Author Note: Wait, what? Wow! I wasn't expecting that much response, certainly not that much good response. Thank you all so much for the reviews, favourites & follows. I think my emails exploded between this, Caecus, Rookie and Lullaby. So, you're all on board? Great to have you here. Let's get this thing started, onwards with chapter two!

"You know it's not as simple as that," Maura said.

"Yes, it is." He moved his feet off the dashboard and sat upright. "You gave birth to me, then you left me with him. You owe me this."

"I owe you so much more," Maura said, her shoulders hunched forward. She put her key into the ignition. "We can't sit here all day."

"So let me stay."

Maura put the car into drive, her foot pressed against the brake. She turned to Luke. He gritted his teeth, a look of hope and expectation housed in his eyes. Maura sighed. "If you give me your dad's number in China, then maybe one night won't hurt."

x

"I come bearing Chinese food," Jane said, pushing open Maura's office door with her foot. She lowered the pile of boxes onto the coffee table.

"That's ironic."

She glanced up at the sound of Luke's voice. "Hey. You're still here?"

"Still here," he said, crossing one leg over the other on the coffee table.

She pushed his feet off the table. "You can guarantee that table's worth more than you've probably seen in cash. Good job I brought heaps of food, you like Chinese?"

He shrugged and placed his feet flat on the floor. "It's alright."

"Where's Doctor Isles?"

He glanced toward the door to the examination room. Jane placed the last of the boxes on the table and walked across the office and on through to where Maura was in the middle of conducting the autopsy.

"I thought you were gonna call before you started," Jane said.

Maura turned around, her hand inches from her chest. "Gosh, Jane. You scared me."

"Sorry." She folded her arms. "The autopsy. You were gonna let me watch."

"I wanted to get it finished so I can take Luke home," she said, leaning back over the body, her scalpel in hand.

"It's nearly eight," Jane said. "What's he still doing here? Isn't there anyone who can pick him up?"

She stood upright and glanced back at Jane. She sighed. "He's waiting for me to finish so I can take him home, and no, there's no one."

"Alright." She walked across the room and stood opposite Maura, watching her slice the heart from the rest of the body. She narrowed her eyes. "You're in a mood."

"I'm not in a mood."

"Sure seems like a mood to me."

"I can assure you," Maura said. "I'm not in a mood."

"If you say so."

"I do." Maura placed the heart into a stainless steel dish. "The longer you're here asking me questions, the longer it'll take for me to finish."

"Can you take a break?" Jane motioning toward the office. "I brought Chinese food."

"How coincidental," Maura said.

Jane narrowed her eyes. "That's what Luke said, kinda."

"Is it?"

"Maura, whose kid is he?"

She sighed and pulled off her gloves, disposing of them in the hazardous waste bin beside the table. She pulled a protective sheet across the body and went to wash her hands.

"Maura?"

"I'm taking a break like you asked," she said, squirting anti-bacterial soap onto her hands. "So we can eat."

"Great. But who does the kid belong to? Is he the kid of a friend I don't know? What is he doing here?"

She ran the faucet. "He came to see me."

Jane picked up a scalpel and stared at her mirror-like reflection. "If he wasn't wearing a poncy private school uniform I'd have guessed he was in that Big Brother, Little Brother thing, though I thought they paired boys with men."

"He's not in that program," Maura said. "He'll be staying at my house tonight, just as soon as I can get hold of his father to confirm it's okay."

Maura shut off the faucet and dried her hands on a couple of paper towels. She walked toward the door. Jane dropped the scalpel back onto the tray, her eyebrows pulled together. "He's staying with you?"

"Yes." Maura hovered, her hand against the handle. "Do you have a problem with that, Jane?"

"No problem," she said, following Maura out to her office.

x

Maura perched on the edge of her chair, her eyes darted back and forth between Jane and Luke as they discussed the latest baseball league scores. She felt pointless, like a wordless participant in an otherwise lively debate. She searched her mind for any ounce of knowledge she had on the matter and came up empty handed.

"Do you play baseball at school?" she asked, despite the previous train of conversation focusing on who should be player of the year.

