Maura stood over the latest body, a Jane Doe between the ages of 17 and 20 who was found dead by a gun shot wound to the head. These types of cases would always be difficult and Maura had to detach herself from the body on her table. If she thought too hard about the life the young woman was robbed of, she would never be able to do her job.

To distract herself from the young girl, Maura thought about Frankie and Nina's wedding. It was set for the upcoming Saturday and every detail was meticulously planned. Maura went through the list in her head, mentally ticking off the boxes as she went: catering was set to arrive promptly at 2:00, Korsak was setting up the decorations in the Dirty Robber for the reception, dresses and suits were tailored, pressed and waiting to be worn, guests had RSVPd, and the wedding cake was being arranged for pick up on Friday. And most importantly, Jane was set to arrive Friday afternoon.

Maura had made a deal with herself that she would enjoy the wedding with Jane and confess her feelings afterwords. Whenever she thought about the confession, her stomach felt like it was going to crawl out of her mouth and her heart started to race. Maura had very low expectations as to what Jane's response was going to be but she couldn't help the faint glimmer of hope that maybe Jane felt the same way.

"Hey Maura, you got anything for us upstairs?" Emma's voice broke her from her thoughts.

The doctor met the detective's eyes and said, "I'm almost done with the autopsy I'll bring the report up once I'm done. I can tell you she was a fighter." Maura pointed to bruising around the victim's knuckles. "She fought to escape whoever had her."

"We don't have an ID yet, we're still running prints and facial recognition. With our luck, she won't be in the system and we'll have to do some more digging to find her identity. Ballistics is still working on the bullet you recovered so hopefully we get some more information from that."

Maura nodded. "I'll let you know when I have more details for you."

Emma gave Maura a thumbs up before heading out the door. The red-head paused in the doorway and spun back around. Maura raised her eyebrows in a question.

"You know the wedding is Saturday."

Maura tilted her head in confusion but nodded anyways.

Emma continued, "Well, that means Jane is coming up to be Frankie's best man."

"Yes, Emma, I know that."

"You should tell her. After the wedding when she is happy, maybe a little drunk and feeling all the lovey emotions that come with attending a wedding."

A laugh escaped Maura's lips. "That's the plan."

Emma let out a relieved breath that Maura didn't feel like she overstepped her boundaries. The pair had become friends over the past couple of months and Emma wanted nothing more than to see the doctor happy. Emma was an excellent people reader and saw how Jane's absence was affecting Maura. Now that she knew Maura was planning on confessing her feelings to Jane, Emma just needed to somehow open Jane up to the idea, that way when Maura told her she wouldn't be taken by surprise. For now, she had a young girl that deserved all of her attention and Emma was determined to find the killer before the wedding on Saturday.


Maura lay in her bed Thursday night, her knees bent and a medical journal propped up against them. They had caught the killer of the young girl, Elena Santiago, who was a freshman at Boston University. Her killer was her philosophy professor. Elena had discovered he was being bribed and was part of the drug distribution ring on campus. When the professor found out Elena knew, he invited her to his cabin and Elena went thinking she would get him to confess. Instead, she ended up dead. It had been a hard case due to the age and the hardworking family of Elena who lost their only daughter. Everybody was taking off tomorrow to mentally decompress and prepare for the wedding.

Maura was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps and movement downstairs. Angela was staying with Frankie, much to his dismay, to help him with wedding details so it wasn't her. It was moments like this where Maura wished she had a gun in the house. Instead, she took her fencing sword from its place in the closet and slowly walked down her stairs.

She peered around the wall into the kitchen where the noise and movement were coming from. Taking a deep breath, Maura jumped out from the staircase with an aggressive yell.

The intruder spun around with a hand to her chest. "Jesus Maura!"

The blonde let out a laugh, dropping the sword to her side. "Jane, what the hell! You scared me!"

"I scared you?! You're the one who waved your fencing sword at me." Jane gestured to the sword at her side. "Which, by the way, is a terrible weapon to use against intruders."

"It's called an épée. And I don't normally have any intruders." Maura shot back.

Jane rolled her eyes with a grin. "Whatever." She moved closer to Maura and embraced her in a hug. "I missed you, you dork."

Maura let out a sigh into Jane's shoulder, her emotions fighting to the surface. "I missed you too." Jane pulled back and Maura briefly got lost in the brunette's dark eyes, shaking her head slightly to dislodge the totally improper thoughts popping into her head. "What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow?"

The pair moved to sit on the couch, Maura grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses as Jane responded. "I ended my classes this afternoon and thought why wait?" Jane shrugged. "I just wanted to come to Boston and didn't want to wait any longer."

"Well it's a lovely surprise, even if you almost gave me a heart attack" Maura responded plopping next to Jane on the couch and handing her a glass.

Jane scrunched her nose in an apology as Maura poured her a glass of wine. "Sorry about that. I forgot you're not used to having people sneaking into your house."

"It's quite alright." Maura patted Jane on the knee. "Now, tell me all about Quantico. How was your first class of recruits?"

"They were incredible. It was pretty awesome teaching them techniques they will use in the field. It's amazing how they go from these baby-faced recruits to FBI agents in a matter of months."

Maura smiled at the pride lacing the words Jane was saying. "Are you excited about the next section of recruits?"

Jane paused. "Yeah, I guess."

Maura raised an eyebrow. "You guess?"

The brunette let out a deep sigh and Maura saw sadness reflected in the woman's gaze. This took Maura totally by surprise.

"Don't get me wrong Maura, I enjoyed teaching them strategies and I loved watching them grow but I'm just going to be teaching the same thing over and over again. The recruits will come and go but I'll stay there, teaching the same stuff. I'm worried this is all I'll do for the rest of my life."

"But Jane, what you're doing is important. They need to learn from someone great. I thought you wanted that?"

Jane ran her hand through her hair and took a large sip of wine. "It is what I wanted, but now I'm not too sure." The brunette paused. "Plus there's the fact that I haven't made too many friends. Not many people are interested in becoming friends with an ex-Boston detective raised in Southie and the daughter of a plumber." Jane gave a self-deprecating, cynical laugh and Maura's heart broke at the sound.

The confession was on the tip of her tongue, begging to come out and Maura had to use all of her self control to prevent herself from revealing her feelings. "It'll get better Jane. I promise."

Jane downed the rest of her wine in one sip. "I hope you're right." The blonde watched as Jane began to build her defenses back up. "Sorry to be such a bummer, Maur. Let's go to bed, we need to be up to help set up for Saturday."

The brunette stood and carried her glass to the kitchen but Maura was stuck to the couch, a million and one thoughts running through her head. She thought Jane was happy at Quantico, but obviously there was more than meets the eye. Maybe, she would be more open to moving to Boston if Maura didn't confess her feelings. Maura shook her head, she needed to tell Jane, regardless of the implications.

"Maura, you coming?" Jane startled her from her thoughts.

She gave the ex-detective a reassuring smile and got up from the couch. "Goodnight Jane. We'll talk more tomorrow. Everything is going to be alright."

Jane gave her a grateful smile and waved a goodbye, disappearing into the guest room. Maura headed up the stairs to where her medical journal lay abandoned on her bed. It was going to be virtually impossible to sleep, her body was humming with a mixture of excitement and nerves. Sighing, she climbed into bed anyways and tossed and turned, thoughts of Jane filling her mind before finally falling asleep.