Friday

Maura woke to an uncertain knock, and pulled out her phone after reaching for a lamp that wasn't there. North Adams. The kids. The knock came again and Maura got up, looking through the peephole before reaching for the doorknob. A very tired Jane smiled at her as she opened the door, standing there barefoot in grey silk pajamas. She saw Jane look her over once, yawning.

"Why do you always look so good?" Jane asked, her voice raspy and low in deference to the time of day. Maura looked down at the pajamas she kept in the overnight bag that lived in her office. It was the middle of the night, her pajamas, while comfortable, were hardly fashionable, and she knew her hair was tangled because Jane's hand reached out to brush Maura hair behind her ear, smoothing her hair back.

"It's 3am, what's wrong?" Maura asked, scanning Jane intently with her eyes. She looked fine, her blouse unbuttoned, her long limbs stretching. She looked physically healthy. She looked nice, if tired. Her face was softer than it had been all day, her defenses down a little, probably from exhaustion rather than Maura's proximity.

"Just finished processing all the kids. LEO's loaned me a laptop. Found all the families."

"That's good news. So why are you here?" Despite being friends of some sort, 3am wasn't typically a time of day people randomly visited each other.

"You gave me your room number. In case I needed anything." Jane's hands went into her pockets and she shrugged, shifting her weight between her feet. "I need to not be alone right now, because if I have the chance to think about what those kids went through, I'm gonna start crying and I'm not gonna stop. And we haven't even nearly closed this case yet."

Wordlessly Maura stepped back from the door, closing it behind Jane, who flopped down on the bed, sheets rumpled from where Maura had been tucked under them. Jane, who hated being vulnerable, had come out and said why she was seeking human comfort - Maura's comfort.

"Thanks," Jane said. "And I needed to apologise. I threw you under the bus with those kids."

"The ambulance?" Maura asked. Jane chuckled.

"No, the proverbial bus. Telling them you were scared of them. Seemed like a good way of seeing how much empathy they had, after everything they'd been through. And they trusted you because of it. But still, it wasn't a kind thing for me to say about you."

"You were telling the truth, though," Maura sighed, sitting on the other side of the bed. "I was scared of them. Of hurting them, of scaring them."

"You didn't though," Jane said, resting her hand on Maura's back. "They trusted you, and you didn't let them down. Not even a little bit. The admissions desk was so overwhelmed with your patient notes, and every single one of them was right. You didn't miss a single bone."

"I'm a doctor," Maura said hollowly.

"I'm sorry I asked you to assess them. I know you don't work on living people, but I didn't want to move any of them without checking for anything that might get worse if I moved them."

"You did the right thing. I must admit, I didn't expect to find all those children in one day."

"Cadaver dogs are coming up tomorrow too. And the coroner."

"God, I hope..." Maura shook her head, and Jane's hand patiently moved across between Maura's shoulder blades, the silky grey material warm from Maura's body. "I hope we find every one of those children he took," Maura said finally. "For their families "

"Oh, hey," Jane pulled out her phone. "The kid with Caiden. Kelly Sparks. They were friends. He tried to shield her from the bullet. Lt. Keanally will have to contact her family tomorrow. Halifax kid."

"That's good news. I hope the families can come to some agreement."

"Me too," Jane said, yawning and lying down. "Those poor kids - I wonder how many he took, over the years."

"You found him, after all these years, after all those cases."

"I found the dog," Jane said sleepily. Maura got up and pulled Jane's boots off, took off her belt and locked the gun in the wardrobe safe. "Am I staying?" Jane asked, rolling over as Maura tucked the cover over her.

"I'm not carrying you to your own room," Maura said. She paused, looking over at the mass of curls, all of Jane that was visible over the covers. "And I don't particularly want to be alone after today either." She slid into the bed next to Jane, not surprised when Jane's hands reached out for her, arms wrapping around her, pulling her close. The bed was still warm from when she'd left it, but Jane was warmer, and the casual affection warmer still. Maura couldn't lie, not even to herself, and she knew some part of her had wanted this when she'd offered Jane her room number a few hours ago. Twice in one week, she had the luxury of being held like she mattered. Like she meant something. Like she was important to someone. She let her hand rest on top of Jane's, noting how Jane didn't flinch when the rough ridges of Maura's fingerprints slid over Jane's scars.

"Good," Jane murmured against Maura's hair, holding her closer. "I gotta go back to the hospital at 7 anyway. Sorry I woke you."

