A/N – Sorry for the wait. This story might actually be going for a bit longer. I want to try and do a bit about Jane's recovery and how it effects the relationship. This chapter is a bit of a weird one. But we shall see. I hope you enjoy. MAURA'S VIEW.

It has been three weeks since the attack, and in that time, Jane has been released from the hospital, been living between my house and her own house. I still don't think that her parents are aware about us. Whilst we were at the hospital they just saw me as the concerned teacher that found their daughter. Each time Jane came to my house, all we would do is talk. And it was nice, to begin with. But I think Jane is starting to form a shell. Each time she comes round, she speaks less and less. I get more worried about her, but the more I push, the more she retreats. I noticed the other day that her bandages were beginning to get filthy. I don't think she changes her bandages, and she refuses help from her family. She lets me hold her hands, but I have yet to see if she would let me change them for her. I think I need to insist to change them. Those injuries could become infected as easily as they were inflicted.

I was in the kitchen getting Jane and myself a drink. She had to drink from bottles using a straw because she couldn't hold anything else. As I came back into the sitting room I noticed Jane was staring down at her hands. She had been doing more and more lately, and it was really beginning to cause me a great deal of concern. She hadn't been going to see the psychiatrist like the doctor suggested, nor had she done any of her physiotherapy exercises since she was released from the hospital. I think this time Jane really had been broken. And it wasn't an image that suited her very well. She was always a strong, empowered girl. Someone who never let anything get to them. But this whole thing isn't something that would happen every day, and it would hurt her more than what can simply be seen on the outside.

"Jane?" I crept round the couch. She was still clearly deep in thought, so I put her bottle down on the coffee table and gently laid my hand on her shoulder. That was probably a mistake. She jumped out of her skin and pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her feet on the edge of the couch and wrapped her arms around her legs to keep them in close. I pulled away as fast as I could. "Jane. It's okay, it's just me Maura." She finally looked up at me. My arms were raised in defence. I could see her whole body relax as she finally came back to the real world.

"Sorry." She lowered her legs and moved so I could join her on the couch. As I sat down I placed my drink on the table as well.

"Don't be. You have nothing to be sorry for." She lowered her head and stared at her hands again. Those rags weren't in good condition, and they desperately needed changing. "Jane?" She tilted her head up towards me. "I noticed that you haven't been changing your bandages. You know what the doctor said. If you don't change them, your hands will become infected, which could be worse than it already is now." She didn't say a word. She leant back into the sofa and rested her hands on her thighs.

"I just don't know what to do with them."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, that the minute anyone goes near my hands I freak out, and start to panic. And I can't change the bandages for obvious reasons. And the thought of seeing my hands terrifies me to no end. And I just don't know what I can do with them." I looked down at her hands. I thought the easiest way for this to work was to let her do things at her own pace. So I put my hand out in front of me, palm up and waited. Jane looked at my hand, and then to me in confusion. She quickly caught on, when my hand didn't move though. She turned back down to her own hands and they stirred. I could tell she was thinking about it, but she couldn't quite make her mind up as to if she was brave enough. I lowered my hand and then realised something.

"Just hold on for one second Jane. I just need to go grab something." I stood up from the sofa and walked out to the bathroom. When I returned I was holding the first aid box. Everything I would need if Jane would let me near her hands. I sat down and rested the box on the table. I directed my attention back to Jane, who was now smiling. It was the smile that I hadn't seen for so long. In that moment the entire atmosphere became so much lighter, I felt as though I was floating. "What?"

"Just that you have stood by me throughout this whole thing. No matter how much I fight and resist, you keep pushing me. And I can't thank you enough. Even when you were pissed at me you…" I laid a finger upon her lips.

"I was never 'pissed' at you Jane. I was disappointed in you yes. But I need you to move past that and let me help you now. And the only way that will work is if you let me clean your hands." I put my hand out in front of me again, waiting for her to make her move. She looked down to her hands and hesitated again. "You said you were happy that I keep pushing you. I don't like doing it, but if it means that you get better quicker…" I left the sentence hanging, and it didn't take too long for Jane to trust me. "Thank you." We sat in silence as I removed the disgusting bandage from her hand. Before I un-wrapped the final loop, I felt Jane's hand tense slightly. "What's wrong?"

"I just…"

"You don't have to look if you don't want to." She looked me directly in the eye and the turned away. Not too much, but enough that she wasn't forced to look at her hand. It clearly bothered her far too much. "This might hurt slightly, so just be sure to brace yourself. I will be as gentle as I can." She gave me a nod of approval, and I continued to unwind the bandage.

The padding over the damaged skin was attached to the bandage itself, but it had also begun to attach itself to her healing skin. As I tried to peel the bandage off her hand, I could easily see the pain it was causing Jane. As much as I hated doing all this I knew it would be for her own good in the long run. She was trying so hard not to cry out with the pain. She ended up deciding to bite her lip to keep the screams for exploding. I finally managed to take the bandage off fully, but that didn't mean the pain was gone for Jane. No. I knew that her pain was just starting all over again, and I hated the fact that I was the person inflicting said pain upon her. There was damaged tissue on both sides of her hands but the padding only seemed to have stuck to the tissue on her palm. I still had to clean both sides. I finally opened the medicine the doctor had prescribed to clean the wounds with. I coated it onto some cotton wool, and stopped before I touched Jane again. Her hand was still hanging in mid-air waiting for the painful contact to continue.

