This is it, folks. Hope you enjoyed it. My silent partner and I had a blast. Thanks for reading it.

Please feed me my crack. My ego is inspired by reviews, and my silent partner is flattered by them.

With a catch in her throat, Maura lifted her eyes from Jane's lips. She finally looked back into Jane's coffee-brown eyes, noting the minutely dilated pupils she'd seen so often there, just like her own whenever she faced a bathroom mirror after one of their epic staring sessions. Absently her mind also catalogued a facial tension that spoke not of stress, but of finely tuned attention. There were no distractions, no ringing phones, no coworkers barging in to demand autopsy results, no conversations of cases, bodies, yoga, sports, food, Jane's family, or Maura's self-sabotaged attempts at dating. There was only the two of them. For her, there was nothing but Jane's eyes, Jane's face, Jane's hands, Jane's heated proximity to her. Jane was pressing her the same way she did when interrogating a witness who was cresting over indecision and about to give the detective everything she was asking for. The way Maura was, in fact, teetering right then, about to give in to that same urge to give Jane whatever she wanted. For once, Maura had been faced with someone who could face all of her, and not mock or run or need her to dim herself down at all. Jane could it all.

As they so often did, Maura's eyes took on that extra starry sheen of wetness, but this time the tears didn't spill out of social awkwardness or hurts inflicted. This time there was just too much happening inside, and some of it had to come out. Her cheek tilted into Jane's strong, soft, scarred hand. When had she come to feel that that was the only way a hand should ever feel on her face? And when had she decided that no matter who had rejected her before, how much it had hurt, she was still willing to give it one more try with the one person who could hurt her most if it happened again? Jane could take it. Jane could withstand it. Maura exhaled, upper body tension flooding away with a shudder as she pulled herself up towards Jane.

Damn the consequences.

Jane ran her thumb over the doctor's cheek as she watched Maura's emotions run across her face. She waited, wanting to know where all of this was going. Her lips parted slightly as she felt Maura lean toward her. She breathed out slowly. "Maura..." It was a question. It was a pleading request. It was raw emotion wrapped in the name of the woman before her.

That voice, that husky voice, saying her name. Maura's hazel eyes half-lidded, spine stretched, back arched ever so slightly to push her torso closer to the lankier woman, she let out a shaky breath. She needed to get closer to Jane, to feel Jane. With her hands already on Jane's face, she ran one silk-stockinged foot up the back of Jane's calf, the fabric friction whispering softly in the silence. She stiffened, breath halting. "I..." she squeaked, and then no more words came.

Their lips met. Soft, feminine lips, offering rather than taking, pleasing rather than conquering. If this was what it felt like to kiss a woman, Maura thought, no wonder so many men walked around swaggering like kings.

Jane wrapped her arms around Maura's waist, pulling them as tightly together as she could. She moaned at the feel of Maura's leg wrapped around hers, of Maura's hands on her face, of Maura's mouth on hers. Gently, carefully, they pulled back. "God," Jane whispered into the electric quiet. "How long have we been wanting to do that?" She leaned down to nuzzle her face against the soft skin of the other woman's neck. "And why did we wait so long?"

"Sh," whispered the blonde between one kiss and the next. For once, the verbose doctor did not retreat behind words, preferring to communicate in the way that she and Jane had never gotten wrong between them. Speech had sometimes failed them. It had sometimes brought them to misunderstandings, but their nonverbal communications had always been flawless. Just this once, the blonde gave Jane something she couldn't possibly mistake for anything else.

How long?

Just long enough.

Their kisses became more insistent, more frantic. Maura's breathing grew ragged and erratic, delighted little gasps coming faster, and her body pressing closer, tighter to Jane's. She suddenly broke off, the rest of her frozen in place, while her head pulled back to show an expression of equal parts desire and panic. She stuttered, no longer the impossibly facile speaker. "J... I...N-no-no-no, J-Jane," she rasped, voice breaking like a teenaged boy's, "stop. Don't move." The last word cut down the middle with a squeak in the back of her throat. But even while calling a halt, Maura's hands didn't leave Jane, still clutched at Jane's shoulder blades, holding her close rather than pushing away in the least.

The brunette sighed heavily as she tried to regain some self-control. "Maura, I have no idea what we're doing here." Ordinarily, with something like this, the sudden stop would have angered the detective, caused her to pull away. But, this was different. This was completely new territory, and her instincts told her not to behave as she would normally. "But, I don't think I want to stop." She laced her fingers together so her arms formed a circle around Maura, keeping the smaller woman pinned against her. "Do you?" She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss below the smaller woman's ear before quietly whispering, "I don't think you do."

Eventually the blonde's breathing slowed and her body relaxed. "I don't," she agreed with a long sigh of relief, "but I do need to slow down." Maura bowed her head, resting her forehead against Jane's collarbone to give them both a respite from all that suddenness. With another slow exhalation, she composed herself, lifted her face, calmed once more, towards her future lover's. "You're not some random male I met over a dead body. As much as I want to rush towards satiety," a blush ran across the doctor's features, "you're so very worth taking my time."

Jane simply nodded. "I don't want to rush this either." She closed her eyes as she tried to focus on what, exactly, she was trying to say. "I want to do this right." With great effort, Jane gently pulled them apart so that there was space between them. "So, let's start like we're supposed to. What do you say? Go out with me?"

With the distance, Maura finally seemed like Maura again, composed and collected, albeit much warmer than she would appreciate anyone else seeing her look. Even so, she wouldn't let all the touch go away, and reached for one of Jane's hands to gently stroke it. She bobbed her head once in quick acceptance, and her gave Jane her brightest smile. "I'd love that, Jane, so much. Anywhere. Any time… But Jane? There is something I've been meaning to say, if I was ever lucky enough to get this chance."

"Maura, you know you can tell me anything, ask me anything." Jane laced her fingers with the doctor's. "What is it?"

Maura smiled, stood up from the desk, and raised on tiptoe to whisper against the smooth flesh of Jane's ear and neck, "You are so not going to be the guy." Then she chuckled, throaty and low, at Jane's surprised gasp.

"I like a challenge." Jane smiled as she stole a kiss before turning to leave. "Pick you up at seven tonight." The detective swaggered out of the morgue with a chuckle of her own playing on her lips.