Jane didn't know how to confront Maura, how to lay herself on the line emotionally in a way she had done so frequently in a physical way. So she turned on her heel, took the stairs a few at a time.

The risks were too great, and she wasn't ready to play Russian roulette with Maura's feelings.

That night, two men pulled Jane into an alley. They struck her immediately as government workers, likely former military, but didn't identify themselves. They wanted her help. Needed her help.

That night, Jane didn't sleep at all.

What they were asking for… it was too much.

Jane was asked to sacrifice her health and welfare on a regular, nearly a daily, basis. Her service to BPD required nothing less, and she'd always stepped up to the challenge. On multiple occasions, Jane had put her very life on the line.

But this… this wasn't just her physical life she was jeopardizing.

This was her life. Maura, and her family and her friends and her job and… Maura.

On some level, Jane knew her family and the guys at the precinct would eventually overcome the betrayal if she accepted. It might take weeks, months, hell even years, but she'd do whatever it took to earn back their trust.

Maura, on the other hand… Jane wondered if Maura would ever trust her again.

She and Maura were balancing on the cusp of something more powerful than both of them.

The timing couldn't have been worse.

Now Maura would always think that Jane was running away from her, from them.

Jane's love for Maura was only overshadowed by her devotion to justice, to service, to helping people who had no one else to turn to. It was her desire to help those people, Maura's voice in her head urging her to aid them, that finally made her agree.

There was no sympathy in their eyes, no comfort in the nameless voice on the other end of the phone they gave her. But the reward was too great to resist.

Now, Jane had to push Maura away, or back down from the responsibility she had assumed by accepting their request.

Gazing at Maura through the doors of the morgue, Jane felt more afraid than she ever had in her life. There was a high probability that Maura would hate her for this, forever.

Forever.

Jane wanted to think Maura would understand. That this compassionate, considerate, open-minded woman would, when Jane could finally explain, find it in her heart to forgive Jane.

But the niggling fear that she might not was enough to make Jane's pulse race, her throat clog.

She'd said yes though, accepted the assignment, so Jane quelled the nausea culling in her gut and entered the morgue.

"Hey Maura," she tried to keep her voice light, even. "I've got a date on Saturday. Can we reschedule movie night?"

The hurt that flashed across Maura's face was like a slap to the face. She didn't rush to mask it, and Jane languished in the shadow of the sorrow skittering across Maura's brow.

"A date?" Maura asked. "With whom?"

"Stephanie," Jane thought she honestly might vomit on Maura's sterile floor. "From Vice. You've met her- blonde, shorter, fair skin, green eyes. Smart as hell and funny to boot."

Jane felt her mind and body detaching out of self-preservation.

"I'm happy to reschedule," Maura's voice was bewildered, soft. "It's just that I thought you and I were… moving in a new direction with our relationship."

Maura's blunt, earnest way with Jane had never hurt so badly.

"Oh," Jane shrugged. "I didn't realize. Were we?"

Maura licked her lips and it took all of Jane's willpower not to let her eyes drop to stare at the unintentionally sensual move. She could see the way Maura's brain was moving a million miles a minute.

"When you figure it out," Jane teased, her gut knotted. "Let me know."

When Maura's lip quivered, Jane almost called the whole thing off. She wanted to reach out, to soothe Maura, to tell her that everything would be alright. She wanted to tell her that she was hopelessly, desperately, madly in love with her, and that she wasn't blind to the way things were shifting between them.

Instead, she sat silently, idly scanning the morgue.

Maura reached out towards Jane but stopped herself, her hand hanging awkwardly between them for a second.

"Why are you doing this?" Maura breathed. "Talk to me. I… I'm your best friend. Please don't push me away."

Jane's hands shook, so she clenched her hands into fists in the hope that Maura wouldn't notice.

"Maura," she sighed sarcastically. "I'm not doing anything. Don't you think you're being a little overly dramatic? I'm rescheduling one movie night so I can go on a date- you're the one who is always saying sex is so great for the body. Well maybe I'm finally taking your advice."

