Chapter Two

Jane grimaced down at the plate of cold, limp spaghetti that sat on Maura's counter top. "Think my mother put enough Parmesan on that?" she said, shaking her head with an apologetic grin. "Her definition of comfort food is cheese." A hopeful half-smile curled her lips, followed by the sad realization that any menial attempt at humor wouldn't be enough to penetrate the walls Maura had erected over the past week.

Since she couldn't offer a smile in return, the medical examiner instead lurched into action, pulling another plate from the cabinet. "Do you want me to heat you up some?" she asked. "I think your mother brought over enough to feed me for at least a month." She didn't wait for a response, but instead piled a spoonful of noodles loosely onto the plate and set it in the microwave. If she didn't keep herself busy, she wasn't sure she could keep her eyes dry. And she didn't want to lose it in front of Jane. Not yet.

She stood facing the microwave, a habit that, despite the inconclusive evidence surrounding non-ionized radiation waves, she believed to be slightly harmful. Tonight, however, she welcomed them, and only wished they had the frequency to catapult her back in time. She could feel the detective's eyes on her, studying her mussed hair, the tension in her shoulders.

"I went to see Constance yesterday," Jane said. "I met your father."

A slither of coldness inched down Maura's neck and into her spine, a feeling of protectiveness that she had harbored ever since the federal agents had first pulled her father aside. They hadn't noticed his tired, red eyes, nor had they cared that his wife, her mother, was still dangling from a thread of fate that any moment could snap and leave the two of them alone.

"He never left your mother's side, not even for a second. He said the swelling was going down." Jane paused before cleared her throat and letting out a strained sigh. "I wasn't there about the case, Maura."

The medical examiner nodded into the microwave, her reflection peering back at her in the blackness. "Of course not." The words did nothing to calm her paranoia, as irrational as it was, and she felt a shiver run through her. The beep of the microwave prompted her forward, and relished the way the hot porcelain burned her fingers. She had forgotten how many nerve endings were in the fingers. Jane reached forward, grasping Maura's hand as she set the plate in front of her, the touch sending an altogether different sensation through those nerve endings, and the doctor pulled away quickly, her face reddening.

"How are you holding up?" Jane asked, twirling her fork through the pasta, but not bringing any to her mouth.

"Fine," Maura replied, tasting the beginnings of a lie on her lips, its bitterness already changing the pace of her heart rate. Technically, she was fine, wasn't she? She had certainly come out of everything better off than her mother had, or Doyle, or even Agent Dean. Still, she couldn't meet Jane's probing eyes, knowing that if she did, everything that she had neatly compartmentalized would spill out of her. She glanced down at the plate of spaghetti, cinching her brow as if something were missing. "I'll get you a beer," she offered. Her kitchen, much like the rest of her home, had become a sort of busied maze, which she wandered through like a lab rat trying to overcome her grief.

"No," Jane protested, but as if sensing Maura's own need for distraction, she let her objection die on her lips. She accepted the beer with an overly grateful nod, watching as the medical examiner poured another glass of wine.

Jane glanced down at her plate, a symbol of their charade of normality, and stuffed a forkful of pasta into her mouth. It was tasteless, and she opted for the beer instead, taking a long sip of it as she ran through a series of failed words in her head. She hadn't come for an update about Constance or Bob, or even herself. She had come for Maura. "I don't want this," she said, letting her fork clank onto the plate. She meant, of course, the dinner, but her words could be smeared across the entirety of the past two weeks and be just as apt. "Maura, I think about that day over and over again," she began, running a nervous hand through her hair. "I see it as a running loop, like I'm watching some security tape and trying to figure out who to blame. And I keep coming back to that one shot."

Maura seemed enraptured by the red wine in her glass. "I envy you that," she replied softly. "All I remember is chaos. And one moment of pure, unbridled fear. And I couldn't do anything about it."

Jane's gaze fell guiltily towards her plate. She knew the moment, had heard Maura's voice scream out in her nightmares. The hoarse, panicked, 'No!' that had ripped from her throat moments before Jane fired her last shot. The only shot that had mattered.

"You did the logical thing, Jane."

She glanced up, seemingly surprised that Maura would extend such grace to her. But the hazel eyes were flat, and she realized the words were nothing but rehearsed lines, similar to the practiced words that had run through her own mind for the past week. And they were just as empty.

Maura turned, looking out the window over the sink. "He's being buried tomorrow," she said quietly, letting her words swirl into the redness of her wine. She was conscious of the fact that she never referred to him by his name, nor by his biological relation to her, and she wondered if he didn't deserve better.

"I know," Jane said, her chair scraping against the hardwood floor. Her voice was closer when she spoke again. "Dean told me."

