Author Notes: It took a little longer to get this one to you than expected - I was very tired after a weekend away, and my beautiful nephew was born on Monday, who I am already so so so in love with. I had the biggest cuddle with him this afternoon, so my mind has been elsewhere. I still managed to get this written up, though. I hope it'll be worth the wait. (Not that wait, yet, sorry.)

Warning: mention of suicide (case)

When Cailin exited the arrivals lounge, Jane stood against the wall with her arms crossed and her sunglasses on. She removed them as Cailin looked around, searching for her sister who wasn't there. Eventually, as Jane hooked the glasses over the edge of her shirt, Cailin caught her eye. A brief frown, followed by a smile, and she stepped towards her.

"Jane, are you here to pick me up? Where's Maura?" Cailin asked, placing her backpack on top of her suitcase.

"She got held up on a case," she said. "She was worrying about you getting off the plane and having to get a cab."

"I don't mind, I'd have been fine."

"I told her you would be," Jane said. "She was rushing around trying to get someone in to do the autopsy; I said I'd come for her."

"It's good to see you," Cailin said, wrapping an arm around Jane's shoulders and pulling her in close.

Jane lifted a hand up to her back and rubbed it up and down. "It's good you could come back. I know Maura's gonna love having you here."

Reaching out for Cailin's bag, Jane's hand collided with Cailin's and they pulled back, laughing. "I can manage."

"You sure?" Jane asked. "I don't fly much but I know I was exhausted when we got back from England."

"I'm fine."

Cailin tugged at the handle and they set off through the airport towards the parking lot. A silence fell over them. Jane twirled her keys in her hands, focusing her attention on the path ahead rather than the silence.

"You must really care about her," Cailin said.

"Who?"

She rolled her eyes. "Maura. Obviously."

"Yeah," Jane said, turning to look at Cailin. "She's my best friend."

Cailin raised an eyebrow. "Why did you come to England?"

"Wha' d' ya mean?"

"Why did you come?" Cailin switched hands, still tugging her suitcase behind her. "It was a long way, and a lot of money, to be there for Mom's funeral. You barely knew us."

"I know Maura."

"I had a friend," Cailin said. "We went to uni together, he was doing some fancy arts degree, so it's not like we had a lot in common academically. But we got along. In our second year his dad died. I went to the funeral."

"I'm not following."

"Todd wasn't just a friend, Jane," she said. "I loved everything about him. Our differences made him special and they made me love him more. I went to the funeral because I loved him, I went to the funeral because he meant everything to me."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I think you know what I'm trying to say."

She did know. It nestled into the very core of her being, into the place inside where she hid her secrets and protected her heart. There she fought against Cailin's intrusion, desperate to get away from the conversation but knowing she had no other option but to carry on walking at her side.

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Why not? Maura won't admit there's anything going on, even though I can see that it's hurting her being this confused."

Jane stopped walking, her eyebrows sunk low, a crease settled between them. She could hear the strain in her own voice. "What does she have to be confused about?"

"You."

The answer, though not entirely unexpected, hit her harder than she anticipated. Jane sighed. "This really isn't any of your business, Cailin. It's between me and Maura."

"I just want you to know that I care about Maura, I want what's best for her. If she thinks that's you, then I'd be really happy about that. You need to start communicating better."

"We're communicating just fine."

"Did you talk about the kiss again?"

"No." Jane scowled, her eyes darted toward Cailin. "How do you even know about that?"

"Maura."

Gritting her teeth, Jane stood a little taller, her fists clenched by her sides. "She had no right."

"Really? None at all? I'm her sister. She has nobody she can talk to about this."

"I'm not discussing this with you," Jane said, setting off again.

"Fine." Cailin jogged to catch up. "But if you did want to, I want what's best for both of you."

"What's best is it you'd let this go," Jane said, marching on ahead.

x

Pacing across the hallway, Maura gathered her thoughts. She felt a rise of anger building, then fall, as she searched her mind for the best way to explain her feelings in that moment. She only had half a conversation, and she didn't quite know what to believe. She read the text message from Jane one more time then slipped her phone into the pocket of her pants suit. When the bathroom door opened, Maura stared at Cailin for a second.

"You okay?"

"Why did you speak to Jane about the kiss?"

