AN: Regarding the revision, I didn't like the way the previous chapter ended (nor did anyone else), so I changed it. The first half of the last chapter has remained the same (see previous chapter). This chapter is what was the second half of last chapter, completely revised (or just Chapter 6, if you've started reading after 3/7/14). Sorry again for any confusion and thanks for your comments and patience!

Weeks later, Jane found herself sitting across her fiancée at their kitchen table, surrounded by empty take out containers, beer bottles, and address books. As much as they had both tried to keep the guest list to a manageable number, the task seemed impossible due to Jane's big Catholic family and their joint desire to be as inclusive as possible.

"You know, Maura, your side of the chapel is going to seem a little sparse compared to the Rizzoli clan, even if we put all of our mutual friends on your side. Are you sure there aren't any other people you'd like to invite?"

"There's only one person I care about being there, Jane." Jane started grinning in anticipation of Maura's response, "and that's Sergeant Korsak."

"Har, har, Maura. Very funny," Jane rolled her eyes. "Seriously, though, your address book is full of names." Jane started pawing through the pages. "What about this one? It looks like she's an old classmate of yours? Dana?"

Maura hesitated.

"Is she not an old classmate of yours? BCU medical school alumni email address? A Quantico address? Is she FBI?"

Maura paused one more moment before carefully answering, "Yes, she is a former classmate and yes, she is currently affiliated with the FBI."

Jane's look spoke confusion before she did, "Ah, then, what's the problem? Should we invite her?"

"I'm not sure she would come. She's very busy nowadays," Maura responded, as her hands started fidgeting with the guest cards in front of her.

"Well, only one way to find out, right, Maura?" Jane wasn't pushing the issue so much as teasing her about her carefully crafted non-answers. Was Dana an old school rival? Did they once fight over some nerdy internship, and Dana won out? Jane chuckled a little at the thought. "Don't worry Maura, whatever it is, there's no shame."

"She's my ex," Maura blurted out.

Jane's expression of mirth froze for just a second before she tried to cover up her surprise with words spoken too quickly, "Oh yeah, of course, well isn't that nice for her. And for you! I assume," she stammered, "if she's cute, at least. She's cute, right? Well, not like it is any of my business, but she'd have to be to detract you from all of that important medical journal reading, right?" Jane said that last part out of breath. Her pulse had increased substantially during her monologue and her palms started to get slightly damp. Was she getting nervous? Pull yourself together, Rizzoli, she chastised. Although they had never really spoken of Maura's exes before, Jane knew enough to guess at some basic truths. Maura was an attractive woman. Of course she would have had many relationships. It was just not the most comfortable thought to her in that moment.

Jane's nervousness prodded her on, "Ha, well, good times. Anyway, I didn't know you got out that much in school. But I guess that makes sense. I bet you've had dozens of relationships."

Maura immediately corrected her, "hundreds."

"Hundreds?" Jane mocked surprise.

Maura looked as if she is doing mental math before answering with a straight face, "yeah, hundreds." Jane laughed at the movie reference. It had taken several viewings for Maura to understand the dry humor in Best in Show (she had been particularly confused about the concept of a mockumentary), but now she was a pro.

"I did not know that," Jane drew out the syllables, teasing. "Not that... Not that I didn't have quite the reputation myself. I was known by, you know, 'some', to be quite the Casanova."

"Casanova was a famous Frenchman known for having hundreds of lovers." Maura recited back to her.

Maura waited just a beat before continuing, "We don't have to invite her Jane."

But Jane had recovered from her nervousness enough to say sincerely, "Maura, if these are people that you still like or love, you should feel free to invite them to spend this special day with us. Don't 'not' invite them on my account."

"I'd love to see them again, but I don't know. To be honest, I don't keep in touch with them." Maura got up and distractedly started collecting beer bottles, hooking her fingers in their mouths and depositing them in the recycling bin.

"Hm, none of them? Really?" Jane gently pressed, distracted just a little by the dexterity of Maura's fingers in the bottles—the curl, the strength, and the independence of motion required to maintain such a constant pressure...

