Maura gave her love a desperate shake.

"Jane, I swear to you, I will jump in if you give up!"

Jane groaned and her arm tensed up again.

Maura heard a gentle clatter of hooves around her, and she felt a warm, pungent breath blow over her when the horse's muzzle came down over her head, as though to graze on her hair.

A thick leather lead came down in front of her, along Jane's right side.

"Lady Maura, would you please help Miss Rizzoli loop the rein under her arm?" George's voice sounded weary but determined.

Quickly, through sobs of relief and gratitude, Maura looped the long reins under Jane's dangling right arm. George tugged on it to make sure it was secure. With his fist around the harness, the silver-haired coachman smacked his lips and guided the horse backwards. The horse lifted his head up effortlessly and hoisted Jane back up onto the scaffold. The American held on until George stopped moving, and waited for Maura to help her stand. Except her legs refused to carry her, and both women collapsed onto the ground. George joined them on the wooden planking.

After a last tired look at Maura, Jane finally passed out.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, too shocked and drained to even attempt to talk.

George was shivering, he was wearing only a thin white shirt with his breeches. The shirt was covered in dark stains. His cheekbone was grazed and raw, and blood had dried along the side of his neck, from a wound at the back of his ear. He felt Maura's gaze on him and looked up from his hands at her.

"He knocked me out and stuffed me into the boot. Took my clothes I suppose."

Maura nodded slowly and reached out to touch his arm. Her throat closed and her voice came out weak and strangled.

"Thank you..."

The tears came and she wept violently, rocking Jane in her arms. George gently stroked her back, and after a few minutes, he got up to get help.

As soon as she regained some of her composure, Maura ripped the bottom of her dress and started wrapping Jane's hands.

Maura knocked gently at the door and walked into the darkened bedroom. She put her tray down on the small side table. Light flooded the room as the drew the curtains back from the windows. The noblewoman was still sporting a large bruise under her eye and across her cheekbone, but the worse had passed, and the swelling was gone, leaving a muddy yellow stain on her flawless skin. Maura sat on the bed and put her hand on Jane's shoulder. The brunette's face was buried under a mass of wild hair and she groaned sleepily.

"Good morning Jane."

"Mornin'..."

The tall American rolled over and Maura swept the unruly locks away from her face. Jane squinted and brought her bandaged hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight. She winced at the pain it had roused, but she still smiled at Maura.

"Would you care for some tea and eggs? Afterwards we can change your bandages."

"Yes Ma'am."

Jane sat up gingerly, careful not to bump her hands, and swung her legs to the side. She sat down at the table and waited for Maura to pour the tea for them.

The noblewoman took a fork and helped Jane wedge it between her left thumb and forefinger, and Jane squeezed just enough so it would not drop. She had started feeding herself just the previous week and had been thrilled to regain even that small measure of independence. Jane knew it would take many months for her wounds to heal. Knew too that she would bear the scars for the rest of her life. But thanks to Maura, the cuts had been disinfected and sutured properly, and there had been no major infection so far.

Maura changed the dressing on both hands and helped Jane get her clothes on.

"Detective Frost is coming for lunch, love. He was asking about you. I told him he could get his news in person." Maura smiled as she was buttoning Jane's blouse.

"How is he?"

"He's been reinstated, starting two weeks ago. He's keeping a low profile, and even though I assured him Jack is gone, he will not tell anyone at the Metropolitan Police."

"So they'll just wait until they realize the Whitechapel murders have stopped?" Jane scoffed.

"Well, there will never be a shortage of murders in London, I'm afraid." Maura saw Jane rolling her eyes at her and smirked. "But, hopefully not of the gruesome kind, not like Jack's."

"We keep calling him Jack..." Jane observed, almost to herself.

"I know, but we don't have any other name. We might never find out."

Detective Frost reached out to shake Jane's hand before he could think. He smiled sheepishly and patted her on the shoulder instead.

"Hello Miss Rizzoli. I'm very, very pleased to see you." And he was.

"Likewise, Detective Frost."

"Call me Barry, please."

"Only if you call me Jane," the brunette challenged him.

Frost laughed and nodded. "I'll try, Miss Rizzoli, I'll try. Englishmen have very stubborn traditions."

They sat down for lunch. It was the first time they had had a guest since that night, and Jean-Pierre, Maura's chef de cuisine, had outdone himself.

"Lady Maura told me how Jack fell in the Thames, but even if he had been alive when he hit the water, my Lady is positive that he would have not lived long. Our dirty old Thames is a strong, tidal river. He would have been drowned and carried out to sea in a day, maybe even less. We haven't had any reports of any dead bodies washing out on the banks, in London or any of the sea side towns."

"Any missing persons reports?"

"Not of anyone by the description you gave me. Of course I cannot keep track of all the boroughs, especially when I'm trying to be discreet."

