Understanding:

Just because Maura didn't feel like prolonging her torture by being in the same room with Jane didn't mean that she wasn't going to stop by the detective's apartment to feed Jo Friday. The poor dog wasn't involved in the tangled mess that was their relationship. Maura knew that Angela wouldn't have a problem walking and feeding a few times a day, but she took joy in taking care of the little dog. Part of it was because Jo belonged to Jane, and Maura would do anything for Jane, even now, but part of it was just that Jo was adorable. Maura was not usually a dog person. The drool from a Mastiff or a Bulldog usually made her step back several paces in order to avoid getting sprayed. Jo, although far from neat and tidy herself, was the exception.

Not surprisingly, Jo Friday was happy to see her when she unlocked the front door, her tail wagging as if powered by a motor and her claws clacking across the floors. Maura couldn't help but grin down at her as she attached her leash to her collar. "I wish Jane were this excited to see me," she said with a sigh. "Come on, let's get you outside." Jo took her time exploring the stairway leading outside, as if she had never seen it before. Maura was always in awe of the way that dogs occupied themselves with such wonder and curiosity. Bass certainly didn't possess any of that, at least not about the world around him. Maura liked to imagine that Bass was always in his head, much like herself.

"Do you think I'm being too hard on your owner?" Maura asked down at Jo, who perked her head up briefly before examining a flower bed near the street as the two continued their walk, her musings to the unwitting creature at her feet quite comforting. "I don't think so. I'm merely communicating what's fluctuating in my brain, but Jane, she's not communicating anything at all." She paused as Jo sniffed a hydrant. "Do you think that's because she's not feeling something, or because she is feeling something?"

As she completed her question, an older women walked by, eyeing her oddly, and darting a glance down at the clearly silent dog. Maura flushed, indignantly setting her jaw. "The Cairn Terrier is a well known therapeutic breed," she insisted, meeting the woman's judgmental gaze. Technically, Jo was probably a mix, since she had been found as a stray by Korsak, but Maura had done her research and was convinced that the tiny dog had plenty of Cairn in her blood.

"Get a therapist," the woman muttered, shaking her head as she passed by them.

Maura looked down at Jo, giving the dog a conspiratorial eye roll. "Are you done here?" she asked. "Can we continue this one-sided conversation back indoors?" She lead the terrier further down the street, successfully confining her dialogue in her mind. 'New rule: work more, think about Jane Rizzoli less.' As the sun continued to set, she and Jo made their way back up to the detective's apartment, where Maura took a seat on the couch flipping off her Diane von Furstenberg heels.

"Louboutin heels are definitely more apt for dog walking," she said, and Jo cocked her head, eyeing the discarded shoes. "Don't even think about it," Maura warned, wagging her finger. "I'm just taking a breather and I'll be on my way."

Jo hopped onto the couch, her paws padding softly over to the medical examiner, and settling against her torso, resting her furry head on her stomach. Maura let out a faint smile, and ran her hands along the furry neck, scruffing Jo gently behind her ears. "Don't get comfortable," she said with a yawn. "I am not your permanent resting place for the evening."

. . .

A scuffling in the background roused her first, and Maura opened her eyes slowly into the dark. She moved her hand towards the lamp on her bedside table, but she met only air, and she lunged upwards, disoriented by her surroundings for a brief moment before her brain registered the familiar sight of Jane's living room furniture. 'I fell asleep?' She couldn't remember the last time she had napped. Normally, she avoided naps because they disrupted her sleep cycle.

The rustling sounded again, coming from the back hallway. "Jo Friday, what are you getting into back there?" She stood on still sleepy legs, making sure that her heels were still untouched on the floor, and ambled towards whatever had caught the dog's attention.

"What are you doing back here, snooping? You're just like your mother," she sighed as she rounded the corner into Jane's bedroom. Jo Friday's head was pressed as far underneath the bed as it could get, her back legs splayed as she tried to wriggle her body further, with little luck. The dog didn't bother looking up at Maura as she knelt down beside her, pressing her torso against the floor and glancing briefly into the dark void. Who knew what was hiding under there? Whatever it was, it seemed important enough to Jo, and so she took a chance and slipped her hand into the vacuum, noting the dog's anticipation increased with a timely wag of its tail.

She felt only air, until her fingers brushed over what felt like a small box, and she pulled it out, blowing a thin layer of dust off its top. "Is this what you wanted?" she asked, perplexed. It was about the size of a shoebox, something normally kept to store mementos, but Jo ignored it, her attention still directed toward the bed. Maura sighed, and slipped her hand back under, this time cringing as her fingers brushed the rough, jagged edge of something. She pulled it out, revealing a half-chewed rawhide bone, Jo snatching it quickly from her fingers and padding out of the room. "Jane should teach you better manners, Jo Friday," she said as she brushed off her hands.

Her eyes fell once more to the box and she let her fingers brush its lid lightly, wondering what was inside, and if its contents would somehow help her get inside the woman that had so far been successful at keeping her an arm's length away. Emotionally, at least. She shook her head, pushing the box a few inches away. 'No. I will not rummage through Jane's things.' She wasn't so far gone to dip that low, fishing around the detective's personal belongings to try and find the key to her heart. She would let Jane open up to her in her own time.

A bulb flashed in the back of her mind, and Maura could practically feel the gamma rays increasing in the right side of her neocortex. Solving the mystery of Rose's murder would require a lot more than simply seeking out the night nurse and fishing through medical records. If she wanted to find something, she would have to go right to the source. Chances are, Jim Weaver wouldn't kill his own mother without leaving some evidence behind, but she was almost certain that evidence wouldn't be found at the hospital. She would have to go straight to Weaver's home.

