A/N: Again, I'm unbelievably sorry how long it took me to update. I hope you'll forgive me...

San Francisco

The sun was still shining brightly at this Wednesday afternoon when she arrived on the street that was now her home. She watched the moving van in front of her house from the taxi and asked herself what she'd find in there. No one had asked her to choose anything and there's no way they took her own stuff since someone would come to clear the place it would raise suspicions if all of her stuff had suddenly vanished.

She took a deep breath and paid the taxi driver without saying a word; actually she hadn't said a single word since they came to pick her up except when it had been absolutely necessary. She tried to deal with the thoughts of what she must've left behind and it cost too much strength to keep it all together which made speaking a rather secondary task.

She stood on the sidewalk in front of the path that led to her front door. She took another deep breath and closed her eyes, the Californian sun tickling on her face. The air smelled differently, it was rather sweet and she felt like she could hear the ocean from afar but it didn't seem too pleasant by now. She looked to her right and her left without moving an inch and saw some of her new neighbors watching. She didn't expect anything else, that's what people did when something changed in their lives or the street they life on. It's natural for people to be curious and little did they know that this was exactly what would turn her life into a living hell for the next couple of weeks. She knew that there was no escape; sooner or later she had to face them in order to appear normal and make them believe that everything is alright.

She forced a smile on her face and and nodded in the direction of two women two houses away and walked toward the front door; intent on not looking at them for too long. Not until she had a chance to settle down and accept that this quiet suburban life was what her life had turned into. At least for a few years, this was her life if she hated it or not. The street just looked like one of those pretty suburban streets that you see on TV with their pretty front yards, thorough housewives and kids playing on the street. She always laughed at this picture, thinking that it would bore the hell out of her and now she was where she never wanted to be.

She opened the front door, her heart pounding with anticipation. She had no imagination of what would expect her. As she stood in the entrance hall of her house, she felt like stepping into someone else's world. This wasn't a place where she belonged, this wasn't hers and she immediately hated it. All she wanted to do was turn around and walk out and never come back but she knew she had nowhere else to go. She sighed with frustration and slowly walked through every room, instantly checking if there was something odd about it despite the obvious. She felt flooded with impressions and felt barely able to deal with them. She was watching everything but then again she felt like she hadn't seen anything at all. She reached the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed, her hand sliding across the cold sheet that felt so strange to her. She turned her head and looked out of the window to catch a glance at her backyard. For the first time in many hours she was alone and although it seemed terribly scary at the one hand, she was fairly grateful at the other. Things had changed so fast that she never felt like having a chance to take it all in. She was exhausted and could barely move, she just wanted to sit here forever and watch her life passing by but there was a van full of stuff that was 'hers' that had to be unpacked and there were neighbors to greet and so many things to organize that she had no time to rest.

Despite her desperate wish to stay and hide here forever, she got up from the bed and walked to the window; carefully watching into her backyard from a distance.

Always stay away from windows, she heard a voice inside her head. What if someone was watching her this instant and everything she had done was in vain? How was she supposed to deal with everything, what if someone noticed that something wasn't the way it was supposed to be. There were so many questions inside her head that it made her feel like she was trying to talk to at least ten people at the same time.

Kate re-entered the living room and found a pile of papers on the desk in the kitchen that she hadn't noticed before. She closed her front door and reminded herself that it was a very stupid thing to do and since there was no one to help her unpack it didn't appear rude. There was a bunch of official documents, and a credit card with 'Maura Isles' written on it. That was everything she needed to get her life started again, at least she didn't have to worry about the money. There was a note saying that she'd be able to start going back to uni on Monday which gave her about four days to get some kind of order into that mess and go back to studying medicine and pretend that this was what she'd always been wanting to do. She found another slip of paper with a credit card pin written on it along with the information that all her money had been transferred to her new accounts. Maura sat down at one of the chairs and laid her face in her hands, resisting the urge to cry. She didn't like how quiet everything was, it scared her so she decided that it was time to get up and do something. She took the documents from the table and hid them in one of the drawers before she walked back to the moving van to start unpacking.

