I'm sorry, for myself as well as you, because I've had no time to write fiction in the last week. Instead, I've been writing 28 baseline reports for the wonderful tiny humans that I work with to pay the bills. I haven't actually finished the reports, but I got some awesome comments on this fic today which pulled me back anyway. It's a short chapter, but better than nothing I hope!

BREAK

Scotland Yard was quiet at reception, and even quieter down in the morgue after hours. Maura changed into scrubs, and Jane helped her slide the victim's body out of storage. She had already retrieved his clothes from an evidence locker, and it was these that Maura looked at first, still in their bags. Jane checked the evidence notes.

"Aha! An unidentified black fibre." She held up a tiny bag. "I asked Pike about this stuff earlier. He said 'everything relevant will be in the notes, people gather small fibres everywhere they go'". Jane did a rather pompous imitation of Pike, and Maura suppressed a giggle.

"Can I look at it?" Maura asked.

Jane took it over to the microscope, then paused, unsure how to set it up.

"I know what to do, but I'm not officially trained in forensics. Surely anything I do won't be admissible."

Jane sighed. "Yeah, 'fraid so. But you can still look, and if you find something I'll have ammunition to make Pike look again."

Maura nodded. "Okay. But I won't do anything that could possibly be construed as damaging. I think I can look while it's still in the bag."

"Won't that make it… weird?"

"As always, thank you for your scientific terminology. Yes. It will be 'weird'. But I should be able to determine the type of fibre."

As Maura looked, Jane tried to decide if her frown was of concentration or dissatisfaction.

"Any luck?" she asked after more than 5 minutes of silence.

"It's consistent with a tightly woven yarn, such as canvas."

"So it's canvas?"

"I would need to conduct further tests to state-"

"Yeah, yeah, but tell me about canvas. Could it be from a jacket?"

"Was the victim wearing a jacket?"

"No, long sleeved cotton shirt. Black," Jane said, reading off the evidence label.

"Some jackets are made from canvas. It's also used for gym bags, backpacks-"

"Painting bags?"

Maura looked up from the microscope. "Canvas bags are, indeed, common for transporting artworks, due to the durability of the fabric."

"Alright, I'm sold. I'll make Pike come in tomorrow and do a full analysis."

"You sound positively gleeful at the idea of forcing him to work on the weekend."

"Hey, it's part of the job, he knows that. Wanna check the body?"

Maura nodded. "Yes, but it's unlikely that we'll find any more fibres if these have already been processed."

They moved over to the body. Maura started with the feet. "His athletic ability must have been impressive. But he may have been trying something new lately, or at least wearing new shoes."

"How do you know that?"

"Look."

Jane, apprehensively, looked.

"See, bullous legions, on both feet."

"You mean those blisters? Gross, why would you make me look at that?" Jane was used to bodies, but icky foot stuff bothered her on anyone, dead or alive.

"They are on the metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe, on both feet." Maura sounded almost excited.

Jane held back a groan. "Yeah, I see them, Maur. But why are they relevant?"

Maura shrugged. "To a doctor, everything is relevant."

"I don't see why him having new shoes would be relevant."

"Neither do I, but that doesn't mean it isn't."

Jane had to accept that this was true. "Okay, I'll bear it in mind. Are you done with the feet now?"

Maura tutted at being rushed, but moved up the body. She didn't find anything else of note for a long time, long enough for Jane to stretch out on the neighbouring table and close her eyes, just to rest them, just for a second…

"Jane?"

"I wasn't sleeping!" Jane defended, sitting bolt upright.

"I didn't mind in the least. It was nice to have some peace and quiet."

Jane got up and poked her in the ribs. "Rude. What you got?"

Maura was examining the back of the head. "He has some hair missing."

Jane looked at what appeared to be a full head of hair.

"Maur, I don't want to disagree with you, but… huh?"

"Look closer," Maura instructed. "Here."

Squinting at the area Maura pointed to, Jane could see a tiny cluster of red dots, suggesting a few missing hairs.

"Those hairs were pulled out." Maura spoke as if this was extremely significant.

"What, so the perp yanked some out in the scuffle?"

Maura shook her head. "Look at the remaining hairs in this area. What do you notice?"

Jane resisted the temptation to say, 'Nothing,' and looked. Maura held the magnifying lamp for her, and Jane forced herself to take this seriously.

