Liz is coming into the kitchen the next morning and does look like she hasn't slept for a week and runs her hand through her hair as she looks at Hanley. "You didn't sleep at all."

He turns his head and looks long at her, shaking his head. "I was thinking."

"Me too."

"You snored like you are cutting down a forest."

She rolls her eyes and licks her lips. "I can think while sleeping." She pauses for a second. "So this is goodbye."

He finally looks at her and furls his eyebrows. "I am not leaving."

She swallows hard and sighs. She already had felt it last night. "You know what I mean, Will."

He smiles a sad smile and sighs heavily. "Yeah, I do. And judging by your look, you came to the same realization."

She simply nods and closes her eyes when she finds herself in Hanley's arms.

He kisses the top of her head and sighs. "It's best for you, Liz."

"And what about you?"

"I'll be fine."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jane rubs her eyes and flops on the chair and slips a cup of coffee to her wife. "You're welcome." She states as the blonde sips the beverage. "Well, it almost feels like twenty-three years ago. The house is silent and in any minute my mother barges in."

Maura is smirking and raises her eyebrows. "You would have another heart attack if Angela would come in."

"Yeah, most likely." The Italian replies and arches an eyebrow as the front door gets opened. "Well, you really wa -" She says and stops instantly as she looks at her distressed daughter. "What happened?"

Liz takes a moment and shakes her head. "I don't want to talk about it." She says and heads upstairs without waiting for a reply.

Jane sighs heavily and looks at her wife. "I thought they were good again."

Maura rolls her eyes and gets up to her feet, following her daughter. She knocks lightly at the door before she enters the room. "Honey, are you alright?"

The younger woman sits down on her couch and props her elbows on her knees, but doesn't look at the doctor. "I will be, I think."

Maura sits down next to Liz and rubs her back. "I know you will."

"You could have warn me, though." Liz states and turns her head with furrowed eyebrows .

"About what?" Maura asks a little lost.

"That it hurts so much."

"You know, your Ma and I can tell you and teach you a lot about life, but there are some things you have to experience yourself."

Liz is looking at her mother and frowns a little. "You said that when Al Capone passed away."

Maura is scoffing and furls her eyebrows. "You can't compare a broken relationship with a dead pet rat, Elizabeth."

The younger woman lifts an shoulder with a small smile. "I just did. I mean, I was devastated, and I was just ten."

"I still don't understand why you wanted a rat as pet," the doctor chuckles as she kisses her daughter's head. "Or why you named it after a Italian mobster."

"Well, I thought it would be inappropriate to name it after your biological father." The younger woman retorts.

Maura is starting to shake her head. "Smarty-pants."

Liz chuckles and shrugs again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Leslie and Liz are entering BPD after they had to cordon scene of accident off. It has been three month since she and Hanley had broke up and it took her two to feel normal again. She knows that her mothers had to use all their willpower not to kill him and make it look like an accident, just like Frankie.

She can't count anymore how many times she had to tell all of them, that her ex is a cop and that he knows how to clean a gun, or even use it.

They had stayed friends, though. She had told herself that they have to work with each other after all, so she had started to talk to him again after a month. That doesn't mean that their encounters weren't any less awkward.

Leslie frowns a little. "So, you're moving out this weekend," she asks as they head to the Café.

The brunette nods and takes a deep breath. "Yap."

"And your parents survive that?"

"We'll see then." Liz answers and laughs with the other woman. She looks out of the window and furls her eyebrows as she sees Hanley with a shiner coming into the building as well. "What the heck?" She mumbles to herself.

"I still can get rid of him." Chaz offers and looks down at her with amused eyes as she jumps.

Liz places an hand over her heart and glares at him. "Stop that. What happened?"

"No idea." He replies with a smirk. She catches her skeptical glance. "I don't know, cross my heart."

Liz rolls her eyes and decides to ask Hanley herself. She walks into the entrance hall, her friends following her. "What happened to your face?"

Hanley turns around and frowns. "I was chasing our prep."

"And ran into his fist," she asks and touches the shiner. "Does it hurt?"

He winces and frowns again. "Not until you touch it." He replies and winces once more as she touches it once again this time with a smirk.

"Yeah, if that would be nothing, you wouldn't wince like a little girl." She states and her friends are scoffing.

He steps away and swat her hand as she is about to repeat her actions. "Would you stop with that? You are enjoying this, don't you?"

Liz is chuckling and crosses her arms over her chest. "A little."

He sighs heavily and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I was going to look for you."

"Well, congratulations, you found me. What do you need?"

Hanley is hesitating and looks at the glaring Leslie and Chaz and clears his throat. "I … was wondering if I could interest you in some drinks with me at the weekend."

The smug smile on her lips is dying instantly and she raises her eyebrows high. "I have other plans for the weekend, and I don't think that it would be a good idea to have drinks together."

He swallows hard and points with his thumb over his shoulder, frowning. "Oh, okay. I, um. I am going now, because I have to go back to work. Not because you turned me down. See you."

Liz nods slowly and raises her hand.

"I thought you are friends again." Leslie whispers.

"We are, but the last time we had drinks, we ended up in bed."

Chaz furls confused his eyebrows. "When was that?"

"When he and I got involved." Liz answers simply and turns to leave.

Leslie is punching his arm and glares at him. "So, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"The same as usual."

"At your birthday?"

"So?"

"Nope, that's not gonna happen." Chaz states and places his arms over the two women's shoulders.

Liz is making a face and groans. "It is just another day."

"Still." He says and grins.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jane is standing in the kitchen the next morning and stares at her chomping daughter. She better don't think back, because that would make her cry. She wraps her arm around Maura's waist.

