DISCLAIMER: Don't own. Not mine. It's one of those Look But Don't Touch situations.

They had a case. It was late. Jane was ranting in front of her board, she was perched on the corner of Jane's desk. Jane was tired, and she was tired, and her feet were killing her, and all she really wanted was a hot bath and a long hug. But despite the horrors of the last couple of days, she felt good.

This was part of who they were, she and Jane. They faced the horrors that other people perpetrated and they made them right. And tonight they were doing this together, in a way they hadn't over the last few months.

Eyes heavy, she watched as Jane wrote something on the board, cursing under her breath. Jane would stand, until she'd solved this and brought down her bad guy. She'd stand, until there were bars between the murderer and the people they sought to slaughter.

She stretched sleepily, caught up in contemplation and the rightness of standing again beside this friend of hers, who was so strong, so steady and true on behalf of others. She murmured, half to herself. "A knight is sworn to valour. His heart knows only virtue. His blade defends the helpless. His might upholds the weak-"

Jane cut her off, her voice sharp. "-Thank you, Keats, but we don't have time for poetry."

She blinked. "I wasn't-"

"-You were showing off. In case you didn't notice, you have two dead bodies in your morgue and I have the threat of three live ones joining them if we don't haul ass. So if you could do your job Maura, that'd be peachy, kay?" She half turned away from Maura as she spoke, back to her board.

Stunned, and suddenly wide awake, Maura catalogued points in her head. The rigid line of Jane's jaw, the way she'd kept worrying at the scars on her palms throughout the evening. The six empty coffee cups in Jane's trash can. Jane had been without sleep for at least 12 hours longer than she herself. Maura knew, beyond everything else, that Jane was scared of what the morning might bring them both, and she knew, the way she knew instinctively how to find answers in homicide cases where there hadn't been any before, that Jane hadn't looked her in the eyes as she spoke because she knew she was crossing a line.

She stood up.

Jane eyed her. "Where are you going?"

She raised a brow, spoke like she might to a cop she didn't know. "I'm going to do my job, Detective."

She moved towards the door.

"Maura, I-"

She didn't turn, but slashed a hand sharply to the side as she left, cutting Jane off. "-No."

She had to wait exactly fifteen minutes.

She sat at her desk, angry and hurt, pretending to read a report while Jane stalked into the room. She didn't move, didn't react. Just kept pretending to read.

Jane blew out a breath, raked her hair back.

She waited, eyes on the report in front of her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Jane came up to the desk. She covered Maura's hand with her own. "I was letting out my frustration on the one person I can count on to still be there once all the dust settles."

Maura waited a beat, then turned her hand over to grip Jane's. "I know." Jane's grip tightened on her hand, and she looked up to see the raw fear in Jane's eyes.

"Jane, what? What's wrong?" She snapped it out as she stood up, angled around the desk to stand in front of Jane, never losing her grip on Jane in her alarm.

Jane took a shuddering breath. "It's nothing. Nothing, Maur."

"Jane." She said it simply, calmly, but Jane seemed to pick up on the unspoken threat in her tone and gave a half smile.

"There. You wouldn't say Jane in that tone of voice if you were really mad at me, right?"

She frowned, confused. "I am mad at you. You deliberately put me down." She knew Jane could hear the hurt, knew Jane was flinching from it, but she told her the truth, kept the hurt in her voice apparent. It wasn't so much that she couldn't lie to Jane...now, it was more that she simply did not have it in her. "You did it to make yourself feel better. And what's worse is it worked."

Jane grimaced, broke away to pace. "For a while. Like ten seconds until I saw your face. And now I'm more scared than I was before."

She spread her hands. "Why?"

Jane spun and paced back to stand in front of her. "Because I realised what I said might cause us to lose all the ground we've made. And going back to no Maura is something I can't handle right now." She shoved her hair back again, speaking to Maura's right shoulder instead of looking at her. "It's something I can't handle, ever."

She stared at Jane, thinking furiously. Maybe she wasn't the only one vulnerable, here. Maybe they both just needed to trust in the strength of what they had, instead of waiting for it to break.

"Dragonheart."

Jane's eyes flicked up to meet hers. "What?"

"The "poem" was from the movie Dragonheart. It's about knights and certainly is not Keats. I was thinking of you when I spoke of valour. But you're certainly not the pop-culture bad-ass you think you are, Rizzoli." She moved to lean against her desk, tilted her head challengingly at Jane.

Jane stared at her, and some of the tension left her face, her body. She hesitated, then came to lean against the desk next to Maura.

"Finish the poem, Maur. I'd like to hear it. What was it? Mighty mouse upholds weaklings?"

She bumped Jane's shoulder with her own, accepting the silent apology. "His might upholds the weak. His word speaks only truth. His wrath undoes the wicked. That's it." She finished, then primly folded her hands.

Jane eyed her. "Yeah, well your wrath undoes me. Maybe that makes you a knight too, huh?"

She shook her head. "No. I believe I'm what is known as the sidekick."

Jane blinked at her a moment, then snorted. "No way."

"It fits." She insisted. "Mine is a supporting role, Jane. You only have to look to the annals of history-"

-"Do not even say that word, Maura. Ew."

She raised an eyebrow. Smirked. "What, history?"

Jane appraised her. "See? This is why no way. You are far too mouthy to be a sidekick."

She just hummed a laugh, and they sat in companionable silence. Jane nudged her. "Team?"

She nudged back."Team."

Jane shook her head. "Dragonheart, huh?"

She flushed."Mm-hmm."

Jane narrowed her eyes. "Out with it, Doctor Isles."

She huffed. "Frankie might have mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't know to what he was referring. I researched it, in the event that it might come up again and I'd have a conversational gambit-"

She broke off as Jane stood up, then yanked her into a hug.

They stood there for endless moments, and Maura just closed her eyes and breathed her in.

When Jane's arms finally relaxed, she didn't draw back immediately. She shifted her position to run her hands in two slow circles along Maura's spine before easing away.

Maura kept her eyes closed until she felt Jane break contact, then met Jane's stare, unwilling to be the first to acknowledge that had been the first hug since...well, since everything had fallen apart, that day.

Unwilling to acknowledge just how much something that had been tense and coiled inside of her since they'd fought had relaxed at Jane's touch.

"I missed you." Jane said quietly

She smiled. She was suddenly exhausted, again. Her feet ached, and she wanted a hot bath. And coffee. Lots of coffee. But the best thing was, she'd gotten the hug.

"I missed you."

A/N: Thank you so much for the lovely reviews and PM's! On my wish list for Rizzoli and Isles this week is for Maura to stop choosing to date psycho-killers. That is all...Wait - Also, hope you enjoyed whatever the above is – have a great week.