Zurich, Switzerland 3 months later

"I just don't think I can do it, Jane. It… It hurts too much."

"It's okay, babe, you don't have to." Jane ran her hands up and down the cashmere sleeves of Maura's cardigan sweater. "C'mon, we'll wait in the café across the street for Constance. I could use a hot chocolate and one of those gooey, greasy jelly doughnuts we had yesterday."

"Apfelküchlein?"

"Yeah, those. I've gained ten pounds so far, Maur. I like this eating my way across Europe. Will you still love me if I get really fat?"

"Of course."

"Will you still sleep with me?"

"Yes."

Jane raised an eyebrow.

"You know I can't lie. There is nothing you can do that would make me stop loving you or desiring you; you're my soul mate, Jane." She picked up a rough hand and brought it to her soft lips.

"In that case, Maur, can we get a plate of… kukunuckles too."

"Knieküche. Knee cookies. I remember eating these here with my father when I was little. He said they were made of dough so thin that the baker women could read the love letters from their sweethearts resting on their knees through the dough."

Maura looked across the street at the Ruhigen See Altersheim und Entbindungsklinik where Terrence Isles had resided for the better part of the last two decades. Constance visited everyday, breaking her heart anew only to patch herself together and return again the next morning to sit beside a man who did not know her and more often than not did not want her company. Maura wondered if she would do the same if it were Jane sitting lost to her in a world of her own invention. Yes. Yes, she would.

"Babe, it's entirely up to you. But I think there is a reason that you brought those fairy stones 4,000 miles across the world with you and that you've been carrying them around in your purse. You said one day you would give them to your father."

"Yes, but maybe I came here to put him to rest, and perhaps I don't need to see him to do that."

"That's fine too, love. If that's what you want, we can walk down to the lake and toss them into the water. Say good-bye and remember him as he was."

Maura nodded and stood. Jane immediately rose and took her hand. They walked the 50 yards across cobblestoned pavement to the embankment and the doctor reached into her purse, pulling out the leather thong of fairy stones she had purchased from Maeve Timmons. She clutched the cord tightly in her hand and looked out across the grey-blue expanse of water, dappled with boats of all sizes.

"There's the opera house, love. They're playing Cosi Fan Tutti tonight."

"Wonderful, babe. We'll go and take your mother." Opera could no longer frighten Jane. As promised, she had taken Maura to the source and sat through the entire 16 hours of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth. It was a baptism by fire, but she had survived. She hadn't learned to love the art, but Maura loved it, and that was enough.

"I can't do it, Jane. I have to see him."

"Okay. Let's go then."

The Altersheim was a pleasant-looking building, a former guild house for linen weavers built in the 15th century; now it's residents stared blankly at walls weaving dreams that only they themselves understood. Maura stopped in the courtyard and looked around for something to distract herself. Her eye rested on window boxes planted with bright blooms and painted pale blue to match the shutters.

"Look, Jane, edelweiss." She pointed at the star-shaped white flowers nestled between purple rock jasmine and yellow asters. "You were just singing that song this morning in the shower."

"Um, yeah." She hadn't thought Maura was listening or she would have sung something less corny, or even better, nothing at all. "You ready, babe?"

"Yes." The doctor reached back and took her hand.

Jane was surprised by the design and layout of the building's interior. It looked more like the showroom of an Ikea store than a rest home for the old and infirm with highly polished pale, wood floors and sparse, modern furniture; everything was sleek and contemporary, so different from the building's exterior. She followed Maura past reception and up a bright, broad stairway to the second floor. They paused when they heard Constance's voice.

"I had an omelet this morning, Terrence, and a third cup of coffee. Maura's here, so I allowed myself a few liberties. I'll be back on the regimen once she's gone. I've fallen behind a bit in my correspondence. I could send emails, but that was never our style, was it, darling? Are you cold, my love? Your hands are like ice. Shall I rub them? You never minded the cold. 'I'll just put on another sweater, Connie.' you'd say…."

Maura's mother looked up when her daughter entered. She was sitting in a red lucite chair pulled close to her husband's wheelchair. She held both of his hands in her own, though he didn't seem to notice.

"Maura, darling, your father will be so pleased that you've come."

The doctor nodded, a tight, uncomfortable smile decorating her face.

"He's good today, darling. Aren't you, Terrence? He doesn't seem to mind me at all. Sometimes he…well, sometimes I can't stay very long. On days like today we could sit for hours, he and I. I tell him about my day; what I've had for breakfast, what I'm reading, the big stories from the news, what you are up to, my love. I show him pictures on my tablet that you've sent: summertime on the Vineyard or snow piled high on Boston Common."

Constance smiled a sad smile and patted her husband's spotted hand. "It's not the grand gestures of love that I miss, rather it's having someone with whom to share the little things. But I share with Terrence. He's heard all about your career and your accolades. I've read him every article you've published. He's in there, Maura, somewhere, and he's as proud as I am."

She stood. "Sit with him a while. As I said, it's a good day. Talk to him and he'll listen."

She left the room quickly, squeezing Jane's elbow as she passed.