Cailin sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't realise it would piss her off quite so much."

"This isn't about Jane, this is about you breaking my trust."

Frowning, Cailin leaned against the wall. "I didn't realise I was doing that, Maura. I talked to Jane about an incident that involved her."

"An incident that I spoke to you about in confidence."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to overstep the mark."

Maura stood a little taller, her emotions vying for attention as she pursed her lips. "No, I'm sorry. I've been feeling quite stressed recently. I know you meant well."

"I really did." Cailin walked across the hallway toward her bedroom door. "She's so closed off to talking about this, Maura. Have you even tried?"

"No." Maura lowered her head. "I can't. Not now."

"Why not?"

"I," Maura paused, the only person she'd spoken to about how she felt was paid to listen to her. They weren't there to judge, they didn't have a personal stake, or know Jane. "I'm scared."

"Come here," Cailin said, resting a hand on her back and motioning her towards the bedroom.

Maura went inside. She didn't spend a lot of time in the spare room. The only real memories she had of the room was the handful of times she'd laid side by side with Jane, talking into the night. Cailin sat down on the bed and Maura joined her. She lay down, her mind drifted to the moments of honesty with Jane beside her and she felt herself loosen up.

"If I tell Jane that I have feelings for her, what then?"

"What do you think would happen if you did that?" Cailin asked, leaning against the bedhead.

"I'm not guessing. I don't guess."

"Hypothesise then."

Maura narrowed her eyes, then rolled them briefly. They both knew it was the same thing, though labelling it differently made it feel more acceptable.

"She might tell me she doesn't feel the same way, and it ruin our friendship."

"What else could happen?"

"She might tell me she does feel the same way, and it not work out, thus ruining our friendship."

Cailin laughed, a sound that ordinarily would have made Maura smile. On the one hand it was lovely to see her so happy, so at peace with the world in the wake of their mother's death. On the other, the laughter cut deep.

"I'm sorry," she said, forcing the laughter aside. "Both scenarios you've come up with the worst case scenario. Have you ever considered that she might feel the same way, and it work out?"

"I," Maura clasped her hands together across her stomach and stared up at the ceiling. The thought had crossed her mind, of course it had, but she couldn't expect anything and she knew hoping too hard would only put her heart on the line.

"It doesn't matter what your answer is," Cailin said. "What matters is that you just admitted you have feelings for Jane."

"I don't know how to handle them," Maura said, rolling onto her side. Cailin scooted down, a mirror image of her older sister.

"You've been in relationships before?"

"I have." She closed her eyes, her previous suitors flashed before her eyes. "Not one of them felt like this. One person came close, I could have married him. But it hasn't felt like this for any of them."

"Maura," Cailin said, reaching a hand out to her cheek. She ran her fingers across the tears that slid their way down the contours of her face. "Please don't cry."

"I don't know how to do this without everything falling apart. How can anyone take such a massive risk with the one constant in their life? Jane isn't just a person I know. She is everything to me, Cailin. She has been my one and only true friend, she has provided me with comfort, with laughter, and with so much love. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't have a family, I probably would never have connected with Hope and I'd never have met you."

"There's a lot at stake," Cailin said. "But what if this is the one thing that makes everything even better? What if your friendship was never just about being friends? Maybe, just maybe, she is the only person that matters, in every way?"

"I want to believe it." Maura pawed at her cheeks. "I want it to be true. But taking the step to finding out is the hardest thing, and I don't know if I have the strength. Our lives are stable, we're in a good place. Jane and I are going to try to get pregnant again in a few days' time."

Cailin rested her head against the pillow. "You're still doing that?"

"Yes."

"Don't you think you should talk about how you feel first?"

Maura closed her eyes, then stared up into Cailin's. "Is it wrong of me to want there to be a successful pregnancy holding us together before we take the biggest risk of our lives?"

Cailin sighed. "Oh Maura. Do you really think you need a baby to stop Jane from running in the opposite direction?"

"No," Maura whispered. "But I'm scared, and we both want a child. If Jane and I never become anything more than friends, that doesn't change the fact we want to co-parent a child. Right now we must focus on that."

x

"How you doing, Doc?" Jane asked, stepping up to the edge of the autopsy table and staring down at the old man lay on the table, his eyes closed, peaceful.