Though she felt utterly exhausted at the end of the day, she was still avoiding to go to bed. She felt restless and she couldn't imagine that she'd ever get used to everything. The house appeared empty and strange to her; she checked all doors and windows twice to make sure everything was locked before she switched off the lights and went upstairs. Again, she stood in her bedroom and thought that this wasn't right. It felt like she just checked into a hotel room instead of just having moved into a new house. She sighed in frustration and couldn't help but look over her shoulder once before she left the room. She moved slowly and tried to focus on details. She closed the bathroom door although she knew there would be no one watching her and suddenly the deadly silence scared her more then anything else ever had. She stared at her reflection the way she had only yesterday; just a day before and nothing would ever be the same again. She had known back then and she knew that now.

She looked into her own eyes but even she knew something was different; along the fear came a feeling of helplessness that left her with anger and frustration. It was now that she realized that the previous hours had cost all the strength she had and that there was nothing left to move on. She suddenly felt empty with everything that had been taken away from her. She burst into tears and her body shook with the sobs, her cries echoing in the empty bathroom and before she knew what she was doing she hit the mirror, shattering her reflection into a hundred tiny pieces. She felt the glass piercing through her hand, the pain raging through her body and the warmth of her blood covering her skin.

She stared at the dark red emerging from the cuts; her pulse rushing. She had died a couple of hours ago and yet she was very alive indeed. She sank to the floor and leaned against the bathtub, silently crying while she wished that someone would be there to hold her and tell that everything would be alright one day. She didn't know how long it took until her tears subsided but by the time it did, she just stared at the door. She wanted to get up but her body refused to obey her wishes.

Kate had drifted off to sleep several times before she had enough willpower to leave the bathroom, leaving the scattered mess behind. The bedroom was dark and seemed scarier then ever but she kept moving and sat down on the bed, taking off her clothes in defeated silence. Subconsciously she kept listening for any sound that might indicate danger and it didn't help when she noticed that she didn't have her gun to protect herself. She laid down and stared at the ceiling; leaving the light on as the tears streamed down her face. She knew that a part of it wasn't even a lie; she had died today, something inside of her had. The longer she kept thinking about it, the weirder it sounded. It couldn't be; she didn't want to believe that this had happened. This couldn't be happening to her; she's spent years of her life protecting her country and the President of the United States, this couldn't be the reward for everything she had done. She almost laughed at that thought, telling herself that it must've been a terrible mistake and it wouldn't last long.

The last thought she had before falling asleep was that she'd go back to Washington sooner or later, they couldn't keep her away forever.

Washington D.C

Her cheek still felt hot where Abby had slapped her but she couldn't even be mad; she was the only one who had shown some kind of reaction that she understood for now. She was shocked but most of all she was happy and although she had no idea why it had all happened, she didn't seem to be mad at her. Gibbs had been rather friendly when he found out about the truth but she knew that there was more to it. He'd been happy to see her alive after all but she knew him well enough to know that, deep inside, he was probably angry with her and the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he was the last one who had any right to be mad at all.

Much to her surprise she found him by the Directors office and it suited her just fine.

"Caitlin," he said calmly and she didn't miss the fact that he refused to let go of her name. She ignored it and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm.

"You're angry with me," she said and they both knew it wasn't a question.

"What do you expect?" he wanted to know and she sat down on a chair next to him.

"That's what I'm asking you," she said and Gibbs looked at her. He either didn't get her point or he didn't want to. "I know you well enough; you've been happy to see me and everything was fine? I never really bought that..."

"It's been hard on everyone," he said and Maura laughed out loud; it was bitter and humorless.

"Yes," she whispered. "So hard on everyone else. Hard on you, you, you and every one else," she said and felt herself getting furious. "It may surprise you but it's not like I had a couple of lovely years without giving a damn about everything and everyone," she said and was still calm.

He remained silent for a while before he said: "Why?"

"Why?" she asked and raised her voice; she got up from the chair and started pacing the room. "Why? You're asking me that? Can you even imagine how many times I asked myself that question? How many nights I lay awake, hating myself for what happened until I remembered that none of this had been my fault in the first place!"

"You blaming me?" he wanted to know.

"I'm trying not to, Gibbs," she said and felt the tears burning in her eyes. "I'm trying so hard not to do that but you have to stop acting like I did this because I wanted to; because I was sick of the life I had and thought it was time for a change. That's not how it'd worked and you know that."