The iciness in her spine returned, but Maura heard her own voice echo in her ears. 'You do what you have to do', she had said when Jane told her about her confession to the FBI agent. If she had been thinking logically, she would have expressed her anger, but all she could register in that moment was that she had lost some part of Jane that had previously been only hers. The detective had let her guard down with 'Gabriel' enough to expose such private secrets, and Maura could do nothing but nod her head and accept it. She drained the rest of her wine and placed her glass in the sink, bracing herself against the counter. "How is Agent Dean recovering?" she asked, hating the weakness in her voice.

"He's fine," Jane replied, but offered nothing further. Maura felt a comforting hand on her back, but shrugged it off, unable to reconcile the touch with the confusion that still permeated inside her.

"Maura," Jane whispered softly, her forehead bowing slightly toward the blonde's back. "What can I do? If I can't turn the clock back, tell me, what can I do?"

Maura turned and studied the detective, trying to place the chaos in the firehouse, the sound of gunshots, that last, final shot, with the kind, apologetic woman in front of her. "Why was he there?" she asked.

"Doyle?" Jane asked. "I don't know. He never let you out of his sight, Maura."

The medical examiner shook her head, her eyes hardening as she looked up at the brunette. "No. Why was Agent Dean there?"

Jane moved a step back, as if she had been punched in the gut by some invisible hand, and Maura could see the confusion and hurt that Dean had caused. "I don't know," she said, running her thumbs nervously over the scars on her palms. "I didn't give him much leeway to explain, honestly. I assume he had been tailing Doyle, following him until we made the call to arrest him."

"Until you made the call," Maura corrected.

"Maura, I wouldn't have given Dean the okay to arrest him, or to do anything, until you told me to."

"That's the problem with cops," Maura said, sliding into her anger as if it were an old coat. "They put the job above everything else."

The words were like a double-edged knife, and the detective nodded slowly, as if confirming that she did indeed deserve them. "You're right. He put his job first. Before me, before you, and for that he can burn in FBI hell." She took a step closer, peering down at the blonde. "But, Maura, you're the most important thing to me. Not Dean, not Doyle. Just you."

Maura crossed her arms over her chest, and averted her gaze. "I wasn't ready to let go. I tell myself it's because he had information that I wanted about my biological mother, that I had some empirical reason to want him in my life." She shook her head. "But I don't know if that's it." Her vision blurred in front of her, and she cursed the tears building up inside of her. "If I just had more time…"

"Maura, he hung that information over your head to get what he wanted from you."

"You see him as a criminal." It was an accusation, flung harshly towards the detective. "But he never, ever forgot me about me, and for some inexplicable reason, that's enough for me to care about him. And the first moment I had to protect him, I failed. I betrayed him. And you didn't care." Her face was wet with tears, like they had simply seeped through her pores. "I wasn't ready to let go of him yet, Jane. Why couldn't you have given me time to let go?"

"Maura – "

She had no wish to be placated. She only wanted the heat of her fury, which gave her back some of the control that she had lost over her life. "Put him in prison, jail him, stick him behind bars, at least. Then I could still figure out who I am. But that's gone. It's ruined." She was yelling now, filling the hole of nothingness with anger, however misplaced it was. It was still better than hurting.

Jane looked back at her with a practiced patience. "Maura, that's not - "

"Please," she replied, her voice breaking in a raw plea. "Just let me be angry."

Jane nodded. "Okay," she said quietly, her hands hanging limply at her sides. She glanced around the room, seemingly at a loss for words. "If only you had a punching dummy in here."

The comment, in its absurd sincerity, caught Maura off guard, and she let out a cross between an exhausted cry and a laugh, and the detective glanced wearily down at her. "I want to hate someone so badly," she said softly, surrendering. "And you're the only one here."

"Well, I'll always be here... for you to hate me." Jane seemed to sense her opening, and reached her hands out to cup the doctor's jaw. "Maura, sweetheart, I am so sorry for everything that's happened. For what I did, for what I failed to do. Just please let me be here for you now."

Maura was inside the detective's arms immediately, as if attracted to a magnet that she couldn't resist. She melted into the embrace, pushing aside the nothingness and falling instead into a pleasurable pool of safety. Jane pressed a kiss into her temple, lingering longer than was necessary and mumbling a soft "I love you" into the blonde hair.

The words were simple, the same words that Maura had used once before, but they struck a different note this time, and she pulled away, wanting to guard her vulnerability. "My mother knew him," she said, taking a seat back at the counter and refocusing her attention. The spaghetti had congealed on both plates by now, and she cringed, pushing them away from her.

Confusion flickered through Jane's eyes. "She knew Doyle?"

