Author's note: Thank you very much everyone for all the reviews and messages (I'll reply to the messages tomorrow)

Chapter Thirteen

Jane brought the fork to her mouth and chewed on her lasagna. The silence that reigned over the house was unusual and made her feel uncomfortable. Her mother had prepared dinner but neither of them seemed to dare to speak. They were eating in silence instead, observing each other with an obvious uncertainty.

It was their first face-to-face since Jane had come back from Oregon, the first evening they spent together without anyone else around. An unexpected timidity had wrapped them up and had changed the pace of their bond.

Too many untold things were screaming for their release.

A loud noise made Jane jump. She turned around only to see Bass by Maura's desk. Without thinking twice about it, she hurried to check on the tortoise. She knew that Bass had this tendency to bump into furniture once in a while but the violence of the impact had been greater this time. Maura would kill her if anything happened to him. Or she would at least be very sad which was something Jane wanted to avoid at all cost.

"His shell is the best protection one could dream to have, Jane." Angela smiled at her daughter. She had remained on one of the stools by the kitchen counter. She motioned the lasagna. "It's gonna be cold."

Jane nodded. Bass wasn't bleeding and he didn't seem in pain even if it was challenging to actually assess his current well-being. Not really reassured, she nonetheless walked back to the kitchen island and resumed her dinner. In silence.

"Do you remember my friend Isabella? From the Academy?"

The question made Angela freeze. She hadn't expected Jane to mention someone who had disappeared from their life twenty years earlier. It seemed to be coming out of the blue.

Yet sensing the importance of the moment in her daughter's voice, the matriarch nodded.

"Of course I do. The two of you were inseparable."

Jane put down her fork. She hadn't prepared anything – as a matter of fact, it hadn't even crossed her mind that it could come up now – but the words had finally found their way to her lips and she couldn't hold them back anymore. They had to hit the air and take away with them the weight of her long silence.

"We didn't argue. Not really... I mean this isn't the reason why we stopped hanging out together, the reason why I stopped talking about her. We..." Jane closed her eyes for brief seconds before taking a deep breath. Why did it require so much courage? She didn't understand. She didn't like it. It made her feel vulnerable, awfully fragile. "We slept together."

Her voice sounded blank, almost deprived of emotion. She hadn't managed to take some distance with her confession but her fear was such that her brain had made a strange assimilation to a complete blankness. She looked down at her plate immediately.

She felt sorry. She felt sorry for not telling her mother, for all the things that had happened between her and Isabella. She hadn't seen the girl anymore once they had graduated from the Academy. She didn't know where she worked nor where she lived. She had left things unfinished.

"I got scared." Jane timidly looked up, hoping to find comfort in her mother's eyes. "I ran away from her."

Angela frowned. Confusion spread on her face. Of course, she wasn't angry. Jane had never imagined that her mother would be when such conversation would happen. Yet she had no idea why she hadn't said anything earlier, why it had taken her half of her life to find the courage to open up about what had happened with Isabella.

"You're not thinking about running away from Maura, are you?"

It didn't take Jane one second to shake her head. Many things had changed. She had changed. Perhaps she hadn't been ready by then – when at the Academy – but the situation was a lot different now. She was forty years old and whatever she felt for Maura went way beyond what she had felt until now. She couldn't explain it. As a matter of fact, the reason why she had kissed Maura at Logan International was still a complete mystery. The only thing she knew was that it had made her realize how much Maura meant to her; how much she needed her in her life.

"No... I'm physically unable to do that, actually. Maura... I wish she were here tonight."

Jane's voice broke. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. She tried to hold back her tears but it didn't work out. She had a hard time accepting the fact that she was back to Boston while Maura was still in Oregon.

The weekend they had spent together had been the best seventy-two hours of her life. Now she was back to nothing, to an emptiness she couldn't stand. It tasted too much of failures.

...

"May I ask you a question?"

A cup of coffee in her hand, Daniela Caruso warmly smiled at Maura's initiative before nodding. She motioned an empty table. They spent too much time on their feet practicing autopsies to not sit down during their break.

