Thursday

Maura remembered the first time Jane had offered her hand to Maura, the look in her eyes. It had been concern, it had been appraisal, it had been admiration. Even when Maura was sharp to Jane, Jane had offered the best of herself to Maura. Maura had flown into Halifax overnight, and received a selfie of Jane with Bass when she'd disembarked, both of them looking happy and healthy when she landed. As much as a tortoise could look happy, anyway. Maura met Lt. Keanally at the morgue, observing the last of the autopsies. Grace caught Maura looking at her phone, looking at the photo.

"She must miss you," Grace said leadingly, Maura slid her phone away and continued observing the autopsy. "I don't mean to pry, but you seem like a good team."

"We have our moments," Maura murmured. She pulled her phone out and texted back "He looks well taken care of. Thank you."

"My wife sent me this," Grace offered her phone, a pretty woman with Asiatic features Maura couldn't quite place holding a huge Maine Coon like a baby. "I miss them," she said gruffly. "But solving this case - solving these cases - she understands."

"She must be very proud of you," Maura said, aware her phone had buzzed again. She checked it, and Jane was holding two Red Sox baseball caps. "Mind if we watch the game tonight?" Jane had asked and Maura was confused.

"We?" Maura texted back.

"Bass and me. Your tv is huge."

"Why do you have two baseball caps?" Maura asked with a sense of encroaching dread.

"I have three." Jane texted back. "One for you, one for me, and one for Bass."

"Jane, baseball caps are not suitable for tortoise heads," Maura pointed out.

"I was going to put it on his shell. Please? Pretty please?" And then a picture of Jane pouting. Maura chuckled.

"Please don't corrupt my tortoise," Maura sent. "Yes to watching the game." Maura could feel the edges of her mouth curve up into a smile, knowing Jane had bought her a baseball cap, knowing Jane was waiting for her to come home. She looked away from her phone, sliding it into her pocket.

"We're not..." Maura said to Grace's knowing smile. "She's taking care of him while I'm out of town. He seems to have been lonely, even with his carer. We don't... We don't live together. We aren't... We aren't like you. Not that that's a judgement on you and your wife - love is love, and I'm not exactly heterosexual. But Jane and I are not a couple, like you appear to assume."

"She's still allowed to miss you," Grace said gently, putting a hand over Maura's elbow. "I'm not saying you're an old married couple like us, I'm just saying... It's not my place, but when you left North Adams, Jane stopped sleeping. I know what the arrangements were, and I know what she went through. She's a kidnapping victim as much as these kids are. You're a good team," Grace repeated. "And she must miss you." Maura eyed Grace warily but the other woman had been nothing but kind - not just to Maura, but to Jane and Frost, and the seemingly endless children affected by this case. Maura nodded finally, looking away, letting her hand rest on Grace's in the crook of her arm.

Jane saw Richard that evening.

"I love her," Jane said straightforwardly, before she'd even sat down. "Can't stop thinking about her." She knew Richard knew who she was talking about; she'd hardly talked about anything else but Maura for weeks.

"It could be transference," Richard warned. "She's helped you overcome the worst part of your PTSD. You love your job, and she's made it possible for you to retain it."

"Maybe," Jane conceded. "But... I haven't had... Anything this... Nice. Anything this nice happen to me in a long time. It feels nice," Jane said redundantly. "Because she's nice, and I'm nice when I'm with her. I feel safe with her."

"Have you been in love with a woman before?"

"I've never felt this way about anyone," Jane said honestly. "No one has ever meant something like this to me."

"And your family would be fine if you started dating her?" Richard asked, and Jane sighed.

"I don't know. Her family doesn't seem to care what she does, and she's pretty open about human sexuality. But we were brought up in the church, and it has... opinions about people like me."

"And how would you react if they decided that they couldn't accept you?"

Jane sighed again. "I love my family. They shit me to tears, but I love them. Tommy would side with anyone against me because he still needs them to bail him out every time he messes up. Frankie - I don't know. He could go either way. And Ma - she couldn't go a week without nagging at me for something. She couldn't disown me."

"And your father?" Jane shrugged.

"If they don't love me enough to try to understand, then perhaps they never loved me, just an idea they had that they projected onto me," Jane said quietly. "I'm not changing. I'm not hiding who I am. I'm not going to shrink myself down to be held hostage to expectations. And I won't give up on something that's right for me. She deserves someone who puts her first for once." Jane looked up sharply. :"We're not... I don't know what we are. But I want to be something. With her. I want to be someone in her life that puts her first, even if - even if she doesn't want me. Not the way I want her." Jane rubbed her hands anxiously, and Richard made a note.

"It won't be easy," Richard warned. "I have to admit I'm better versed in trauma than sexuality. I can refer you to someone else."

"I'm off track, aren't I?" Jane asked ruefully. "I've been sitting in on autopsies that her replacements are doing, by the way. It's not fun, if it's not Maura, but I haven't had any panic attacks."

"You can come in next week, if you want to. You have a lot to still talk through. But we made a deal. You can go to fortnightly, if you want." Jane rubbed her hands again.

"Book me in for next week," Jane said ruefully. "I want to make sure I'm ready. If she ever is."

Jane let herself in, waited for Bass to shuffle over to her in front of the tv before turning it on, putting the baseball cap on his shell and sending Maura a photo of the two of them. Maura had seemed fine over text, but she still worried that Maura might not understand that Jane genuinely liked her. That Jane loved her in some way, unsure if Maura would be able to process that. She wondered again at Maura's parents, how much of it had been the trauma of adoption and how much of it had been absentee parenting and a lack of affection. Jane knew she was loved, her family was close. Maura's reaction to the first time Angela had hugged her would have been funny if it hadn't been so sad. Touch-starved. Jane was more than happy to fill that need, was more than happy to keep providing the physical closeness they'd both enjoyed. Maura had accepted Jane's affection while they were alone, but would she be able to believe that Jane truly liked her, that Jane enjoyed Maura for who she was? Had anyone ever looked at Maura and seen who she was - a goofy, lovable genius, obsessed with knowledge and speaking for the voiceless? Jane sighed and patted Bass' shell softly. Maura would be home soon, hopefully, and maybe Jane would be able to get some answers.

Notes:

The parents thing is rough.

You can be a bigot, or you can be normal, but if you're a bigot don't expect your kids to stick around, I guess.