Maura didn't say anything, but she didn't mind being woken if the end result was Jane in her bed, Jane holding her close, the trauma of the day fading into being held, being comforted by the only person Maura had met that was any good at it. The only person who'd ever really tried. Jane had come here for comfort, but she was the one offering it to Maura.

Typically Maura didn't like being touched when she was upset, but this wasn't someone selfishly trying to stop her from crying because they felt uncomfortable. The only selfish thing about this was how much Jane needed this comfort too. Maura knew Jane had been expecting the worst, knew what those children had been through. She knew at some point the day before Jane would have relived her own kidnapping, her own experience with Hoyt. She knew Jane was plagued with nightmares, that she couldn't stand to see a scalpel in anyone else's hands. She knew the strong woman she'd seen today was soft, even if no one else did. Jane's breathing was deep and even, and Maura felt her own breath keep pace, slipping into a calm sleep, knowing that having Jane at her back would dispel any bad dreams.

Jane woke up with Maura's head on her chest. She carefully brushed some hair away from her face, noting again how she looked without makeup. She looked so fragile, like anything could break her, little freckles dotting her skin like constellations that Jane wanted to map. The makeup Maura wore was like armour to her - she literally put on a strong face to the world, only dropping her mask with Jane. She remembered meeting her, and now that she wasn't pissed at Stanley she could see how kind and well-intended Maura had been at their first meeting, lacking the social awareness and knowledge of the fact that Jane wasn't a prostitute. Maura had intended to be kind, and Jane had ridiculed her. What she'd said yesterday - that people weren't always kind - was definitely true of Jane as well. If they'd met before, Jane would have been able to laugh it off, but instead she'd sent the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts off into seclusion for the better part of a year. She'd lost a year of time she could have spent with this woman, with this... friend. Jane had come to her in the night and she'd opened her door for Jane, taken off her boots and tucked her into her own bed. Jane never slept well, but today, with a bare four hours of sleep under her belt she felt recharged. Jane's heart stung - how did Maura always know how to take care of her? Perhaps part of it was being a doctor, but she read social situations and cues so poorly. If the situation hadn't been so serious she would have laughed, but instead she checked the time, cursing under her breath. She pressed a kiss to Maura's temple, slipping out from under her, trying not to wake her. She held her breath as Maura's hand tightened its grip on her, a few mumbled words eking out from those lips that looked so soft, but Maura relaxed again, and Jane was able to slip away. She paused as she tucked the covers back over Maura, smoothing back her hair. She really was stunning in the morning light drifting in through the thin hotel curtains. She stopped by the kitchen of the hotel to order coffee for Maura's room in half an hour, then walked herself over to the hospital.

"Detective Jane Rizzoli?" A voice called, and Jane shifted her coffee into her left hand to shake hands with Lt. Grace Keanally, who was taller than she'd expected. "It's nice to meet you in person."

"Likewise," Jane said. Frost and Korsak weren't in evidence, so she led Lt. Keanally over to the children, eating breakfast in bed for the most part - Jacob, the oldest, helping the others.

"This is Jacob Prentiss," Jane said, and he politely shook Lt. Keanally's hand.

"I've been looking for you for five years," Lt. Keanally said. "I'm Grace, and your parents are very happy that Jane found you." Jacob looked up, suddenly shy.

"They are?" He asked softly.

"They never stopped looking for you," Grace assured him. "We're still contacting some of your parents," she spoke to the room. "And we can start taking you home once you're discharged."

"You're taking the Canadians with you?" Jane asked, and Grace nodded.

"We have some parents wanting to fly down and then drive all the way out here to pick them up, but the rest will be coming home with me. From there, social services will be involved to make sure they're able to access therapy and any medical help they need. Some parents don't think that's important, but it is," Lt. Keanally said, watching how Jane instinctively rubbed at the prominent scars on her hands. "We'll need to co-ordinate hearings as well. Hopefully we can get a teleconference set up for the murder trial, I don't want to displace them again."

"We'd have to turn them over to CPS if we took them back to Boston," Jane said. "And I can't do that to them, but we got nowhere to keep 'em."

"I can stay here until they're all gone," Grace assured her.

"We have a family from Maine coming, but he didn't take any other Americans."

"I guess he figured - looking at where his property is - he wouldn't be found in Massachusetts, and if he was, he could skip away to New Hampshire or New York easily enough."

"Now we just have to find who he was hiring them out to, so we can find the rest," Jane said, jaw clenching at the thought.

"Have you interviewed him?" Grace asked.

"No, the kids... They're a bit wary of one of my team members, so he's been dealing with Abram." Jane clenched her fists. "And I don't trust myself," Jane added.

