First foray into R & I fanfic. Was originally written for a different pairing but suited these two perfectly so, with just a few tweaks, we now have a Jane and Maura story. Classified as "Complete" but only because I don't trust myself to find the time AND motivation to write more. Reviews are cherished. Fuel for writing, definitely.

BTW, Casey here is a female, you'll find out. ;)

*Updated (corrected/tweaked) chapter, thanks to Sorry's sharp eyes. This is why I need a proofreader. :)

Chapter 1

I watch slim fingers lightly skim over the other's back.

Jane's. Over Maura's back.

My girlfriend's. Over her best friend's back.

I feel an all-too familiar fear nibbling at my already fringed edges. I get flashbacks to when I was 5 and would hear my older sister, who was allowed to stay up an hour later than I was, rummaging through our chest of toys and dolls and little plates and pitchers and teapots. I knew she would never touch something mine. She had quite clear boundaries of what's hers and what's someone else's for a 9-year-old. Even if she did actually give in to the occasional urge to give in to curiosity and let her fingers wander over to what's mine, I could always count on her to be careful. Still, I was afraid.

It wasn't that I didn't trust my sister.

I didn't trust the lure of my toys. My pretty teapots and my neatly stacked pink plates and my perfectly coifffed, blonde dolls. Even my little toy soldiers and guns, matchboxes and baseball cards.

Slight movement reels my eyes back to where Jane sits beside Maura, listening intently to the man garbed in white discussing matters unavailable to my ears with a friendly yet knowledgeable air, his expression tempting a smile. For someone whose voice I've never even heard beyond hushed tones, I'm quite familiar with his presence now.

Him, a doctor. Maura's.

Her oncologist.

Probably telling her, them, about how she'd need to continue her chemo for days and days to come. Maybe months and months. Years. His smile restrained by the knowledge that whatever good news he may have wouldn't remain so for long. There have been periods of remission, of false hopes. I've seen his smile grow from free to careful.

Practically telling her, them, that they would be given free pass to spend those chemo days...months...years, together. Jane taking care of Maura, waiting patiently with her bucket and ice chips, her green towel now well worn from the hundreds of times it's gone through the wringer that is Jane's fingers - taking out her anger over her best friend's illness on the poor rag. Jane with her slender but toned arms that somehow always garner enough strength when necessary to lift Maura's frail form when the chemo takes its toll on her.

I've seen her lift Maura effortlessly, but never nonchalantly. Always with great care as if transporting a precious cargo from toilet floor to bed.

And each time, I wonder why I have to beg ten, maybe twenty, times just to get her to give me a piggy back ride from the car to the front door.

Maybe it's that I'm heavier, that I'm a heavier load.

No, it can't be that I'm not as precious.

Why else would Jane have called me her "precious" a few times? Granted those few times have been the one or two times I've managed to complain a little about all the time she spends with Maura.

That can't be it. I am precious cargo to Jane.

Only maybe heavier.

I shake my head free of my rambling, indiscriminate thoughts, my attention caught by the two figures - occupying both my head and my view- getting up from their perch.

I have a brief hallucination of a couple getting up from their knees, having just been bestowed the white-robed man's benediction.

I shake my head once again, this time a little more violently, of such an absurd hallucination. Hallucination? Or an illusion?

They say illusions are misinterpretations of existing stimulus whereas hallucinations require no stimulus at all.

An illusion then. I am merely misinterpreting existing stimulus.

Me. Misinterpreting.

My bad.

I manage to even briefly chuckle to myself over this latest error in judgment. I've had quite a few lately. Like that time I wrongfully accused Jane of coddling Maura too much after I had assumed she had been paying for her caregiver all this time. Jane had corrected me promptly, explaining that the check I had seen made out to Jill, Maura's caregiver, was just a result of Maura running out of checks. Nothing else. Adding, with more than a bit of sarcasm, that Maura could probably afford to pay for 10 caregivers if she wanted to. Maybe she did want to. But I knew Jane had barely only given in to even having one. Why pay for one when she can take care of Maura herself, she argued over and over, hesitantly relenting only after Maura's mother herself insisted on it.

I had apologized for the mistaken assumption, of course. I realized how absurd it would have been if it were true.

Not only because Maura had more money than maybe my entire family, all the way down to my 3rd cousins combined.

But because best friends don't pay for their friend's personal caregivers.

Husbands do. Wives do. Parents, girlfriends, lovers do.

And Jane is none of the above.

So yeah, absurd. Absolutely absurd.

Again, my bad.

Light peeking through the door snaps my head up and I see the pair walk out with similarly unreadable expressions on their faces.

Jane sees me and smiles. I beam back at her. I can't help it. My girl's gorgeous, even when her eyes look worried and weary. Even when her smile seems tired and hesitant. I rush forward toward her, careful to throw Maura a smile, too.

