Note: This is the last chapter. This story started out with a particular idea (Jane in prison for a crime she didn't commit). It was supposed to be centered around that for a lot longer than it was but somehow it never turned out that way. This whole story didn't exactly turn out the way I had originally planned and now that I'm here at the end I am not fully sure I like what it has become but it seems the right point to end it. Thank you all for your amazing comments and reviews. They make my day every time I open my inbox.

Chapter 10

I've come undone
But you make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your hand,

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything I thought I lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole!

~Red - Pieces

Jane stuck the key into the lock of and her heart skipped a beat in excitrent when the door opened. It slowly swung open and revealed the large entrance way with a stunning wooden floor. A narrow window let in the winter sunshine and she huddled a little deeper into her coat when she felt a cold gust of wind pull at her hair. It wasn't the cold that robbed her of her breath through; it was the house that she just walked into.

She turned her head and saw Maura behind her. Her hazel eyes had lit up as she followed Jane into the house and she quietly closed the door behind them, banning out the cold. Her high heels echoed on the wooden floor and her hand reached for Jane's. She squeezed it but didn't speak.

"Can you believe it?" Jane whispered as she and Maura walked from the hallway into the large living room. It had high ceilings and a large window that overlooked the front yard. A big white fireplace took up a large part of the wall and the wooden floor from the hall extended into this room too. At the other end of the room was the big staircase that led to the first floor and an archway led to the large kitchen diner that overlooked the backyard.

Maura smiled. "It still feels like a dream."

Jane looked somewhat sheepish. "Sometimes I think it is a dream."

Maura leant in and softly kissed Jane on her cheek. "It's not, Jane. This is our home."

Jane let her fingers dance across the mantel piece as her eyes wandered around the room. It didn't matter how many times she walked into this room. It never ceased to amaze her. When she turned around she found Maura looking at her. Her lips curled up into a smile.

"What a difference a year makes, right?"

She was right. A lot had changed in the last twelve months but at the same time it felt like so many things had stayed the same.

Maura and Ethan's divorce was finalised within twelve weeks. It seemed that Ethan wasn't willing to put up a fight and when he discovered that Maura had gone to Jane the night he kicked her out of the house, he realised there was nothing left to fight for. The proceedings were broadly measured out in the press and they weren't all kind to Maura but that was eight months ago now and people seemed to have forgotten it had ever happened. Ethan returned to London and Maura had only heard of him twice. Both times it was because he had shipped over some of her belongings that he had found at his parents' house in London.

A few weeks after the divorce papers had been signed Maura put her house in Beacon Hill up for sale. Too many memories, both good and bad, lived between those walls and she couldn't bear the thought of living there with Jane after having lived there with Ethan too. Jane put her condo up for sale at the same time after Maura suggested they buy a new place together. Neither of them had questioned it was too soon. Once both their properties had sold they spent a few weeks looking for a new home and had eventually found it in a suburb on the outskirts of Boston.

The painters and decorators had just finished two days earlier. The rooms were now painted in the colours they had chosen and they were ready to move in. The removal van with their furniture could be here any minute and Jane expected the imminent arrival of her brothers and her mother too.

It didn't feel like a year had past. Some days it felt like it had been a decade. The dark days where she had spent her life in misery, trapped inside her own mind and willing to go to prison for a crime she didn't commit, were far behind her now. Some days she would look into the mirror though and see the woman who had looked so broken and forlorn inside her prison cell. She still lived in there, somewhere deep inside, and Jane had learnt to accept it as part of herself.

Maura looked at Jane standing in the middle of their living room. Since buying this house Jane hadn't stopped smiling. Her happiness made Maura happy. Watching Jane walk through the empty house, dreaming out loud about the life they could live here, reminded her that what she had done was right. It had been a long road, longer that it needed to have been, but it had changed them as people and perhaps turned them into better, wise persons. Now they were two people ready to face the world together.

Jane's phone vibrated and Maura groaned. "If that's a murder….."

"Then what? You're going to kill someone?" Jane chuckled. "You're the Chief Medical Examiner. You could get away with it." She checked her phone and grinned. "It's just Korsak and Frost. Apparently it's quiet. They're offering to help."

Maura released her breath. "We could do with two more sets of hands."

"Only because you insisted on buying a super king sized bed!" Jane reminded her. "I told you we'd struggle to get it up the stairs."

Maura ignored her and instead turned towards the hallway. She'd heard the knock on the front door and left the living room to answer it. From where she stood Jane could hear her brothers and Angela Rizzoli walking into the house and when her mother saw her standing in the living room, Angela's eyes lit up.

"Don't you dare cry," Jane reminded her. "It's a house, Ma. Not my High School Graduation."

Angela didn't answer but hugged her reluctant daughter anyway. Jane tried to squirm out of her mother's embrace but thirty odd years of practice meant that Angela Rizzoli knew very well how to hold onto. When she finally let go Jane just smiled and kissed her mother on her cheek.

"Hey, look what I brought!" Frankie said as he pulled out a bottle of champagne from the shopping bag he'd put on the floor. He also whipped out a few plastic cups.

He carefully opened the bottle, careful not to have the cork fly across the room and break a window, and poured the bubbly liquid into the cups. He then handed them out to Angela, Jane and Maura before quickly glancing at Tommy. His younger brother didn't really drink anymore after his past experiences and looked somewhat sheepish but Frankie gave him a cup anyway.

"Just the one," he warned him. "We'll drink the rest."

Maura smiled and looked around the group of people. "You can't drink champagne and not make a toast," she said, her eyes finding Jane's and silently encouraging her. "Jane?"

Jane felt her cheeks turn red and stared down at the floor.

"Well," she began. "A year ago none of us would have thought we'd be here today but here we are. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of you." She turned to look at Maura. "Maura, I know we've been on this long road for quite some time now and it's been one hell of a journey but I wouldn't have wanted to travel it with anybody else but you. You found me when everything was at its darkest and somehow you brought me back. You changed my life and you saved my life." Suddenly there was a lump in her throat and she raised her glass. "To Maura."

"To Maura," the other Rizzoli's chorused and Maura's felt herself blush.

She leant in and kissed Jane jus on the corner of her mouth before raising her own glass. Her eyes drifted from Tommy to Frankie to Angela and eventually back to Jane. A smile spread across her face as she raised her own cup.

"To family."

End.