From the Contact Universe. Reading earlier stories would be helpful - in fact, reading '3 Months' is essential if you want to be able to follow the flashbacks. The flashbacks are in italics, I hope it's easy enough to follow! Visiting a little bit of cannon here but it's unlikely I'll stay with it for long. Just borrowing the bits I want!

As always, comments and feedback very welcome. Thanks you for reading.

CONTACT: SIX MONTHS

CHAPTER ONE

"Jane!"

Maura bolted through the doors of Boston PD headquarters just in time to see Jane push the gun to her abdomen and pull the trigger.

When she looked back on this moment in years to come she wouldn't remember exactly how she got to Jane's side. She wouldn't recall Korsak's screams to stand back and wait until they were sure Marino was dead. She wouldn't have any recollection of Frost's desperate scramble to get to her side, to hold her back. She would only remember the deafening explosion she heard as the bullet left it's housing and ripped through Jane's struggling body. She would forever feel the wave of nausea that threatened to paralyze her as she watched the detective's lifeless form crash to the ground. She would be haunted by hideous visions of the blood that pumped through the cracks in her fingers as she held her lovers body and begged for her to stay with her. And she would be plagued with guilt at how little she had done to help her, how ineffectual she had been when Jane had needed her most.

Maura watched helplessly as the medics worked on Jane. Through the chaos Maura tried to listen to their assessments. She tried to interject, to vocalize her diagnosis and recount timings, projections, prognoses but she was crippled by fear. She fought the urge to vomit and only when she put her bloody hands to her mouth did she notice that she was shaking, violently.

Jane was ferried away quickly. As the ambulance disappeared from view Maura broke down. "Please, somebody, I have to go with her. Please!" It was like a nightmare. She was screaming but she couldn't hear her own voice. "Please!"

Korsak was first to attempt to console her.

"Come with me." He moved to put a protective arm around her but she pushed him away. His shock was blatant as she appeared to stare right through him and ordered, "Take me to her Vince, now. Or I swear to god..."

Her heart had started to pound almost intolerably as they walked side by side through her kitchen and out on to her back porch. She had confessed to Jane hours later that she had wanted to tug at her then and, at the final hurdle, pull her back to the safety of their painstaking but thrilling secret. But she hadn't. For the thousandth time her rational side had proved victorious. And anyway, she had told herself, at that point they didn't really have a choice.

They stood on the porch for what felt like an eternity and waited to be noticed.

Maura hadn't known where to look. Utterly unprepared she had asked herself, should she try to make eye contact? Try and meet a friendly face? She had fussed with her hair, scratched lightly at her jawline. Unaware of her motivations in that moment, she had tried to mute their presence by hiding half her body behind Jane's towering form. But Jane had been bold. She had counterbalanced Maura's apprehension and she had commanded attention. Shoulders pulled back, chest proudly pushed out, she had stood tall and squeezed reassuringly at Maura's hand. And moments later, Maura had experienced Jane in all her frighteningly fearless glory.

And she had fallen a little deeper in love with the detective.

''I need to call Angela. Somebody needs to call Angela. Is Frankie here? Did they bring him here?" Maura was pacing the hospital corridor. Rambling. Lost. Indifferent to who was listening.

Blood, Jane's blood, was all over her clothing. She could feel it beginning to stiffen her dress. She lifted her hands, palms out. Her lovers blood was all over her body. Smeared and browning. She could feel the smudges on her cheek as she frowned. She observed the strange, dry, flaking droplets on her shins. She felt the clotting fragments under her fingernails.

"She did this to herself. She did this." She was mumbling. Again, she felt like she was going to be sick.

Frost reached out to steady her. She shook under the touch and fell backwards a little. He held on to her upper arms but once he had her attention, once he looked into her distraught, wild eyes, he realized he had nothing to offer her. No reassuring words of kindness. No platitudes.

