Authors note: Raise your hand if you thought this story had been added to my graveyard of unfinished stories? Me too! But alas, here we are with a new chapter and a renewed hope to finish this story. I hope there's still someone hanging on for the ride.

There wasn't a reply to the text message that had been sent in desperation, or even a notification that it had been read. Jane had made the first unanswered phone call a week after she'd been discharged from hospital to find her apartment decidedly devoid of Maura Isles. The second had been two weeks after that, and unanswered again, the detective didn't bother with the formality of leaving a message on her answering machine. She'd spent more time than she'd like to admit wondering whether the other woman had listened to the first message she'd left or if cowardly, she'd ignored and allowed the little red light to continue flashing. If anything, the situation reaffirmed for Jane Rizzoli that relationships were more often than not, the root of unnecessary pain.

Her mother continued pushing potential male suitors in her direction, completely unaware of the pain taking up residency in her daughter's heart. Jane had attended two blind dates in dresses she felt uncomfortable in and both times, had managed to scare the men off before dessert was offered by attentive wait staff. Her mother, meaning well - or at least that was what Jane told herself to swallow the urge to move across the country - berated her for not being more open and feminine.

'You're so beautiful, Janie. Men would be throwing themselves at you if you were more of a lady.'

Jane had to also swallow the urge to reply with a short 'it's not a man I want, ma'.

She thought that might break her mother.

A month and a half had passed before she found courage at the bottom of a bottle - or three - to make what she promised herself, would be her third and final call. The majority of her confidence sprouted from her surety that the attempt at contact would go without answer and the exercise was merely a means for closure. Naturally she was choked with silence when the ringing tone cut out, only to be replaced with the gentle sound of Maura Isles.

"Jane?" It was timid, as if she had been the one to make the call. She'd had to repeat it when the detective made no effort to respond.

"You answered." Jane stated after the second mention of her name, her voice rougher than she'd expected it to be.

"I wanted to… the first time you called." She sounded fragile and it pulled at something within Jane. A desire to protect, even though she'd been hurt beyond measure.

"If you wanted to, why didn't you?" The brunette managed to maintain her distant tone, barely. She'd not thought of what she was going to say because she'd been so sure her call would go unanswered.

"Jane…" It was a tentative sigh and it shot a flash of fury through Jane. How dare she speak to her like a child.

"No. I wanna hear it, Maura."

"Anything I say is going to sound like a justification," her words shook with a shallow inhalation, as if she was trying to seal the cracks in her composure. "I know what I did to you can't be justified."

"Just say it, Maura." The anger faded slightly with Maura's timid suggestion of fault. .

Damn straight it can't be justified, her mind chimed in.

"I was… scared. I know how that sounds, I do. I've never had what I had with you in Boston, I didn't know how to behave, how to speak. It felt like a dream and I was terrified, honestly, that I was going to make a mistake. And then you got hurt, and my natural instinct was to come running and I did. But..." She trailed off and Jane could hear her breathing steadily, as if she'd paused to center herself.

"But what?" Jane didn't want to care enough to give her time to regain her composure.

"But you didn't tell your family about me. Which is-it's fine and I completely understand why you didn't… but I didn't belong there anymore with you, when they were there. And they should have been there - please don't misinterpret that - they are your family and I am just, well a woman you met on the internet by mistake. Your two proverbial worlds clashed, your life and me. I was terrified of slipping up, of tearing down the veil between your two lives and outing you, for lack of a better term, to your family. Especially when I knew how hesitant and scared you were of that."

"So what, you just left? With nothing but that stupid letter?"

"Yes… I just left."

"Didn't it hurt, to develop feelings for someone and then cut that tie like it was nothing?" Jane knew she sounded incredulous. She felt a flash of guilt, because she hadn't paused to think how it must have felt for Maura to be a secret, and then to be forced into that situation with her family. Where she had to be present but still a secret.

"Of course it hurt," it was Maura's turn to sound incredulous. "I've never forged a friendship like that before, and then to add romantic feelings on top of that-yes it hurt to leave. I thought I may have been a little dispensable to you though… I didn't expect you to call, I thought you'd be alright."

"Dispensable, wh- Maura you're a human being! You are not dispensable and of course it hurt me too. You may be someone I met online by accident, but I fell in love with you and you just left."

"You fell in love with me?" She sounded doubtful, like it had been something said to make her feel infinitely more guilty for the decision she made.

"Of course I did." It hurt Jane to hear the disbelief in Maura's voice, as if being loved by another individual was such a fantasy concept.

"Oh," there was a shaky breath before Jane thought she heard a whimper. "I am so, so sorry Jane." It was said on the whisper of a sob.

"I can't say it's okay-"

"I understand." Maura interrupted, before the detective could finish her train of thought.

"I can't say it's okay, but I do understand and I'm sorry too." She'd spent the past month and a half being too angry to consider being apologetic, too angry to consider having contributed to the thing that broke her heart.

"You're sorry?" Jane could hear the confusion in Maura's voice and she nodded before realizing a phone call would require speech. Clearly Maura had spent the past month and half feeling irreparably guilty, that she hadn't considered the detective having also been at fault. It made Jane soften.