"I can feel the two of you staring at me." Liz mumbles and looks up with furrowed brows. "It's not like I am going to move out of the country, it's only Jamaica Plain."

"Still." Maura retorts with a slight frown. "You will always be our little girl."

Jane chuckles as Liz is rolling her eyes in a good Rizzoli manner. "I still remember how you slipped out of your mother." She starts to laugh amused as their daughter chokes on her breakfast and the doctor joins her.

"Really?" Liz coughs violently and shakes her head. "I am eating and you start to talk about Mom giving birth. I don't even want to have this picture in my head."

Maura laughs even harder and nods approvingly. "So are you going to celebrate later? Tomorrow, everyone is coming by."

"I think Chaz are going to drag all of us in a bar after work. So it can get late." Liz answers truthfully.

"You can gives us a call if you need to get picked up. No matter what time." Jane says and arches an brow.

Liz smirks and gets up from her chair, putting her plate in the sink. "Ma, don't worry. I am not driving when I had too much."

"I am not worrying about that." The Italian retorts and winces as her wife is pinching her.

Liz is glaring at her and her shoulders slump. "Currently, I am done with men. You don't have to worry about either."

"Okay, I am worrying about the women then." Jane calls out as her daughter starts to head to the stairway. She lowers her eyebrows as she sees wife glaring at her. "What?"

Maura simply huffs with a shake of her head.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Liz empties the shot glass and gets up to her feet. She raises her brows high and takes a hold on Mark Callaghan's shoulder, a colleague of her. She has seen Hanley entering the bar with some friends of his own and wonders if he is following her. But then she realizes that this is a place where people in their field likes to go after work.

"Where are you going?" He asks.

"To the restroom," she answers playfully. "Wanna join me?"

He considers her offer and waves it off. "Maybe next time."

She laughs and shrugs. Both of them knows that they don't mean what they are saying, because he is ten years older and married. "Are going to hold my hair back while I am throwing up."

"I also can braid them."

She sits back down and is fluttering her eyelashes. "Oh, yay!"

They stare at each other until both burst out laughing.

She gets up again and starts to head for the restroom.

"Hey, there." Someone says from behind.

Liz jumps and twists around, placing an hand over her heart. "Jesus, Will. Are you following me?"

"Right now? Yes." He states and frowns. "But I didn't know that you and the others would come here." He let his eyes roam over body. "You look good."

"Like you didn't see me today."

"No, I mean, you look like you're having a good time."

"I have." She says and frowns a little. "What do you want?"

Hanley steps closer and shrugs. "Wishing you a happy birthday."

Liz can feel that something between them has shift and swallows hard. "Thank you, once again." She swallows hard as he steps into her personal space and is about to kiss her. She thinks that she'll give in, but then her brain starts to function again, shoving her hand into his chest. "We can't." She whispers and takes a shakily breath. "I can't."

Hanley is frowning again. "Why?"

"Because I hardly survived the first time. And because I don't wanna throw tantrums like a five-year old anymore."

He lets the work sink in and steps nodding back. "Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to … I …. It's probably best. I'm gonna go now."

She nods approvingly and closes her eyes as he disappears around the corner, forcing the tears back. Why didn't you take the god damn transfer, Will? She cracks her eyes open again and releases her breath in a loud sigh before she finally walks to the restroom.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"So, Jane and Maura got teary-eyed yesterday?" Hanley asks and chuckles as Liz who sits next to him on the bench while chewing on her sandwich.

She swallows the food and raises her eyebrows. "I thought they would squeeze me to death as they left. I was about to tell Leslie to get an wrecking bar so I could breath again."

"And how is it to be completely independent now?"

"It was strange to wake up in a foreign room and be all by myself until my phone rang."

He scoffs amused. "Let me guess. Jane."

She bumps her shoulder into his. "Wrong! Mom!"

Hanley laughs for a second before he turns serious. "Look, I am sorry for what happened in the bar. I was a little drunk and didn't thought about what I was doing, and I am thankful that you didn't tell your parents about it."

"What makes you think that I didn't tell them?"

"Well, neither Jane nor Maura tried to kill me."

Liz doesn't smile or laugh, she is only nodding. "I knew that you were drunk. That's why we are sitting here today, but that's the only shot you get. If it happens again we are done."

Hanley takes a deep breath and blinks against the sun. "I should have had moved to Detroit, shouldn't I?"

Liz licks her lips and listens attentively inside herself. "Do you wanna hear my real opinion?"

"I always appreciate your honesty." He says and knows that he will regret it.

Liz looks down into her lap and swallows hard. "I always liked you and I loved you, some parts of me still love you. But we would only hurt each other. So yes, you should have move to Detroit."

He looks down at his own sandwich and throws it into the trash bin. "Well, it's good that you can get rid of me."

She glance questioningly at him. "What do you mean?"

"Turned out that it's not bad to work with the Rizzoli's. I got another job offer in Seattle. If I say yes today, I'll be gone by the end of next month."

Something deep inside of the young woman is breaking and it hurts just as much as their break up, but somehow it feels relieving in the same time. She turns her head and sighs. "You don't have to leave because we are not together anymore, Will."

"I am leaving because I want you to be happy, and if I'll stay that won't happen. So, I am going to leave for our sakes." He says and groans as his phone starts to ring. "I guess this is my cue to leave." He says as he looks at the display and gets off the bench.

Liz is up at her feet in no time. "Will." She says and hugs him tight as he turns and a tear is slipping from her eye. She isn't quite sure if it is because he decided to leave or because she is feeling both, relief and pain. "You deserve to be happy too."

"Looks like I've missed my chance." He replies before he pulls away and turns to leave.

She is still looking after him and wipes her cheek as a woman walks by and looks questioningly at her. "God damn it." She whispers and throws her very own food in the trash bin.