**DISCLAIMER – I do not own the characters, they belong to TNT and associated bodies. **

(However I have a wonderful imagination and that belongs all to me, just sometimes Jane and Maura wind up naked in it, and there's not a thing I can do to stop it. Gutted.)

I don't want to talk about it – belongs to Rod Stewart.

How to solve a problem like a wedding ring.

Chapter Six – I don't want to talk about it.

Seven long weeks had passed. Work had been both busy and slow, both the Detective and the M.E pulling un-Godly hours at times; avoiding each other in the cafeteria during downtimes when the days were long and torturous. Finally, after a heated argument with Frost; Jane had had enough. Dean had been home for a month and she had barely seen him. When she did see him, a knot built in her stomach and she grew easily irritated. A love based on friendship had broken down to the point where she had started spending nights at the Precinct instead of the beautiful rented house, the house that he had spent thousands of dollars designing to suit his wife. This Friday evening took it's usual pattern of Jane arriving home from work, irritable and avoiding her husband.

"Jane, honey; that you?" Gabe called out from the kitchen, as Jane shut the front door.

"Yeah, it's me," she replied as she entered the kitchen.

Gabe tried, as he had been trying for a month, to give his wife a kiss on her arrival home. Like every other time, Jane turned her head down and to the left, landing his kiss on her cheek. Normally, he took the blow and carried on as normal. Today, today was too much.

"You don't remember, do you?" The Agent said sadly, looking away from his wife.

"I'm sorry I can't remember every single little thing that you do. So it's the fifth year to the day that you first smelt my perfume . . . or that it's the first month that we haven't spent in a war-zone together? I can't remember every little detail Gabe, I'm not a computer." She slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, resting her head in her hands. When he didn't reply, she tilted her head to rest it on her right hand to look up at him.

"I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that I don't know what the date signifies. A hint would be good . . ." she half-smiled at him as he turned to face her, taking a seat opposite.

"We've been married for 18months today," Gabe sighed as he rubbed his temples and bit his lower lip. He lowered his hands and cracked his knuckles before letting out a long, broken breath. "Jane I married you for the right reasons, I loved you and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. And I know you loved me . . ." his hand went back to his temples and a tear ran down his cheekbone, betraying the bravery she had always relied on him for. "Jane," he reached across the table for her hands, which she linked with his, "Jane, we can't keep doing this. We can't keep pretending that everything is as it should be. We're newly-weds for God's sake, we shouldn't be able to keep our hands off one another; this . . . this is the first time I've touched you since I got back. Where did I go wrong? When did you give up on me?"

They were both crying freely now, unable to stop the conversation, both knowing where it was heading.

Jane made no attempt at clearing her throat, what she needed to say needed no sharpness of voice, no volume. She just had to be honest.

"Gabe . . .," she gripped his hands, "I'm not going to sit here and give a get out clause, or lie to you. What we had, it was genuine; it really was. When we were out there, I know at that time and place, I made the right decision. But now we're back here . . .," she bit her left finger and exhaled the air in her as if it would make what was coming hurt less, like a story on the wind. "Gabe, before we left . . . I loved someone. Part of going to Iraq with you, all of going to Iraq was to do with that. We happened, and I thought I could do it. I thought, I can come home and we can build a life here and I'd be happy. But I'm not. And I'm destroying myself."

Gabe composed himself before looking Jane in the eyes.

"I just need for you to be happy, and I thought I could be the person to do that. But I don't want to talk about something that we can't save, because we can't and I think we're both all too aware of that. I need for you to be happy and I need you to tell me how to do that, 'cos if you can't be happy with me . . . then I have a duty as your husband to make sure that you are happy without me," his tears were dripping off his eyelashes, his breathing broken and his lips red from being bitten by his teeth as he struggled to give Jane the freedom he knew in his heart, that she so desperately needed.

"I think I need to move out, and I think we should formally separate," she whispered.

"This is your home, I'll move out. I have my military place in DC and we can start on things next week." Gabe's logical side had kicked in.

"Why are you being so good about this, why aren't you angry?" She barely spoke.

He rose to move upstairs. "Because I love you. I always will. But if you don't love me, then I can't be the reason that you aren't happy, it would kill me. I won't be the person to stand in your way of finding happiness, or being free to go back to that happiness." He turned to walk away.

"Gabe . . ." she waited until he half-turned to signify he was listening. "You will always be a part of my happiness, and I will always love you."

"I know you will, but not enough . . .not enough."

**I hope you enjoy this chapter. I went with nice Dean in the end. It's still not going to be an easy-ride though so don't go thinking I've gone soft! ChapterSeven will go up this evening hopefully. Please keep reviewing and messaging! DustyRoad2004 X**