Jane thought it would be at the funeral.

She had, in fact, prepared for it to show up.

Spent all those heart numbed hours going over and over and over carefully what she was going to say in his eulogy, so that she would be ready for it when it did.

Only it hadn't.

And Jane wondered later if that had been why.

Because she had worked too hard trying to make the words safe to speak that she'd actually been able to keep her heart protected from it.

But she couldn't be absolutely sure.

Because it could have been Maura who kept it away.

Maura in her precise elegant calm with her soft perfume who saw Jane start to shake as she held one of his mother's dark hands and gently, quietly, slipped a perfectly manicured hand into the other trembling empty scarred one and squeezed just once to remind her that she was there.

Or it could have been Korsak who did it.

When he suddenly smiled right through the pain, almost gave a watery chuckle even, at her reference to Frost's ironically amusing for his career choice sensitive stomach, and met her almost faltering gaze with a moment of past shared mischievous laughter and steadied her.

It might even have been Frankie who managed it.

The moment he took his place beside the others along the coffin and he looked at her for a moment with his jaw set in young stubborn Rizzoli pride, refusing to let the tears in his eyes fall and she'd felt her shoulders straighten.

Truthfully, she still didn't know what had actually managed to keep it away.

Jane only knew that something had.

Because the grief hadn't come at the funeral like she thought it would.

The terrible missing ache came.

The sense of bitter unfairness in the universe came.

Even the weary heavy silence of the heart that comes after a too dreaded task is at last over came.

But the grief itself hadn't.

It came later.

After everyone left the memorial service.

After the black hearse joined the solemn police procession line.

After the catered food was forced down at the mourning buffet.

It came much later.

When Jane finally got back home and was at last alone and started mechanically going through the mail just to have something to do with herself.

And at last found the San Diego postcard Frost had jokingly mailed to her.

Because she'd teased him so unmercifully and unrelentingly for having been such a skinflint that he wouldn't even send a crappy cheap postcard to his own partner the last time he left on vacation, that he'd finally groaned dramatically, laid his head down on his desk, and swore he'd mail her anything if she would just stop. She had shook her finger at him in pretended dire threatening and told him laughingly he better not come back unless he did.

He had actually remembered her stupid teasing.

'Couldn't be better here, but I miss you anyway. Barry'

And that was when the grief finally came.