"Frankie is here. He's going to be ok. You saved him doc." He forced a smile. "Let me call Angela. You need to sit down. Come on." He lead her to the family room offered to them on arrival. Cops prerogative.

"Jane?" Angela had being, perhaps unsurprisingly, the first to notice them. "Maura?" She was the first to acknowledge the fundamental change in their chemistry. The first to see the undeniable magnetism hovering between the two women. The first to notice their linked hands.

"Ma." Jane acknowledged her mother's curiosity but she had left her with the space she needed to unravel the implications of what she was now notably trying hard to absorb.

"What's going on?" Angela's look of bemusement would have been funny to Maura if she hadn't been so concerned for Jane. It was all she could do to stop herself from spitting out the mantra that kept swimming around her head, 'Please don't be disappointed in her. Please don't be disappointed in her. Please don't be disappointed in her.'

"Are you two...?" Maura had watched while Jane gave Angela one of those disparaging looks she always seemed to reserve just for her mother. She had felt sorry for Angela and was about to jump in and explain everything when Jane did what Jane alway does. She lost patience.

"Everybody! Could we have your attention please?"

"Jane!" Maura hissed her objection to the detective's intentions.

"Like ripping off a band-aid Maur." Jane had whispered back with a rather disarmingly charming smile.

The ensemble had turned to look at them. Synchronized staring. Harmonized confusion. Angela's mouth was gaping.

"Wow. They're an obedient bunch." Sarcasm. Maura recognized the tone. Jane continued, "Maura and I have something we'd like you all to know. We are not looking for approval. We are not looking for appraisals. We just want to put it out there." Another squeeze of her hand, another bolstering smile from the detective, and Maura was on board.

"Maura and I are..." Jane had paused. She appeared to be searching for the right word but Maura could feel the nerves Jane was involuntarily transmitting through their interlaced fingers. "We are together." She left no time and no space for reactions before adding, "Now, that's that. Who's for another drink?"

"Maura." Jane's mother was eerily, uncharacteristically, quiet. "Honey? Can you hear me?" Lost in her thoughts, Maura had barely noticed she there until Angela was crouched in front of her, weathered hands holding on to blood stained knees.

"Oh, Angela. Hi." Maura remained still, expressionless.

"I've spoken with Frost and Korsak. Jane is coming out of surgery." Maura was still colorless, still vacant. "Come with me sweetheart. Let's get you cleaned up."

Angela led Maura to the nearest restroom. She dampened some paper towels and wiped the blood from Maura's face tenderly. Not one word was exchanged as she soberly rinsed away all remnants of her daughters blood. She took hold of Maura's hands and encouraged her to place them over the sink. Running the water until in was tepid, she gathered some soap into her hands before covering the doctors own. The water felt good. Angela's touch felt loving, calming. Maura wondered for a second if their was something disturbing about the fact that she had not once felt the urge to call her own mother for support, for exactly this kind of comfort.

"Is she..." Maura struggled to speak. She hadn't made a sound in over three hours. Connecting the thoughts in her head to the words coming out of her mouth now felt like a strange, otherworldly thing to do. Her throat felt constricted. She tried again, "Is she going to be ok?"

"She lost a lot of blood Maura but she is going to be fine. And Frankie too. They are both going to be fine." Angela dried off Maura's hands but her eyes never left the doctors face.

Maura's heart started pounding. Her eyes watered and her hands shook. Angela squeezed at them tightly. "She's ok Maura. She's a fighter. You know that."

Angela heard the involuntary hitch in Maura's breathing. "Thank god," she wept. "Oh, thank god." All at once, she let go of the anxiety she had been fighting so hard not to feel. She let go of the feeling she'd been so reluctant to acknowledge was even there. The gut wrenching feeling of loss. The unbearable notion that she would never see Jane alive again. That she would never be able to look at her deep brown eyes or see her smile again. Never be able to touch her and feel her warmth. She sobbed uncontrollably and let Angela take the weight of her limp body. The numbness was lifting. Jane was going to be ok.