”Jane.” Maura’s voice was small but honest. She’d obviously come here to say her piece and she would be heard. I loved that tone on her, it had always made my knees weak. ”I know this is the worst time to say this and that I should have come out and told you long ago but I can’t let you marry him.”

She started down the aisle to the horrified reaction of much of my family. The only ones who didn’t seem at all phased, were Ma, Frankie, Frost and Korsak, their expressions echoed what my mother had said back in the suite. They’d all just assumed things about me and Maura that were now coming true and were more natural for them than anything I’d ever had with Casey.

“I love you. I get excited whenever I’m about to see you and before you’ve even left the house, I miss you.”

“Get her out of here.” Casey snarled next to me. “This isn’t right Maura.” he spat. “If you love her, let her be happy. With me!”

I stepped away from him, this stranger beside me. Did he really not understand what Maura meant to me?

“See, but she’s not happy with you Casey.” Maura didn’t seem at all phased by his outburst and, thankfully, everyone else was too surprised to do much more than sit, open-mouthed and watch as this spectacle unfolded before them. “She wants to love you, I know she does and she’s tried but we all know she’s happiest when you’re in Afghanistan and away from her.”

Casey looked back and forth between us, his mouth flapping silently as rage coloured his cheeks with a deep red, almost purple.

“Its my bed she sleeps in Casey, my arms she craves when she can’t sleep.” I could feel myself nodding. “I don’t want to hurt you but she doesn’t really want to be with you.”

“Really?” He was apoplectic, almost to the point of catatonia.

Maura turned her attention back to me and I swallowed loudly.

“Jane. It’s always been you. When I wake up in the morning, when I feed Bass and let Jo Friday out in the yard before making our breakfast, when I start an autopsy or file a report you are always there, in my thoughts. I long to be with you even when we have just parted and when I am about to see you I am beside myself with elation. My heart is full and when you touch me I am home, only to no home I have ever known before. It is a place that is warm and full and safe.”

She walked slowly, but purposefully, towards me and everything else fell away.  Finally, something on this day felt right and I found myself walking towards her.

“I knew it the first time I touched you, I handed you a tissue and our fingers brushed and that was it, I just knew that somehow, we were meant to be.”

“Maura.” My voice wobbled and she stopped, less than two feet from me, her arm extended and a clean white tissue in her hand.

“Tell me you don’t feel it Jane, tell me you don’t love me and I will pay for the wedding as an apology and walk right out.”

Time froze, suspended in that second. Do I jump?

“Well?” Casey’s voice cracked into the bubble we’d always had around us and I turned, almost confused as to why he was still there. “Tell her, Jane. Tell her you don’t love her!”

I smiled at her.

Her magical hazel eyes shining with love and unshed tears.

“I’m sorry.” I whispered. Maura hiccuped as the first tear fell down her face and I turned back to face Casey. “I’m sorry, Casey.” My fingers intertwined with Maura’s and the spark that was always there practically burned my flesh as she squeezed so hard I feared she may break something in my hand.

“I’m sorry Casey but I don’t love you.” His knees buckled and he sat heavily on the small steps at the front of the church, Father Crowley immediately going to comfort him. “She’s right. She’s always been right!”

Her tear streaked face so beautiful, I turned and faced Maura, then captured her lips with my own. She tasted like cinnamon and safety with a hint of scotch.

With our fingers linked, we faced the door and walked out into the sunlight. Behind us, I could hear the cheers from Frankie, Frost and Korsak and my mother’s hysterical sobs of ’I always wanted a doctor in the family.’

For all the things I couldn’t say, I had Maura. I could always rely on her to say them for me.