"No," Luke said, picking up one of the containers and emptying it onto his plate. "I used to play as a kid but dad wanted me to try out for county."

"You didn't want to?" Jane asked.

"No." He sat back against the couch, and swiped the front of his hair to one side. "I'd rather play the drums."

Jane leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "You're a drummer?"

"Been playing for two years."

"That's cool," Jane said, chewing a mouthful of noodles.

Maura narrowed her eyes, she placed her plate onto the table and sat back. "I didn't know you were interested in music."

"Yeah." He shrugged.

"I always wanted to play the drums," Jane said.

His face lit up. "Really?"

Maura's heart sank. The conversation continued without her. She didn't know much about the drums, either. Her musical knowledge fit into two categories; charted music of the eighties and nineties, and classical music. She'd learned the violin in elementary school but gave it up in favour of science.

"Maura's big on music," Jane said. Hearing her name, Maura turned her attention away from her food. "Aren't you, Maur?"

"I sometimes listen to classical music while I work. In fact, that's exactly what I was doing when the officer came down to let me know you had arrived."

"Like Beethoven and Chopin?"

"The album I was listening to is modern classical music, there's a stunning American violinist who writes her own scores. Though I do hold a soft spot for Bach."

"And the cello," Jane said.

Maura opened her mouth then closed it again, her eyes fixed on Jane. "You remembered?"

"'Course," she said. "When you die you want Bach something or other played on the cello."

Luke picked up a nearly empty container of egg fried rice and tipped it onto his plate. "I had to do a school project on Mozart last year."

"I imagine it's fascinating," Maura said, stealing glances from Jane. "I'd love to read it."

He shrugged. "I think it got lost when we moved."

"Oh." Maura returned her plate to the coffee table and stood up. "I'll leave you to finish eating, I need to complete the autopsy."

x

After tidying away the food, Jane opened the office door and walked across the examination room. Maura stood over a dish with the lungs inside, a pair of tweezers in her hand, and magnifying goggles over her eyes. She pulled something from the edge of the sliced lung and dropped it into a small dish.

"What's that?"

"A tiny sliver of glass," Maura said, focused closer on the lung. She pulled another out and dropped it in beside the first. "Somehow our victim has glass in his lungs."

"How the hell did that happen?"

Maura glanced behind at Jane. "Ordinarily I would have assumed the victim worked somewhere that glass residue and dust can be breathed in. Given that Albert here was the Mayor's son, it's possible something else happened."

"We're working on finding out where he worked," Jane said.

"I'll continue to analyse the samples I've pulled from his body."

She reverted her attention to Albert Smithson's lungs. Jane stood on the sideline, watching her cut and slice, peeling away bits of flesh and organ for examination, and fresh slivers of glass, until she placed the rest of the flesh in a bag ready to be returned to the chest cavity.

"Maura?" Jane asked, turning to get a glimpse of Luke sat in the office.

She barely glanced up, removing her goggles. "Yes?"

"I didn't know there was a kid called Luke in your life," she said, sighing. "You usually tell me everything."

"As I said earlier," she said, placing the bag of lungs back into the cavity along with the other orangs. "I've not seen him for many years."

"How old?"

"He's fourteen."

"No," Jane said. "I mean how old was he when you last saw him?"

"What does it matter?" Maura picked up a needle and began pulling the skin back together. "He was two."

Squinting her eyes, Jane walked around the body and stared at Maura, until she lifted her gaze. "Why would he know to come and see you?"

"You're asking a lot of questions," Maura said, leaning closer as she pulled another stitch through skin. "Very invasive questions."

Knowing Maura as well as Jane did, she felt unsettled. She couldn't stand not knowing. Maura's behaviour didn't settle her queries, if anything, it only made her more suspicious.

"I'm trying to understand why a fourteen year old has turned up on your doorstep, when you haven't seen each other in over a decade. And you're letting him stay overnight."

Maura sighed. She stood up, abandoning the needle partway through a stitch. She stared at Jane. "Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated?"