"I trust you," Maura said, coming up behind her. "Oh, you already have coffee." She looked disappointed, so Jane gestured to Grace.

"Lieutenant Keanally, Doctor Isles. Grace was on a red eye, I'm sure she'd appreciate that."

"You left your gun in my safe," Maura said, pulling it from her bag and handing it to Jane as though that was normal. Jane blushed and holstered it. "You really do need to stop falling asleep with your gun in your pants if you intend on sleeping in them. Thanks for sending the coffee - I assume you wanted me down here?" Maura handed the coffee to Lt. Keanally, shaking her hand politely.

"The lab still processing?" Jane asked, ignoring the look the Lt. was giving her and Maura.

"I'll go back out there when the cadaver dogs come in," Maura said. "Susie is organising a second team to spell the staff that came out yesterday, since we'll likely need the full weekend."

"Good. Anyone that visited that property, I want anything they left behind." Jane's jaw clenched again.

The interviews with the children were as informal as possible, just Jane and Lt. Keanally sitting next to each hospital bed. None of the children could be discharged yet - malnutrition and parasites and organ damage was very present amung them, and the social workers hadn't arrived yet. But Jane's gut feeling had been right. Tilt hadn't been alone in abusing these children - he had 'friends' that came around and took one for the night. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn't. Jane looked at the scrawled list of names she'd written, each a child that had their whereabouts unaccounted for. She knew Maura was out on the Tilt property with the cadaver dogs, and while she hoped they found something, enough to more than nail Tilt to the wall, part of her was hoping BRIC would be able to track down Tilt's friends, that the children had been sold rather than killed. She knew some of what she was doing was out of scope, and given that this was an international crime she knew some federal politics would come into play soon. But she liked working with Lt. Keanally, respected the easy way she eased the children out of their shells, and she knew the more information the two of them got from the children, the less time they'd spend talking to federal men in suits. She knew Korsak had been contacted by her own Lt., knew he'd made recommendations, but this was a high-profile case, and egos would be on the line, leaving children dealing with whoever wanted the promotion or publicity this work would come with.

It was another day fraught with traumatised children and crying parents over bad telephone connections and snappy hospital workers and befuddled LEO's and it wasn't until Jane saw Maura come her way late in the afternoon that she realised how tense she'd been, and only then it was because part of her relaxed upon seeing Maura's smile.

Maura handed over a brown paper sack.

"Is this just for me?" Jane asked, looking through. A packed salad, a yoghurt cup, something that looked like a toasted cheese and steak sandwich, and an apple.

"I know Detective Frost doesn't forget to eat," Maura countered. "And I estimated your size and style and purchased an outfit for you under my per diem."

Jane looked up with a mouthful of apple. "Hey, no, I could've gone out and..." Jane trailed off uselessly.

"We both know you wouldn't have," Maura said softly. "Your work here is too important." Jane shrugged.

"Any bodies out there?" Jane asked, and Maura nodded.

"The cadaver dogs marked two sites positive. Digging has started, I should head back." Jane cursed. On the one hand, she wanted to stay here since not all of the children had warmed to Frost, but she couldn't send Frost out to look at bodies that had been in the ground for goodness knows how long.

"I can stay here," Lt. Keanally said from behind Jane "Sounds like you have a crime scene."

"I'll send you everything we have as soon as I can," Jane said gratefully, following Maura out to the carpark.

There were two more little bodies. From what Jacob had said, Tilt killed them when they got too old, but they still looked very small to Jane. She texted an update to Korsak, Frost and Keanally, surveying the scene grimly. What kind of sick bastard did this to children? Who treated people like this?

"You need a proper meal," Maura said, getting to her feet as the coroner loaded the bodies. "Let me take you to dinner."

"Nah, you already spent your diem on me." Maura looked hurt, and Jane quickly finished her thought out loud. "I'm taking you to dinner, ok?" Jane said. "If you want. You keep feeding me, it's time to return the favour." Maura's smile was shy but magnificent, and she nodded quickly, ducking her head, and Jane felt robbed of the chance to witness what was becoming one of her favourite sights.

Notes:

I honestly didn't set out to write a child sex trafficking ring. But I wanted a proper bad guy, and that's the worst I could come up with.

The hardest part is trying not to get too attached to the poor kids.

The coffee thing started because I had a ceramic keep cup and it always burned my hands. I lost the lid smuggling an injured bird into a government facility in my shirt while simultaneously convincing it not to bite and not to scream so we remained inconspicuous. I now use something more insulated, but I remember the seating heat against my palms as though sharp scalpels had pierced them.