It's not hard to track down Constance Isles. It would have been, for a lawyer, maybe, or a secretary, but Jane is a detective first and foremost (in fact lately she's not sure she has any other identity) and she knows that even confined to desk work she's one of the sharpest. She's good at her job. And if she's lucky, she'll be able to use that to fix what's broken between her and Maura.

Maura's mother is in a special facility outside of Everett, recovering. For the first time in a very long time, Jane's nervous. The last time she spoke to Constance alone, she hadn't been cordial. She'd been straightforward and at her hypothetical worst. She knows that her protective side isn't an attractive side, and that she's prone to being over obnoxious when she feels as if something or someone she loves is threatened. The problem is, what she's going to ask requires a colossal amount of trust that she's fairly sure doesn't exist between them. And that's without taking into account that Maura may or may not have spoken to Constance about the shooting.

So she's nervous, but she refuses to let it cripple her. She slips out of BPD a half hour early- the desk and paperwork won't miss her- and lets herself enjoy a few minutes of Boston's characteristic gusty wetness before she slips into her car and it starts to rain. It's not the friendly kind of rain, either; not the rain she sat in with Joey Grant, not the rain that witnessed their almost-kiss. This rain is light but cold, the clouds looming, the wind angling it so that it manages, somehow, to get underneath her umbrella.

The receptionist at the facility is around her age, tall and sandy-haired with a permanent scowl. He seems oddly cold until Jane flashes her badge, and then he's predictably 'helpful' and 'cooperative', while still managing to maintain his attitude and creep her out. The way he looks at her is a little weird; she's used to people eyeing cops with suspicion so she brushes it off. Technically she's abusing the power of her badge, but she doesn't particularly care; the BPD has bigger problems and so does she. She fumbles with the badge when she pockets it again, knowing that if she can't word this right, her whole plan- and any possibility of gaining back Maura's trust- will be shot to hell.

Whatever she expected, it's not what she gets. Constance doesn't look much different than she had before the accident, give or take a few still-healing scratches and well-placed bandages. Perhaps thankfully, most of the bad damage had been done at or below hip level, and the way Constance has arranged herself almost elegantly in the middle f her bed with a throne of pillows hides her hips and legs. When Constance looks up over her reading glasses at her, Jane feels as if Maura is seeing right through her from wherever she is, miles away. "Well, hello."

"Hey," Jane's voice is shaky, so she clears her throat and tries again. "How's…how are things going?"
"I'm quite well, actually. The doctors say I'm recuperating fantastically."
"That's good to hear." It's like a job interview: she has so much to say, but she's too worried that she'll say it at the wrong time. She takes a deep breath and makes another sad attempt: "So I'm assuming Maura told you what happened."

"Naturally."

Damn. Constance, like Maura, has a talent for speaking but saying nothing at all. Jane's hands are clasped behind her back and her fingers move frantically, fluttering over her scars but finding no further answers there or anywhere else.

"And…?"

Constance carefully dog-ears her book and sets it to the side. "And I think your reaction, given the situation and your training, was entirely reasonable."

Jane feels like someone has dropped a lead weight into her stomach. She swallows hard, nods, and looks away. "Reasonable," she nods again.

"Detective," Constance says plainly- and when Jane turns she's shocked to see that the older woman is smiling. "You don't need to look for forgiveness here. There's nothing to forgive."

A rush of relief follows her words and Jane uses it to fuel some kind of confidence, dropping into the chair beside the bed.

"I have to ask a favor of you. I need to find Maura's birth mother."

.,.

Maura is jumpy and yoga isn't helping. It's an underproduction of serotonin that's causing her agitated state. More specifically, it's the memory of Jane's kiss, of the clinic and the crying, the vulnerability, and the shooting that just won't let her relax. She had wanted to stop Jane when she left. She's still not sure what held her back, because as far as she can tell, the only way to fix anything- her hurt or Jane's- is to be together. Yes, the shooting still upsets her; losing her father so soon after emotionally discovering him is jarring, but she's come to the realization that she can't heal without Jane. She can't do anything without Jane.

Her watch beeps- 3:45 pm. She rolls up the yoga mat and heads to shower, expecting that her courage won't fail her again if she runs through it all in her head until she's there in front of Jane again tomorrow morning.