"Okay, I see the hairs. I notice that they're still there… Maura, come on, what are you getting at?"

"Look! Some have been pulled, or clumped together, and several of them appear to have been crimped."

"Crimped? So, what, he time-travelled to the 80s?"

"Or his hair was caught in a zipper," Maura explained.

Jane gaped at her, looked back at the hair, then gaped again. "Oh my God, his hair was caught in the zipper of the bag!"

Jane was more excited than Maura had expected. "I mean, we were pretty sure about the bag already."

"But now we have even more evidence that it existed, and we know what it was made of, how big it was, and that it had a zipper."

"There are probably hundreds of bags like that at the gallery," Maura pointed out. "It's not much of a lead."

Jane considered this. "Okay, but even that's useful. I can check that with them tomorrow, and if they use canvas bags with zippers, we can compare the canvas fibre. If they don't, that tells us something too."

"And I'll think about the bullous legions and what they could mean."

"Hey, whatever floats your boat, babe. If you get off on ruminating about blisters I'm not gonna stand in your way."

They photographed the damaged section of hair, then Jane tidied the evidence while Maura wrote meticulous notes for Pike. They returned the body to its cold storage drawer, then Maura went to shower and change and Jane returned to her favourite napping spot.

"Now what?" Jane asked when Maura came back in.

"What do you mean?"

"It's Friday night, only 9PM! What shall we do?"

Maura tried not to yawn. "Go home, get some sleep?" she suggested.

"Come on, you can sleep in tomorrow."

"You're going to be working," Maura pointed out.

"I'll be fine. You can tag along if you want, come with me to interview Smith again since he likes you so much."

"Even though I don't think he did it?"

"Especially because you think that. Far better to have someone who genuinely believes him to loosen his tongue. He'll relax, thinking you trust him, and he might slip up."

"So you want to use me to trick him?"

"Does that bother you?"

Maura thought about this. "No. If he's innocent, it won't matter, and if he's lying, I want you to catch him."

"Great. And now we've established you're playing cop with me tomorrow, you might as well get into character now and come to a cop bar."

Maura sighed. "Fine."

"That's the spirit!"

BREAK

Maura, in keeping with Jane and her colleagues, downed her fourth shot of cheap whisky, shuddered, and felt a flush rise to her cheeks. She realised, somewhat hazily, that she had consumed far more alcohol than usual this week, and that being reunited with Jane seemed to inspire her to bypass her inhibitions.

She was just drunk enough to allow herself to consider why that might be.

"You're so beautiful," she murmured as Jane handed her a large glass of water.

"And that's my signal to call a cab," Jane said, chuckling. "But thank you."

"I mean it," Maura said, only slurring slightly. "I didn't say it enough. I should have told you every day."

Jane knew she should stop this, but the way Maura spoke brought warmth to places which had been cold and empty for a very long time.

Maura reached out and ran a hand through Jane's dark curls. "You stand so tall, so strong, but still feminine. I used to be a bit jealous… I always wanted to be stronger."

"You're the strongest person I know." This was the absolute truth.

Maura shook her head. "No. I was weak. When it mattered most, I wasn't strong at all."

Jane took a deep breath, hoping the air would bring some clarity to her thoughts. She wanted to hear this, but she wasn't sure if she was ready, if they were ready. All she knew for sure was that they were definitely inebriated.

"I know it was more complicated than that," Jane said gently. "And now I'm going to take you home."

Maura was quiet in the cab, but leaned into Jane's shoulder, fitting there just as she always had. They reached her house, Jane paid the driver, and Maura fumbled for her keys.

"Want to come in for a cup of tea?" she asked.

Jane watched a range of emotions flicker in Maura's eyes. It was the loneliness that swayed her towards the threshold, but the desire that made her hesitate.

"Not tonight," she whispered. "Not like this."

Maura's world was spinning, and it wasn't just the whisky. Jane had thought her invitation was for a lot more than tea. Maura wasn't sure what she'd intended, but Jane's response was far more than she'd hoped. Because 'not tonight' meant, maybe another time, and 'not like this' meant, maybe another way. So there was a time, and a way, where maybe it could happen. Maura blinked. She wasn't even making sense to herself.

"Thank you for bringing me home," she sighed. "See you tomorrow?"

Jane kissed the top of her head. "I'll bring you a coffee."