"I'm thinking of trying bangs."

"Really?"

"Yes. Maybe just sideswept, you know?" Maura asked, running her fingers through her hair as she studied herself critically in the mirror.

She and Jane were in Maura's bedroom, where the blonde was still deciding what she wanted to wear to dinner that night. Jane lay sprawled out on her stomach on the bed as Maura sorted through a rather outrageous number of earrings. Finally, Jane decided to address what she felt was the elephant in the room: "So are things okay with Riley?" It only came up because it was Friday, optimal date night, yet Jane was the one Maura had asked out to dinner. Maybe Riley's working.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"I dunno, I just kinda wondered why you were with me instead of her."

The answer was very matter-of-fact: "Because I wanted to spend time with you."

Jane's chest warmed and she was glad that Maura was still looking in the mirror, and thus couldn't see the embarrassingly wide grin this answer had elicited. At least, that's what she had assumed since she couldn't see her reflection in the mirror. But from her angle, Maura could, and she tried to suppress a smile at the unguarded sincerity of the reaction.

"Remember what you told me about your high school friend, Emily?" Maura went on, and Jane's smile faded. "You said how much it hurt when she totally ditched you for boys. I think that can easily become a common problem for people regardless of age, and I don't want to do that to you. Just because I'm dating someone doesn't mean I can't spend time with my friends."

Jane rolled onto her back. "So, dating."

"Dating, yes," Maura said, not sure why Jane had gotten hung up on the phraseology. She glanced over her shoulder at Jane. "You look confused."

"I'm not confused, I just—I dunno, 'dating' makes it sound more serious than it is—than you said it is."

Maura laughed, missing the slightly resentful look Jane shot in her direction as she searched for the right shade of lipstick. "Dating doesn't connote seriousness, Jane!"

"So what, I mean, how exactly are you envisioning things to pan out?"

"Riley and I are on the same page," Maura assured her. "We're keeping things casual." She thought Jane looked oddly upset, avoiding her eye and fiddling with the bedspread. It would be too easy to misinterpret this reaction. Don't get ahead of yourself. "Dare I ask what's the matter? Or do you just disapprove of co-worker relationships on principle?"

"Hm? Nah, it's just…I mean, I've been there before."

"You dated a co-worker? Someone at BPD?"

Jane sat up, and Maura stayed standing by the mirror, though she was ready to go at this point. "Yeah, he's not there anymore. He was one of my first partners. This was before I was married, by the way," she said, flicking her eyes up to Maura's carefully emotionless face. "It was nothing serious. Just, um…" She laughed mirthlessly. "Co-workers with benefits. We went out a couple times, but it was mostly just about—about sex, y'know."

"Why did you…I mean, what drew you to him?"

Jane shrugged. "He made me feel."

Maura waited for a completion of the sentiment, but that was it. Jane was sitting on the edge of the bed, leaned over and kneading her hands. How was she to interpret the sanctity of feeling on its own? She sat down next to Jane, and when she put a consoling hand on her back, Jane tried to straighten up.

"It's not really good dinner talk," she chuckled.

"Well, we're not at dinner yet," Maura murmured. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Jane let out a shuddering breath, leaning forward again and closing her eyes. "Nah, I mean, this was like… six, seven years ago. I was sort of with Casey at the time, but we hadn't really—we hadn't decided if we were serious yet or not. He was going back and forth on me about… about us. Martinez was there, he was with me, and he really knew how to get my blood going. So we hooked up."

They had talked plenty about Maura's love life and her interests, but Jane's romantic past had never been a subject of conversation, aside from the odd mention of her deceased husband. Maura couldn't help wanting to know more, not even sparing the time to worry if her wording might be insensitive. "How did it end? Did Casey come back for you?"

"I don't really wanna talk about it," Jane muttered. "It was work-related. So. So, yeah. That's I guess why I'm a little rattled by you and Riley, I'm just thinkin' of that. But it shouldn't really be an issue for you guys; I mean, you're not partners. Not at work, anyway," she added with an attempted smile.

Maura returned the rueful gesture, still rubbing Jane's back. "I'm sorry, Jane."

She was already half-sorry she'd brought it up. "Don't be. It was a long time ago, it's fine." She got to her feet before Maura could bring up something objectively sadder that had happened much more recently, and suggested they get going.

They had dinner at a new pan-Asian bistro Maura had had her eye on. Jane had no idea if the doctor was actually pronouncing the menu items correctly, but they sounded right, and she asked Maura to teach her some of the words. Once their food had arrived, she tried using chopsticks for the first time, letting Maura show her some tips. She slipped up now and then, but she didn't mind because it made Maura laugh, and she found that that had quickly become one of her favorite things to do. And as they continued to talk and to eat, Jane realized this was one of the reasons she felt uneasy thinking about Riley and Maura together.

