Hi, everyone! This is my first TRC fic, based on a prompt from lolcat202: Maura and Mr. Gray, after the kids leave the nest. "So...what do we do now?" No beta, so all mistakes are mine, but the characters, of course, are not.

Enjoy!

Maura had always appreciated that Mr. Gray's arms enveloped her in an embrace rather than a hold. Always available for comfort, not in constant need of it. As Maura watched Blue drive the dream Camaro away from Fox Way, she had no problem accepting help alleviating the pain. Every summer break ended too abruptly, since everyone avoided the subject of Blue's return to school until the morning of, when the raven boys arrived to help Blue load her car down with textbooks, mismatched luggage, and coolers full of yogurt.

"Maura?" Mr. Gray's breath ghosted over her ear, but Maura's emotional distress and the Henrietta heat eradicated any sex appeal.

Maura swiped angrily at her damp, pink cheeks. "I'm fine. Let's go in before we become permanent fixtures on the asphalt." She squeezed the last of her tears out when Mr. Gray kissed the crown of her head. This was only his first time seeing Blue off to college, his first time watching Maura melt down over a pesky few weeks between daughter sightings. Witnessing vulnerability did not scare Mr. Gray; neither did it scare Maura to show it. However, since Mr. Gray returned, Maura had been positively spoiled by happiness, and she wanted to be blissfully happy for as long as she could be. While Mr. Gray made elation more easily accessible, making Maura happy had been Blue's joy for twenty years.

Like every summer, 300 Fox Way was only about ten degrees cooler than Henrietta. The unpredictability of the air conditioner remained its only consistency, and the quantity of fans depended on the meager availability of outlets. Today, the heat was mitigated by the absence of half the household. In anticipation of everyone's emotional distress, the psychics took a day off, in a manner of speaking. Maura, Calla, and Jimi agreed that they would not give readings today, but, after spoiling Blue all summer, they couldn't afford a complete day of rest. After saying their goodbyes to Blue, Jimi ventured into town to run her errands, and Calla drove to work in the sky blue Thunderbird that Ronan dreamt the family for Christmas. Orla had said her goodbyes the previous Thursday, before embarking on a week-long beachside vacation with a decidedly richer and more intelligent boy toy than her usual brand.

It may have been colder in the Sahara, but Maura and Mr. Gray had the luxury of an empty house.

"So? What do you want to do now?" Mr. Gray asked, leaning against the hallway doorframe.

Maura gulped half the water in her glass. Damn that man and his biceps, that perfectly parted hair that she loved to muss under any circumstances. "I suppose crawling into bed and delving into a deep depression is too dramatic."

Mr. Gray shrugged. "Crawling into bed sounds fantastic," he teased. "Mental health issues may put a damper on the mood, but I can still take you there."

Rolling her eyes, Maura drained her glass and added it to the ever-growing pile of dirty dishes Orla neglected to clean before she left. She wouldn't pass up the enticing possibilities an empty house offered, but she would have to be cheered up first. Something about having sex to keep from missing Blue seemed… grotesque, and Mr. Gray left grotesqueness behind when he became Brenin Thames.

Oddly, Blue chose his new name. Shortly after he arrived on Christmas morning, everyone crammed into the kitchen so Mr. Gray could present the family with five different identities, claiming in that nauseatingly sentimental way that if they were to be part of his new life, they should help shape its first step.

Calla choked on her own bile.

After significantly roasting Barney Klempt, Asher Copperbottom, John Smith, and Thad Duke, Blue preferred Brenin Thames.

"It's Welsh. For 'king,' I think," Blue explained, legs dangling off the kitchen counter.

"And it doesn't make you sound like a pedophile, a closeted frat boy, a painfully obvious member of the witness protection program, or a racist," Calla sniggered from behind her third White Russian.

The Gray Man then turned to Maura, who toyed with her cards at the kitchen table and pretended not to devote her attention completely to her boyfriend. "What say you, noble blade?"

Thankfully, he knew better than to take her hand, to open Maura up to any psychic revelations. The last time he asked her such an important question, he asked if he would come back, and neither of them wanted an answer. Maura knew that he'd spent his whole life confronting the plausibility of death, or wishing for it, and that he thought it better to make her see that death did not bother him than force her to confront the possibility of his death again. Brenin Thames would live the rest of his days with Maura Sargent, writing for the Henrietta newspaper and even occasionally writing for pleasure.

Maura, completely unabashed, fearless, and mischievous, met his gaze. "Sounds fated to me."

Now, eight months later, Brenin wore that exact expression. "I think I know exactly how to lift your spirits," he said, uncrossing his gray sweatpants-covered ankles.

Maura sauntered over with the furthest intention from compliance. "Cocky," she snickered as she passed him. Despite her best efforts, she giggled when Brenin reached under the Kinks T-shirt she'd stolen from him and skimmed his fingertips up her ribcage. "You do realize this is only a temporary fix?" She squirmed away from him and toward the stairs. "Try harder." She had bounded up four steps before she heard Brenin trying to catch up. Unlike Maura, he always wore shoes. After a lifetime of lurking in dark corners, he could be as loud as he wanted in this house.

Maura cursed in compounds as she tripped over one of Orla's laundry baskets at the top of the stairs, and squealed when Brenin seized her ankle. Wrenching her leg free without breaking any bones in Brenin's face, she made a beeline for the nearest room with an open door, cackled after she slammed the door in his face, and locked the door.

Brenin pounded in mock ferocity, and even though she knew he would never break it down, Maura teased, "You break it, you buy it!"

"You said to try harder, darling."