"Because you're being defensive and avoiding answering my questions," said Jane. She reached out and grasped Maura's hand. "I don't mean to sound like I'm interrogating you. I'm being nosy, and I'm worried."

She reclaimed her hand and clenched it at her side. "Please, stop."

"Not until you tell me who he is," Jane said.

"Just because you're my girlfriend does not give you a right to know everything about me."

"Really?" Jane folded her arms. "That's exactly what I thought it meant."

"I can't," Maura replied, her voice cracked under pressure. She worked through the rest of the stitches in silence.

Jane fixed her gaze on Maura, desperately wanting more. When nothing came, she frowned. "Okay, now you're worrying me."

"Worrying you?" Maura stood up and pulled the protective sheet back across the body. She carried the tools across to the sink and ran the faucet. "You have nothing to be worried about."

Jane followed her across the room and stood at her side, purposefully invading her personal space. Maura turned her head to Jane. "What are you doing?"

"I know you, Maura." She placed a hand on each of Maura's shoulders and met her gaze, twisting her further round. "I know who you are, I know how you would act in different situations. I know your heart. But right now you're behaving like someone who is trying to hide something from me, and when a child who is neither related to you, nor appears to have any ties to you, shows up and he's staying over at your house, my alarm bells start to ring."

"There's no need." Maura stepped back. Jane's arms dropped at her sides. She covered her hands in soap. "You have nothing to be worried about."

"Then why can't you tell me? What's the big secret?"

"I'm not willing to get into this conversation with you now," she said, rinsing her hands off and drying them on paper towels. She pushed past Jane and headed toward the door. "I need to take Luke home."

"To your house."

"Jane," she said, stopping before she could open the door. As much as she wanted to take her son home, the thought of spending hours in the same place as him unsettled her. They were strangers, and she didn't anticipate an hour before bed to change that. Her shoulders sunk.

"Do you want me to put a trace on you? Do you want me to investigate you?"

Maura spun around, her expression fixed and cold. "You have no just cause."

"The unrelated child you've suddenly decided to start housing is just cause," Jane said.

She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. "I thought our relationship meant you trusted me."

"I do."

"Then you should trust that what is happening is legal, and morally acceptable." She lowered her gaze. "I need you to stop pushing me on this."

"Why?"

"Because I can't do this right now." Her voice raised in a way that Jane very rarely heard. She stepped back slightly, retreated. "We can't have this conversation today. Maybe tomorrow, once I've taken Luke back to boarding school."

She shook her head. "Do his school know where he is?"

"Of course they do. I rang them when we got back from the crime scene."

"And they just accepted your word?"

"I'm the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they have absolutely no reason not to."

"Right. Because people in prominent positions don't do bad things."

"Jane." Maura crossed her arms, her eyes tightened, glistening under the harsh examination room light. "Are you seriously accusing me of a crime? Child endangerment? Kidnap?"

"I didn't say anything about kidnap." She stepped forward, closing her eyes. She gripped Maura's wrist. "But look at this from my point of view."

"I have." She snatched her hand away. "You say you know me, yet you're accusing me of crimes, instead of trusting me."

"I'm a cop, Maura, it's what I do."

"You're being a jerk right now."

"A jerk? What is with you? It's my job to make sure people are safe, to make sure you're safe. Why won't you be honest with me?"

"It's too hard," she said, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach. Her eyes moved suspiciously about the room, anywhere but at Jane. "If I tell you the truth then I have to tell you about something that I haven't spoken about, ever. Please, please don't push me."

"Okay." The familiar sting of tears created tiny rivers down Maura's face. She wiped at her cheeks. Jane realised she'd pushed too hard. She ran her hand across her upper arm. "Okay. You can go."

"Thank you."

x

Placing a towel down on the spare bed, Maura hovered by the door. Luke sat on one side, his eyes fixed on the television across the room. She watched him, committing to memory the shape of his features; the curve of his chin, the length of his nose, the natural redness of his lips. He was handsome. He was a nice boy. She held the phone out to him.

"It's time we called your father."

"Do we have to?" Luke barely took his eyes off the cars driving across screen. "He won't care."