When Ian had been around, Jane couldn't in good conscience begrudge him the time he spent with Maura. He was her man. Of course their moments together were precious and needed to be respected.

But it had felt weird staying home and being alone, or going to the Robber for a drink alone, and thinking of Maura spending time with another woman. She was feeling—jealous, was that it?—that Maura was staying at a table long after the bill had been paid, just talking with another woman; that she would often leave BPD for lunch with another woman; she was going to movies and art galleries with another woman.

Jane knew it was a stupid distinction to make, but she couldn't help feeling it. Furthermore, it made it far too easy for Jane to see herself in Riley's place.

Maybe this particular moment wasn't the first time she'd noticed it, but it was the first time Jane felt she could acknowledge it to herself. Sitting here in this dimly-lit restaurant eating food that she couldn't properly pronounce, sitting across from a beautiful, luminous someone she loved being with more than anyone else. Nobody had quite looked at her before, nobody had listened to her before, like Maura did. And while normally Jane liked to be left to her own devices, she'd drop everything in a heartbeat if Maura needed her or wanted to talk.

Or no, it wasn't even usually an issue of dropping everything. It was an issue of wanting someone to spend her time with for a change. Essentially, an issue of dropping her "nothing" time.

She liked that Maura didn't make her feel as though she was to be pitied, a sad widow. She liked that Maura wanted to introduce her to new things, and liked that Maura herself was open to experiences that were normally outside of her realm—like going to a batting cage. She liked that most of the time, she didn't feel antisocial or tired or annoyed when Maura was with her. She liked how time seemed to disappear with Maura around, how not a single minute could pass by too slowly in her presence. When they fought, Jane didn't want to just give up and throw in the towel, nor did she want Maura to be the one to come groveling for forgiveness. She would welcome the chance for self-examination, and was learning to apologize.

Maura didn't just make her feel. Maura made her feel alive.

And it suddenly felt like it would be the most natural thing to do to cover one of Maura's hands with her own, to maybe kiss the back of her fingers before resuming dinner. Leaving this restaurant hand in hand was such a cozy image that Jane couldn't help smiling to herself.

Noticing her friend was in a reverie of some kind, Maura asked, "Is your food that good, Jane?"

"Hm? No. I mean yeah, it's really good, I was just thinking."

"About what?" Maura asked, knowing it wasn't in Jane's nature to be coy.

"Uh…" Nothing could hide her cheesy grin, but Jane was at least glad that Maura probably couldn't see her blushing. "This dream I had last night."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"A good dream?"

"I think so, yeah."

Wait, was that it? Was her dream about playing strip chess with Maura the reason she was suddenly romanticizing everything, or was her subconscious just giving her permission to start feeling that way?

"What was it about?"

Jane was tempted to talk about it in a discreet way. She was sure Maura could provide a dissertation's worth of information about sex dreams—where they came from, how common they were, why they were or weren't worth taking seriously. And furthermore, she was sure that Maura would be only too happy to provide the information. But she couldn't conceive of actually bringing it up, and only shrugged and changed the subject.

As she'd missed lunch that day, Jane scarfed down all her food, but Maura still had leftovers to bring home. She invited Jane to come inside for a drink, and upon noticing that the lights in the guesthouse were off, Maura remarked, "I guess your mother's gone on her date already."

"Her what?" Jane asked abruptly.

Maura turned towards her with a guilty expression, and hoped a beer might calm Jane's nerves a bit. "She has a date."

"With who? Where would she even meet someone? Did she just find some random creep on Craigslist or something?"

"First of all, you oughtn't be so dismissive of the possibilities of online dating," Maura said. "Although I'm not sure Craigslist—"

"Hell, I couldn't even do a background check on the guy."

"Jane, your mother isn't stupid, and she isn't a child, so don't be so condescending," Maura cut in, leading the way to the couch so they could sit (or in Jane's case, stew). "She was worried you'd react poorly."

Jane grunted, leaving her beer untouched on the coffee table. "Yeah, what else has she been pawning off on you, hoping you'd pass it along to me for her?" It had been intended as a snarky rhetorical question more than anything else, but when she saw Maura's gaze was entirely averted and she was taking a longer-than-properly-delicate sip of wine, she sat up in resentment. "Okay, what else has my mother been trying to shelter me from?"

"She's not trying to shelter you from anything," Maura insisted, putting down the wine glass.

