Author Note: Another well received chapter, thank you so much. I hope you'll enjoy this one, too. I go away tomorrow for the weekend, so I'm not sure how much writing will get done. I always find myself less likely to write when I go away with my parents. So fingers crossed. A bit of fresh countryside air, and lakes, should be a nice break. If I don't catch you, enjoy your weekends.

"I guess this wasn't what we were planning tonight," Jane said, untangling herself from Maura. She slipped off the edge of the bed and stood up, reaching for her t-shirt.

Maura followed her with her eyes, committing to memory every detail in case it would be their last time. Jane's lips twitched but Maura could see the strain in every crease of her face. She swallowed. "No."

Slipping her shirt over her head, Jane's smile grew wider yet more forced. "I feel like a pressure cooker that's just exploded."

"You don't sound as angry," Maura said, sitting up. She tugged the bedsheets around her breasts.

"Neither do you." She sat on the end of the bed and slipped her panties over her feet. She turned her head. "I don't think you're a bad mother. I don't know what kind of mother you are, but you're not the kind of person to be bad at something so important."

"I wish it was as simple as your perception. I tried. I wanted to be a good mother. I don't know how to. I don't think I ever have."

"I don't believe that."

Maura reached for her bra and panties and slipped them on. Jane stood up, tugging her jeans around her hips. Maura chewed her bottom lip, remembering her fingers against Jane's thighs barely ten minutes earlier. She sighed. "I suggested we play Trivial Pursuit."

"Bet that didn't go down well."

"See?"

"That doesn't mean you're not a good mother." Jane crawled along the bed and wrapped her arms around Maura's waist. She trailed her fingers across her back. "It means you need to learn what he loves and find things you can do together that fit into that."

"How do you know that?"

She brushed a strand of hair behind Maura's ear. "Everyone's different. Just remember that Luke isn't you. He won't like the things you like. He likes the drums, and first person shooter games, and…things that teenage boys like to do."

"You're better at this than me," Maura said, lowering her face against Jane's hand. She fought the lump forming in her throat. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop the tears that fell from her eyelids.

"No, I'm not," Jane said, cupping her cheeks and brushing away the tears. "I just grew up with teenage boys."

"He could be a girl and I still wouldn't know how to do this." Maura pushing her fingers away and climbed off the bed. She retrieved her dress from the floor and slipped back into it. Fresh tears coursed across her skin. "You saw how I was with Jack's daughter."

"Jack's daughter wasn't yours. It's different when they're your own."

"See," Maura whispered, running the back of her hand across her chin, catching droplets before they could fall. "You know that. I don't. I don't know the things I need to know to be a parent."

"This isn't you, Maura."

"What isn't?"

"Self-deprecating." She sat down, her legs hanging over the edge. "That's one thing I thought I'd never see you do. Not this much."

"You don't know, Jane. You weren't here when Luke was born. It was difficult. I couldn't cope."

"Not being a good mother isn't enough to lose custody."

"It was for me." She perched on the bed beside Jane, her fingers inches from hers. She stared down at them, desperate to reach for her hand. She ignored the desire. "I didn't put him in danger. I just couldn't figure out how to be a good enough mother."

"That doesn't make sense," Jane said. "Jack's daughter, Luke, they're teenagers. It's different. They're difficult for anyone. I've seen you with babies and you've been amazing. You were always great with TJ."

"I've grown; I've learned how to adapt. If Luke was a baby it might be different." She stared at the carpet. "With Luke I was lost. Some days I thought I was doing okay, then something would happen and it would all fall apart."

"Like what?"

Maura breathed in slowly, methodically, until she exhaled evenly. "When I was pregnant I did a residency at the local teaching hospital. I wanted to go into emergency medicine."

"I thought you always wanted to be a medical examiner."

"No." She pressed her fingertips to her eyes. "I couldn't handle it, then Luke was born and it was like the final straw. So I quit and looked after him full time. Eventually I signed up for forensic pathology and I trained to become an ME. The workload was different, and it was easier to juggle."