.,.

"She's…" don't say dead, God, please let her be alive. "She's unreachable."

Constance is lying- she's good at it, but Jane's better. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and takes a second to read Constance's expression. She's stubborn and she believes she's doing the right thing- not that Jane blames her. She's going to have to play her wild card: the truth.

"Maura hasn't forgiven me for Doyle's death."
"She hasn't spoken to me about it."

"I'm in love with her."

.,.

Her name is Hope Gallagher and she's a part of the Witness Protection Program. Constance explains it, but only vaguely; Hope's association with Doyle and his gang put her in enough jeopardy that her pregnancy scared her into hiding. Even so, she chose to put Maura up for adoption. "She never told me why, really, and I was in no position to ask," Constance says. "I haven't spoken to her in years, but if she hasn't moved, I might still have the address."

She gestures for the pen and pad on the bedside table and Jane scrambles to hand them over. "I hope this helps," Constance murmurs as she scribbles, "I know she cares for you, very much. And if I had to guess, I might even say that she misses you."

.,.

It takes three days for her to get acknowledged by WPP. She lies and says she needs the information for a case; that she has no intention of approaching or exposing Hope Gallagher (who exists under the alias of Diana Jacobson). She only needed to know if Hope had moved. If she gets found out she'll be jailed for at least ten years and probably never get a job again, but as far as threats go, that one feels too far away to even possibly change her mind.

.,.

Maura chickens out. She's not partial to idioms, but that one feels just about accurate. Whenever she sees Jane she freezes up, her knees give whenever their hands meet over evidence or paperwork, and her heart rate rises when they get within a few feet of one another. To avoid it, she avoids Jane- at all costs. If she comes in contact she avoids eye contact to save herself.

She can't figure out why she's so disappointed that Jane doesn't confront her about it.

.,.

It takes another two and a half weeks for jane to find Hope and plan out what she needs to do. On the stupid shows like CSI and NCIS that make homicide look like some kind of a lottery, it takes the protagonist maybe two days to get the information they need. Real life moves much slower. What's worse, Maura's reverted into being just as cold and distant as she'd been immediately following the shooting, and Jane feels like an outsider in her own workplace.

She's recovering, slowly, no longer achy but careful with herself until the three-week mark has passed, just because she knows Maura would want her to be. The problem is, once she's back out in the field, it's impossible to ignore the way Maura ignores her. On her second day back, they're called in for a murder in the park. It seems almost like a suicide- to get a closer look she crouches beside Maura and leans over the corpse. Maura doesn't react. Her eyes move over the man's exposed neck, bruised and lacerated with clean, sure strokes. Jane watches Maura's gloved fingers slip under the collar of the vic's shirt, revealing a thin wire that Jane hadn't noticed earlier.

"Chicken wire?" It's hard to even pretend she's invested in the job when she's waiting for Maura to make eye contact with her, and waiting in vain. Maura flicks the wire aside with her thumb and frowns, as immersed in the case as Jane is detatched. "It severed several arteries in his neck. He bled out."

Jane sighs, nodding in halfhearted agreement. Just as she moves to get up, Maura adds softly, "I'm glad you're back." Whatever the fuck it is that's holding Maura back; whether or not it has to do with something Jane's said, she knows with a cop's conviction that Maura's feelings didn't change.

.,.

Hope lives in a modest little white-washed house off of William J Day and Colombia. It's almost unsettling, at first, that Maura's birth mother could be so close by- that, through every place Maura's lived, she somehow managed to return to Boston and the parents she'd never known.

The moment Jane pulls up at the house she knows something's not right. The street's empty, and the house next door looks relatively lived-in, with the trash can out to the curb and what looks like a kid's toy truck disassembled on the front porch. It takes her a moment to realize what's so off about Hope's house: the mailbox is overflowing and newspapers litter the little porch and brick steps. There's a cat door, but it's been crudely duct-taped shut. A hungry-looking tabby cat greets her when she gets out of the car and she ducks down to scratch under it's chin before she heads to the door, her suspicion growing with each second.

There's something that every cop, out of every precinct in the nation- maybe the world- is taught to understand. It's called a cop hunch. It's one of the only things Jane has any respect for- her own premonition- and if nothing else her experiences with Hoyt have taught her to be. Fucking. Careful. What she gets herself into.