"Yeah I'm sorry, Maur. I shouldn't have made you a secret and then expected you to stay in a situation where that secrecy was threatened. It doesn't mean you should have left and just stopped speaking to me, but I get it and I am sorry too."

"It's been strange – awful, not talking to you this past month."

"I know."

There was a moment of silence where the words of their conversation settled over them both like a blanket of possibility. Jane let Maura's apology ruminate in the back of her mind, trying to decide whether the gamble of a renewed attempt at a relationship - or whatever it was that they'd had - was worth it. She broke the silence first.

"So, what now?" The brunette's heart raced with possibility. In a way, Maura up and leaving without a word or a second glance had been a relief, as heartbreaking as it had been. The idea of coming out to her family - and God, she hated that term - was enough to make her lungs rattle in her chest.

"I would- I'd like to see you, Jane. Maybe you could come here… where you don't know anyone and we can talk freely." Maura was hesitant with her words, quiet and thoughtful as if she were anticipating rejection.

San Francisco was a near six hour flight. It was also a city she didn't have to fear running into family members and fret over different ways she could be forced to detail her sexuality. "Ah, yeah okay. I have enough leave for a few days… the earliest I could get away is in a few weeks though."

She had enough leave for six months and then some, but she couldn't offer too much of herself back so quickly.

"If you organize dates that suit you, I can make arrangements with work accordingly." Jane could hear the other woman's anxiety in the unevenness of her voice. It did very little to settle her own.

"Yeah, alright… look I've got to go. I'm really busy but uh, if you want to call me tomorrow you can."

"Okay Jane, I'll speak with you tomorrow."

They disconnected and Jane dropped the phone as if she'd been burned. Her stomach tingled with the unease of an entirely unexpected situation. Of all the scenarios that had played in her mind as she dialed the doctors number, not one of them had involved Maura Isles answering her phone and apologizing profusely. Much less arranging for Jane to fly across the country for a reconciliation.

Coming to terms with the idea that she was attracted to women had been difficult enough, but to have her heart broken and then have hope reignite itself in her stomach was something Jane felt unequipped to deal with.

Relationships, she thought, were still the root of unnecessary emotion.

Just perhaps not always the bad kind.

True to her word, Maura had called the following evening. Their conversation at first was tentative, how it had been when they'd first met but laced with the knowledge of each other. It had taken them a week to work back up to a video call, and when the dialing finally connected and Jane was met with the pixelated image of the blonde doctor seated at her breakfast bar, Jane had thanked her lucky stars that she'd made that final phone call, and that Maura had answered.

They were both considerably more cautious with each other. There were no further declarations of love from either parties after the confession in their initial phone call and they danced around labeling their relationship status. Jane wasn't sure whether she was visiting her friend or her girlfriend during her approaching trip to San Francisco, as Maura had made not a single mention of where they stood. The detective wasn't sure if it was a conscious decision on the blonde's behalf, but she found it just as unsettling as she did comforting. A label meant she was one step closer to the expectation of coming out to her friends and family, but it also meant she knew where she stood with Maura.

It was an internal battle to figure out which she felt a more pressing matter.

She didn't even intend to pull said battle into conversation, but the words flew from her mouth the night before her impending flight.

"What are we?" She questioned over a video call in a moment of silence. Jane was seated in her living room, legs crossed on the sofa with the television on mute in the background. Maura was in her own kitchen, back to the camera while she rinsed a bowl of rocket.

The blonde appeared to pause, but she spoke without turning around. "In what sense do you mean? In the biological sense we are homo sapiens -"

"No Maura, I mean are we… girlfriends? God that sounds stupid."

Maura turned at that, setting the bowl of would-be salad beside the sink while she dried her hands on a towel. A frown was pulled at manicured brows and Jane could almost see her brain working overtime.

"I don't know, Jane. Do you want to be in a romantic relationship with me?" Her voice didn't waver in the way Jane's did, her tone was curious but matter of fact. Like dating a person the same gender as her own wasn't something to link shame with.

Jane knew it wasn't, but she couldn't help it.

"Well I'm flying to San Francisco…"

"You could fly to San Francisco to visit a friend, Jane." The doctor was patient, but also appeared to feel as if the conversation had reached its potential because she continued on with her dinner preparation.

"I don't think I want to fly across the country to visit a friend." The words surprised Jane as they left her own mouth, but they didn't come out as the startling revelation they were. They came out sure.

"Would you prefer to be visiting a romantic partner?" Maura took pause in slicing of a radish on the chopping board before her, to look up and meet Jane's gaze through the camera of her laptop.

"Yes, I want to fly to San Francisco to visit my girlfriend." Conviction, even though Jane's insides were swimming with fright.

"Well, in that case. I'm looking forward to picking my girlfriend up tomorrow afternoon from the airport and taking her to dinner."

"Nowhere with names of foods I can't pronounce." The brunette tried to hide a smirk as she spoke, suddenly giddy with the possibilities the future held.

"I'm not taking you to get burgers and fries, Jane."

Jane didn't miss the subtle smile on Maura's lips.