Chapter Ten:

After the gorgeous detective (reluctantly) departed from her office, Maura picked up her phone and scrolled through her contacts until she found one that simply said 'A. Cabenson'. It was a pseudonym she had first become familiar with several months ago while trawling the fanboards of a semi-popular television show. She had begun her descent into the fandom, and possibly into madness, after a simple Google search led her astray. Apparently, there were others besides herself who felt that there was some unresolved sexual tension between the two female leads. Maura was not afraid to admit that the forbidden relationship - and the main character's striking resemblance to Jane - intrigued her.

A quick search of a large fanfiction database had provided her with a wealth of material, but it was not enough. The filtered search option quickly became her best friend. She began wandering to more selective fansites, especially those that were dedicated exclusively to lesbian content. But there was still not enough material to fuel her addiction. Putting aside her embarrassment and removing a few dog-eared romance novels from their hiding places, she had begun to submit her own content. Suddenly, Maura's personal e-mail was flooded with reviews and comments, and she discovered that, much like in her professional life, compliments and praise fed the creative process. When A. Cabenson, one of her favorite writers, shot her a message asking to do a collaboration, she had been all too eager to accept.

There were some hurdles along the way, of course. A. Cabenson, or Alex, as she had eventually revealed her name to be, proved to be as stubborn as she was creative. Most of Maura's ideas were greeted with enthusiasm, but they simply could not agree on the profession of their blonde heroine. Alex insisted that she should be the lawyer, but Maura was certain that 'medical examiner' or at least 'doctor' were much better choices. It had turned into a running joke, and now, every time they added a new section to their story, they changed all of the adjectives to reflect their personal choice. Maura still had no idea what kind of compromise they would eventually come up with.

The phone started to ring, bringing an abrupt end to her reminiscences. "Cabot," a firm, harried voice answered on the other end. Maura and Alex did not speak very often by telephone. Most of their interaction was by e-mail, but they had shared phone numbers in case of "emergency". In Alex's case, an "emergency" meant the story getting out.

"Hello, Alex. This is Dr. Isles I mean..." she lowered her voice perceptibly, "Rizzles." Reflecting back, Maura was rather embarrassed of the pen name she had selected. At first, the combination of names had seemed amusing, but the effect wore off quickly. "... Maura," she finally stuttered out, realizing that Alex already had her number plugged into her phone and knew her full name anyway.

"What's wrong? Something is wrong, isn't it?" Alex immediately picked up on Maura's uncomfortable tone of voice.

"I'm afraid our project has been compromised."

"Compromised?" Alex repeated, her pulse skipping a beat. It wasn't bad enough that the story was now circulating God knows where in the New York City District Attorney's office, now there were issues in Boston as well? "There too? What happened?"

Maura cleared her throat delicately. She was instantly curious about Alex's 'there too' statement, but she was so nervous about what would happen with Frost that she ignored her innate curiosity for a moment to tell the attorney what had just happened. "Well, I meant to ask Jane if she thought this story was good enough to post online…" her voice trailed off uncomfortably.

"What do you mean, meant to ask Jane?" Alex groaned.

"Well, I was going over the latest draft you sent me, and my office door opened. I was expecting Jane so I asked, without looking up to verify the person's identity, if the story was good enough to post online. When I did look up, I realized that it wasn't Jane who had entered my office, but rather her partner."

"Great," Alex grumbled. "Well, then I should tell you that the story is also out down here - the full text. I rather stupidly told my boss she could look for a file in my office when I went to lunch with Olivia, and when I got back, I found out that Liz had not only found the file on my laptop, but emailed it out to a couple of other people."

"This is so not good," Maura mumbled.

"Tell me about it," Alex agreed. "So now I have my boss laughing at me behind my back, a judge asking me how I would, quote, render a lover speechless, and my best friend calling and telling my girlfriend to fuck me senseless so I finish writing the goddamn scene because she was left blue balled."

