Jane's knee bounced nervously in her seat. Her legs were too long to fit comfortably in coach, but her credit cards were still maxed out from buying Maura's ring. Jane hated flying, and it was such a long flight from Boston to San Diego (a quick stopover before her elite training in counterterrorism in Los Angeles).

"I just don't understand how you can abandon your bride like this, Jane, just a month before the wedding. Weddings don't plan themselves you know!" Jane's mother Angela chastised just a few days before.

Jane felt a little badly. She was a little excited about the training, but she had mainly wanted to get away from Boston to figure things out.

"Ma, I know, ok? What do you not understand about 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity?"

That comment earned Jane a swat to the arm, "What do you not understand about 'once-in-a-lifetime'?! What, you think you're going to get married a few more times after this?"

"Of course I didn't want it to be this way, Ma, but it is, so leave it. Maura understands."

And Maura did understand. She had protested, but not too much. And that worried Jane a little. Maura's reaction was one of genuine sadness, yes, but also did Jane notice a hint of relief? Things between them had improved a little during the short engagement, but there was still a pall over what should otherwise have been a happy event. Both of them were afraid. For Maura the thought of relying on just one person to be there for her was overwhelming. Maura never had a relationship like that before, she didn't know if she was even capable. For Jane, her fear was still that she might not be enough. She was also afraid her plan wouldn't work. Did she really expect to learn anything from Maura's exes? Would Maura understand Jane's intentions, or would she assume Jane tracking down her exes was just evidence of Jane's jealousy and possessiveness?

In the face of uncertainty, Jane decided to play things by ear and let her gut dictate whether she should continue. So although Jane had addressed wedding invitations to all of Maura's exes, she had decided against sending them—for now. Instead, she hid them behind her junk food in the kitchen cabinet, a place that Maura would never look. She had also only contacted two of Maura's exes that happened to be in the Southern California area. She figured that if she found the encounters helpful, fine, she could expand her efforts. If not, no harm no foul.

Legs twitching from the long flight, Jane decided to open up Frost's "care package," a folder filled with articles on monogamy. Frost had even highlighted passages, relevant facts like cheating occurrs in 40-76% of marriages. Or this quote from "Modern Love" editor Daniel Jones: "Among my fifty thousand strangers, I've heard from only a handful of couples who claim to have maintained sexually charged marriages through the decades." Jones believed that everyone else fit into three categories of coping strategies: "quashers," who resign themselves to a sexless marriage, either bitterly or channeling those energies into other pursuits; "sneakers," who engage in emotional (or actual affairs), often online; and "restorers". Jane thought that the last category sounded most appealing, until reading on:

"To figure out how to proceed, they'll do what they've always done when faced with a thorny problem: conduct extensive research on the topic and then come up with a plan of action. And it won't take long before they find out that, ironically, the most recommended strategies for reigniting passion in one's marriage—passion that has waned in part due to the deadening weight of its routines—involves loading up the relationship with even more routines, albeit of an ostensibly restorative nature: date nights, couples counseling, dance classes, scheduled sex, ten for tens (committing to 10 hugs of at least 10 seconds in duration every single day), Fresh Flower Fridays (a boon to the local florist, if not your marriage), required kisses upon parting, lunchtime exchanges of erotic texts or e-mails, and possibly some creative midday play at the local Holiday Inn involving nipple clamps, silk scarves, and an eye patch."

Hm, Jane thought to herself. Would that be her and Maura in a decade or two? Couples counseling and date nights? Drudgery and spice?

Jane continued mulling over this new information through the plane landing, picking up the rental car, and checking into her hotel. By the time Jane's first meeting rolled around, she was actually relieved to finally escape her thoughts. His name was Lee and he was not just Maura's ex, but coincidentally a former military buddy of Casey, who had arranged for a casual dinner to welcome Jane to Southern California. He was also gay and currently in a relationship, Jane was happy to learn.

When he arrived, Jane was not surprised to see a man with dark hair, a strong jaw and exquisite musculature. Maura definitely had a type. Over dinner he explained how they met, but more importantly why they broke up.

"I just couldn't handle it at the time, you know? I was young. I was military. I was macho. I made it all about me, you know? Like her being that way was basically telling me that I wasn't enough of a man to keep her. That's how I had been raised, or that's what I thought. My dad is an admiral, you know? The pressure was enormous. At that point in my life, I couldn't see Maura's interest in other people as being anything but a complete rejection of who I was as a person. And as you know, this was a very sensitive topic for me, what with denying my own sexuality. You know it's odd, but I think in a lot of ways my experience with her helped me eventually to openly acknowledge my own secrets. Maura just wouldn't budge on her beliefs about who she was, you know? As much as I hated it at the time, I really admired that about her later. She sort of gave me the courage to come out to my dad. And now look at me! As gay as the day is long."

