There was a small brown paper wrapped package sitting by Maura's door waiting for her as she walked across her courtyard and up to her front door after a long day working a rather frustrating case. Crouching down she couldn't help but smile when saw that the paper was stamped with several postmarks from several different remote and not so remote countries. That could mean only one thing. The package was from Ian. Standing up with the package in one hand while she used the other to unlock her door, Maura let her mind drift back to the last time she'd seen Ian. He'd popped up out of no where, like he always did, and they'd gone straight to what they did best, having sex. She and Ian had amazingly satisfying sex. There was also a connection between them, one that Maura had thought was love, but not she wasn't so sure. Yes there was attraction, a connection from their shared experiences, and she did generally care about him. Ok, yes, she'd loved him, she still did, but not in the same way she use too. She was no longer in love with him, no longer tethered to him in that adventurous, romantic, way she had been. Her heart belonged to someone else.

After dropping her things in their proper places Maura carried the little package over to the kitchen island counter and set it down. After getting her box cutter from the utility draw and unwrapping the brown paper from the box she opened it and smiled at the array of wild scents that assaulted her nose. Rare African teas were nestled in the box along with a beautiful clay teapot and a simple note. Opening the folded paper Maura had expected the normal, 'Saw this and thought of you' or 'Thought you might enjoy this.' notes that Ian sent along with his gifts. What she read caused her to slowly sink onto the bar stool with wide eyes. The note, in Ian's handwriting, said 'Marry me?' and named a hotel in Paris, a date, and a time. Maura was in shock. For the longest time Maura had wanted this, had waited on this, on him. And now here he was asking her to do what she'd longed for him to do. Here he was asking her to be with him just as she was longing to be with someone else.

"Maur!" Jane's voice carried through her closed door. "Ma says come to dinner!"

"Jane!" Angela's voice followed. "Don't yell! Go inside and get her!"

Maura couldn't keep the huge smile off her face as the sound of Jane's voice cut through the sudden fog in her mind. She quickly gathered Ian's gift, the folded note falling to the floor, and then headed towards her bedroom just before Jane came through the front door. As she was lifting the box to a shelf in her closest she heard something inside the teapot clink. Biting her lower lip Maura took the top off the teapot, her eyes widening, inside was a ring. An opal engagement ring, because Ian had told her once diamonds weren't special enough for her.

"Maura!" Jane called out. "I know you're home you're girly car is in the drive!"

Maura jumped and quickly put the top on the teapot and set the box towards the back of the shelf behind boxes of Jimmy Choos. "I'm in the bedroom Jane!" She called back. "And it's not a girly car." She continued knowing Jane was on her way into the room. "It's an eco-friendly hybrid hatchback that gets fifty miles to the gallon, has a 1.8-liter gas 98 horsepower engine and an electric engine that adds another 134 horsepower…"

"Why do you know this stuff?" Jane asked as she flopped down on Maura's bed.

Maura blinked as she stepped out of her closet with a change of clothes. "I know a lot of stuff Jane. You'll have to be more specific."

Jane smirked. Maura was a bottomless pit of useful and not so useful knowledge. She loved that. "The car stuff. Why do you know so much about cars?"

"I like cars." Maura said honestly, simply, and with a shrug of her shoulders.

Jane liked that about Maura. She could be so contradictive; the upper class debutant who liked to get down and dirty with a classic carburetor from time to time. When Maura stepped out of her bathroom in a pair of casual slacks while buttoning her blouse Jane's throat went dry. They'd seen each other mostly naked before but lately it was a little harder for Jane to not to let her eyes linger where a best friend's eyes shouldn't linger. Getting to her feet she said, "Come on, Ma's holding dinner for you and I'm starving. Where were you anyway? You left before I did."

"I had a meeting with my family's lawyer and the accountant about my trust fund." Maura answered honestly.

Brown eyes widened and then narrowed as Jane looked at her best friend. "You have a trust fund? Of course you have a trust fund." Jane rolled her eyes and shook her head. Contractions. Trust fund kid who drives a freaking Toyota Pirus when she could be cursing around town in a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini or a Porsche. Walking into the main room something caught Jane's eye. Ian's note. Though it wasn't signed she knew it was from him. Her heart stopped, her lungs refused to take in air. Marry him? A surge of emotion she wasn't comfortable with nearly made her ball up the piece of paper as every muscle in her body tensed up. Marry him! Jane didn't like Ian, and it wasn't just her cop's gut, or her concern for her best friend, she didn't like him because she was jealous of him. Yes, she could admit that now, now that she'd admitted to herself how she felt about Maura. Ian could give Maura things Jane couldn't, a life, a family, himself in that kind of romantic way she would never be able too. Hearing Maura coming down the hall Jane dropped the note to the floor. "Ma made gnocchi."