"Of course. Unless it has to do with the weather... I swear we usually have some sun in the summer. This year is just particularly bad."

"It has nothing to do with the incessant rain. As a matter of fact..." Maura sat down at the table and ran her tongue over her lips. She wasn't sure that she should ask anything. The question that was burning her lips was personal. "It has to do with your career. You're a brilliant medical examiner – your articles about the influence of limnology in forensics are renown and they are the exact reason why we're currently taking part in this internship – and yet... Why did you decide to remain in such a small town? You could have got so much bigger. You're an excellent specialist."

The smile on Daniela's face seemed to freeze which caused Maura to feel extremely bad. Her question was impolite. It was none of her business and yet she couldn't help wondering why her colleague – whose skills made her green with envy – had landed in Newport. She could have easily gone to San Francisco.

"It's a long story but to make it short... I feel fine, here. I don't see myself going anywhere else, not anymore. And I am glad to welcome some colleagues once a year for this limnologic internship."

Maura nodded but didn't say anything back. She had a hard time understanding such a choice. Daniela Caruso didn't lack ambition. One could easily sense it the moment the woman walked into a room. Her presence spoke for herself.

Daniela laughed. Her eyes glimmer in delight. She looked amused, absolutely not bothered by Maura's curiosity. After all, the question was fair. Newport was a small city, it was very quiet in terms of forensics.

"I've met someone here. I came to Newport for the summer and... I've never left anymore. It doesn't have to do with my job, or with my career. I decided to stay here because I had met someone, someone who could hardly move away from Oregon."

This time Maura felt incredibly stupid. Who was she to force someone to talk about personal matters? Daniela Caruso was nice enough to reply but Maura still had overcrossed some limits.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked..."

Her hazel eyes landed on her colleague's hand. She wasn't wearing any wedding band. For some reason, Maura had assumed that she lived on her own. Daniela seemed to be a lonely person.

"She died."

The silence that followed the confession turned out to be hard to face. The cafeteria as such an impersonal place. Not a single person should have been forced to talk about someone's death there. It was cruel. Feeling uncomfortable, Maura looked by the window and held her breath. What was she supposed to say, now?

"She drowned." Daniela shrugged - very matter-of-factly - before offering an apologetic smile. "That's I work so much on limnology now. It's a bit cliché but I suppose we can see it as some form of therapy. Self-therapy. I've heard your friend came to visit you, this weekend. She works for the BPD, doesn't she?"

Maura nodded. Not a single word managed to travel up her throat to make it to her lips. She hadn't expected their casual conversation to take such turn. She wasn't prepared for it.

"She... She's not my friend. Jane is a lot more than just a friend, actually." They hadn't defined anything and would probably never do but Maura knew that she couldn't talk about friendship anymore. It would have been a blatant lie. "We... She shares my life. She's been sharing my life for five years now."

Daniela Caruso didn't need to know every single detail of the evolution of their relationship. Besides, it seemed to fit now that Maura thought about it. Jane had indeed been sharing her life since the very first day they had met. She had always been the one. Always.

"It's going to be alright."

Daniela Caruso squeezed Maura's hand as if to emphasize her latest comment. She stood up - nodded politely - then turned on her heels. Maura observed her go. She let her colleague's words sink in, she let them embrace her mind. Their lack of precision wasn't an issue. Maura perfectly understood what Daniela had just meant.

With a shaking hand, she grabbed her cell phone out of the pocket of her white coat and feverishly wrote down a text message to Jane before deleting it. She called her instead. The wait seemed to last for an eternity.

And then the relief - bare, powerful - as Jane took the call.

Maura closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She abandoned herself to the whirl of feelings that seemed to rise from her lower stomach, the ones that made her feel gently dizzy. She smiled as Jane started speaking.

"Maura? Is everything alright?"

Everything was, now. Everything would always be. Daniela was right, Maura wanted to believe it. Whatever was going on was meant to be. End of the story. Apprehension and fears could vanish, she wouldn't let them darken her sudden life glory.

"Yes. I just wanted to hear your voice... I needed it."