"Jane?"

"Maura." Jane placed both palms flat on the tabletop and met Maura's eyes with an earnest – if slightly teasing – smile. "You want to ask me something. I can see it in your face. Ask away."

The medical examiner flashed a flirtatious smile. "You read me so well, Jane. I'm impressed."

"'Well'? I read you like a book. But go on."

Her husky laugh filled Maura with warmth. She watched Jane take her first sip of the Dirty Robber's new house wine. Watched her consider the bouquet of flavors before swallowing. When she lifted the glass for a second sip, Maura guessed it met with her approval.

"When did you first realize you were in love with me?"

Jane pitched forward, swallowing hard in a desperate attempt to avoid a spit-take. Maura suppressed a giggle.

"Maura! Warn me!"

"Hey, you knew I was going to ask you something."

"Yeah, something, but…I wasn't prepared to play hardball! We haven't even started eating!" She laughed with Maura as she wiped her lips with a paper napkin.

"I'm curious," was all Maura said by way of explanation. She braced her elbows on the table and interlaced her fingers to form a bridge upon which she rested her chin. She loved watching the detective's face when she was deep in thought.

Jane leaned back in her booth, sifting through her memories of the past few years, carefully weighing the emotional imprint that each moment left on her psyche. She idly turned the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. "I think the realization sort of came in two parts."

Maura listened with rapt attention, trying to decipher the subtle shifts in her expression, to decode the nuanced changes in her inflection.

After another sip of merlot, Jane had prepared the right words to continue. "It started, I think, when we met here for the marathon."

Maura cocked her head. "Interesting."

"Well, I mean…look at this way." Jane leaned forward, her hand gestures becoming more decisive and defined as she grew more assured of her explanation.

"We had said for a long time that we should get together to do more things outside of work. You know, be social. With each other." She grinned. Resisted the temptation to wink. "I was looking forward to it. I'd never admit it then, but I was a little nervous, to be honest. I kept thinking, 'If I get to be even decent friends with this woman, oh man…!' And then you came trotting in. Looking ridiculous and adorable…ridiculously adorable in that, that puke ensemble."

Maura ducked her head, remembering Jane's description of the running suit. She managed to keep her justification for the streamlined material and charity sponsorship to herself. Instead she said, "You didn't particularly care for the footskins, as I recall."

"I didn't particularly care for any of it!" Jane scoffed. "But that's just it. With anyone else, I never would've agreed to it. But it was you, Maura, and I was just over the moon that you even came. And when you started to cry…" Jane reached past her wine glass for Maura's hand.

The medical examiner blushed then.

"…I almost couldn't handle it. I was stunned that you would take what I said so seriously. You reacted so strongly, so…sincerely, I couldn't believe – see, most people just ignore my sarcasm or get offended. But you, Maura, you took what I said to heart. And your little lacrimal gland went into overdrive because my opinion – wonder of wonders! – actually mattered to you."

Maura smiled weakly.

"The fact that my smartass mouth had such an impact on this lovely, smart, successful woman…it had a huge impact on me."

"Wow. Jane, I…had no idea."

Jane shrugged. "Well, now comes the second part. That's when I fell in love with you, I'm pretty sure. But of course, it took way longer for me to actually put two and two together and realize that was what was happening to me." She shook her head, eyes on her wineglass, unfocused. "It wasn't until the…" she cleared her throat, "hostage situation later that summer that I think it actually dawned on me."

Maura paled. "You mean when you shot yourself?" Her voice had dropped to a pained whisper.

Jane hesitated, not wanting to make Maura relive that moment. She had since come to understand just how angst-ridden that time had been for the medical examiner. "When we came out those doors, I was scared. For my life, yeah, sure. But more because I knew you were still inside, and with his gun to my head in front of the SWAT team and BPD…and I didn't know for sure if you and Frankie were gonna be okay. And then you came out, I heard you call my name, and I thought, 'I can do this. I can do this because whether or not I come out the other side, they'll be fine.' Because you wouldn't have left that building if Frankie wasn't okay. You were my very last thought before I pulled the trigger, my very last thought before I passed out. When I woke up in the hospital, it made sense." Her voice was now very low and very rough from straining to speak around the lump in her throat.

Maura nodded, tear tracks shining on her cheeks. She let go of Jane's hand to quickly swipe them away.

