A/N - this was intended to be a one shot, but then the idea of Maura in that dress took hold, and it...sorta became a 3 shot instead.


She's always been good at compartmentalizing, and its six weeks since that fucking dream, and she's gotten so good at lying to herself that she's almost sure it never happened. She's done her best to return to normalcy, and she's gotten damn good at faking it until she makes it. No one ever knew anything was wrong to start with, so good had she gotten at building the walls. It was just who she was and how she thought. She'd gotten good at building a forcefield of sarcasm and dry wit, deflecting anything that she didn't want to deal with with a joke.

Until she goes down to the morgue, fully intending on actually getting the toxicology results of a questionably suspicious death. She was really hoping that the tox screen came back positive, making the header their victim took off a fifteen story building an accident, that she wouldn't have to solve a damned fall. She hated those. She liked shootings. Shootings left forensics, bullets, shell casings, guns, that she could track down. People shoved off of rooftops, there was never any evidence left behind, they were usually people who got into one heated argument, making the suspect pool everyone. They were the sorts of murders that made her want to tear out her hair in frustration.

And she walks in there, and Maura's wearing that fucking dress, and she finds herself stopping in the doorway, mouth suddenly dry. All she can see are hips, and that ass, and the slightest hint of God's Own Rack, half hidden by the way she's bent over an autopsy table, reaching for something on the other side. She's not sure how long she's there, just staring, but suddenly the air seems too thick to breathe, and she's fairly sure her pants just shrunk because suddenly there is entirely too much and entirely not enough friction where she wants there to be.

And then Maura turns towards her, and the spell is broken until she realizes that that shade of pale green she's wearing made hazel eyes shine fucking gold. There's a smirk on Maura's face, and the only thing that she can think of is how utterly fucked she is, because she knows that smirk. Instead, she ignores everything, asks for the toxicology report, and swears when it comes back clean. Jump. Push. Not fall. She's going to spend the next few weeks as utterly frustrated as she comes, trying to chase down leads that were almost impossible to find.

She backs away, doing her best to ignore the look Maura gives her, muttering something about the case as she turns for the elevator, stopping on the wrong floor, because she knows it contains the closest single bathroom, with no other stalls to get in the way, and makes sure the door is closed behind her before she sticks her hand down her pants. She barely needs to do anything before she's biting clean through her bottom lip, the coppery taste of blood being what snaps her back to reality.

Maura's decent enough to keep that dress in the closet until she finally pieces together the events of the crime, finally closes the case, finally gets her man. But it reappears again, after that, and starts reappearing on a near weekly basis. She knows Maura's fucking with her, she knows Maura knows, and she knows Maura knows she knows. It's getting to the point where she's managed to lie to herself enough to be able to pretend it has no effect.

And then Maura wears it out to drinks at the Robber, and starts ordering everyone rounds of whiskey, and and she finds herself talking to a chest again. She does her best to pull away, and find the first moderately attractive man she can, but she finds Maura tugging on her hand, and she can't pull away. They find themselves in the alley behind the bar, and Maura's lips are on hers, and she can't help the downright primal growl as she turns them to pin Maura roughly to the wall, ravaging that absolutely perfect mouth.

It takes a moment for her brain to catch up to her body, but when it does, she's stricken. She can't do this. She was not going to be a goddamned stereotype. She was not going to fuck things up with Maura. She pulls away, and her comment of It's not you, it's me feels terribly lame, so damned fucking contrived, even to her as she runs. She doesn't stop running until she's back at her apartment, trying her best to compartmentalize all of this with every heaving breath. She takes careful care to stick the perfect taste of Maura's lips into a place where she knows she will always remember it, even if she tries to forget, before she brushes her teeth four times to rid her mouth of it.

She goes to work the next morning, and does her best to pretend everything is fine. She ignore Maura's questioning glances, dodges the questions that she knows Maura wants to ask, and pretends as though nothing is wrong. She's good at faking it til she makes it, good at lying to herself until even she believes it. Maura doesn't push, and she hates her for that. There's little questioning glances, flirty gestures that she knows are designed to provoke. But nowhere is the fight, the one that she knows will make her feel justified in running away. Nowhere is the confrontation, heated words and hatred and self-loathing making themselves known. Instead, there's just these little, provacative things designed to break through her defences. And she stands her ground.

She has a track record of fucking things up. She's unloveable, and she knows that the only thing that would come of going down that road with Maura would be losing everything. She would rather have something – even if it's not everything she wants – than not have Maura in her life. Because Maura is the only good, truly good thing in it, and she's nothing but corruption. She wasn't going to ruin the perfect purity that was everything that Maura symbolised. And eventually, she's good enough at pretending that she doesn't care, doesn't notice those questioning, longing looks shot right back at her, doesn't fucking love Maura that even Maura believes it.

They never speak of it, and she considers the irony of it for a moment as she solves the murder of some Oscar Wilde afficiando. The not talking about the love that dare not speak it's name. But she knows – she can feel it somewhere deep in her heart the moment that Maura gives up on her. And she's glad, because they return to the casual banter, although there's something missing. And she hates it, but loves it, knowing that she still has something, that she hasn't fucked up badly enough to force Maura completely out of her life like she knew would happen.

She compartmentalizes, pretends that she doesn't notice that something indescribable has changed between them. She puts up the walls, and deflects any comments with dry wit and sarcasm. She pretends that everything is just fine, and wears the facade of someone who hasn't just had their heart ripped out and shoved down their throat when she realized that Maura had actually given up on the idea of them. She lies to herself, and tells herself it's for the best. That she's protecting Maura. That Maura was just confused, never really wanted her. She compartmentalizes, tucks her emotions away in nice neat little boxes like so many shoeboxes under her bed. She lies, to her mother, to Korsak, to Frost, to Maura, that today's a wonderful day. She lies to herself that this is what works best for all of them. And somehow, someway, she manages to believe it.