She's off-duty, plainclothes, because she figures she's more likely to get a favorable response if she doesn't show up looking like she's ready to take out a suspect. When she knocks, though, she feels exposed- and when the door opens and she's greeted with the barrel of a pistol she instinctively reaches for the gun that's not there. She rears back without actually aiming and punches the guy holding the pistol somewhere in the jaw/neck area and while he recovers she realizes exactly who he is.

It's the receptionist from the recovery clinic, the one who had given her such weird vibes. She doesn't have time to think about it move because he starts to straighten up and she sees that she managed to get him right in the jaw and that he's bleeding from somewhere. She kicks the gun out of his hand before he grabs her by the arms, and even as she struggles he manages to get her in the house and kick the door shut before she can get him off of her.

There are advantages to being a burly Caucasian male. Muscle mass is one of them.

But Jane is faster.

He lunges for her again but she ducks out of his reach and knees him in the stomach, taking the time that gives her to bring her hands down, hard, on his back. He falls to the ground still reaching for her legs and ankles, trying to topple her, but weeks of kickboxing have done their job and Jane switches sides, bringing the heel of one boot down on his right hand. He howls.

"Tell me everything you know and how you know it," she snarls. Her attacker moves his free hand and she grinds her heel into his fingers until he yelps again and lies still. "Where is she?"

"I didn't do anything to her."
"I didn't ask you," she leans down and fists his shirt into one hand, "if you did anything to her. I asked you where she was."
"She's here."
"Alive."
"I fucking told you I didn't do anything to he-" She slams his head back into the floor, her foot still holding down his hand. "What do you know?"
"I'm her son."

Jane lets him up and he scrambles to his feet, just in time for her to shove him back against the wall- just to be sure he's not planning on trying anything. "Bullshit."

"You wanna see my fucking birth certificate?"
"Watch it, asshole. Full name."
"Do you have a warrant?"

She brings her knee up into his groin because he's a masochist and she's far too willing to take out her frustration on him. "I don't need one. You attacked a cop. Full name."
"Gallagher," he coughs, "Nathan Gallagher."

"You wanna tell me why you opened the door and greeted me by shoving a pistol in my face?"
"Because you came to take her away."
"Away where?"
"Away. You came to take her away because he's dead."

.,.

It takes her another half an hour to convince him she's not there to take Hope in for questioning. When she finally gets to Hope, it takes her another hour to convince her that Maura needs her in her life. It shouldn't be so hard to do, but Hope is skeptical of her the exact instant she figures out she's a cop.

"Just, please. Talk to her. You can disappear as soon as you do, and I swear I won't come looking for you again, but give her a chance."

Hope, who looks disturbingly dissimilar from Maura- tall, thin, mousy, redheaded- fixes Jane with a stony look. "I did give her a chance. By giving her up for adoption, I gave her the best chance I possibly could. And look where she is now! Chief medical examiner. I never could have paid for a fraction of the education she got."

"I'm not asking you to raise her again," Jane replies almost instantly. "I'm just asking you to meet her." It's the sixteenth or seventeeth time she's said exactly that, and this time she's finally worn down Hope's stubbornness. "Fine. I can't see why she'd want to know me, but fine, give me a time and a place."

.,.

Maura's unaware of anything except the paperwork in front of her. That's the way things have to be, nowadays, if she's going to keep herself 'in the game', as it were. Because she's so immersed in that paperwork, and because she's recently downed an espresso, she startles slightly when someone knocks at the door of her office.

It's Jane. She colors and clears her throat, expecting that this has to be the confrontation she's been dreading for weeks. That's until she takes in Jane's expression, the contracting of the muscles around her eyes that indicates…amusement? "Hate to interrupt your analysis of virtuous fluids, but someone's here to see you."

"Vitreous," Maura hears herself murmur instinctually. "Virtuosity is a human trait." But Jane steps back and someone else takes her place, someone a few inches shorter and a few decades older. Someone with reddened anterior palpebral borders and an under-pronounced incisivus inferior much like her own. She sees, as if from miles away, Jane's smile and the way she disappears around the corner. And in that instant she sees every ounce of love she could ever have hoped to see from someone else. She had never been alone, after all.