He shook his head in silence without looking at her.

"I'm going back to Boston tonight," she said matter-of-factly and sensed that their conversation was over for now.

"It was nice to see you," she said and he didn't even look up when she left. On her way down she saw Tony still sitting behind his desk and pushed her anger away for now.

"I have to talk to you," she said when he looked up as she approached. He got up and followed her without a word; maybe she wasn't as good at hiding her anger as she thought. They went into an empty office. She leaned against the edge of the table and watched him across the room.

"I know why you're here," he said quietly and she bit her lip.

"I can't leave without telling you myself," she said and sighed.

"What's the point?" he wanted to know.

"I don't want it to end just like that," Maura said.

"What is there left to end?" he wanted to know and stepped a little closer.

"You know how many times I have thought of you? How much I've missed you?" she said and faced him. "I lost track of how many times I was about to call you because I have missed you so much, asking myself if it'd worked out."

"What did you think? Did you ever think it would have?"

"I don't know, I really don't know. I guess there was a time I had wanted it to work out but I honestly don't know if that would've ever been the case."

"And now it's just gone?" he asked.

"It's been seven years, Tony," she said with a trace of sadness. "I've been dead for seven years," she said and let that sink in. "Things have changed."

"You love Jane," he said.

"I'm sorry I kissed you, it wasn't fair," she told him; she could tell he was hurt and even disappointed.

"Good luck," he said quietly and stepped closer to kiss her on her cheek softly before he left the room.

"Tony!" she called after him but the door had closed already. She laid her face in her hands and sighed; she refused to cry now and all she wanted to do was to get out of here and have Jane comforting her and get back home.

Jane immediately looked up when Maura left the building and she knew that something was wrong.

"Are you okay?" she asked with a trace of worry in her voice.

Maura quietly shook her head and leaned into Jane who wrapped her arms around her girlfriend; she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"That bad?" Jane wanted to know.

"I guess it'll be okay," Maura said. "Let's just go home," she said and Jane nodded.

"I can't wait to."

San Francisco

She opened her eyes and everything appeared dark at first sight; she couldn't see anything straight ahead and the light of the nightlight blinded her. Her heart was raging inside her chest; every inch of her body was awake and tensed with fear. She felt the cold sweat on her skin; shivering when the cold night wind hit her body. She sat up in bed; she listened carefully but there didn't seem to be anything wrong. There was nothing but birds singing early in the morning; she saw the sun brightening up the horizon far away and she knew that sunrise wasn't too far from now. There would be daylight and the world would look different soon. At daylight she felt safer, there was no need to be afraid.

Since there was no way she'd go back to sleep now, she got out of bed and entered the bathroom; shivering at the morning chill. One by one she started to pick up the remains of her mirror and removed the blood from the tiles. By the time the sun had risen, she was so exhausted already that all she wanted to do was go back to bed.

She walked down the stairs and sat down at the table in the kitchen; feeling light-headed and nauseated. She couldn't remember the last time she had something to eat and although she wasn't quite hungry she knew that this was what she had to do in order to get through this. She wasn't even surprised when she actually found food in her fridge since they'd obviously taken care of everything for now. She didn't even ask questions.

It was a quiet and disconsolate, lonely morning. And it was just the first of many yet to come.

It's been more then twenty-four hours since she had said a single word and she knew that she couldn't hide inside the house forever. She sat down on the steps in front of the front door and watched the life on the street for a while. It was still early in the morning when an elderly lady walked by and stopped for a second before she walked up the path toward her.

"Hello dear," she said kindly and Kate looked up; she seemed friendly and she didn't appear very threatening to be honest. "You're the new kid, right? Heard the neighbors talking. I just life at the end of the street."

"I guess that's me," Kate said quietly.

"You don't seem to be too happy," the woman said. "Don't worry," she said and slowly sat down on the steps next to her. "It's not that bad actually, once you got used to it."

Kate forced a smile on her lips and nodded without a word.

"What do I call you then?" the lady asked.

Kate hesitated for a moment and thought about it carefully.

"Maura," she said and heard the sound of her name spoken out loud for the very first time. "My name is Maura Isles."

A/N: I just wanna say that this is NOT the last time we've seen Gibbs or Tony.