Jane watched Maura fuss over Lieutenant Cavanaugh on the couch, even though he had been settled for over a half hour. She noted Maura's hair, how it fell into her face while she took the man's pulse, how her back arched as she balanced on her heels to listen for his breathing, how her fingers drifted over his nose and his forehead where she had patched him up. Jane shivered when Maura rose slowly, in a sensual curvature, until she was her full height and then some in the four inch heels that made her almost as tall as Jane. "I wanna stay home," Jane said impulsively, "I wanna go upstairs."

Maura frowned with sympathy. "Me too. It's late."

Jane came up close and they hugged. Maura had both arms wrapped tight around her, and she had one arm around Maura's middle while the other hung at her side. "I'm sorry for acting like a knucklehead at the bar," Jane breathed out as she took in the scent of Maura's perfume, "I wanna make up."

"We can't…" Maura said, just as much to herself as to Jane. "We have to go back to the station and Hope is on her way."

Jane nodded sadly and broke them apart. "I know," she sniffed.

"All she needs to do is check his vitals and administer the sedative every four hours," explained Maura, and then the doorbell rang.

"Alright, then let's go," said Jane. She grabbed her keys, handed Maura her purse, and turned for one last visual inspection of the room. "What'd you tell her?"

"That he's a police officer who lost his family, and we're looking for the suspect. That's all she needs to know," Maura replied. She opened the door to reveal her mother. "Thank you so much for coming."

"What do you need me to do?" Hope asked as soon as she stepped in.

"He's stable. I gave him four milligrams of Lorazepam fifteen minutes ago, and there's more in my kit," said Maura.

"Alright. I'll administer another dose in a few hours. He'll be fine, go," Hope took off her coat and immediately went to work.

"Thank you," both Jane and Maura called out on their way back to BPD.


"If Korsak would have never noticed that welding setup in Cal's garage, we'd still be twiddling our thumbs," Frost said to Maura. They were in the evidence garage, both in BPD coveralls and goggles, standing over the back of Cal Ghetts' old Granada. Jane was under it, tinkering, and all Maura could see was her trim waist and long legs sprawled out below the bumper. She wore black work boots and her coveralls were tucked inside, and she looked like she'd been a mechanic her whole life.

Because of course she did. Maura resisted the urge to straddle. "Do you see any signs of welding?" she said instead, kneeling right by Jane and peeking under the car to see her face.

"Yeah. It has an OEM muffler but there's a non-factory weld on it," Jane answered without looking at Maura.

"Do you want tin snips?" Maura asked, wondering if this was what it felt like to sit beside your parent while they worked at home, under the sink or in the garage, if it felt this thrilling when you were a child.

Jane rolled out. Her hands were full of dirt and motor oil and she was completely unaware of the effect she was having, with her pulled back hair and her white tank top poking just above the open buttons of her coveralls. And her boots and her grime and her long body. "Uh, no. Hand me the sawzall, though, would you?" Frost took it from the bench and handed it to Maura, who handed it to Jane shakily. "Thanks," she said rolling back under.

The saw buzzed, and the distinct metallic smell of it filled the garage as Jane worked. She winced when she banged her hand on something, setting the saw down like it had burned her. "Ouch."

"Are you alright?" Maura's face was back under the bumper again, any excuse to put eyes on Jane, who looked back at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jane grumbled as she shook her hand out a few more times.

"Tell me what you need," said Maura.

"Give me that monkey wrench?" The wrench followed the same chain of command as the saw, and then it was in her grasp. "Thank you."

Maura nodded. "Careful please," she warned, risking a hand low on Jane's thigh as she leveraged the wrench back and forth, only stepping away when Jane started to wheel herself out again. "And?"

"And…. I got somethin'. Shirley Ghetts did say this was their nest egg," said Jane, heaving the muffler onto a workbench close by. "This looks promising." There was a non factory weld, and Jane wiggled the piece of metal that had been stuck on top of it, revealing a compartment inside. She pulled out several pipes and an envelope. "Looks like two pieces of pipe and a union joint," she said, handing Maura a square switch.

Maura turned it over in her hands. "That's a gas valve."

Frost poked his head between them to get a good look at everything. "Looks like we found Cal's evidence."