"Were you and Luke's father together for long?"

"Right up until the day he handed me the papers outlining that he was applying for full custody, and even then I continued to live at the house."

"I don't understand why you didn't at least get access," Jane said, kicking her heels against the floor.

"I tried, but everything I did wasn't right. I did it all wrong. We took Luke to a preschool and I couldn't communicate with the other parents, I didn't know how to. I talked about victims of crime, murders. I had no one, no friends, and Luke's father was working all the time."

"So they gave him full custody?"

"He dropped his hours, he made some changes so he could be more accessible. I was still doing my training; my hours couldn't change. But it doesn't matter. It was the best decision for Luke. He needed someone who could give him everything he needed, and I couldn't do that."

"Right." Jane stood up, she gripped Maura's hand and tugged until she stood beside her. "But you didn't fight again."

"I didn't want to cause more damage," Maura said, staring into her eyes. "When he was a toddler it was less significant for his life to change."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Why?"

"You once told me that a mother leaving their kid can have a massive impact on them."

"The first eighteen months up to age of three. Neurologically. I wasn't aware of it then. Regardless, I couldn't go back. They had their life, and I'd moved to Boston. It took a long time for my social interactions to become more normalised, and that's all thanks to you."

"Not being able to talk to people doesn't make you a bad mother, either."

"The more I discuss this, the hard it gets," Maura said, folding her arms. She licked tears from her lip and stepped backward. "Is that enough or would you like to push me until I break?"

Jane's mouth dropped open. "That's not fair."

"No." Maura shook her head and walked through the bedroom door. "You're right. I need to go check on Luke. I've been longer than I intended."

"Maura, wait," Jane said, following her. "We're not done."

"I've already explained why I am."

"Don't push me away again. I want to help you."

"Right now," Maura said, hugging her arms tighter around her chest. "I need you to go home. I need some space. Luke is still adjusting to living here, I'm struggling to make this work. I need you to leave me to do this alone."

"You don't have to."

"I want to."

"Oh." Jane sighed. "Okay. I guess I'll go then."

"Thank you."

x

"Time for bed," Maura said, walking over to the television and pressing the off switch.

Luke stared at her, his mouth agape. He pressed the button on the PlayStation frantically. "No! I was in the middle of my mission."

"No more games for tonight."

"That's not fair," he said, standing up. He threw the remote onto the couch. "Five more minutes, please, Mom."

She sighed. It would take a long time to get used to being referred to in such a way, again. Luke had learned to say Mama early on, right alongside Dada and Pull, despite the fact their dog's name was Apollo. She caved, turning the television back on. "Five minutes."

He grinned, picking up the remote. His tongue moved to the side of his mouth as he scanned the images in front of him. Maura sat down to watch. Despite her reservations over the game, she realised, half an hour later, that she'd become engrossed.

"Time," Maura said, sitting forward.

"Five more," Luke said. "I just got to Sainte-Mère-Église."

"What's the significance of that?"

"It's a place in Normandy, in France, where the D-day landings happened."

Maura sat back against the couch. "How do you know that? Did they teach it in school?"

"No, I've played this game so many times, I got sick of not knowing. The whole thing's set in World War Two."

She tried to stop her lips from curving into a ridiculous smile. She remembered what Jane had said about finding the things he liked. She also remembered the time Jane taught her to shoot a weapon and how much closer she felt to her.

"Only if I get the control and you tell me what to do."

He frowned and tilted his head to one side. "You wanna play?"

"Sure." She sat forward again. "I've never played on a games console, at least not a modern one."

"It's really easy," he said, handing her the controller. Maura wrapped both hands around it, emulating what Luke himself had been doing a moment ago. "This button is to control the game so if you press it it'll pause or start, so you don't want that one."

"Okay." She pressed pause. When he stared at her, she shrugged. "You were in the middle of a game; I assume it would be easier to pause it until you've finished your instruction."