Before she could retort, Maura realized whose room she'd violated. Despite almost four years' worth of dust, no one could bring herself to empty Persephone's room. Jimi frequently struggled for the right turn of phrase, but last month, she couldn't find a better way to suggest that they clean out the room and store Persephone's bright beads and flowing skirts and wispy scarves and tarot cards.

It had only taken a few minutes for the five of them, Orla, Jimi, Calla, Blue, and Maura, to end up in a blubbering pile on Persephone's bed.

Since her friends were out, and Maura had never liked crying alone, she unlocked the door before collapsing on the bed that no longer held Persephone's scent. At least the pillow was still as soft as Persephone's voice.

Hugging the fluffy pillow to her chest, Maura leaned into Brenin's side as soon as his thigh touched hers. "I'm not usually this bad, sending Blue off to school," she said.

Brenin tucked a few rogue strands from Maura's jostled ponytail behind the ear not resting against his shoulder. "You're not bad, Maura. Just a little down." He gestured to the empty room; even with all of Persephone's belongings, it was empty without her. "This makes it a harder."

Maura sniffled and drew her legs into his lap. "Don't think for one minute that you don't make everything easier," she whispered. Maura considered herself an independent woman, and love had not taken that from her. It had only added a few components, fear for the life of yet another person. For most of her life, she had been teetering on a tightrope of bliss and devastation. She had long since quit counting on her gift to predict every tragedy—when she could avoid it, she preferred not to know. But since her happiness usually correlated with her family, unexpected departures always shook her. That question, lurking in the depths of her mind, after ever past tragedy and before all those unknown: Should I have seen it coming?

The three years before Brenin came home were hardly different, just more intense.

"You mean to tell me that you didn't appreciate my letters?" Brenin asked, running his hands up and down Maura's thigh.

Maura tried to snicker, but with her runny nose, it came out as a watery snort. "Irregular postcards with lines of Old English poetry hardly count as letters." When Brenin didn't immediately respond, Maura nuzzled his neck. "What is it?"

"You didn't answer me when I asked if I would be back someday," Brenin began.

Maura stiffened, hoping she'd misunderstood his meaning. "It wasn't fair of you to ask."

Hugging her tighter, Brenin fulfilled yet another of Maura's hopes. "No, it wasn't," he admitted. "Even if you'd answered me, I'm not sure I would have known for sure."

Again uncertain of his intent, Maura opted for teasing since her skepticism had failed her. "You don't trust me?" she teased, lifting her head so that he could see her sparkling eyes.

Brenin cradled one of Maura's cheeks in his hand and smiled, but his eyes couldn't quite manage to catch up. "I trust you with my future," he said. "And I don't mean that in the corny, punny way." The smile finally reached his eyes when Maura laughed. "No, it's a personal failure. No one could have made me believe I'd see you again until I set eyes on you myself. If I couldn't do that, I needed you to know I was thinking of you."

To alleviate the weight in her chest, Maura kissed Brenin, weaving her fingers through the hair that was finally starting to match the rest of his wardrobe. By the time she straddled his lap, they were breathing the same air, only pulling away for brief gulps of humid oxygen. Running her hands under his shirt, Maura traced Dean Allen's scars and longed for the billionth time for Brenin to feel saved, even if she had been too late for Dean. Brenin Thames, Mr. Gray, Dean Allen—they all made the same man, no matter how much he wanted to distinguish between them, between every new identity, every new life. Those identities simply contributed to the evolution of a man who desperately wanted to stop running for good.

"What was it that you were going to do to cheer me up?" Maura asked. She panted with her sweet, wonderful man who left everything he's ever known (however unpleasant) to start a new life with her and her family.

Grinning wickedly, Brenin slid his fingers underneath her shirt again and stroked her hipbones with his thumbs. "Go wait in the bedroom, and I'll show you."

Maura arched an eyebrow, but complied by backing toward the door. "How transparent, king of swords. I'm disappointed in you."

"I always make it up to you."

Maura hummed, running her fingers over Persephone's untouched desk (housing, of course, her unfinished PhD) on her way to the door. Biting a swollen lip, she hesitated, remembering Brenin's "personal failure." When Persephone died, Calla and Maura were lost. In addition to the confusion of their own grief, their psychic connection had been severed. It took years to align their abilities with Jimi's, to replace a bond that had come so naturally. If she could avoid it, Maura would rather not replace another.

"I do hope you trust me now," she said, leaning against the doorframe. "Now that you're safe, here with me. I may not always be right, and I may not always tell you what you want to hear, but I think you know I will never tell you something I don't truly believe."

"I do," Brenin said. "You make me see life…as something better, instead of expecting the worst."

Maura hummed again, but this time, she slipped out of the room, her former urgency restored. "Don't make me start without you." To her surprise, Brenin did not immediately follow her, even when she began to leave a trail of clothes on the staircase.

Brenin obliterated any sensuous vision Maura had of what was coming to her when he burst into the bedroom wearing the legendary tan bell-bottoms and orange disco shirt, complete with a popped collar and dipping neckline. Maura, who had stripped down to the thigh-skimming T-shirt, gasped upon his entrance. "My God," she giggled. She pushed off the mattress and danced a slightly distorted version of the Macarena on her way to him. "How do you make this hot?"

Brenin hoisted Maura into his arms, fastened her legs around his hips, and spun to face the wall adjacent to her bedroom door. He had only just started to smirk when Maura gripped the sides of his head and kissed him hard. Her sharp bite to his upper lip told him he should stop smiling and put his tongue in her mouth. Always defiant, he nipped back and pulled away in the same half a breath. "What time is Jimi supposed to be back?"

Maura flung the cracked door wide open and let it bounce off the back wall.

"Don't care. Got it."