Maura nodded. "He came to visit her at the hospital. She woke up after he left, dazed, but the way his name just floated off her lips, it was as if she'd known him for years. Almost like she expected to wake up and find him there."

"Did you ask her about it?"

Maura shook her head adamantly. "No. Not then, and not now. I don't want to do anything that might upset her recovery."

"What about your dad?" Jane asked. "He's got to know something."

Maura shrugged. Her questions had been on the tip of her tongue each time she and her father were alone, but she swallowed them back, allowing the two of them to subsist in the silence. "I feel like I don't have a right to ask these questions. Who am I to be worrying about people that I don't even know? When the parents that raised me are going through so much pain?"

Jane tentatively reached out her hand, and when Maura didn't pull back, ran her thumb across the smooth skin. "It's up to you, whether you want to focus on this right now. But you have a right to know, Maura, especially after all that's happened. Your parents can understand that."

"I don't know if I care anymore. A part of me thinks this can all die with him. I'm at the point where I don't want to ask any more questions. I just want to go back to normal. How messed up is that?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "I just want to go back to the days where my mother and father completely ignored me." She was quiet for a moment, enjoying the comforting touch of Jane's hand before she spoke again. "Then there's a part of me that wants to go to the funeral tomorrow."

Jane's hand stiffened, and she shook her head, her protectiveness shooting over the doctor like a net."Maura, I don't think that's a good idea."

The blonde had expected just such a reaction, and she took some small, fleeting pleasure in knowing that despite all that had happened, she still knew the detective better than anyone. "Jane, I'm not in danger. He's dead."

"You don't know who will be there, Maura. There could be allies of Doyle's there that will think that you had something to do with his death."

"They wouldn't necessarily be wrong about that. I am the reason he's dead."

"I know you don't believe that, Maura."

The doctor shook her head reluctantly. "No, not completely. I just – I didn't – " She sighed, frustrated with her own inability to express her thoughts. "I just feel like I owe it to him. I know that it doesn't make sense – "

"I'm coming with you," Jane said.

Maura glanced up at her, surprised. "What? No, Jane."

"Has our week-long estrangement made you completely forget the content of my character?" the detective asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm coming with you." She gave the counter a determined rap with her fist. "And Korsak and Frost will be posted in an unmarked car right outside the ceremony."

Maura recognized Jane's furrowed brown, the concentrated purse of her lips that signaled there was some strategy forming in her head, some procedural motion that freed her from the stark prison of her guilt. She looked imploringly up at her. "Do you think I'm crazy?" she asked.

Jane gave her a lopsided smile. It was a look that she had never been able to decipher over the entire course of their friendship, but she always enjoyed the way it made her feel. "Do I think you're crazy to attend the funeral of the mob boss biological father that you never knew you had?" She bit her lip, mocking thoughtfulness. "No," she said simply, allowing a grin to slip past her lips. "But, if you have a copy of the DSM-IV laying around, I'm sure I could come up with something."

Maura smiled, the motion feeling foreign to her, as if her jaw wasn't used to moving the muscles involved in such an expression. "I actually do have it," she said, pointing towards the living room. As she rose from her chair, Jane's hand caught hers, pulling her forward.

"I've missed you," the brunette said, the levity in her brown eyes replaced by something needier. "I'm so sorry, Maura." Once again, the medical examiner was propelled forward, but this time Jane's arms were stronger. "I don't want to leave," she whispered, her words fluttering against Maura's neck. "I'm afraid if I leave, you'll come to your senses and hate me again."

"If only I could hate you," the blonde replied, her words little more than a whisper. She had tried, and failed. Just as she had tried to convince herself that her feelings for Jane were strictly platonic. She had failed at that, too. And that is exactly why the detective's touch had become so dangerous. She pulled away slightly in an attempt to put some space between the two of them, but Jane kept her hands firmly planted on her hips. Maura leaned into the touch, just for a moment, allowing her hands to run across the brunette's shoulders and down her arms. "I'm sorry," she said, taking a step back and pressing a hand to her temple, unable to summon an explanation for her lingering touch. "I think I'm exhausted."

Jane took another step forward, not allowing her to break the bond between them. "Let me stay," she urged, her eyes suddenly dark with an emotion Maura wasn't certain she was fully ready to acknowledgE. Nevertheless, Jane's need was just as palpable as her own, and she felt it coursing through them, tacit, but strong. She could do nothing but nod, knowing that she wanted Jane beside her tonight. She could figure out what exactly that meant tomorrow.

My one-shots always seem to take on a plot of their own, whether that's for the best or not, who knows. I think this may be trending the same. What do you say? Keep going?