"Oh, yeah," he said, smiling. "So these are the control buttons, they let you move forward, backwards, left and right. Then there's this one. This is important because if you press this you shoot."

"It's the gun's trigger."

"Kinda." He pressed the pause button again and the game started up.

Maura pressed a button and the player on the screen walked forward. "What do I need to do?"

"Maybe we should start again," he said. "You need to learn how to shoot."

"Someone's there," Maura said, jumping. She pressed down on the shoot button repeatedly, then tried to move the player. Someone shot back. She let go of the shoot button and sat back, closing her eyes. "Did I die?"

"No." Luke took the controller. "Wait, I forgot to say you need to press this one to aim."

"Aim, and shoot." Maura nodded, gripping her hands back around the controller. "Do I need to kill the person?"

"Yes."

She pressed the aim button, moved the controller until she could see the player in view, then pressed shoot. Once, twice, three times. On the third shot it hit him. He stumbled.

"I did it!" she shouted, dropping the controller on her lap.

"Not quite," Luke said, giggling. He took the controller and shot at the player a handful more times. "It takes a few shots for them to die, usually."

"That doesn't make sense."

He shrugged and continued firing until the other player dropped down. "Games aren't like science, they don't always make sense."

"Science doesn't always make sense either," Maura said. "That's why people are still doing research and new discoveries are being made all of the time."

Sticking his tongue out, Luke made the player walk forward. Maura sat back and watched for a while. After fifteen minutes, Luke pressed the save button and shut down the console. "I'm going to bed."

"Oh, okay." Maura stood up. "Would you like some reading material?"

"Nah, I'm good." He wrapped his arms around her briefly. "Thanks for letting me play longer."

"You're, you're welcome," she said, resting a hand across his back.

She stayed rooted to the spot long after he'd disappeared toward the staircase. Her heart thrummed against her rib cage. Maybe, just maybe, she could do this after all. She picked up her cellphone from the kitchen counter and wrote out a message.

"Thank you x"

She hit send. A moment later, Jane responded.

"Love you x"

"Love you too x" she sent back, before heading to bed.

x

Jane stared at the message on her cellphone.

"Love you too x"

She felt it, which was why she'd said it first, but deep down she wondered just how likely it was for Maura to say it back. Somehow, whilst trying to fix their relationship, she'd contributed to its self-destruction.

Sex was the last thing they should have done. She knew that logically. Her heart, on the other hand, didn't agree. She lifted the bedsheets around her waist and stared into the darkness. She waited, wondering whether Maura would send another message without her prompting. She debating sending her own response, but to what end?

Luke was a massive curve ball in their relationship and she couldn't get over Maura's deceit so quickly. After everything they'd been through together as friends, as colleagues. Jane had expected more.

What she hadn't expected was a decade worth of lies.

She rolled onto her side and tucked her hands underneath her cheek. Before, she wouldn't need her mind to imagine Maura wrapping herself around her. She felt the absence. Even more so since allowing things to go a little far earlier in the evening.

All she wanted was Maura, all she'd ever wanted, if she allowed herself to admit it, was the woman she loved more than anyone else. Once she'd moved out of her own way long enough to be honest about her true feelings, everything had changed.

The giant meteor that smashed into their world, crushing it under its weight, couldn't be unfelt. Least not quickly. Jane closed her eyes and focused on every slow and careful breath. She wanted to fix things with Maura, yet when she thought of seeing her, she felt an overwhelming sense of angry.

Maura wanted space. Jane hadn't seen it before, but lay in the darkness, she wondered if maybe she needed it too.

x

"Albert Smithson had a job working in a factory. His family didn't know about it," Jane said, tapping his photograph on the board. "This is Liam Scott, he worked the same shifts as Albert on several occasions. When we went to question him he ran, which could be explained by the numerous citations and an arrest warrant for petty theft."

"What I don't get," Frankie said. "Is why a kid from such a rich family needs to work in a factory cutting glass."