Maura's brow furrowed, the lines begging Jane to soothe them away with soft fingers. Instead, Jane stood.

"It's getting late," she faked a yawn. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes," Maura mumbled absently, watching Jane like she was in a trance. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Jane fled before her courage could fail her completely. Outside, she dialed the now-familiar number.

"I started," she growled.

"Good," the man on the other side responded. "Start with the others tomorrow. And speed it up. Time is… well, I don't have to tell you. Call me tomorrow night."

Jane hung up without replying. She needed to walk, to clear her head, to get her heart to stop beating at such a dangerously high rate.

The look on Maura's face haunted her.

Jane took two steps back towards the precinct to go back inside to comfort Maura before she even realized she was moving. She froze, then spun abruptly and walked away as quickly as possible.

The next weeks passed in a blur. Jane was doing her best to alienate everyone in her life. Part of knowing people so well was knowing what ticked them off, drove them away, hurt them.

The first month was the hardest.

It tore Jane apart to wield her relationships like a weapon. She kept reminding herself that it would all be worth it in the end. That if they were the people she thought, they would understand and forgive her someday.

But it hurt like a bitch.

The stunned look in Korsak's eyes, Frost's perpetually furrowed brow, Frankie's sour gaze, the disapproval written in every line of Angela's face.

And Maura. Dear god, Jane had never felt so low in her entire life.

The distance between them was progressively growing, despite Maura's best efforts to stop it from happening.

It killed Jane to feel Maura slipping away, being pushed away, but there was no other choice.

She didn't even have to be mean to Maura to have the same effect. The rest of the people in Jane's life were used to her occasional callousness, so she had to put concentrated effort into actually offending them.

But she'd always treated Maura differently, always been softer and kinder to her. So just being a little distant, a little rude, a bit too sharp, was enough to make Maura react like a wounded child.

Maura did her best to hide it, Jane could see the effort, but it was still so painfully obvious to Jane.

Every time she dialed the number of her contact, she almost quit. But then she got her assignments and she was reminded of what the sacrifice was for. She reminded herself that if she quit, it would all have been for nothing.

So she persevered.

After two months, she felt nearly dead.

She didn't sleep, barely ate, ran on caffeine and adrenaline alone. She knew she'd lost weight, despite a serious gain in muscle mass, that the circles under her eyes made her look like a corpse.

Her mother barely spoke to her, and the rest of her friends and family members openly avoided her.

Maura had kept trying though, her soft, gentle attempts to reach Jane driving Jane to drink in order to quiet her mind. The few hours Jane managed to sleep, it was always because she'd fallen prey to a bottle of Jack.

Jane knew the end was nearing, but she no longer felt confident that she was going to succeed. And if they failed, if she failed, everything would be a waste. She would have destroyed her life for nothing.

No, not for nothing.

Trying and failing was better than sitting by and doing nothing.

But failure was not an option. So she worked harder, pushed harder in the gym, did everything she was told to a T.

After four months, four hellish, grueling months, she looked like a Greek statue, but her eyes were hollow, dark. Her lips were carved in a permanent frown.

Everyone in her life gave her a wide berth, her sullen attitude driving away all of her friends, acquaintances, and driving a wedge between her and her family members.

Maura had pulled her, Queen of the Dead persona around her like a cloak, her clinical detachment around Jane stunning to watch. But sometimes Jane still saw things in her eyes, a viscerally painful look of hurt and despair and anguish and longing.

Jane hadn't realized the toll it would take trying to keep Maura at a distance. Instinctively, she wanted to share things with Maura, laugh with her, touch her. Jane would find herself, even six months since accepting her assignment, dialing Maura's number just to hear her voice.

Six months of agony had transformed Jane. Maura had told her once that living with physical pain for prolonged periods of time could permanently alter the way the brain functioned. Jane wondered if living with prolonged emotional pain could have the same effect.

Cut off from her friends and family, working on nights and weekends to fulfill her missions, Jane was practically a robot. She functioned on adrenaline and caffeine alone, often going days in a row without sleeping.

Her mother had stopped calling.

For Jane, that spoke volumes. Her mother had… given up on her.