Maura finished stitching him back up, the body returned to its original state. "Alan Goldstein died of cardiac tamponade."

"What's that?"

"It's a type of pericardial effusion, to précis, his heart wasn't working effectively, the fluid around the heart needed draining, and it didn't happen. This was a natural death. Kent's informing his family as we speak."

"Cailin not coming in today?"

"We agreed to begin next week, to give her time to adjust to a different time zone and a few days to catch up with her friends."

"We any closer on the Cruz case?"

"We're still waiting for results from the DNA sample." Maura placed her instruments on the metal tray and made a final note on the documentation. "I do have toxicology results on Ellie Fischer, though."

"The young suicide victim?" Jane lowered her gaze. Fifteen was too young to die, especially by her own hand. Jane could still remember the look on the girls' face as she lay on the table, cold and empty.

"It wasn't suicide," Maura said.

Jane looked up. "What was it then?"

"We've found traces of flunitrazepam in her system."

"What's that?"

"You may know it as Rohypnol."

Jane closed her eyes and sighed. She gritted her teeth for a moment. "She'd been given roofies?"

"I don't know if you recall, but there were inconsistencies on the body. That is the only reason I refused to rule her death a suicide in the first instance. There were fibres under her fingernails which we were unclear of the origin. At the time we passed them off as unimportant because of the significance of the ligature damage. Tests evidence them as fibres from clothing, polycotton. They could have been picked up for any number of reasons. In light of the toxicology report, I suspect they came from her attacker's clothing." Maura walked into her office, Jane at her tail, and picked up a file. She took out a photograph. "At the time I had no conclusive explanation for the bruises on her underarms, now I would surmise they were caused by being lifted into position."

"Was she raped?"

Maura held up a finger. "Actually, no."

"No?"

"There was absolutely no sign of a sexual assault. There was no damage to her inner thighs or her vaginal area."

"So her attacker slipped her a roofie but didn't rape her? What the hell were they doing?"

"Whilst flunitrazepam is known as a date rape drug its uses far surpass that possibility. It's a depressant of the central nervous system, it has similar properties as diazepam – Valium – and is used in the short term treatment of insomnia. It's a sedative and a muscle relaxant. For that reason alone, flunitrazepam can be used to render someone unconscious and thus make it easier for the person that killed Ellie to move her into a position to stage her death as suicide."

"So, murder."

"That is what my findings suggest."

Jane's shoulders dropped. She didn't know whether a fifteen-year-old being murdered or ending her own life was the better scenario, but she didn't like either of them. She thanked Maura and returned to the office to inform Korsak and Frankie of the findings. She slouched into her desk chair.

"Hey, Frankie, you spoke to Ellie Fischer's parents, didn't you?" Jane asked.

"Ellie Fischer," he frowned and looked at Jane.

"The fifteen-year-old suicide victim last month."

"Oh. Yeah. They didn't say much," Frankie said. "You got the file?"

She handed it over. Frankie flicked through it, referring to his notes. He closed the file again. "Ellie was a happy girl; she wasn't popular but she had a small group of close friends. They said she was a good student, but she'd been unwell. She got out of a treatment facility up in Connecticut about a week before her suicide."

"Maura's bumped her death up to murder."

Frankie sat upright and closed the file. "You're kidding me?"

"Tox screen came back, she had roofies in her system. There's other evidence that didn't add up before. Did her parents tell you which facility?"

"Altmore."

"Talk to someone at Altmore who remembers Ellie," Jane said, grabbing her jacket off the back of her chair. "Korsak, I think we need to go speak to Ellie's friends."

x

"Mr Cooper said you and Ellie were best friends," Jane said, sitting down opposite the teenage girl in an empty classroom. Korsak perched on a chair beside them.

"We met when we were in first grade, we've been friends ever since. We were friend," she looked down at the desk in front of her.

Jane smiled sympathetically. "What was she like, Jen?"

"Goofy," Jen said, her smile turning quickly into tears. "It's been six weeks and I still feel so sad that she's not here."

"It's okay to still feel that way," Jane said, resting her hand on the girl's wrist and sliding it back down onto the table. "So, you two were close. I bet you told each other everything."

She nodded, lifting her gaze up to Jane's. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. "We went through a difficult patch a few months before she died, but then we had a good talk and we cleared the air."

