Note: This is the last CH of Shadows, thank everyone for following along and for your reviews. The poem cited in this chapter is also from e.e. cummings' volume Viva cited in Chapter 4.

CH 10: Requiem

Maura smiled as they pulled up to Jane's apartment, "Home" she whispered before looking at Jane, "It's safe to be here though, right?"

Jane reached over and massaged the back of Maura's neck with strong capable hands; it helped put Maura at ease as she slumped forward slightly, "It's safe, I promise."

"Does your gut tell you that?" Maura looked at Jane with a sly smile.

"It does" Jane smiled back.

"Then that's good enough for me" Maura said taking Jane's hand and kissing it.

"But…just for added security…" Jane pointed out a green van across the street, "…courtesy of Patrick Doyle. And before you get all huffy about it I tried to talk him out of it but he insisted."

Maura sighed, "I'll let it slide…this time."

The inside of Jane's apartment looked like a war zone, papers, photographs, notes and files on Doyle's likely enemies strewn all over the living room surfaces. Take out cartons littered all available counter space. There was even a portable white board that had been stationed in front of the television.

Maura's first priority was a shower. She stripped down and paused to look at herself in the bathroom mirror. She touched the cut and bruising on her face and then pealed the bandage down to survey the wound where Donegal had used her as a memory board. Her wrists were raw from being bound, they burned the most in the shower but it still felt good to wash the musty scent of Donegal's basement off her skin and out of her hair.

Maura slid under the covers on her side of the bed and looked at Jane expectantly. Jane scooted over next to her. Her fingers danced lightly over Maura's face caressing her cheek and then down to explore the bruised area around her mouth where Donegal had struck her. Jane leaned down and kissed her lips tenderly trying not to touch the part of her lip that was split. She pulled one of Maura's hands down from her face and eyed the crimson abrasions tinged with hues of green and yellow. Jane pressed her forehead to Maura's wrist and let her nose lightly caress the damaged area.

"It's ok, you can kiss me" Maura said, reaching up to run her hand through Jane's hair and drawing her head back down.

"I don't want to hurt you" Jane whispered, her lips hovering just above Maura's.

"It will be a good pain" she lifted her head to meet Jane's lips.

Jane's mouth consumed her, and it stung but Maura wouldn't have asked her to stop for anything. She pulled Jane on top of her; wrapping her arms around her back she pressed Jane's body tightly into her own.

"I was afraid I'd never get to feel your skin under my fingers again" Maura ran her hands under Jane's shirt following the contours up and down and then digging her nails into Jane's back. She grabbed the bottom of Jane's shirt and slowly rolled it up and over her head and then discarded it on the floor.

Jane kissed a trail up Maura's neck to the sensitive spot under her ear. Her hands snuck under Maura's silk camisole. Maura inhaled and arched her back as Jane's deft hands began to work in a circular motion on her breasts.

Maura raised her arms, "Take it off."

Jane admired the beautiful form beneath her, marred only by the purplish bruise on Maura's left shoulder surrounding the stab wound knitted back together with a few stitches. She ran her finger lightly over the area letting the scratchy ends of the nylon sutures tickle her fingertips. She slid down placing kisses along Maura's collarbone, down her sternum and then drawing a nipple into her mouth she licked and sucked and bit down gently eliciting groans of pleasure from her lover. Jane started to work her way further down but Maura stopped her.

"No, I want to see you, I want to be able to put my hands on you."

Jane sat up and slid her briefs off and then threaded her hands under Maura's back pulling her up and into her lap. Maura reinitiated her assault on Jane's mouth biting at her lower lip in the process. Jane started tugging at Maura's pajama pants causing Maura to lean back so that Jane could remove them.

She crawled back into Jane's arms, straddling her lap. They paused holding each other's stare. Jane cupped Maura's face, "Make a deal with me."

Maura leaned forward to rest her forehead against Jane's, their noses pressed together, exchanging gentle breaths, "Anything."

"We never fight and leave each other's sight before it's fixed ever again."

"Deal."

