AN: Please don't be mad at me for Maura's actions! I hope this chapter gives some explanation. I never wanted to present Maura as a 'slut' (as some of you kindly put it), but I envision her to have a lot of issues around friendship and relationships- and the grey area in between- given her life experience.

Anyway- please let me know what you think.

The house was silent.

Maura stepped out of the shower, her body still red from the scalding heat of the water, and wrapped herself in a large towel. Walking quickly to her bedroom, Maura locked the door behind her and sat, still towel-clad, on the bed.

A million thoughts occupied her mind, but the loudest was her own voice. Repeating and repeating and repeating.

"Oh, Jane."

Maura lowered her head into her hands and let out a groan.

This cannot be happening. Not now.

Choosing an outfit and drying her hair didn't take as long as Maura had hoped it would and, quickly, she had run out of ways to busy herself in her tiny guest bedroom.

Maura opened her door and stuck her head out, looking for any sign of life. Finding the house still uncomfortably quiet, she padded down the stairs and into the living room.

"Hi" a voice croaked out from the body curled into the armchair closest to the door.

Harriet looked awful. Even in the dim light of early evening, it was easy to tell she had been crying. Maura walked into the room and sat herself in the opposite chair.

"I think we need to talk" she whispered, her scratchy voice breaking the silence.

Harriet nodded. "Yeah."

"Would you like me to make you some tea?" Maura offered, needing to find a way to occupy her mind while she worked out exactly how to broach the awkward subject of their kiss. Harriet shook her head.

"There's some wine in the fridge…" Maura nodded at her friend's suggestion and walked into the kitchen. Plucking two glasses from the draining board, she turned them over and filled them, emptying the bottle.

With a shaking hand, she walked back into the sitting room and passed one of the glasses to Harriet.

Before she had even sat down, Harriet began to speak. "Tell me about her. Tell me about Jane."

Maura took a gulp of her wine, disappointed when it didn't burn on the way down her throat, and coughed. "She… she's my best friend."

Harriet gave her a pointed look. "Maura, I think we both know she's more than that."

Maura shook her head. "She's my best friend. If you asked her, that's what she'd say. We're best friends. I… I'd never had a best friend before. Not really. We… we had such a bond and I spent so long thinking that that's the way you felt when you were best friends. That a best friend made your heart skip a beat when they smiled, or made your stomach flip when they winked at you. I… I wanted to be close to her but I didn't know what it meant. I thought it was normal."

Maura took a drink from her now half-empty glass. "When she started dating Casey- the army captain- I was jealous. I knew I was. But I put it down to the fact that I had never had a best friend before, and that I didn't know how to share. I… I went on a few dates with guys, I tried to distract myself that way, but my dating history is a bit of a disaster. When I met the one guy who actually meant something to me, who made me feel more than lust, I chose her."

Harriet put her glass on the coffee table and watched as her friend took a deep sigh and ran a hand through her hair.

"He had a daughter. We… we got on so well. But she and her mom moved to New Mexico for work. And Jack took a job and followed them so he could still be a part of his daughter's life."

"Sounds like he was a good guy."

"He was. Is. And a brilliant father. I could have followed him. It would have been so easy to find a job and go with him, but I stayed. Jane was going through some awful things, and I chose to stay with her."

"Why, Maura?"

"Because I loved her more."

Maura began to fidget with her hands, before clasping them together in her lap.

"I chose her. I stayed. But then she took this job at the FBI and left… left to be with Cameron and…" Maura stifled a sob.

"She left me. She chose him and she left me."

Harriet moved to sit next to her friend, pulling her into her body as she cried. Her small frame convulsed with each deep breath as Harriet's hand ran gently up and down her back. "It's okay" she whispered. "You're okay."

As Maura relaxed, she leaned away from Harriet and wiped her eyes. "I'm just so frustrated, you know? If I had just said something… anything… this whole situation could have been so different. But now I can't imagine life without her by my side- I can't go back to Boston and survive without Jane."