Dinner became drinks and Jane didn't remember much about the rest of the night, apart from a vague recollection of belting out Elton John's "Your Song" at a karaoke bar in Hillcrest after meeting up with Lee's boyfriend. Somehow she had made it back to his mid-century modern apartment building to sleep it off. She tried to sleep in the next morning, but the combination of being in a three-hours different time zone, the California sun glaring through the drapeless windows, and a deep and abiding need to pee woke her up shortly after 8 am. Lee was still asleep. Probably better this way, she thought, scribbling a quick note thanking him for his help. She brushed her teeth with her finger and twisted her curls into a ponytail. Jane took a moment to appraise her reflection. She looked like hell.

"You are getting too old for all of this," she chided herself before gathering her things and heading back to her hotel.

Thirty minutes later she was on I-5 headed up the coast for Los Angeles to meet her next interviewee, Alice. Cruise control set, she glanced down at her phone (a bad habit Maura had yet to persuade her to abandon) and noticed a two hour long voice memo. Apparently her detective skills had kicked in and she had the good sense to record her conversation with Lee, even if she didn't remember much of it. She wasn't able to listen to the whole thing (and most of what she did hear was unhelpful) but she was touched to hear of his struggles with family and the military upon coming out. "We can't always choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we handle them," he had told her, and she had thought at the time he was talking about himself. Now, driving up the coast of California, she realized that he had actually been giving her relationship advice.

As smoothly as her meeting with Lee went, her meeting with Alice went the opposite. Alice Morgan was in her early thirties, recently widowed from a wealthy Hollywood producer (her previous marriage also ended in the husband's death), and living in the hills of Los Angeles. She was also a certified genius, having graduated with her PhD in astrophysics at age 18. As straightforward as those facts were, everything else about Alice was a puzzle.

"But aren't you British?" Jane asked, 30 minutes into the meeting and no closer to solving that puzzle.

"Yes, I am."

"I'm sorry," Jane shook her, confused. "I guess I had just assumed that you two met at boarding school in Europe."

"No, actually, we met on a plane."

"Really? Like you were sitting next to each other?"

"Hm, not quite," Alice purred. "I saw her watching me as I was lifting my bags into the overhead bin. Later I got up to use the loo, when I opened the door she was standing there waiting. I asked her,

'Did you come here for sex?'"

"'No,' she replied.

"But I ended up getting her off in the bathroom anyway."

"What?! Really? That doesn't sound like Maura," Jane frowned.

"Oh you would be surprised how much and how often your 'fiancée'," Alice air-quoted, "enjoyed being an exhibitionist. But maybe that's not something she's shared with you because she knows you can't handle it," Alice smirked.

"She is my fiancée, no air quotes, and I can handle her fine."

"Ah, that is your error then," Alice mock sympathized. "No one wants to be 'handled' by her lover, least of all, I imagine, Maura." Jane did not like the way Alice drew out Maura's name, as if she relished saying it again after so many years.

"Do you wish to put her in a cage?" Alice continued.

"No of course not," Jane flushed red, in embarrassment and anger. She was not enjoying this conversation.

"Then why are you marrying her?" Alice prodded, in that moment looking and sounding like the imperious red queen from her namesake's Wonderland.

"Ok, we're done here." Jane closed her file folder and started packing up her things.

"Weren't you here to learn how to finally please your lover?" Alice goaded. "I'm not sure you've made much, if any progress. I bet you're the type to blush when you even hear the word 'sex'. Am I right?"

Jane ignored her, counting out twenties to pay the check.

"I must say, I had higher hopes for you, higher hopes for Maura. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why you are insecure enough in your relationship that you would come track me down?"

Jane flinched, but kept her eyes down and hands busy.

"You know you don't deserve her, don't you. That's what this is all about, isn't it?" Alice was relentless. "Look at you," she spat. "Blue collar. I bet you didn't even graduate college. Did you know that Maura is a genius?

Jane froze. Alice had seen through to her biggest fear—inadequacy.

"You wouldn't even understand a tenth of what goes on in her head. No wonder you can't get in there enough to discover what would really please her." Alice's face had turned hard, her reptilian eyes staring back at Jane. "She's not like you Jane, she's like me."

…

For the first few days that Jane was away, Maura spent most of her time catching up on work. She had the suspicion that Jane was feeling ignored, but Maura felt so overwhelmed by all of the last minute wedding planning that she was uncertain of how to address Jane's concerns on top of all of that. Maura just had to get through the next few weeks, she thought. Then things would be better. Then she would be able to devote the time and attention to Jane that she wanted to, she reasoned with herself on the way to her favorite Ethiopian place for take out. But she stopped short upon pushing through the door to the restaurant, her jaw dropping at whom she saw standing there.

"Wotcher, Maura." Alice smirked.

"Alice," Maura gasped, her bag slipping from her grasp to the floor.