Author's note: thank you very much for the reviews.

December, 7th:

I remember the first time we celebrated her birthday. We had booked a table at a restaurant but because of a last-minute call, we had had to cancel and spend the evening instead by the harbor.

The crime scene was complex and we didn't get to leave before midnight. Of course by then, it was too late for us to find anything open but a pharmacy. So while she was filling papers to authorize guys from her team to take the bodies away, I ran to the corner of the street and bought a bottle of some cheap champagne as well as a pack of chips; two cupcakes and a single candle.

That's how we did it, how we celebrated it. In my car. Just there, on the street. Drinking champagne out of the bottle and eating the rest of the groceries while listening to some music on the radio and talking our lives away. I learned a lot about her that night. Isn't it funny how such a peculiar place can be propicious to confidences? Around 4am, she went back to her car and drove away to Beacon Hill to catch a minimum of sleep before starting one of the autopsies the next morning.

I didn't sleep at all, that night. I kept on playing the scenario in my head over and over, how in this tiny car of mine we hadn't stopped talking about ourselves; letting the hours fly away. How we had not needed any restaurant – any fancy environment – to celebrate happily her birthday.

For me, it is surely one of the most memorable moments I have spent with her. I will never forget it. We got to be ourselves – in the barest light ever – and opened up about a thousand things.

I felt in love with her even more, that night.

A hot August night. Five years ago. We have gone through a lot more since that day – experienced plenty of things – but this improvised birthday and the conversation that had followed remains the best moment I have shared with Maura. The most cruel one too because as I watched her drive in the night – away from me – I felt as if a part was missing. I hadn't kissed her. I hadn't touched her. She wasn't mine. Not in the sense I was wishing for.

I never sent her the text message that the frenzy of my feelings had made me write after she had left me that night. For a long time, I kept it as a draft. I don't know why.

In the hope to send it to her at some point? I doubt so. It wouldn't make much sense, now. I am sure that she doesn't remember it the way I do. So the only thing I could send her right now would be these two words:

Thank you.

As for the rest, it remains in my heart and makes me smile when I find my life to be a bit too dark.

7am

Jane barely had time to open her eyes that Maura rolled over and ended up in her arms. Surprised – taken aback by the sudden and intimate contact – the Italian looked down and let go of her arm over her friend's head. The scientist was still sleeping.

Not daring to move an inch to not wake her up, Jane rolled her eyes and tried to settle comfortably; her face inches away from Maura's hair. She could feel her breath – hot – caress her neck; her lips brush her sensitive skin, there.

The honey blonde slid a leg between hers and rested a hand on her lower stomach. Jane swallowed hard. This was not how she had imagined her Sunday morning to go.

But as if the situation weren't delicate enough, Maura began to move her pelvis – slightly – against the detective's hip in consecutive motions; her hand sliding down Jane's stomach dangerously. The brunette widened her eyes in panic.

Now that was one effective way to wake up. She was mortified. Unable to think about a way to gently push Maura away.

The blonde's repetitive – and rather suggestive even if subconscious – movement pushed Jane's leg a bit further as Maura's knee came to rest up on her inner thigh. Jane closed her eyes, made a face. This had to be a joke.

She had rarely gone through more cruel torture.

As Maura's knee brushed her center, she literally jolted and held her breath. She had to stop it one way or another. This wasn't possible. The honey blonde wasn't conscious of what she was doing – obviously – and Jane couldn't remain still, enjoying thus a bit too much the repetitive contact with her inner core. It was wrong.

Yet atrociously tempting.

As she opened her eyes again, Jane realized that her breath had turned rough. She was aroused if not just panting already before the teasing touch.

In a desperate attempt to fight against it, she released her arm from under Maura's head and slid out of bed quietly. She rushed to her bathroom and locked the door behind her before stepping directly in the shower; her shirt and boxer shorts landing on the floor within a second.