"I get it", Harriet reassured her friend. "And I know what you need."

Maura's eyes met Harriet's. "What do I need?"

Harriet stood up and walked towards Maura's chair, leaning down to pick up her glass.

"More wine."

Standing up, Maura followed her friend into the kitchen. "I don't have any more wine" Harriet explained from her position, crouched in front of a cupboard, shifting bottles and jars to the side as she searched for what she wanted. "But there is…"

Standing up, Harriet clutched a bottle of gin.

"Our old friend."

As Harriet busied herself in the kitchen, producing limes and ice and tonic water from the depths of her refrigerator, Maura stood back and watched. Alone for a moment with her thoughts, she realised that- already- some of her anxiety was gone. She had been bottling up her feelings for so long that even she could no longer estimate the emotional weight she had been carrying.

It had been years since she had first realised exactly how deeply her feelings for Jane ran. But she kept her silence and watched as her friend's life moved forward, away from hers. Still, she had been there. After breakups, arguments, broken off engagements and even a miscarriage, it was always Maura by Jane's side. She had made it her mission to always be there.

At the back of her mind, there was an ever-present fear. The fear that confessing her feelings to Jane would mean losing her forever.

It was too much to bear.

And so she said nothing.

"Here. Drink." Harriet pressed a cold glass into Maura's hands and she took a sip. The gin was strong enough to leave her lips tingling as she drank. Strong enough to distract her from her thoughts, even for a moment.

"Do you remember when we lived off-campus?" Harriet asked as the two women walked back to the sitting room.

"On Lincoln Way? Of course I do." Maura thought back to the first house she had lived in after med school. Harriet was still a PhD candidate and Maura was about to begin her first year of her residency.

"And the gin night? When we drank the bottle?"

Maura laughed loudly, surprising herself. "Oh, yeah! Oh, I remember the hangover."

Harriet grimaced. "It was terrible."

In comfortable silence, the two women drank, thinking back to their college days.

"Do you remember kissing me that night?" Maura asked, the gin already loosening her lips.

Harriet coughed. "I… I thought I'd blocked that out!"

Maura shook her head. "I'd forgotten about it until now. I… I think we were both blind drunk by that point. You were half asleep on my shoulder and we were just drunkenly rambling about nothing and you turned my head and kissed me."

Harriet was red. Maura wasn't sure whether to blame the embarrassment or the gin.

"I've always been an affectionate drunk" she joked, taking another sip but never taking her eyes off Maura.

"Anyway," Harriet gestured to her friend with her glass, "I don't remember you complaining."

Maura shrugged. "I'd just broken up with Garrett. I was lonely and it… it felt nice."

"Of course it did. I'm an excellent kisser."

Harriet's comment fell into silence, the atmosphere in the room growing heavier as both women processed her words.

"It felt nice today, too" Maura whispered, half-hoping that Harriet was too lost in her own thoughts to hear her.

"Yeah." Her reply was laced with sadness.

Maura took another drink. "What do you…" Maura began, not sure where her sentence was taking her.

"You know, we're both frustrated. And lonely. And sad. If… if it's going to make us feel better we could always…" Harriet shook her head, as if she was trying to rid her mind of the words that were already pouring out of her mouth.

"Sorry. That's the gin talking." Harriet's piercing eyes locked with Maura's as she spoke, flirting and searching at the same time.

Maura took a long drink, taking the time to think. She was always such a calculated risk-taker. Everything was weighed up in terms of pros and cons; but now Maura realised her calculations had always factored in Jane.

Jane who was miles away. Miles away in bed with Agent Davies.

"Fuck it" she muttered to herself, draining her glass.

Standing, Maura walked over to her friend and pulled her out of her chair. Careful not to knock her drink, Maura pressed their bodies together and looked into Harriet's eyes.

"Are you sure?" She asked gently, her nerves obvious from the tone of her voice.

Harriet nodded, sighing loudly as Maura's lips crashed into hers.