"It's a lot better than a missing file." Jane pulled photographs from the manila envelope, as well as a report. Maura took the photos and compared them to the pieces of metal they found.

"And these might be pieces from the furnace that exploded in Lieutenant Cavanaugh's apartment," she said.

"He put the arson photos in there," Frost noted, "1245 Silver Street. That was Cavanaugh's apartment."


After a quick shower in the locker room, Jane stood in BRIC with Frost, Maura, and Korsak as they pored over the details of what they had found in Cal's car. Maura pointed to the picture she had been studying for several minutes. "This is the gas valve from the exploded furnace," she said. "If it had malfunctioned, there would be evidence of charring. There isn't any on it."

Frost crossed his arms. "So the gas valve wasn't the cause of the fire, like Cal originally claimed in that report we found."

"No."

"And it wasn't the union joint," Korsak said as he held it.

"No," Maura confirmed again. "There's no damage on the threads."

"Which means it was loosened on purpose, which supports the theory that Cal set the fire," Korsak used conjecture where she wasn't willing to.

"He probably went into Cavanaugh's apartment, turned off the heat, then went down into the basement, and loosened the union joint," Jane joined him.

"Natural gas from these pipes would have filled the basement in minutes," Maura said, providing facts to go with their theories, trying to help them the best way she knew how.

"Linda came home to a freezing house, turned the heat on," said Jane. "You know, a fire investigator once told me, if you smell gas, don't even touch the doorbell. The electrical spark from that doorbell is enough to blow the entire place up."

Frost sighed. "And we still haven't connected the fire to Paddy Doyle. But I did find this stuffed way up the exhaust pipe." he handed a curled notebook to Jane, who unwrapped it and studied the contents.

"It's Cal's investigative notes from March 22, 1993. That's the day of the fire," she flipped through them.

"What do they say?" asked Frost.

"Uh, there was a witness. A neighbor, Mrs. Longstead?"

"She saw Cal?"

"I don't think it was Cal," said Jane. "Francine Longstead of 1299 Winston Street reports she saw a white male enter the basement right before the fire."

"A white male? Cal was black," Frost said.

"White male rules out the Colombians, too," Korsak added.

Jane continued reading. "Mrs. Longstead says she heard the explosion and looked out her window in time to see the same man running from the basement with his shirt on fire."

Maura frowned. "If his shirt was on fire and he was running, it's highly likely that he suffered second and third-degree burns."

"So, we just need Mrs. Longstead to make a description," said Jane, while Frost typed away on the computer at his station.

He huffed. "Francine Longstead died in 2005."

"Shit," Jane deflated.

"We can try to see if there's anything in the photos. Long shot, but Paddy had nine trusted lieutenants and I bet one of those guys torched that apartment. I'll bring up all the surveillance of Paddy and his top guys from March 1993," Frost said, and did his thing. Jane smiled at his prowess for finding alternate routes and making subtle connections.

"They always met behind the Chauncy Street Tavern," said Korsak as thousands of pictures started to populate.

Maura pointed to one in particular. "That's Jackie Donovan. We can rule him out. I didn't see any burn scars when I did his autopsy."

Jane stepped into Frost's space. "Frost, see if there's a photo of them all together March 23, 1993."

Maura raised an eyebrow at her. "The day after the fire? You think they took surveillance photos of him every day?"

"There's thousands of megs of high-res photos here," said Frost. "We can try."

"You know, every time Paddy wanted somethin' done, one of these guys did it. But this time was different," Jane said as she walked up to the big screens at the front of the room, now in a tucked-in white v-neck and slacks.

"What do you mean?" Korsak asked her.

"RICO. Paddy's not gonna send one of his guys to kill a cop's family. He's gonna do it himself."

"I got it. March 23, 1993," Frost exclaimed as he pulled up the best picture of Paddy and his lieutenants.

"Of course," said Korsak. "Penalty's the same for capital murder. Do it yourself, no one can turn on you."

Maura went cold when she saw the image of Paddy, bandaged in all the areas that would have suffered burns if he set the fire. She gulped. "Detective Frost, can you blow up the area around his collar?"

Jane frowned when she saw Maura's face. "Maura, we knew Paddy was behind Linda and Christopher's murders. The fact that he set the fire himself isn't any worse than ordering someone else to do it." Maura didn't reply, just stared. "What is it?"