The contact with the water didn't calm her down. She had reached this point of no-return when she had no other choice but to finish what had been started; subconsciously or not.

Feeling somewhat guilty, she closed her eyes and pressed her back against the wall. Her hand slid between her legs; drops of hot water brushing her skin through a thousand quiet caresses.

She had never done that with Maura in the room next door. A wave of shame invaded her as she let her fingers increase their pace to drive her on the edge. She bit her lips, swallowed back a wave of tears. It was wrong but then she hadn't started it. It was just an accident and nothing else.

But now she couldn't help it.

"Jane?"

Maura's voice startled her. She opened back her eyes – took her hand off her legs immediately – and grabbed the wall instead. A bottle of shampoo fell down. She made a face.

"Yeah? I'm in the shower." She rolled her eyes at her shaking voice.

"Why did you lock the door? You don't lock it, usually..."

Fair enough although usually, she didn't find escape under the shower to finish what Maura had – in her sleep – started. Yet before she had a chance to find something relevant to say, her friend decided to speak again.

"I am going to prepare breakfast. Take your time."

...

8am

French toast in hand, Jane sat up in bed and turned her head around to frown at Maura.

Breakfast in bed was a tradition both women kept for themselves; too ashamed to recognize the latent oddness of it.

"So you're basically telling me that you went to swim naked at 11pm at the age of 14?" Jane blinked and smirked. "I refuse to believe that you weren't popular at school. Not if you did this."

"I had lost a bet! I am a fair player, you should know this." Giggling away such memory, the honey blonde took a sip of her tea then shrugged. "It didn't make me popular, just honest."

Jane rose an unconvincing eyebrow but didn't add anything. As suggested, she had taken her time in the bathroom while Maura had prepared breakfast. Not that she had needed time to wash her hair – or dry it afterwards – but she simply hadn't been able to face her friend right after what had ocurred. But now things were back to normal. Or so.

She kept a reasonable distance with Maura in spite of being in bed with her.

"You never did something like this when you were younger?"

"No." Jane shook her head and repressed a laugh at what looked like an incongruous question to her. "Going around naked was not that fancy at my school, believe it or not."

"I am not necessarily talking about a situation that would include nudity. I don't know... You never had sex with your boyfriend at school?"

Jane choked on her orange juice and coughed loudly. As a matter of fact, she had never had sex as a high-school student at all. A few guys only had showed interest in her but not enough for her to feel like doing it with any of them. She had waited for junior college but felt now too ashamed to say it. Maura wouldn't mock her but she obviously owned a very different background on the matter.

The medical examiner's cell phone resounded loud in the room. Jane sighed of relief. Saved by the bell. Reluctantly, Maura got out of bed and walked to her bag abandoned by the door. She grabbed the item and took the call.

"Fine. I will be there immediately."

As the medical examiner nodded at her interlocutor before putting an end to the call, Jane frowned at her friend.

"I didn't know that you were on call."

The blonde took her shirt off – turned around to grab her bra – and put it on. The sudden gesture – unexpected – made Jane blush. She looked down immediately and focused on the breakfast tray.

"I am, more or less. Dr. Anderson is sick so I am replacing him." Top on, Maura discarded her pj's bottom and grabbed the skirt she had neatly put on a chair nearby the evening before. "There won't be any autopsy today, though. So you can stop by in the afternoon. I should be home by then." Lost among her monologue – abandoned to what seemed to be a daily routine – she walked back to the bed and stole a toast before winking at Jane. "See you later!"

And then she bent over to plant a kiss on her friend's lips.

The honey blonde froze as she realized what she had just done. What had happened in her head that she had dared to lean over to kiss Jane? It was just a peck but still. It had been unannounced. Not necessary.

Yet it had simply come up by itself, naturally.

Mortified, she avoided Jane's gaze and rushed to the door of the bedroom before mumbling a couple of inaudible words. She grabbed her bag – tried to calm down her breath – and left; not daring to exchange a single glance with her friend.