She wondered what the people in her life thought had happened. She wondered if they thought she'd succumbed to drugs or alcohol, what reason they used for her sudden departure in character.

In the beginning they had pushed- hard. They had tried to get through to her, to connect to her. It had been painful, to see the people she loved fighting so hard for her all the while knowing she had to push them away.

But now, they were like strangers.

Frost didn't laugh when she was around. Korsak kept his comments to himself. Frankie avoided her. Angela was silent.

And Maura.

Maura was so removed Jane could have sworn they were never friends at all. She was professional and polite, and the cold reserved treatment made Jane nauseous. She dreaded seeing Maura, talking to her.

Being near to Maura… the temptation was almost too great to bear.

The time had almost come, the end was near, and Jane wasn't surprised she didn't have the energy to feel relieved, happy. Besides, the worst was yet to come- lots of things could still go wrong.

When Jane got home from work, the silence threatened to swallow her.

She dialed the familiar number, and it rang longer than normal. Tension coiled through her.

"Hello," the man greeted her. His voice sounded as weary as she felt. "Ready for one last go?"

"No," Jane said. "Let's get this over with."

"You've done a good thing," he replied firmly. "When your friends and family find out, they'll understand."

"Easy for you to say," Jane bit.

"You could have said no," he suggested, curiosity in his voice.

"Just like you did?" Jane retorted.

"Touché," the man's smile transmitted over the line. "I won't try to placate you with notions of heroism- you already had that status. But I am curious why you accepted."

Jane sighed. She'd been asking herself every day since they had approached her.

"I don't know," she lied.

"I don't believe you," the man responded. "But that's alright. We all have our reasons. You strike me as the type who's in it for some misguided sense of honor, or duty."

"Misguided?" Jane growled.

"Sorry," he laughed. "I just have up on duty and honor a long time ago. Other things work a lot better for motivating people and they aren't forgotten so easily when the going gets tough."

Jane grunted in response.

"Docks off of E 1st and Shore," he told her. "Now for the only somewhat rewarding part of this whole miserable fucking thing. You ever done a liberation?"

Jane shook her head, realized he couldn't see her, and managed to find her voice.

"No," she admitted.

"Fucking terrible," he rumbled. "A lotta shit can go wrong. Wouldn't think twice about wearing my vest, and saying a prayer. And if any of those friends and family might wanna see you before you meet your maker, it's worth a trip. I'm sure you'll be alright though. We try not to send Probies into a shitstorm their first time out. Who's with you tonight?"

"Dunno," Jane sighed. "Rendevous point?"

"Castle Island," came the reply. "2300. Be safe."

"Got it," Jane said, disconnecting the call.

Her whole life, she'd trusted her gut. She'd let her body tell her when things were off, when things her senses couldn't perceive were not quite right. That gut instinct had never failed her, and it was going haywire right now.

Something was not right.

It was already nine. Only a few hours until she had to be at Castle Island.

Jane prepared the way she had each time prior, the way she had the twenty-five nights she'd gone out into Boston late at night for reasons she wasn't entirely sure of but felt in her gut were necessary.

Duty. Honor.

She wore old, dark jeans. A black t-shirt with a black sweatshirt on top. Her hair in a messy bun. Dark tennis shoes. Her personal weapon holstered at her hip, a knife at her ankle.

Her shield lay lonely on the bedside table. She put a hundred dollars in her shoe, but brought no ID.

And tonight she slid her vest on under the sweatshirt, despite the bulk and weight it added.

The entire time, she ran through breathing exercises, psyched herself up the same way she would for a police raid. Only this time, she didn't know or trust the people she was going in with. This time, there was no backup.

It was nine thirty when she slid behind the wheel of her car. She could have driven out to Castle Island, stopped for a cup of coffee, but something nagged at her.

She had to see Maura.

On the drive over, Jane knew she was making a mistake. She knew that seeing Maura right now could put them both in danger, but she also couldn't seem to stop herself.

She had to see her.