'Am I really considering breaking and entering just to help Jane?' Jane, who wasn't helping matters at all by intruding on her every thought and refusing to communicate? Yes, Maura suddenly realized. She was, and she would.

Thus resolved, the medical examiner picked up the dusty box sitting on her lap and started to put it back underneath the bed. But she had always been investigative by nature, and she hesitated. Whatever relationship she had with Jane was already complicated. Opening one box in her house probably wouldn't make things worse. She lifted the lid, and when its shadow pulled back to reveal what was inside, Maura gasped.

Photographs. Dozens of photographs.

"Why would anyone keep photos in a shoebox?" Maura wondered, her brow furrowing as she took out the first stack and began flipping through them. Most were properly developed, but a few were just print-outs. She was surprised to notice that she recognized nearly every face in them. They were all of Jane's family. Her mother, her father, Frankie, and another young man that could only be Tommy before his incarceration. There was an old woman that she suspected to be an elderly grandmother or aunt, a few young cousins, but there was no doubt that the children were all Rizzolis. They had the distinctive southern Italian look, and most of them shared Jane's dark eyes.

Maura pulled out the next stack of photos, and her jaw dropped in a very un-ladylike fashion as she stared down at herself.

Maura, sitting on a park bench. Standing outside the sushi restaurant she liked. Posing with Bass as he wandered aimlessly through the grass.

It was surprising to see that Jane kept photographs in the first place. She didn't seem the type. And in a shoebox under the bed, of all places? But the fact that she was included in this shoebox of memories, with her own pile to boot, was strangely touching.

Both of them this time, after a BPD softball game, their hair looking slightly worse for wear from the wind. Maura and Jo Friday in Jane's living room. How had Jane even taken that picture without her noticing?

On the surface, Jane seemed like the kind of person who was familiar enough with technology to keep her photos on a computer. However, computers weren't always the safest method of storage, and if Jane had any one instinct that overrode all the others, it was to protect the people she cared about. Now that she thought about it, the fact that Jane kept treasured photographs of loved ones in a box underneath the bed said a lot about her less than forthcoming personality.

Suddenly, Maura got it. Jane wasn't deliberately trying to hold back her feelings out of callousness, or even fear of getting hurt. She wanted to protect Maura. She remained reserved in order to give Maura a chance to keep her heart in-tact. And that meant...

That meant her earlier comment about Jane's habit of seeking out danger must have cut to the core. Jane knew that she had a dangerous job, but even if she wasn't working for the BPD, she probably would find some other way to get in trouble, just like she was doing now. And Jane knew that it would kill Maura to lose her.

Maura knew that she had to talk to Jane about this if she ever wanted a chance with the detective, but she was still overwhelmed by the sudden, deep insight into her lover's psyche. She knew that she couldn't face Jane again just yet. But first there was a mystery to be solved, and she had a decision to make. Well, it wasn't much of a decision. Maura had already made her choice. She was going to do everything possible to find out what had happened to Rose Heissman, not only because the poor woman deserved justice, but also because it was important to Jane... and Maura had never been able to resist Jane.

Her course of action decided, the medical examiner carefully put all of the photographs back in the box and placed them back under the bed. She stood, brushing the place where her knees had pressed the material of her skirt into the carpet, and headed back into the front room. She had an address to find.

. . .

Jane wheeled herself through the brightly lit hallway of the hospital, back and forth, her main source of exercise while she was confined to her chair. 'God, I would love a run right about now.' Despite her restlessness, she gave friendly nods towards the nurses that passed by her, now on a first name basis with all of them.

"Rizzoli, you keep going back and forth down this hallway, you're going to wear tire marks into the floor," called one of the male nurses.

"Even in this chair, Harris, I could run circles around Paul Pierce," she called, referring to the many disagreements she and the nurse had over the current Celtics roster.

She continued her way down the hallway, stopping briefly at the nurse's station. She'd never considered herself much of a people person, but being confined to a room for so long had turned her into the most sociable person on the hallway. She was starting to feel like her mother.

"Detective, how are you feeling today?" asked Sarah, who looked as if she had just come in for her shift. "Besides 'bored'," she said, preempting Jane's response.

"I'm really ready to go home," Jane said.

"Well, I certainly do want you back on your feet," Sarah replied. "But frankly, we're going to miss you around here. You and your mother. She's very sweet."

Jane raised an eyebrow. She'd never met an Italian that she referred to as 'sweet', especially not her mother. Overbearing and suffocating, yes. "Are you talking about Angela Rizzoli?" she asked.

Sarah laughed. "On her way out yesterday she asked if there was any way she could get our home addresses. She wants to send us all a quick thank you for taking care of you."

A red flag went off in Jane's brain, but Sarah continued. "Of course, I can't give that information out, but it was a nice thought."

The detective gave a slow nod, but immediately turned back towards the opposite end of the hallway. "She is something," she responded, giving the nurse a wave before wheeling back to her room, this time with a new vigor powering her arms.

She closed her door behind her and immediately picked up her phone, pressing it to her ear. It continued to ring, and she cursed lightly as her mother's voicemail picked up. "Ma," she said harshly. "I don't know what you're up to, but you need to call me. Now."

She tossed her phone on the bed and looked up at the clock on the wall. Just barely past eleven. Whatever her mother had up her sleeve, she had a whole day to do it. Jane would merely have to what she did best in her current state: wait.

. . .