"Of course. And it's not like he had any distinguishing features. I'm sorry I could not be more helpful." Maura sighed.

"That's quite alright, milady. It just means he's not being missed by anyone, the bastard."

Jane suddenly turned to Maura. "How did you explain your carriage crashing on the bridge?"

Both Frost and Maura answered at the same time: "Spooked horses." They smiled in understanding.

"Where's your dear mother?" Frost asked in turn, pointing at the empty seat at the table.

Jane smirked and rolled her eyes. "My dear mother is back in Boston to oversee Maura's new mansion being furnished and staffed."

"Oh? I would have imagined she would have wanted to stay with you and see to your recovery"

Jane turned to Maura and the noblewoman felt like she could tell the detective the truth.

"Her mother's affection was quite overbearing for Miss Rizzoli. We might have exaggerated the need for a strong, organized woman to oversee my move to Boston, so Jane could have some peace and quiet until we travel."

"So you'll leave London?"

"For now. We'll be back for summer, even tough I hear winter in Boston can be just as frigid as it is here, sometimes worse. But I won't mind the change in scenery, as I'm sure you understand."

"I do, Milady. I cannot blame you. And by then, the whole Ripper uproar will have died down, if he is indeed dead. I think it's a splendid idea, even though you'll be sorely missed."

"Thank you Detective Frost, likewise."

"Not to mention that we'll have to rely solely on Doctor Pike for our post mortem reports..." The detective rolled his pretty eyes at the thought.

That night, Maura lay next to Jane, in the bed they had shared since the American had knocked on the English noblewoman's door. Maura had been cautious about Jane's hands, and she had been giving Jane a wide berth, in case she would bump her while sleeping.

Jane extended her arm up.

"Come here, I miss you."

"Are you sure love? The pressure on your arm might travel up to your hand. I'd rather not."

"Come here, woman!" Jane commanded with a mock stern voice.

Maura lifted herself up, avoiding any contact with Jane's bandaged hand, and lay back down ever so gently on Jane's shoulder. She snuggled up tightly against her body, and sighed deeply.

"I've missed you too."

"Maura?"

Maura lifted her chin up, puzzled by Jane's serious tone. Jane shifted and turned her body to face Maura. She cleared her throat.

"What is it love?" Maura encouraged her, though with a twinge of hesitation.

"Before we leave...," Jane let her words hang, partly because saying them out loud made their departure suddenly so real, partly because she was shy about her request.

Maura tilted her head in that particular way that the brunette found so endearing.

"Before we leave, may we go on a picnic again? By Annie's tree? There's something I've been wanting to do..."

Maura smiled and hooked a stray lock of hair behind Jane's ear.

"Yes. Of course."

With the heel of her bandaged hand, Jane guided Maura's retreating hand to her lips. She kissed it and let her lips linger over Maura's skin.

Maura leaned forward and ran her fingers along Jane's parted lips. She pressed her own mouth to them and pulled her fingers free. They kissed with all the love they felt for each other, a love they knew would only grow.

The end.

It's not really the end, but it's the end of this story, which I started two years ago around this time of year, I believe. Two years!

And it's my birthday today, so what better present than the last chapter of 1888? Happy Birthday to me!

I thought AU would be fun and challenging, and boy it was! I don't remember how I decided it would be a Jack the Ripper story. And I had no idea what I was getting into.

I knew nothing about him, or the time period. I researched it on the Internet, and then, -I think it was around chapter 7 or 8, Witless wrote me and offered me her help, thank goodness!

From the five or seven chapters I had anticipated, it swelled into this epic story. Every time I wrote a chapter, I had to chase after the consequences of what I had setup. This, more than any other story I wrote, made me realize how particular fan fiction is to write, because we (or I, at least) publish chapters as we go, and you can't go back and correct something that doesn't work with the evolving plot. You have to continue working with what you have, and you never land where you had planned, because words have a tendency to decide where they want to go. I had always done that, start a story without any clue of how it would evolve or end, but with affairs of only love and lust, it had always just fallen into place.

The investigation part was very challenging, because I never intended to betray history and reveal the Ripper's identity. The secret would have to die with him. I'm sorry if you had expected something more. But the Ripper wasn't really the point, was it? It was just the premise.

Thank you to my wife, who patiently suffered through my verbal explorations, who always gives me honest feedback, and who indulges me in all my creative endeavors.

Thank you to Witless who guided me through all the Ripper lore and Victorian history; who read and anglicized all my chapters; who wouldn't let me get away with lazy solutions; who is even more pedantic about the English language than I am.

And finally, thank YOU, ladies, for staying with me for two long years. I took very long breaks between the later chapters, because I had quit my 20-year job in video games and was busy figuring out what I would do. Just like writing a story, life takes you places you'd have never imagined. And it only keeps getting better...

Angelique