Maura lifted her own forearm up gingerly, revealing her still-healing burn. "Hemostatic trauma gauze. I think she helped him."


"Maura! Maura wait, look, I know you're upset, but there's a better way to ask. You can finesse-"

"You need to be quiet. And do not interfere," Maura interrupted Jane, who trotted to catch up with her as they moved up the courtyard walkway to the front door. When she swung the door open, Jane ducked back to avoid it hitting her in the face. "Stay right here," Maura pointed to the spot just inside the doorway and glowered until Jane complied.

Hope sat at the dining table, chemistry textbook open next to a cup of tea, mistaking Maura's fury for concern. "Maura, he's fine. His vitals are stable." When Maura scowled at her next, pulling a file folder from under an arm, she pulled back. "What's wrong?"

Maura slammed the picture of Paddy and his gauze-covered wounds over the book. "That's your work, isn't it?" When Hope said nothing, she got louder. "Did Paddy tell you how he got those burns?"

"No." Hope didn't deny it, clearly there was no reason to.

Maura's lip trembled and she bit it before she spoke again so that she wouldn't cry. Her voice was wet anyway. She pointed to Cavanaugh on the couch. "Twenty years ago, Paddy killed his twenty-nine year old wife, and their two-year-old son. They burned to death after Paddy blew up their apartment, all so that he could get cheaper cocaine. The profits he turned, the savings he accrued because of it, that is what paid for MEND. And… and you treated his burns, didn't you?"

Hope's mouth dropped open, and she started to cry, too. "I didn't know. I swear to you I did not know how he got those burns."

Maura scoffed bitterly. "But you must have heard. You must have heard that a cop's family died in a fire, and then Paddy shows up with third-degree burns? Come on! What lie did you tell yourself that day?" She was shouting now, but when Jane started to walk over to her, she held out her hand. Jane froze.

"He… he swore that he would never hurt women and children, so that… it must have been an accident," Hope was being shockingly open with her answers, telling Maura the exact lie she used to convince herself her man wasn't the killer he was.

"Look at that detective over there," Maura said quietly, tears trickling down her cheeks, pointing to Jane. Jane stiffened, squared her shoulders at the mention of herself, but said nothing - Maura had taken charge, and this was her time. Hope did glance Jane's way once before looking down at the floor. "She's only a little older than the lieutenant was then. Yesterday morning, you told me that Paddy was like her. That he was all the things she is. But he's not. She would put a gun in her mouth before hurting a woman and child. And she would put a gun in her mouth if she lost me. But he exposed you to federal investigation! To prison time! He killed those people and he made you vulnerable. They are not the same. There are no more accidents, Hope. You made a bargain with the devil, and it has come due."

Hope sucked her own lips closed and hiccuped with emotion. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

Maura put her hand on the table and leaned closer to her mother, who was still sitting down. "You're going to testify against him."


AUSA King was visibly relaxed as he met Jane and Maura at the metal detectors of the courthouse the next morning. He put his hand on Jane's shoulder and patted it. "Listen, Detective. I am beyond impressed that you caught the wildest Hail Mary pass that I ever had to throw. Thank you."

Maura beeped through just moments after, and Jane shook her head. "You can put me in Canton when it's over, Counselor. But we still have to get through today."

"Hope Martin still has to testify," King pointed out. "What if she doesn't?"

Jane winked at Maura. "Well, that's why I sent two uniforms to escort her."

"She'll be here," Maura said confidently.

"I'll talk to the judge. We'll get in front of the grand jury and we'll have two murder indictments by lunch. Wish me luck," King said as he waved goodbye and made his way towards the judge's chambers.

Jane turned to Maura as soon as he left. "You ok?" she asked when she noticed Maura's determined features.

"You know when I said she should've picked someone else to sleep with 37 years ago?"

Jane chuckled. "Yeah."

"Maybe Paddy should've picked somebody else," Maura quipped.

"Well, she said she'd testify against him, right?" Jane said through her smirk.

"Yes."

"Well, maybe, y'know, in her own way, she's trying to make amends. Look, Korsak and Frost are here."

"Here we go," Korsak greeted them, readjusting his blazer after his pat down. "Cavanaugh should be here."

As he looked around, the man at the kiosk addressed him. "Lieutenant Cavanaugh? He's already upstairs."