"I'm sorry to bring that up again," Jane said, brow furrowed with concern.

"Well," Maura said, chuckling through her tears, "it certainly answers my question."

"So…Maura. Your turn. When, would you say, did you first realize you were in love with me?" A shy, coy smile played at Jane's lips. There was playful laughter in her eyes as she gazed at the lovely medical examiner sitting across from her. Their food had arrived, and she felt desperate to lighten the mood.

Maura tilted her head slightly to the side and the corners of her eyes crinkled. She took a sip from her wine glass. "I'd have to say it was from the moment I first met you." She quirked one shoulder and gave Jane a full-blown smile. "The very first moment. I just knew."

"The first—?" Jane leaned back from the table, incredulous. "But—oh, c'mon, Maura. Seriously? Be honest." She rolled her eyes and pointed for emphasis. "Coy is cute. Hives? Not so much."

"I'm being serious, Jane. I mean the very first moment."

"Wait. So, you're saying…you fell in love with a cranky, classless, smartass—"

"And vitamin deficient!" Maura added, as though this had been by far Jane's worst offense that day.

The detective rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. "And vitamin deficient…hooker? Really? You fell in love with that?"

Maura's glass halted its trajectory halfway to her lips as she laughed.

"No accounting for taste, I guess," Jane muttered into her own wine glass.

Maura recovered from her mirth long enough to say, "I don't understand why that's so hard to believe, Jane."

"I guess I just—I mean…I just can't imagine what you could've seen there that would've attracted you right off the bat." She gave a mock-seductive grin and tilted her head down, slowly toying with a coil of her raven hair. "I mean, when you met me afterwards, I can see how my edgy, streetwise charm would've been just magnetic then, but…"

Maura laughed again and swatted at Jane's hand as the detective tossed her mane of curls melodramatically. Rather than withdrawing her arm back to her own side of the table, Maura left her hand where it landed, her fingers encircling Jane's. Jane looked down at their hands joined between them, then met

Maura's eyes, her expression now solemn. "You really mean it, don't you?"

Maura nodded.

"I honestly don't understand, though. I was so…such a…"

"Jane." Maura squeezed her hand. "I saw the same things in you then that I love so much about you now. I saw a tall, gorgeous young woman. I observed that she had a rapier wit, though she employed it in a less than tactful manner."

Jane smirked at that.

"I saw that this woman was frustrated. She was frustrated because her obstinacy and fierce independence would not allow her to accept help from a stranger.

But she could see that there was no other alternative for getting what she wanted."

"What I wanted was a goddamn doughnut," Jane growled. Her hamburger was calling her name, but her fascination with Maura's story took rare precedence over her demanding stomach.

The detective's interjection went unacknowledged. Maura's gaze did not waver from Jane's. Enthralled, Jane couldn't look away, either. "But most importantly, you lied to me."

Jane started to pull away. Defensive. Perplexed.

"You lied to me," Maura repeated, "when you said that not every hooker has a heart of gold."

"But that's true, Maura. Not every—"

Maura stopped her with another hand squeeze. "When you said that, you were clearly implying yourself. You were implying an inherent lack of generosity and capacity for love on your part. Yes, you were in character for a sting when you said it. And yes, your blood sugar was low, so I was speaking to cranky Jane, rather than her gentler twin."

The walls of skepticism were beginning to come down again. Maura could see it in Jane's softening expression. She smiled at the dark-haired beauty across from her. That beautiful woman who was all hers.

"And yes, it is anatomically impossible for a human heart to be comprised of pure gold and still function. But literal interpretations of colloquialisms aside, when you finally looked me in the eye, I had a suspicion that you were lying to me, telling me a fundamental untruth about yourself. To create distance. To protect yourself. To protect both of us. You probably didn't even realize you were doing it."

Jane swallowed as she realized where this was going. Her other hand spontaneously joined the two that were already linked on the tabletop.

"When I was formally introduced to you later, my suspicion was confirmed. And every moment following that one has proved to me that what I initially suspected about you was true all along." She drew Jane's hand upwards and leaned over the table to press her lips against the backs of Jane's now trembling fingers. "'Not every hooker has a heart of gold,' you said. But I know of only one woman on this entire planet who has a heart of pure platinum."