The next couple of weeks after Frost's funeral were a real test on Maura's patience. Jane spent most of the days in her pyjamas on the sofa, not doing much of anything while Maura had gone back to work after a week of leave.

As Maura slipped her key into the front door, she was hoping once again, to bring a smile to her wife's face having bought home Jane's favourite. The half and half pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms, coupled with beer would hopefully help her wife open up a little.

She had even bought herself a feta cheese salad, and if Jane's mood was good Maura felt she might be able to persuade her to have some with the pizza.

"I bought your favourite sweetheart, so I hope you're hungry!" Maura closed the door with her foot. "We can split the pizza, drink this beer and if you're up for it have some salad too- oh."The coffee table was littered with takeout containers and Jane was fast asleep on the couch as the end credit's to 'Bad Boys 2' rolled.

Setting the purchases on the counter, something inside of Maura snapped and she began to tidy away the rubbish her wife had carelessly left, as noisily as possible.

The sound of the metal bin snapping shut finally made Jane jump enough that she could no longer pretend to be asleep.

As she sat up and stretched Jane noticed her wife, hands on her hips and a glare that could rival Angela Rizzoli's firmly planted on her face.

"When does Cavanaugh want you back at work?"

Silence.

"You've been like this for two weeks now Jane..."

Silence

"You must know I understand... I do. But you're not getting any exercise, not stimulating your brain at all... it will be even harder for you to get back into working cases."

Jane sat on the sofa, elbows on knees and her head in her hands. She was about to respond when Maura's voice sounded closer than before making her look up sharply.

"Do you really think that Barry would want you to mope around all this time?" Maura's voice was quiet but forceful, the end of her tether clearly yards behind her. "Surely he would want you out there, on top form solving cases in his memory, capturing murderers like he is unable to-"

Jane stood, towering over her wife, seeing red. Feeling something for the first time in days.

"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! You don't know anything MY partner would have wanted me to do! If I was him, I would want the person responsible for my death to suffer, and mope and feel as goddamn awful as I do right now!"

"Jane you are not responsible for what happened! There is no way you could've known that-" Maura's voice got smaller. "You know who pulled the trigger and it wasn't... it wasn't your fault."

Jane was breathing heavily as Maura turned back to the kitchen to put the beer in the fridge, obviously trying to take a moment to compose herself, but Jane didn't want to give her the opportunity.

"You can't even say his name can you Maura!? Your own father's name, the man who murdered my partner. The man I killed. Why can't you Maura? Hmm…?!"

Maura stiffened, one hand on the open fridge door as the other slowly, shakily, went to her hip.

"If I had had any sense Maura, I would've known Doyle would be there to protect you... his daughter."

The fridge door slammed.

"YES Jane. Yes it was my biological father that you shot. You think I don't knowthis!? You think that fact hasn't been running though my mind every hour of every day since that shot first rang out!?"

Maura turned, not to be intimidated, facing up to her equally incensed wife.

"EVERYDAY since then it's been at the forefront of my mind, but I chose to put you first. I chose to put you ahead of my severelyconflicted feelings."

"Conflicted feelings? I..."

Maura wouldn't let herself be stopped.

"You had shot the only person Jane, who held any information about my biological mother. That awful, terrible man had just shot my friend, your partner and could so easily have killed you..." A sobbed ripped its way out of her throat. "If anything good has come out of your self inflicted punishment, its that I've had time to process all these feelings; about how I reacted, how you reacted. About the events of the warehouse that day."

Taking a deep, steadying breath, the shorter woman took a step forward.

"Jane you need to stop blaming yourself. No one else does and I'm positive that Barry wouldn't either. You were doing your job and none of us had planned for all eventuality."

Maura took a tentative step towards her wife.

Jane was breathing heavily, staring steadily at the pizza box as though the jolly looking chef would give her all the answers she could ever need.

"I can't Maur. I can't stop replaying that morning in my head. What I could have done differently, if we'd used another Detective instead of you - you could've been killed! Maybe if I'd gone instead of you, Doyle wouldn't have shown up and none of this would have happened."

Jane punctuated the last sentence with a long swipe at the pizza box, sending mushroom and pepperoni alike scattering on the floor and spurring her wife to round the counter quickly and wrap her arms around Jane as she sunk to the floor.

Together they leaned against the wooden panels and as Maura stroked the hair out of her face, Jane rambled into her neck, rocking back and forth.

When all sound but soft breathing had died out, Maura led Jane to bed where, just over a month ago, they had attempted to conceive a child. It wasn't long before stillness settled over both of the bed's occupants.

While Maura snored softly, as she always did when she lay on her front, Jane was awake for hours longer. Repetitive thoughts running riot in her head, recounting the many mistakes she made that fateful day.

Hindsight was a bitch.

Jane realised she'd never even answered the sleeping woman's question; When was she going back to work?

Monday.

She had three days.

Jane was going back to work in three days and she knew there was no way in hell she'd be able to handle it. It would kill her inside to see that empty desk opposite her own, the action figure stood pride of place. Maybe Frankie would have taken it to keep it safe now?

There would be no ignoring the sympathetic looks from the rest of the precinct - Maura had already told her in passing that everyone sent their sympathies.

Everything would just be too much for Jane to handle. It was obvious to her now and would be just as true in three days time.

Jane knew couldn't go back, not to just get stuck at her desk for months as she saw the mandatory precinct therapist.

There was no going back.

There was no going forward anymore either. Not anymore. Not for someone who's mistakes had taken a life.

Resolute in her decision, Jane reached over and laid an arm across the back of her wife; something she hadn't done since well before the incident. As she moved closer Jane got a waft of her favourite smell: Maura's hair.

It calmed her, centred her and ultimately sent her off to sleep waiting for tomorrow. Only one thought on her mind.