Jane almost lunged at him. "He's what?"

Frost touched her forearm. "Jane, he's not gonna strangle Paddy in the courthouse. And he can't get his weapon through security."

And as if by divine providence, the officer being waved through security was doing exactly that. The gun was dismantled and examined, and then he readjusted it and slid it back into his holster. The four of them shared ghastly glances.

"Yes, he can," said Korsak, and they all sprinted toward the most private place to commit a murder in a public courthouse: the men's room.


"Look at me, you son of a bitch. Blowin' your head off would be too good. I'm gonna kill you slowly," Cavanaugh, alone with Doyle for the first time since 1993, held his government issued pistol up against Paddy's chin. Their faces were centimeters apart when Jane, Maura, Korsak, and Frost found them.

"It wasn't personal Sean," replied Paddy, "it was just business."

"Business? You killed my wife and my baby just so you could get cocaine cheaper!" Cavanaugh bellowed, his sorrow a clattering echo within the tiled bathroom. "How do you stand there and think you deserve breath?!"

Korsak stepped forward, and Maura tried to, too, but Jane yanked her back. The intensity of her grip might have left bruises. "Sean, don't!" Korsak pleaded, holding out his hands.

Jane stood in front of Maura, her shoulder cocked forward, but she didn't have her weapon on the waist of her skirt. She felt naked. "Lieutenant, please don't do this." Maura tried going to Doyle again.

Jane wrapped her fingers around her arm, but Maura threw her off. "Don't. I want to talk to my father."

Cavanaugh saw her approach and stiffened. He refused collateral damage, even now. "Don't come any closer Dr. Isles, he's a dead man."

Maura breathed in quietly. "Alright," she acquiesced. "But before you kill him, I just want him to know something. She's here, Paddy. Hope."

Paddy's eyes went wide and desperate. "Hope is here?"

Maura nodded. "She was about to testify to the grand jury."

He scoffed, but there was mania behind it. "That'll never happen."

"Now it won't. Because the Lieutenant is going to save us a lot of anguish, but it must feel terrible to hear that the love of your life was about to help us put you on death row."

Paddy slumped against the wall. "She wouldn't."

"She would," countered Maura. "All these years, you've stayed alive for two things: power and Hope. Seems fitting that you'd go out like this."

"You're lying," Paddy said petulantly, "Hope would never do that."

And Jane watched Maura's chess match with her father, with Cavanaugh, play out in spectacular fashion. Cavanaugh, who had no idea he had been manipulated, lowered his gun. "I've got a better way for you to experience hell. You're gonna stay alive, but without her. Just like I had to." he let Korsak take his gun.

"Come on, Sean," Korsak goaded, but the lieutenant stayed put.

"Give me a minute, Vince," Cavanaugh said quietly, and they all left him to get started in the courtroom.

That afternoon, Hope would testify.

And Paddy would suffer through the scene of it before they found him guilty on all counts. The devil's debt would be paid. He held her eyes with his own throughout his whole walk towards the back of the courtroom, where a van waited to take him back to jail to await his sentencing.


That night, it was dark in their room, no candles, no night lights, no phone screens. And yet, somehow Maura still knew Jane had drifted, gone someplace else, even while nestled on top of her. So, she moved her hands from around Jane's shoulders to her neck, and they kissed. "Where are you right now?" she asked, knowing that in their bed, Jane would never be dishonest.

Jane grimaced, her eyes screwed shut, when Maura squeezed inside and she felt the resistance. Fuck it was distracting. "Agh," she breathed out, trying to find words, "thinking about you." She was panting heavily in Maura's ear as she thrust in and out of her. Her scarred palm rubbed up and down Maura's thigh, adding to the heady sensation of seesawing pleasure between the two of them. When Maura begged for deeper, Jane got it too. When Jane dragged out of Maura's body, she felt an absence in her own. And when she filled Maura back up, and Maura moaned her approval, Jane marveled at the process beginning all over again. She thought about how angrily they had begun, how she thought she'd never see Maura again then, let alone touch her again, and she thought about the warehouse, western Massachusetts, The Robber, and the courthouse bathroom. All the times Maura had been in danger. It made her cling harder to Maura now.