Korsak scratched his chin. "Right? Like there's enough jobs to go around without the rich kids taking all the low paid ones instead of Daddy's firm paying them to play solitaire."

Jane slid Liam Scott's photograph to one side and picked up the one beside it. "Albert's girlfriend, Gene Williams said that she'd been having an affair with Liam, but that she doesn't think he was capable of murder. Besides, she doesn't think Albert knew. But the angry voicemail on Liam's cell suggests otherwise."

"Didn't Gene say she used to have dinner at the Smithson mansion?" Frankie asked, perching on the corner of Jane's desk.

"She went a couple of times," Korsak said. "But the folks didn't seem too keen when we brought her up."

"Does Scott have any gun licenses?"

"No." Jane placed Gene's photo beside Albert's. "Neither he, nor Gene had access to legal weapons. Albert, however, had three guns. At least one of them, his father said, he would use when they went hunting together."

Frankie narrowed his eyes, trailing them from Jane, to the board, to Korsak. "Is there any chance Mayor Smithson did this?"

"You can suggest it," Korsak said. "But be ready to be thrown off the case and into the angry teeth of Cavanaugh."

"I hate VIP cases," Jane said, rolling her eyes and slouching into her seat. "They make it so much more complicated. We can't get close to the family or close friends."

"That depends on which friends you've been approaching," Maura said, entering the room with a document in hand.

Jane stood, her face lit up. She stepped forward then thought better of it, forging a small smile. In the few days since the conversation at Maura's, Jane had kept her distance. Every single time she saw her, even if it was just a glimpse, she thought she was going to fall apart. She missed her, more than she ever thought possible.

"What have you got, Doc?" Korsak asked. Maura handed him the document.

He scanned it. "Fluid?"

Maura nodded. "I found some fluid around Albert Smithson's groin. I originally passed it off as standard ejaculatory emissions, or pre-ejaculate, but on closer inspection I established that there were type different types of fluid."

"Say ejaculatory one more time and I think I'm gonna be sick," Jane said, gripping the back of her chair.

"I am as close to certain as I can be that Albert Smithson had intercourse before he died," Maura said, smiling. "I sent the fluids off for analysis. I can't imagine we'll get a match, but it might help us to identify a potential partner when he or she is found."

"Didn't the boss say he saw Smithson talking to a girl the night before he died?" Frankie walked around his desk and opened up a file, he flicked through some pages to the statement. "Here it is: 'Albert was standing under a streetlamp with a blonde leggy thing who looked like she was gonna do a strip tease. How I would have loved to have seen that.' That's gotta be the girl."

"Disgusting man." Jane closed the gap between herself and Maura. "If we find this girl, can you get a match on the samples?"

"Of course." Maura stood upright, her chest lifted as she inhaled. She rested a hand against Jane's elbow. "Can we do lunch?"

"Do you have time? What about Luke?"

"Luke needs a change of scenery," Maura said. "He's been in my office for the last three days, and if he's not there he's in the lab or the house. I thought we could have burgers at the Robber."

Jane tilted her head, her eyebrows knitted together. The anger had mostly subsided. That didn't mean there weren't still feelings lingering under the surface. "The three of us?"

"I was hoping Luke would prefer to sit in a booth by himself and play with the new handheld games console I purchased for him yesterday." She ran her fingers across Jane's wrist, sending a wave of energy through her body. "I think we need some time alone."

"I'd like that," Jane said, stepping forward.

Her bottom lip tucked under her teeth. She thought about how she felt. The depth of feeling wouldn't go away, perhaps it would always be there. She'd grown used to it over the last few days, like an ignored twinge. Aside from that, Maura's fingers created a reaction, one that for a long time Jane would have ignored. Now she'd given up pretending Maura wasn't more important to her, she started listening to it.

When Maura lowered her hand, she gripped it tightly. "I've missed you."

Maura smiled back. "I've missed you, too."