"I think he will," she said. "If only that you came to me."

"I don't know what the big deal is," Luke said, eventually turning his attention over to Maura. She perched on the edge of the bed and handed him the phone.

Muting the television, Luke dialled the number and held the phone against his ear. "Hey, Dad."

Maura sat back against the headboard, her eyes fixed on Luke. She waited, her heart thrummed against her chest, her mind lost in the fog of nerves. It had been a long time since she'd spoken to Luke's father.

"I know I said I'd stay in school," Luke said. "But I didn't want to."

A crease formed between his eyebrows, his jaw tensed up. She straightened out the front of her dress, then plumped the pillows, anything to distract herself.

"Yes. Mom."

Her heart ached, her lips curved at the sides. A couple of tears strolled down her cheek. Maura smiled at her son, at the boy she once thought she'd never see again. He turned to her, rolling his eyes, then smiled as he handed her the phone.

"He's angry, but he wants to talk to you."

She hesitated. The last conversation they had twelve years ago was fresh in mind. She wasn't ready. She didn't think she'd ever be ready to reopen those wounds.

"Hello," she said, swallowing the lump that settled in the back of her throat. She listened to the tirade that followed, silently. When the opportunity presented itself, she waded in. "I understand you're angry. I didn't ask him to come, I was as surprised as you are. I was going to drive him home but he insisted on staying until tomorrow and I had work to do."

Maura rolled her eyes, her lips curved as Luke grinned at her, rolling his eyes over and over again. She tapped him on the arm and shook her head.

"He's clearly unhappy with something." Maura sighed, listening to his protest. "I didn't blame you. I merely highlighted something I've noticed. I don't intend to fight you for custody, I'm trying to do the right thing by Luke."

Luke's smile faded, his jaw tightened again. Maura's heart sunk. She turned away, resting her elbow against her knee.

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I could drive him back tonight but it's late. I'm happy to take him to school, but it will have to wait until the morning." She waited for him to finish speaking again. "Perhaps if you hadn't moved halfway across the world he'd be more willing to stay in school."

She sighed. Her mind felt stronger, clearer, than it had been twelve years ago. But she was pulled right back to that time, to the feelings that coursed through her veins.

"This isn't about you or me. Perhaps we should ask Luke what he wants to do." She pulled the phone away from her ear and held it toward Luke. "He wants to speak to you."

He held the phone back up to his ear and listened, the crease between his eyebrows grew deeper and deeper. "I want to stay with Mom."

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, goose pimples travelled across her skin. She tried to shake her head. It wouldn't move. She felt an ounce of hope spread through her. She fought it, pushing it down.

"You don't care, you're too busy with your new life," Luke said. "Just for a while, until you next come home."

He nodded and handed the phone back to Maura.

"Hello," she said, listening to him again. She frowned, her eyes narrowed at Luke, her heart beat faster. "I understand that, but if that's what he wants then I'm willing to care for him. Things are different now."

Luke kneeled up, tapping the bedsheets with his hand, impatience evident. Maura watched, listened and waited.

"Two weeks," she said. Luke jumped onto the bed and fist pumped the air. He wrapped his arms around her, bringing the biggest smile to her face. "I think he's very happy with that. I'll make the arrangements, and I promise, he'll call you tomorrow."

She pressed the end call button and dropped the phone on to the bed. Luke removed his arms from around her shoulders and sat down in front of her.

"He said I can stay, didn't he?"

Maura pressed her lips together, quite unsure as to how one night had turned into a fortnight. "You can stay, but only until the school break when he'll be coming home."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he said, hugging her again. "Two weeks' extra holiday!"

Maura rested a hand across his back, taken aback by his repeated displays of affections. She slipped her other hand over his shirt and rested her chin against his shoulder. "That's not what's going to happen, I'll see to it that you continue with your education."

"I don't care," he said, squeezing her tightly. "Thank you."

Author Note: Yes, Jane and Maura are together. I figured established Rizzles would probably work best here (and after all the angsty get-togethers I assume you'll all be very happy with that). And I know, she really needs to tell Jane...