"Well, stop. Feel about me instead," Maura asked of her, and they kissed again. "I'm trying to make you feel good. I'm trying to show you that I forgive you," she said with good-natured snark, and then squeezed again.

Jane moaned. "It's working," she snarked back, just before she dropped her head down to Maura's shoulder and whimpered, unable to keep her toughened veneer. "It's so good."

Maura would have laughed, but the atmosphere was too thick, too intense. It demanded too much. She put her face to the side of Jane's as she continued to receive her, and kissed it. Sloppily. She moved down to Jane's shoulder, licking the round of it when she finally got there. The hand Jane had used to punch a Doyle soldier was gripping her thigh and the bruises Jane's ribs had accrued in that same brawl rubbed over her own torso, and Maura swore she felt their warmth. Her eyes had adjusted the best they could in the darkness, and she watched Jane work under the sheet, all barely coiled physicality and uncanny strength. "Would you kill for me?" she asked, her whisper heavy and sharp against Jane's ear, her hands resting to feel thumping carotids on either side of Jane's neck. The blood in them beat against her skin with emphasis, signalling Jane's elevated pulse.

Jane shot up then, breaking Maura's hold on her, but she found her eyes with her own. "You really askin' me that right now?"

Maura shrugged. "You can't lie to me when you're inside me," she said, her voice wavering with the way they moved together. Then she arched her back when Jane punished her with an upstroke that hit just the right spot.

"I don't lie to you, period," Jane said indignantly, but kissed Maura's chin anyway.

"You lie to me all the time," Maura said, and when Jane made to pull away, she pulled her closer. Her thumbs ran over Jane's cheeks while her fingers scratched at the nape of her neck. "Kind lies. Lies that make sure I don't get upset, or stressed. But here, you never do."

Jane seemed to be deciding whether or not to accept this answer without protest, because she slowed her hips down. Maura groaned at the change. "Maura…" Jane started, giving herself a moment to breathe and to indulge in the hands now rubbing wide swaths up and down the muscles of her back, gripping her almost imperceptibly when she found all the right places. "I would kill for you… I would die for you. You have to know that."

"I want you to live for me instead," said Maura, nipping at Jane's jaw. The pleasure-pain spurred Jane into sinful action as she spread Maura's knees open on either side of her. Her thumbs slid from the tops of Maura's thighs into the crook of each hip, and she gripped Maura's waist as she sped up her movements. Her torso was now perpendicular to the bed, taut with effort, and it allowed her to watch all the best parts of Maura bounce.

"I do that, too," Jane said sweetly, a little nonsensically, entranced by the way silicone disappeared into Maura and then reappeared, and how that magical act translated into decadent friction inside of her, as well. "Shit, baby." She had been enjoying herself too much to realize that their time was coming to a very explosive end. She shuddered when she felt it knocking against her hips, that thunderclap of ecstasy. Maura pulled her back down by the arms, until she was flush against her again, and that exacerbated the inevitable, accentuated the loss of control. She was in the place she felt the safest, and she didn't have the discipline to try and get that control back.

"No, you don't. For you, it's always kill or be killed when it comes to me," Maura said. When she felt Jane slipping into oblivion, sweet though it was, she grabbed Jane's face and closed her own knees, effectively stopping Jane cold. "So stop that. Do you hear me? What I'm asking you?" she asked.

Jane squirmed, unsure how long she could honor the pause button Maura had pushed. She just stared, hoping to convey her desperation, her need.

"Choose living instead. Make a life with me - that way we never have to wonder what might have been," Maura said, and when Jane finally nodded, she smiled, spreading her legs open again, removing her restriction on Jane's hips. Then she did laugh, quietly, just for Jane to see and hear, when she couldn't hold it in anymore. "Good. You can come now," she teased, patting Jane's cheek with an open hand.

Jane redoubled her efforts until she did come. "Fuck…." she immediately groaned long and loud in release, because the storm came quickly and left slowly. She adjusted her undulations to a crawl before finally stopping and slumping forward until she had erased the few inches between them. "What the hell was that about?" She asked, already slipping out, kissing her way down Maura's body as she gulped in air, stopping to pay special attention to the soft skin of her belly.

"That was your penance," Maura smirked, biting her lower lip when Jane sucked on her until she felt a twinge. "I don't want us to end up like them," she said more seriously. "Apart but unable to move on."