"What happened? What made it difficult?"

"Ellie's gay," she said, staring into Jane's eyes, the words clear on her tongue.

The words hit home, nestling themselves in Jane's brain. She took a sideways glance at Korsak, the weight of her own secret heavy on her heart. Jen's voice pulled her back into the conversation, she pushed her insecurities away.

"She didn't know how to tell me. She went really distant for a while, like she didn't want to be friends anymore. She was my best friend, I didn't care. When she told me, I just hugged her and she thanked me for being there for her. She didn't know what she was going to do."

"What she was gonna do about what?"

"Her parents." Jen's tears increased, her shoulders shook as she sobbed louder. "They didn't approve. She didn't tell them, at least I don't think she did. But they always talked about it like it was bad, a sin. She was scared."

A lump settled in the back of Jane's throat. She pushed it down, fighting with her emotions. The feelings she felt as a teenager flooded back and she struggled to catch her breath. Silence followed. Eventually, once it became untenable, Korsak jumped in.

"Jen, do you know anything about the facility Ellie went to?"

"No." She shook her head. "What facility? Was that when she was ill for like a month? I went round but her parents told me she was ill. I didn't know she went to any facility."

"Did she have a girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me about her?"

"They were seeing each other before she got sick, or went away, I guess. When she came back they didn't really see each other. But I know she was going to meet her the day she died."

"Do you have a name?"

"Callie Ritchie, she goes to a school across town. They met at a group for LGBTQ teens."

Jane's cellphone rang. She picked it up and walked across the room. She stared out of the window. "Rizzoli."

"Jane, it's Frankie, got some information on Altmore. It's a rehabilitation facility."

"Drugs?"

"No." He sighed, the silence palpable. "They specialise in gay conversion therapy."

Pain coursed through Jane's throat until the lump pushed tears into her eyes. She didn't know why it bothered her so much. She thanked Frankie, placed her cellphone back into her pocket and headed for the door.

"Excuse me," she whispered.

Out in the corridor, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Her heart thrummed in her chest. She leaned forward, her hands on her knees. For the first time she could see why her mother had tried to protect her, why being who she was still didn't fully fit into society, even then. She stood up and jogged down the corridor and out onto the main concourse. Students filed past her, the bell ringing for next class. Jane stood, surrounded by teenagers, staring out across the grass. She visualized Ellie Fischer's body on the floor six weeks previously, the rope still hanging from the tree. Wiping tears from her cheeks, she gasped at the air.

"What's going on?" Korsak asked, stepping up behind her. Jane swiped at her cheek and focused straight ahead.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

She didn't turn round. She couldn't face him. She cleared her throat and rested her hands on her hips. "Altmore is a gay conversion facility. Her parents knew."

"Motive? If the parents found out about the girlfriend…"

"I dunno." She tapped her foot on the floor and closed her eyes. She breathed out slowly, recapturing her breath at every available opportunity. A couple more tears strolled down the edge of her nose, landing on her lip, salty to the taste.

"Jane."

She ignored Korsak's voice, his curious, loving, caring voice. Being who she was had never been an option. Now she was faced with the reality of letting herself be free. If free was even a word she could truly use. His hand landed on her shoulder, her whole body shook, her teeth chattered.

"You can tell me nothing's wrong, but I know you Jane."

"You don't," she whispered, tears evident in her voice. She licked fresh tears from her upper lip. She wasn't sure she knew herself anymore. "You don't."

"What's got you?"

She closed her eyes and lowered her head. Telling her mother, Maura, Frankie, it was different. They were family. They were different. She knew Korsak well enough to know he didn't hate gays, not like some of the cops she'd met over the years. What she didn't know was how well he'd respond to someone he knew coming out. He stood in front of her, his eyes burning a hole in her pupils as he stared hard.

"What's going on? This isn't the Jane I know. Jane Rizzoli is hard and fast, and she doesn't let cases get to her. Why this one?"

"Because she's gay," Jane whispered, staring back into his eyes, hoping that would be enough to appease his wondering mind.

Korsak's eyes narrowed. "Forgive my old mind, Jane, I'm gonna need more than that."

She sighed, breathing out slowly, a whimper followed. "Because I'm gay."