If she died tonight… if the last words she ever said to Maura were meant to hurt…

If Maura thought Jane was running…

Maura's house was dark with the exception of a single light behind the shades of her bedroom window. Jane drove past and parked a few blocks away, then jogged through a few back alleys and hopped a couple low fences to make sure no one was following her.

Rather than knock on the front door, she pulled herself over Maura's fence into the backyard and rapped lightly on the sliding glass door.

There was no response, and she moved on the balls of her feet. She tested the door, both relieved and upset when she found it was unlocked. She slid it open, hating the way she was intruding when their relationship was already so precarious.

The familiar smell and feel of Maura's home assaulted her, evoking emotions so strong she had to close her eyes for a second to get her bearings.

She hadn't realized how much she missed the sensations associated with Maura's home.

She crept towards the light in Maura's bedroom, her footsteps almost inaudible. Maura wasn't immediately visible through the doorframe but Jane saw her reflected in the mirror, hanging something in the closet.

The lilac silk pajamas she wore were barely decent. An ample amount of her cleavage threatened to spill over the top, and the tiny shorts barely contained her ass. Her hair was damp, drying in messy waves around her face. Jane imagined her skin was warm and fragrant from the shower, and she wanted to bury her face in it.

Jane's gut clenched, desire swirling through her like a tornado. She grit her teeth harshly, intent on coming here as Maura's friend- and even that seemed like a status she no longer deserved.

When Maura sat on the side of the bed, the lamp on the side table providing the only illumination, Jane stepped out of the shadows.

Maura sat bolt upright, reaching for the drawer on her side table in alarm before her eyes softened. The surprise on her face faded into suspicion, and she didn't remove her hand from the drawer.

"Jane?" she asked, and it hung there between them. Jane fought to keep from closing her eyes, from sinking down on the floor and grabbing hold of Maura's legs.

"Maura," Jane rasped, barely recognizable as her own voice. "I had to see you."

Maura stood abruptly, rushing over to stand in front of Jane. She reached out, but Jane stepped back. She wasn't strong enough to have Maura touch her.

It was almost over. She was too close to give in now.

"Is everything alright?" Maura asked, concern evident in every feature about her. "Is Angela alright? Is Frankie? Did something happen?"

Jane shook her head.

"They're ok," she rumbled. "I just… I needed to see you."

Jane's gaze dragged from Maura's toes to her eyes, stalling for a moment at her hips, her breasts. Jane could see the flush rise on Maura's skin, could see as well as hear the change in Maura's breathing.

"You're scaring me Jane," Maura whispered, averting her gaze.

Tilting Maura's head up with a gentle touch on her chin, Jane met her eyes again.

"I just needed you to know," Jane exhaled harshly. "In case it doesn't… if something happens. You deserve to know. I'm so, so sorry. I did it to protect you though, I hope you see that someday."

"Jane," Maura's voice was sharper now. "What are you talking about?"

"I have to go," Jane stepped back, her hand falling reluctantly away from Maura's soft skin.

"Jane," Maura begged. "Please."

Jane stepped close, couldn't have stopped herself no matter how hard she tried. Their bodies were almost touching, their harsh breathing putting their breasts perilously close with each inhale.

Jane cupped Maura's cheeks reverently.

Maura looked so soft and delicate Jane thought she might break her if she held too tightly. The confusion and sorrow swimming in Maura's eyes did not drown out the unadulterated lust darkening her gaze.

"I love you," Jane swore darkly. "Do you know that? More than life itself."

Before Maura could respond, Jane pressed her lips to Maura's. She'd intended a gentle parting kiss, but her body had other ideas. Maura's smooth, soft lips parted under hers and Jane thrust her tongue inside, desperate to taste Maura, to claim her. Maura's hands fisted in the hem of Jane's sweatshirt and her breathless moan almost snapped Jane in half.

Jane kissed Maura until neither of them could breathe, and without warning Jane shoved back from Maura's warm, welcoming body and fled the room, bolting through the house and out the front door.

She barely had enough awareness to take a detour to her car. When she turned the ignition over, she glanced at the clock and swore. It was nearly ten thirty. She drove to Castle Island at breakneck speed, darting through side-roads and off ramps.