"I'll try not to be too offended that you're thinkin' about your parents while we have sex," Jane said as she traveled lower, swiping her tongue confidently, brazenly, through where she had just been playing moments before. The taste of it filled Jane with purpose and Maura cried out. It didn't take long, less than a couple of minutes, for Maura to perch a pointed foot on Jane's shoulder and press down, hard. Jane stayed with it though, navigated Maura through the most intense waves of her climax, until she stopped clenching her stomach and flattened her head against the pillow with a satisfying whoomph.

"It was only a few seconds, I promise," she said, regulating her breath with large inhales. When Jane slumped against her torso, wild black hair crowning outwards, she buried her hands in it. "And it was just to make my point."

"You want me to make you priority number one," said Jane with a long sniffle, lacing her fingers against the muscles of Maura's abdominal wall and sticking her chin on them.

Maura rose up on her elbows to get a better look at Jane. "No. I'm already priority number one. I want you to make us priority number one. That means protecting yourself, too."

Jane clicked her tongue. "I'm bad at that."

"I know," said Maura, laying back down. "Come back up here, please."

Jane obliged, crawling her way up, unfastening the buckles at her hips and letting them drop to the bedside. "I'm comin'."

"Remember when you said you would do anything for me? At least try. I'm not saying don't run into the bar, I'm just saying don't punch the big mobster in a room full of other mobsters," Maura hedged when Jane, usually so surly and standoffish, snuggled into the crook of her neck. Affection surged in her chest at the feeling. "Is that feasible?"

"Yeah," said Jane. "Yes, it's feasible," she reaffirmed without pride. There was a long pause where the only sound was the rustle of the sheet as she adjusted herself to get more comfortable, and then the sound of her breathing, rapidly turning even. "What if he's small? Or if the room is only half full of mobsters?" she asked, yelping when Maura pinched her side. "Ow!"

"You think you're funnier than you are," Maura groused. Jane kissed her softly before rolling onto her back, and Maura hummed into it. She took Jane's right hand with her left, laying the back of it against her belly and holding it in place, her stomach fluttering at the contradiction of Jane's bones on the smoothness of her skin. "You were a bad decision away from the back of an ambulance, Jane. Where I still could not go with you." She sounded stern, and it contrasted with the way she dragged fingernails lightly up and down the skin of Jane's exposed wrist, the fatty portion of her forearm.

Jane sighed and then swallowed thickly, closing her eyes against the comfort of the touch. "You remember all those months ago, when you asked me if I had fantasized about my wedding as a little girl?"

Maura smiled. "You said that you did once, when you had a very high fever."

"Which was obviously me bein' an asshole. But I did have it planned out," Jane said as she looked up at the ceiling.

"What do you mean?" Maura asked softly. "You had your wedding planned out?"

"Yeah. I had this… dumb idea that I would say my vows at Fenway over home plate… in a Sox jersey," she confessed, glancing at Maura with only one eye open, waiting for the judgment to come.

Maura laughed. "Oh, it's not dumb. It's not exactly elegant, but at least it's colorful, baby."

Emboldened by Maura's kindness, Jane continued. "And we would have the reception over the mound, and we would serve Fenway Franks and frozen lemonade. And the guests would throw peanuts at us instead of rice. Of course, now, I would want there to be plenty of beer on tap, too."

Maura contemplated everything that Jane had said, holding it quietly in her heart as she analyzed it. "Can I come?" her words were so timid that Jane's hand, still laying on her stomach, squeezed her fingers tight.

"Maura," Jane said as she leaned up on her elbow to look down, folding her own hands back together as she reclined. "I'm not gettin' married unless it's to you. And when we do, you need to know that I'm not gonna cheat, I'm not gonna leave you for some bimbo twenty years younger than me, and I'm not gonna lie to you about the death of our baby or how I make my money. I'm gonna try better to come home alive and in one piece every night, because that would make you happy. It would make us happy."

Maura turned into Jane, hiding her face as she wrapped her arms around her so that Jane wouldn't see her cry. She squeezed so tightly that Jane grunted, but then Jane squeezed back. They laid there for long minutes, until Maura sighed against Jane's sternum. "A Red Sox jersey?"

It was Jane's turn to pinch her. "Hey. You're in my fantasy, a'right? You cannot tell me what to wear."