"Are you ready?" She had her eyes scrunched closed, but she still managed to nod. "This is going to be the thing that stings like a bitch." She laughed at my language and I then delicately placed the wool on her wound and slowly rubbed the tissue. The moment the wool made contact with her hand, Jane went from laughing to screaming. I was hoping I might be able to distract her enough to be able to make the pain slightly more bearable, then I realised, nothing was going to make this bearable. I stopped and turned her hand, as well as the wool, over and started on the upper side of her hand. She must have been starting to numb the pain out or something, because she ceased from screaming and managed to sit there and let me finish in silence.

"Maura?" I didn't stop working on her hand, but I did register that she was talking.

"Yes Jane." I placed the cotton wool on a tissue on the table, and picked up a new bandage to cover Jane's hand in.

"What were you like as a teenager?" It seemed like an odd question and it most certainly was, but she must have been what I was trying to do, and she was trying to distract herself. I took a moment before I began speaking again, to place the bandage padding on the back of her hand. I had to place a separate padding in her palm as I was not equipped to do this sort of thing. As I began wrapping, I also began talking.

"Well, my parents were always away. Either on a business trip, or enjoying a nice holiday without me. So I learnt from a very young age how to care for myself. My parents trusted me to stay home alone by the time I was 13. By the time I was able to drive, I wasn't even really home." She turned towards me in surprise.

"Don't tell me that the sweet, innocent, perfect little Maura Isles was a rebellious teen."

"I wasn't rebellious, I just liked to go out and party."

"Wait, but I thought you said you didn't have any friends when you were at school." Thanks Jane. Like that was a reminder I really wanted to get.

"I didn't need friends to go out and have a good time. I would go out, find a club and just enjoy myself. At that time, you could go out and dance with anyone that showed up. You didn't have to know anyone to have a nice night." I was just finishing with the bandage. All I had to do now was stick it down. I grabbed the tape, whilst still holding the bandage, I managed to peel a small piece off, hold it in my mouth and cut it off. I stuck the bandage down and let Jane lower her hand. "I was always home before my parents got back, which meant they never found out. I still don't think they ever knew."

"I would never have guessed that you of all people, was a party child."

"I had my moments." I got up from the sofa and told Jane to shuffle down so I could sit on the other side so get at her other hand. "Okay, I told you something about my past, it's your turn now." I began to untie her bandage as she began talking.

"Oh come. Haven't you already learnt enough about my past?"

"Not by any means. Come on spill it."

"Okay. What shall I tell you today?" She sat thinking for a minute. Whilst she was thinking I managed to completely remove the bandage with her showing minimal signs of pain. But we both knew what was yet to come. "Well, when I was about 10, my Pa went out to work, and he took my two brothers with him. I was always jealous of them because they always had that extraAAAAAA." I was rubbing the medicine on her hand. Still clearly the most painful she has to endure.

"Sorry. I was hoping if I did whilst you were talking it might not be too bad." She grimaced and turned back around.

"So anyway…Frankie and Tommy always got to spend more time with my Pa because he owned a father and sons kind of business. So it meant that I was always being left home alone with my Ma. It was alright most of the time. I went upstairs, and she left me to my own devices whilst she was on a constant spring clean around the whole house. I would stay up in my room." She was talking so much she actually had managed to distract herself. She turned to me and I was trying to stick the bandage down. "And as sad as it may sound, I even had a diary I would write in. I would talk about how I was feeling, who I had crushes on. And as a 10 year old that changed almost weekly. But that diary was a very good friend to me whilst I was growing up. I might just have to show you some time." She finally finished talking and put her hands back in her lap.

"There. Good as new. To an extent of course." We both let out a small chuckle to that. "Sorry."

"Don't be. You really have been an absolute angel these past few weeks. And this may sound slightly needy, but I have to ask." This could be interesting. "When I go back to school on Monday, do you think you could help me out? I mean I'm going to have Frost and Korsak there to help me as well, but it would just be nice to see you near me. But by all means, you can say no. you don't have to feel…" She was rambling again, and she knew it. I leaned in and placed my lips upon hers.

"Jane, I would be more than happy to help you out around school, but you do need to remember one thing, I am a teacher there, so I will have classes going on, but if anything happens that you don't feel comfortable about, you come find me straight away. Okay?" She nodded and smiled. "Now what?"

"You haven't kissed me in a while. I had forgotten what it was like. Your lips are softer than I remember." Of course I hadn't kissed her in a while. She had been becoming more and more secluded as time went on. I only kissed her then because, one she was babbling. And two because this is the happiest and most open I have seen her in a long time. But she was obviously feeling up for a bit more, and who was I to deny her that small pleasure.

"Softer than you remember? Really? Do you want to double check that?" She smiled as she caught on to what I was doing. She leaned forward and we kissed. This one held for much longer. It wasn't us fighting for dominance. We weren't craving more contact. We were more than happy with the kiss in that moment. And I wished that it would never have had to end. But everything always does.

"Yeah, they are definitely softer. Have you been using lip salve to keep your lips nice and moist all the time?" My cheek went flush red as chuckled at what she had made me do.

"As a matter of fact I haven't done anything different than I used to do. Perhaps you just missed them so much that you couldn't even remember what they felt like in the first place."

"Oh trust me Maura, your lips are one feeling I could never forget." She leaned in for another kiss, and I accepted graciously. We spent most of the night talking and kissing. Mostly talking. I still wasn't sure Jane was ready for so much interaction, and I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold myself off.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A/N – Thank you to all my readers. I have started a new story. It is a Once Upon A Time story, but I thought I might as well put it out there. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Comments. Reviews. Always welcome.