"Alex, you do know that women can't actually experience the uncomfortable state of arousal referred to as 'blue balls'… correct?"

Alex smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Yes, Maura, I know that. It was a figure of speech."

"Oh," Maura murmured. "Okay. So, what should we do?"

"How much do you trust this coworker of yours?"

Maura considered this. Barry was a nice guy, and more importantly, he was Jane's partner. He was as straight laced as they came, probably a result of all the years he had spent trying to impress his strict father. Then again, she was not a psychologist. "I'm sure Barry isn't going to cause trouble for me, but a strange anonymous e-mail that I received this afternoon suddenly makes a lot more sense after hearing your side of things. They want me to finish the story."

The medical examiner could practically hear Alex groan. "What e-mail?"

"I didn't tell you? That was the other reason I called, before we started talking about blue balls and your problems with your boss and -"

"Tell me about the e-mail, Maura," the ADA interrupted.

"It's exactly like I said. I got an anonymous e-mail this afternoon telling me that they were desperate for the next chapter of our story."

Maura flinched as a loud thump came through the phone. She suspected that her friend had either slammed her head or fist on the desk or thrown something across the room. "That would be Abbie Carmichael. She is - was - my annoying best friend."

"What do you mean, was?" Maura asked.

"I'd better not tell you what I'm planning to do to her. I don't need a medical examiner testifying against me at the murder trial."

Maura wisely decided not to inquire further. "It sounds as though things are worse for you than for me, although I'm curious how your friend got my personal e-mail address."

"She probably just Googled you. That, or she's found a way to snoop on my computer. Part of me doesn't want to know what she's been up to lately, but she is very persistent. We need to be careful, Maura."

The doctor almost reminded Alex that she had been the one to let their story fall into the unpredictable hands of her boss, a judge, and her slightly insane sounding friend, but chose to keep that thought to herself. Instead, she said something so strange that it surprised her when it slipped out of her mouth. "Alex, do *you* think we're talented enough to get published?"

"I - I'm not sure," Alex stuttered. "What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?"

"Nothing," Maura answered honestly.

Alex groaned. "You really don't like idioms, do you? So, why are you asking me about publication?"

"Your friend seems to think we should share our project."

"Because that's worked out great so far," the lawyer grumbled.

Maura sighed at the reluctant tone of the attorney's voice. "Well, yes, I guess you're right."

Alex groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose as she rocked back in her chair. It was rather obvious to her that her friend was quite interested in the idea of self-publishing. Really, the whole stupid thing had started out as a way to burn off some creative energy; but Alex had to admit that she had become somewhat addicted to seeing an email from Maura in her inbox and then reading what the Medical Examiner had come up with. It was almost a literary form of Scrabble – she'd play a word (or, in this case, several paragraphs) and then Maura would, and then it would be her turn to respond.

And she had to admit that their writing had gotten better, the further they got into the story.

"Besides, I don't even know how we would go about doing it. If we were interested, that is," Alex said softly.

Maura smiled. "Well, I know a few friends of mine have set up blogs, or webpages, if you will, with their essays on new research methods," she said, as she pulled up one such page on her browser. "I'm looking at one now on a site called LiveJournal where you can cross-post entries to different groups so that your target audience can find your work."

"And there's something like that for lesbian fiction?" Alex asked, somewhat disbelievingly.

Maura grinned as she tapped a few keys and found what she was looking for. "Indeed there is. Quite a few, actually. Although this Passion Perfect group does seem to be the most popular."

"Send me the link so I can have a look," Alex said. "If anything, it should keep Carmichael off my back for a little while."

"We would need a pseudonym," Maura said.

"For what?"

"Posting our story," Maura replied. "We would need to create an account so we could post to the site."

"Right," Alex drawled. "And is there a way to guarantee that our true identities won't be discovered?"