"Ooo, I have the perfect wine for that." Maura said as she went to her wine fridge.

"Of course you do." Jane said with a smirk though inside her heart was breaking and all she really wanted to do was stand there and beg Maura not to leave.

Maura had found the note on the floor later that night while feeding Bass and hoped that Jane hadn't seen it. She knew Ian caused Jane distress, though she thought it was because he was technically a criminal, and because he'd hurt her. Jane didn't like it when Maura was hurting. It was sweet. Over the next several days Maura analyzed and agonized over Ian's offer. Her life was here in Boston. She had a job she loved, that gave meaning to her life. She had friends here like Barry and Vince. And most importantly, she had the Rizzolis; she had Jane. But Ian was offering her adventure and a relationship that could in the long run give her more, a family of her own, marriage and children.

False identities, sneaking in and out of countries, always looking over her shoulder for the authorities, yeah, that accept of life with Ian had crossed her mind and it wasn't very appealing. Aside from the fact that she couldn't lie, which was a skill needed for the kinds of things Ian did, there was also the fact that she didn't want, no matter how good the cause, to do anything that remotely made her anything like her father, her biological father. She helped to catch the bad guys. She didn't want to become one. So the choice was obvious, right? So why was she actually considering it?

Jane could tell that Maura was distracted and she knew why. She wondered if she should say anything? Should she tell Maura she'd seen the note and let her know what her option was or should she just wait for Maura to come to her? Would Maura even come to her? Maura didn't talk about Ian; she'd said that it was to hard; it made her to sad to talk about Ian. But what if she lost Maura to Ian? What would her life be like without Maura in it? Jane really didn't want to find out the answer to that one. There was an easy way to fix this. She knew Ian would be in Paris, she knew when and where to find him. Some little bird could slip that information to Interpol. Which could get the little bird's world blown to hell because the little bird's best friend would never forgive her for that. Jane sighed.

"Did you spring a leak?" Korsak asked from his desk.

Jane looked up. "What?"

"You've sounded like a tire leaking air all day." Korsak replied. "You ok?"

"Yeah, fine." Jane said as she waved him off. "Don't you have work to do?" She asked as she suddenly stood up, grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair, and leaving the room. Downstairs in the lobby Jane watched through the café windows as Maura and her mother laughed and giggled. It meant a lot to Jane, the way her family, especially her Ma, had taken Maura in the way they had. It was just another reason on Jane's list. She wouldn't do anything to sour the relationship Maura had with her family and visa versa. Through her friendship with Maura her mother finally got the girly girl daughter she'd always wanted, and Maura got the helicopter mom she'd always wanted. Who was she to mess all that up?

"Oh Janie!" Angela said with the brightest smile. "Maura's asked me to go to the opera with her."

Jane couldn't help but smile just as brightly. "That's great, Ma. You love the opera. And now maybe she'll stop asking me."

"I haven't asked since you feel asleep during Pelléas et Mélisande." Maura said seriously. "You snored through the last three acts."

"Yeah well." Jane said a little sheepishly. Then she smirked. "I liked that Boston Pops thing you drug me to!"

Maura loved that smirk. "You liked that they played music from Star Wars and Bugs Bunny."

"I like Star Wars and Bugs Bunny." Jane replied with a simple shrug of her shoulders. "They played the music from the beef commercial too."

Now Maura knew where she'd picked up the habit. She'd never shrugged her shoulders like that until meeting Jane. She also picked up on the fact that Jane was tense, but she figured that was just because of work. She would have to think of something to help Jane relax, maybe a sporting event of some sort or a movie over the weekend. She was about to make the offer when her cell phone beeped. Checking the message she stood up to excuse herself, "These are the text results I've been waiting on. I'll see you tonight Angela. Bye Jane."

"Later Maura." Jane replied and then took the seat Maura had just left.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" Angela asked her daughter after looking her over carefully.

"Hmm?" Jane replied as she looked up. "Oh, nothing, work, ya know."

"Yeah I know." Angela said as she looked into her daughter's dark eyes. "Spill it."

Jane looked a little defensive. "Spill what?"

"What's eatin' at ya." Angela replied.

"Nothing's eating at me, Ma." Jane said with some annoyance.

"Mmmhmm." Angela replied as she continued to stare her daughter down.

Jane snatched up her coffee and hopped off the seat. "I gotta go." She kissed Angela's cheek. "Have fun at the opera."