Jane's hand traveled down her body finding Maura's warmth, and Maura reciprocated. She rolled her hips as Jane slid two fingers inside her. Maura wound her free hand through the brunette's hair and pressed her cheek to Jane's. Jane could feel Maura's ragged breath teasing over her ear.

They came together, silently; Maura gripped the back of Jane's neck and pressed her lips to Jane's temple as she rode out her orgasm, only the faintest moan humming in her throat. Jane kneaded and massaged up Maura's back exhaling a hurried flush of hot air against her neck as she came.

Jane started to pull out of her, "No…" Maura said with what little breath she could muster, "…stay with me." Jane eased Maura back down to the bed, resting on top of her; still inside her she started again.

"You're not what I expected" Tara looked at the balding man sitting next to her bed. His eyelids were puffy and he had bags under his eyes. She wondered if it was from the events of the past couple of days or from a lifetime of the same. He certainly didn't look like a hardened criminal, a major crime boss….a murderer.

"Hmm, I get that a lot. What did you expect?" Doyle eyed his daughter, she and Maura bore a striking resemblance, though Tara had more of her mother's nose and green eyes. He had loved gazing into those eyes.

"I thought you'd be taller."

He laughed, "I see you got your mother's sense of humor."

"But your temper…or so I've been told over the past couple of days" she added.

"Nah, that's spirit, and you got that from your mother too, your tenacity…that you got from me."

Tara smiled, "Tenacity…is that what they're calling running off half-cocked these days?"

Doyle smiled, "Yeah, that'd be it. Get some sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

With Declan Donegal dead and his three associates behind bars, Margaret Callaghan's murder was solved. Maura sat in the morgue, next to her mother's body and waited on the funeral home to arrive for transport.

Tara walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder, "They're here."

They watched as Margaret was taken away.

Maura looked at Tara who was wiping a tear from her cheek. She reached out and took Tara's hand.

"Would you tell me about her? What she was like?"

Tara smiled, "I'd like that."

The days leading up to the funeral were hectic. Maura left the actual service plans to Tara, being unfamiliar with the ins and outs of planning a Catholic funeral mass. Tara introduced Maura to cousins from Margaret's side and Maura took Tara to her adoptive parents' house for dinner, Angela Rizzoli brought meals over each day, more food than could possibly be eaten.

Maura stood in the cemetery before the graveside began, all things considered it was the perfect day; the sky was clear and the slight chill in the air was offset by the warming rays of sun that were unfettered by a cloudless sky. She felt familiar strong arms wrap tenderly around her waist and soft lips press against her cheek.

"How are you holding up?"

Maura smiled as she looked into Jane's eyes, "I feel…strangely peaceful. Like for the first time in my life everything feels complete and she's a part of that and she always will be even though I never got to know her. I don't feel like I'm haunted by shadows that I can't catch anymore."

When the priest was finished Tara stood and faced the small gathering. On the hill in the distance, she could see Patrick Doyle walking hesitantly towards the service. He stopped a little ways back from the funeral awning so as not to attract attention. Tara smiled and acknowledged him with a nod and then unfolded a slip of paper she retrieved from her pocket.

She read:

If there are any heavens my mother will all by herself have one.

It will not be a pansy heaven

Nor a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but

It will be a heaven of blackred roses

My father will be deep like a rose tall like a rose

Standing near my

Swaying over her

Silent

With eyes which are really petals and see

Nothing with the face of a poet really which

Is a flower and not a face with

Hands

Which whisper

This is my beloved my

Suddenly in sunlight

He will bow,

And the whole garden will bow.

~e.e. cummings

She folded the paper back into a tiny square and tucked it into the flower arrangement atop the casket. Returning to her seat Maura placed her hand over Tara's and intertwined their fingers; Tara's silver cuff bracelet on her right wrist next to the gold cuff on Maura's left.

Tara smiled, "Thank you" she whispered.

Maura looked at her questioningly.

Tara squeezed her hand back and looked at Maura and then past her to Jane, then to Maura's parents sitting behind them with the Rizzolis, "For letting me be part of your family."