"Well, any good computer hacker would be able to track our I.P. addresses when we log on to post, and you have to give an email address-"

"Make one on gmail or something," Alex said, waving her hand in front of herself. "Then it can't be traced to us."

"Good idea," Maura said, smiling. "So, is there a particular nom de plume you'd like us to publish under?"

"I didn't…" Alex's voice trailed off as she sensed the Medical Examiner deflating on the other end of the line. "No. I don't have one in mind. Do you?"

"No," Maura answered quickly. She hadn't thought about that. Looking back, her Rizzles account name seemed a little silly. She liked the idea of combining her name with Jane's, but it didn't sound like an actual person. "Well, your username is A. Cabenson... And my first name is Maura. Unfortunately, it's an uncommon name, and I really don't want any more people to discover the kind of hobbies I enjoy in my spare time. How about Mary Cabenson?"

Alex considered it for a moment. "Not bad. What about a middle name, or maybe an initial? Lots of romance novelists include their middle name to make themselves seem fancier."

Maura had another suggestion. "Jane. Mary Jane Cabenson. Two of the most common first names in the English language. Besides, they go together..."

"Maybe in rural areas of the South," Alex quipped.

"More material for a false author backstory."

The ADA snorted over the phone line. "You think we need a backstory?"

"Don't most authors have one?"

"Yes, but I don't see why we can't just say we're two collaborating authors writing under a pseudonym. No need for an elaborate hoax. It might hurt our careers and reputations if it became common knowledge that we write lesbian pornography in our spare time, but I don't think anyone will bother to track us. Unless it's an election year and I decide to run for District Attorney, there's no reason for anyone to care." She paused, thinking that statement over for a moment, and then added a disclaimer. "Well, no one except my meddling friend Abbie, and she would never tell." Except for Liz Donnelly... and Petrovsky... and maybe Serena... but no one else. Surely Abbie could keep quiet about this once Alex explained how important this was, and perhaps a few threats wouldn't hurt either.

"Frost would never tell either," Maura hastened to assure her co-author. "He hasn't actually seen anything anyway."

Alex began to feel better about her own slip. Knowing that Maura had accidentally dropped the ball as well eased some of her guilt over leaving the story in a place where someone could accidentally find it. "Good. Mary Jane Cabenson it is. But there's something else we need to discuss... why do you keep changing our main character back to a doctor and rewriting my scenes? It's annoying..."

It was early one Saturday morning when Abbie Carmichael's phone buzzed with an email notification. The federal prosecutor groaned as she opened up her email app, offering a silent prayer that whatever it was wouldn't require her to go into the office.

"What the fuck?" she mumbled, as she saw the message was from somebody named 'M. J. Cabenson'. She sure as hell didn't know anybody by that name. There was something about the surname 'Cabenson' that had her hesitating to send the message to her spam folder, though, so she ran through the list of people who had her email address. There were the usual suspects at Treasury and her office, and then there was the guys at the Serena, Cabot, Benson…

"Cabenson," she chuckled, as realization dawned. "Damn, Alex. Why are you making up new email accounts?" she muttered, opening the email.

*It's finally finished. So you can stop bugging my girlfriend to fuck me. ~A*

"Yeah, like you don't like that extra action you've been getting," Abbie muttered to herself, as she clicked on the link and waited for the page to load.

She grinned as she leaned back onto her pillows, her phone held up in front of her face as she settled in to read Alex's story in its entirety. It was polished up quite a bit from the email she'd read a few weeks ago, somebody had obviously gone through and put a solid edit on the piece, but the overall hotness of it was still there.

"Damn, girl," she drawled once she finished the story. Deciding that she needed to share the spectacularness that was Alex's porn with her friends, she went back into her email app and forwarded the ADA's email – personal note and all – to Serena and Liz Donnelly, with an added 'DAMN!' whacked onto the front of the message.

Sorry for the abrupt end, but Mel and I want to move on to other projects. Hope some of you enjoyed the smut, though! We'll have more fun collabs in the future, too. ;D