Maura looked up, reflecting on Jane's question, but the small motion was enough to jolt Jane out of the small fantasy she was indulging. "Actually, it's been one of the bigger sorrows of my life, being left behind by people for whom I had genuine feelings," Maura observed without much emotion. Those hurts were too old for Maura to shed new tears over, but Jane had her own emotional reaction. Maura's words were like a cold shower on Jane's steamy thoughts, and she flinched in reflexive pain.

Jane knew that Maura didn't have many friends before the two of them had met. Jane also knew that Maura's feelings about monogamy were the cause of most of her break ups, but she couldn't help but be struck with how sad Maura's last comment sounded, especially put in context of what Jane knew about Maura's family. Maura was abandoned by her birth parents. Maura was then adopted by two emotionally distant people who had again abandoned her to house staff and governesses for months at a time while they traveled the world. Jane had once thought it strange that Maura had chosen to attend a boarding school halfway around the world in France and that her parents agreed to it. The more she learned about Maura's upbringing, however, the more it became clear that this type of social and familial isolation wasn't a blip, but rather part of a larger pattern in the story of Maura's life—a pattern that had continued through Maura's adult life in the form of her romantic attachments. Jane was sad. She was angry. She wished that she had been there for young Maura, improbably underappreciated and undervalued by all with whom she had formed deep emotional connections. But she remembered Frost's words. Maura had already endured that sadness and moved on. There was nothing Jane could do now for Maura except to try to make this relationship the exception.

"Jane?" Maura interrupted Jane's reverie. Jane looked up to see her in the doorway. "I'm going to take a shower, do you mind finishing up here? They're mostly your people anyway?" Maura petitioned without bitterness.

"Yeah, Maura." Jane said reflexively. "I'll be up in just a little while."

Distracted by her thoughts, Jane thumbed through the guest list. She was so happy with Maura. Jane loved these quiet evenings together, couldn't imagine her life without them. It seemed odd to her that anyone would willingly give Maura up. Maybe that was just the love blindness talking, but Maura seemed the perfect woman—genius smart, strikingly beautiful, loyal and compassionate? Jane could continue this list for a very long time. Maura was the Mary Poppins of the dating world—practically perfect in every way. Well, almost every way, she thought, remembering her conversation with Frost.

Frost was right, she thought. Jane knew that she still hadn't completely come to terms with Maura's past, particularly if her reaction to Dana was any indication. If Frost was right about that, he must also be right that Jane's uncertainty and lack of faith in Maura could be the death of them. And they had overcome too much to let something as simple as jealousy and suspicion bring them down. Jane would not let that happen. Of course she didn't love the fact that Maura had been involved with and loved people before her (and perhaps still had feelings for them?), but Jane thought of what her mother had said about divorcing Jane's' father—

"Do you regret marrying him in the first place, Ma?" Jane had asked.

"No, of course not, baby." Angela soothed. "If I had never married your father, I would have never had you or Frankie or Tommy. I wouldn't change anything about my past."

Jane thought about that. If anything had changed about Maura's past, would they have ended up together as they had? Would Maura be the charming person that Jane was in love with today? Life was so delicate sometimes. Maura's exes had all been part of her life, contributed to who she was today, and had presumably met important needs for her in the past. Maybe even met them better than she, Jane did? Jane knew (to her shame) that there were still things about Maura that she preferred not to acknowledge, much less accommodate.

As Jane's fingers traced the name and contact information of another name that Maura had intentionally glossed over (there hadn't actually been hundreds, but there were at least a dozen that Jane had noticed), Jane found herself finally feeling grateful for these strangers and what they had meant to Maura, rather than her usual possessive jealousy. And in that moment she decided that if Maura was willing to change so much for Jane, Jane was going to prove that she was worth it by accepting Maura, and all of her (up to and including seven evil exes, she joked to herself). Jane would invite them to the wedding. It would be her special surprise for Maura.

Not only that, Jane wanted to demonstrate to Maura that she too was willing to change for the good of their relationship. Jane remembered Frost's suggestion about trying to make the transition to monogamy and marriage as easy on Maura as possible. Jane figured that if Maura couldn't go to multiple people in a relationship, then she, Jane, would do her best to provide what multiple people would or could in their relationship. Jane wasn't sure yet what that might look like, but she was pretty sure that Maura's exes would hold the key. If she could understand what valuable thing each one of them provided Maura and what void they had filled, maybe she could learn to do those things for Maura herself. Jane was willing to try.