That weekend Maura and Jane opted to go to the movies. Since Maura was trying to help Jane relax she let her friend pick the movie, which meant they'd seen an action movie. It wasn't what Maura would have chosen to see but she was trying to help her friend relax so she sat through the gun battles and explosions and overall lack of plot because it was for Jane. After the movie they had dinner at one of Jane's favorite places, the one in South Boston that served 'Boston Baked Beans' in small ceramic pots, ribs as thick as a cubby baby's leg, and pieces of fried chicken that were not the natural size of a chicken. So many things in Maura's life had changed since meeting Jane, her diet was just one of them. After dinner they made their way over to the Dirty Robber, where most of their days and evenings came to an end, for drinks. Maura had gotten use to the less then stellar wine selection and even enjoyed a beer from time to time, it was just one more thing about her that Jane had changed about her and she kind of liked it.

Jane knew that Maura was trying to make her feel better, she just couldn't figure out why, though if she really thought about it she'd know that Maura had picked up on the funk she was in over finding Ian's note. Letting her pick the movie, dinner, and now sitting there across from her drinking from a bottle of Corona were all Maura's little ways of making Jane happy. It was one of many reasons Jane loved her. Jane wasn't the easiest person to take care of but Maura had managed to find little ways like this to do it. "Pool table's open." Jane said as she started to slide out of the booth. "Come on. I'll show you how to play."

"Really?" Maura asked with bright wide eyes.

That was another thing Jane loved. Maura was so enthusiastic about stuff, even something as mundane as learning to play pool. "Yeah, really, now come on before someone else grabs it."

Maura slid out of the booth and gracefully trotted after Jane who was making a b-line for the pool table. She watched as Jane collected all the balls from the pockets and then sorted them inside the triangle rack. Then she watched as Jane grabbed two pool cues and held one out to her.

"Ok, first off that is not a stick, it's a cue." Jane began and then went into a detailed explanation on how the game was played. Then she removed the rack and placed Maura at the end of the table. She showed her how to hold the cue, how to move it, and then smiled. "Go ahead and break."

"Me?" Maura asked with a blink of hazel eyes.

Jane chuckled. "Yes you. Go ahead."

Maura's smiled was huge and bright like an excited child's as she bent slightly at the waist and focused on the cluster of colorful balls. She slid the cue under her fingers and into the cue ball, sending it rolling over the green felt. It hit the cluster of balls with a decent clack, shattering a few, but none got even close to a pocket. "Oh shoot."

Jane smiled. How could a grown woman be so damn cute? "That wasn't bad for a first time." She reassured. "Since none went in it's my turn." Stepping up to the table she went for an easy shot, sending the two into the far left corner pocket. "Now, since I sank the two which is a solid colored ball that means for the rest of the game I'm going to be trying to sink all the solid colored balls. You're playing strips; you try to get all the striped balls in. We both try to avoid the black eight ball because it goes in last. If you sink it before the table is cleared you atomically loose. Good so far?"

"I think so." Maura said as she processed what Jane was saying while taking in the table, the balls, and figuring out the best angles and such to archive the best results.

Dark brown eyes narrowed as Jane watched. "Quit that."

"What?" Maura asked as she looked up at Jane with a curious look.

"Calculating angels and whatever other Dr. Smarty Pants thing you're doing." Jane teased.

Maura gave Jane a look that Jane described as her 'I'm too much of a lady to blow a raspberry at you but you get the picture' look. Jane smirked. After landing two more balls it was Maura's turn. Jane let her figure out where to stand and which shot to make, but as Maura was leaning over the table Jane found herself putting her hand on the small of Maura's back while she readjusted her stance a little. The heat from Jane's hand warmed Maura's whole body. She loved the way Jane touched her, it was casual, protective, supportive, even a little possessive at times, and Maura soaked in each touch like a sponge. If Jane ever stopped touching her like that she'd wither like a forgotten flower, she just knew it.

An hour later Jane stood looking at Maura in amazement. "Are you sure you've never played before? Did you just hustle me?"

Maura laughed. "I didn't hustle you Jane. Once you get use to it the math and physics behind the game are quite simple."

"You're a hustler and didn't even know it." Jane said with a shake of her head. "A natural pool shark."

"It is a rather enjoyable game." Maura mused as they put their cues away. "Maybe I'll buy one for the house. I could have a recreation room done in the basement."

"Rec room." Jane said as they returned to their booth and she motioned for two fresh bottles.

Maura raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what I said?"

Jane chuckled. "You don't say the whole word Maura, just rec."

"Oh." Maura said as she took in this tidbit of knowledge. "Ok."

"How are you at bowling?" Jane asked after taking a drink from her bottle.

"I don't know." Maura said honestly. "I've never played bowling."

Jane snorted, choking a little on her beer. "You don't play bowling, Maura. You play pool, you play basketball; you go bowling."

Maura titled her head in that way she had no idea drove Jane nuts because it was so damn cute. "Oh" She replied again in the same way she had a moment before. "Then I've never gone bowling before."

Jane smirked. "I'll take you."

Maura smiled brightly as she picked up her bottle. "I can't wait."