"Like hell she's not!"

"I just think 'shelter' is the wrong word."

"Maura, what else did she say to you?"

"It's not—it's her business, Jane, it's not my place to disclose it to you."

"It's your place as my friend! At least, I mean, if it's about me. It's about me, isn't it?"

Maura had picked up her glass again, and was tracing one of her fingers around the edge, staring down for several long moments. "She's worried about you, Jane. She's worried about you being alone, and never having …I mean, I think she's concerned that you never talked to someone about—about Casey."

"Someone. Like what, like a shrink?" Jane grunted.

"I suppose," Maura said quietly. She took a sip of the wine just to give herself something to do, then put it down again. "She was also talking about… she wants to try setting you up with someone."

"Jesus Christ," Jane groaned, face in her hands. "Are you serious? Who?"

"She didn't say anyone specifically; I think she just meant in general," Maura said. "She seems very insistent that you don't stay alone."

"Right, because marriage worked out so well for her," Jane muttered. "You know what my Pop said to me after he tried to get an annulment? He said they just didn't have anything in common anymore. The kids grew up, and then they just didn't work together. I mean, that man was my hero, Maura, I idolized him. And when I think about all the stuff I did for his—for his approval, just because I wanted to make him proud… and I mean big stuff."

She sniffed, self-conscious of the fact that she was suddenly on the verge of tears and that Maura was hanging onto her every word.

No, that wasn't the right way to put it.

Angela was the type of person who hung onto words. You could often see her actually physically leaning forward, as if worried that otherwise a solitary syllable might somehow escape her and she'd lose the entire emotional gist of what you were saying. And at the first sign of anything but ramrod strength, she would smother you in an attempt to insist that everything would be okay, that you didn't need to be sad, that it would all work out. Yes her heart was in the right place, but smothering is not the best method for everybody. That sort of behavior was what made Jane clam up and keep things from Angela—and, since the divorce, from her father as well. He didn't deserve to be in on things like that anymore.

Secrets weighed heavily on Jane's soul. She had tried suppressing them with grief and denial and work, but the toll was exhaustive and Maura was just sitting there, open and waiting and wanting to help.

And Jane finally found herself wanting to speak

"I guess it's kind of weird that 'home' isn't there anymore," Jane murmured. "Home, my parents' home. And I know that must seem weird to you, since it sounds like you kinda grew up all over the place, but it's strange still being right here in Boston and not being able to visit the house where I grew up. And if I did, it'd be as a stranger. It was a nice place.

"We had a basketball hoop in the backyard for a while. There was a sort of a roofless patio, like a blacktop half of the yard, where we'd put the grill and a fold-out table for parties and stuff. And we had this tall wooden fence around the yard, like a lot of houses in the area, y'know. And I got it in my head one day when I was like nine or ten that I wanted to try and make a shot standing from the top of the fence."

"Oh dear," Maura chuckled. "That doesn't sound like a good plan."

"Nah," Jane said with a hollow laugh. "It sure wasn't, but I wanted to try. I thought it'd be cool. So I moved the table over to the fence, and I climbed on top of it and thought I had pretty good balance on the horizontal plank along the top, and then totally threw myself off balance when I chucked the ball. And my Ma just happened to step outside right at that moment, seeing me floundering around. I looked down …and I saw I had two options. Two options of how to fall. On one end was the blacktop in our backyard, and on the other side of the fence was the grass by the sidewalk. So the natural idea, the easier idea, would be to fall on the grass, right?"

She looked to Maura for a reaction, a nod, but Maura stayed still and somber.

Jane took a shaky breath. "But my Ma was standing on the blacktop with her arms outstretched, and she said… she s…" She brushed away a couple of tears stinging the corner of her eye. "She said, 'fall towards me.' She just said 'fall towards me.'"

She could feel Maura's unwavering gaze on her, and finally returned it in full, not looking away.

She'd intended to tell the end of the story, but it died on the tip of her tongue as Maura moved a little closer to her on the couch. It didn't need to be vocalized. It was apparent in her eyes and her body language what she felt, and Maura was becoming increasingly skilled at reading those alone.

I let my doubts take over at the last second and I fell on that grass because it looked like it'd be a soft landing and I wasn't sure I could trust Ma to catch me. Letting myself do as she said and fall towards her would have been a test of my faith but in retrospect I think I would have been all right. I fell on the grass because it looked safe and it seemed like the smart, easy thing to do and I broke my arm. I should have trusted her to catch me even though it looked scary.

"Jane," Maura whispered, opening her arms for a hug. "It's okay. Come here. Fall towards me."