Maura took a step closer to her father and stopped. It was Jane who finally closed the distance and sat in Constance's vacant chair. She regarded the old man next to her. He was tall and raw-boned; he must have been a powerfully built man years ago, but his skin hung loosely on his frame and his face was wan and jowly. He had warm brown eyes behind thick glasses, but they were vacant and flitted slowly about the room, not focusing on anything.

"How old is he, Maur?"

"Eighty-three, he just had a birthday last week." She took a step closer.

Jane leaned in. "Happy birthday, Dr. Isles. Should I call him that, Maura?"

"I don't think it matters, Jane. You can call him Terry or Terrence or…Scooby Doo. It's all the same."

"Hey, Terry, I'm Jane." She touched his arm and he looked up at her.

"Sprechen Sie Englisch?"

"Yeah. I speak English. I'm American."

He nodded. "Did you know that I lost my wife? My Magda passed over the winter. Pneumonia."

Maura crossed the distance to them, her very footsteps angry. "Your wife is Constance Isles, and she is very much alive. She was just here like she is every day."

"No. My wife was Magda and she's gone." He began to weep softly.

"That's the woman he met in here, the one he forgot my mother for."

"I figured that." Jane turned back to the old man. "Terry, sorry for your loss, buddy, but your daughter is here. She came all the way from Boston to see you."

He continued to weep, shaking his head.

"Terry, look at her. This is your daughter, Maura. Isn't she beautiful? She's smart and kind and generous, and I love her very much. Look at her, Terry."

The old man looked up at Maura and shook his head softly. "That's not my daughter."

Maura sighed and turned to leave. Jane caught her arm and pulled her into her lap, startling Terrence Isles. "We're lesbians." She whispered to him, confidentially.

"Babe, give him his gift."

She opened her purse and pulled out the leather thong, laying it gently across Terrence Isles's large hands. He looked at it carefully, moving the cord into the light and turning each polished rock in turn. "Fairy stones."

"Yes." Maura looked up.

"I…I…My…my daughter and I would find them…on the beach."

"Yes, on the beach at Gayhead." Maura looked guardedly hopeful.

"They keep the nightmares away I told her." His voice grew stronger. "She was always so afraid."

Jane wrapped an arm around the doctor's waist and kissed her softly behind her ear.

"Daddy?"

Terrence Isles raised his eyes from the cord of stones in his lap. "No, no. My daughter is a little one." He gestured a vague small height. "I carry her to the house because she's afraid of snakes… and bugs and germs and people." He chuckled. "My little Maura… Connie says don't coddle the child; she needs to stand on her own. What will she do when we're gone?"

"Daddy?" Maura climbed from Jane's lap and knelt in front of the wheelchair. She looked into the watery brown eyes and he looked back.

"Maura?" He began to weep again. "Where did the time go? Where's my little girl? Who will care for her when we're gone? I can't do it any more, Connie."

"Daddy?"

"Maura. Do you have someone to carry you when you're afraid?" He asked earnestly.

"Yes. This is my Jane."

He gripped Jane's forearm with surprising strength.

"You look after my little girl."

"Yes sir. I will."

Terrence Isles nodded and looked out toward the window and the dark waters of Lake Zurich behind it. He turned back to them. "Did you know I lost my wife this winter? My Magda…Did you know Magda? Who are you?"

"That was a gift, babe."

"I know it was. He hasn't been lucid for over a decade."

"Maybe it was the fairy stones, Maur. The Timmonses all swear they're magical."

"I'm not sure I believe in magic, Jane." She wrapped her arms around the detective's slender waist and lay her head against her chest.

"I'll carry you anytime, babe, you never have to be afraid."

"I know, Jane, but for now just hold my hand."

Maura turned over the last page in the photo album she had made of their month long trip to Europe. In this digital age, it felt good to have something tangible to hold in her hands rather than a scrolling through images on a cellphone or tablet that could so easily be erased and lost forever. Constance had snapped the final picture during intermission at the Zurich Opera House. Jane looked magnificent in an emerald green off-the-shoulder dress, a bare tan arm tightly wrapped around Maura's waist. Both women held delicate flutes of champagne, the crystal tinkling softly as they touched glasses and toasted their future.

"You reading your favorite book, babe?" Jane padded from the bathroom and dropped onto the bed beside her, disturbing a sleeping Jo Friday who snorted indignantly and immediately fell back asleep.

"Yes. This is my favorite book and this is my favorite photo."

"Wanna see mine?"

Jane paged backwards through the album until they were sitting at a wooden picnic table in a Munich beer garden. Jane had dipped a finger in the foamy head of a giant stein and painted a sudsy mustache above Maura's smiling lips.

"Do you remember what happened right after?"

"Sure, I kissed you until your lips were clean and soft and pink."

Maura raised an eyebrow and ran her own tongue across her lips. Jane leaned in for a kiss.

"Better than beer?"

"Better than anything." She lay back and pulled Maura against her chest.

Above them a leather thong of fairy stones hung in blessing over their bed.

A/N: And so we come to an end. Thank you everyone who followed this story. I hope you've enjoyed reading as much as I have writing. I have a few ideas kicking around my brain for future Rizzles tales, but first I am going to take a break to read (any recommendations?) and be a social human being.