I reach up to give Jane a hug as she hugs me back. A one-armed hug.

It'll do.

It'll do because a peck goes with the hug. With the one-armed hug. But yeah, it'll do.

As I hug her though - and as she hugs me back - I catch sight of her other hand travelling up from Maura's back while Maura's eyes are respectfully averted. I watch her hand move up, as if in slow motion, to the dip between Maura's neck and shoulder. I watch her fingers dig, albeit all too gently, into the flesh before lifting up from skin and for a moment I rejoice. I anticipate the one-armed hug turning into one of Jane's full-bodied hugs which I love.

But it doesn't.

Her hand lifts up only to land on Maura's neck this time, kneading the pale flesh carefully.

Almost lovingly.

I almost tear my eyes away, feeling another illusion coming on.

I tell myself that I got a kiss. A kiss should be worth more than a squeeze on the back of a neck.

And yet I still feel the onslaught of another illusion. An illusion of Jane's fingers on Maura's neck being more intimate than her lips on mine.

It has to be an illusion, I tell myself. A misinterpretation of existing stimulus.

I pull away, smiling, relieved to find my movement seems to have extracted Jane's hand from it's perch on Maura's nape.

"How'd it go?" I ask quietly. Respectfully. Maura turns back to me, a slight, kind smile on her lips. Her chapped, cracked, pale lips.

I get a reply from neither of them and I get another familiar feeling. Not of an impending illusion this time. It's that other familiar feeling.

Of being an outsider.

Especially as I watch them trade glances. Jane's is questioning, Maura's indulging. Open. Like she thinks it's absurd that Jane would have to ask her when she knows she can have anything of hers.

I feel like grabbing a bag of popcorn and a tall cup of soda. To go with the silent movie unfolding in front of me. I should be used to it by now. I should have that can of Coke and that bag of microwaveable popcorn in my purse handy every time I know I'll be standing in these two's presence.

And yet I'm not. I'm not quite used to it.

I'm the girlfriend. I should be standing in Maura's place, communicating wordlessly with Jane. Maura should have the popcorn and soda in her bag, watching us trade intimate, knowing glances.

"We're going on a mission," I hear Jane speak, my hearing compromised by my ringing thoughts.

"You're what?" I ask stupidly, the hundred frown lines on my forehead hopefully enough to express my confusion.

"She's in remission."

"Oh." Again, I say stupidly, drawing a blank for a few seconds before it dawns on me that the appropriate emotion my face should be displaying right now would be joy, relief, delight. Every other word in the dictionary that means the same as happiness.

So I smile. A huge, ear-splitting, I-just-won-my-second-grade-spelling-bee smile. And turn to Maura. I hold my arms out to her, inviting her for a hug. A celebratory hug. That's what people do in times like this, right? They hug in celebration?

Thankfully, Maura is in on the tradition as she hugs me back. Not a one-armed hug, mind you. She hugs me back with gusto. With as much gusto as her frail form allows. She chuckles, too, while she does. And for a moment, I'm lost in my genuine relief and happiness. For Maura.

And for Jane even.

Maybe even for myself. Because a healthy Maura would mean a happier, less grumpy, less tired, more-time-with-me Jane.

For the moment, I forget about all my illusions and familiar feelings and whatnot. I squeeze Maura carefully before releasing her, not wanting to extend the hug to where it would be uncomfortable for Jane to be watching her girlfriend and her best friend hug. Especially with both of them batting for the same team.

Well, sort of. Maura bats for both teams, I've been informed by Jane. As if meant to reassure me.

"That's great news, Maur," I say without thinking. I quickly flash the same smile to Jane, surprised to find a slight frown crumpling her otherwise smiling face. Yes, I know her well enough by now to notice when she's frowning in the middle of a smile.

Then I realize what had uprooted the frown. I called Maura "Maur." A no-no in Jane's book. I shrug my shoulders. What else can I do?

"It is. It really is, Casey." Maura saves me from returning Jane's frown. I still don't get why she gets so possessive of that missing 'a' in Maura's name.

I shift my gaze back to Jane, relieved to find her barely discernible frown has disappeared.

"It's more than great. It's incredible news. Incredible enough to warrant some badass celebration," Jane declares grandly, so happily I feel her currents of excitement travel through the air to my own fingertips to course through me.

I have to keep myself from clicking my heels in glee. When Jane celebrates, I know she's not the kind to hold back. The thing is, it's been a while since Jane's found reason to celebrate.

Not even our second year anniversary has been reason enough to celebrate. She had said it didn't feel right to celebrate when her best friend had practically just been handed a life sentence. I couldn't really say anything in response to that. Especially not after spying the glaze of tears forming in her eyes as she spoke the words. Instead I pulled her into me and comforted her as I knew she needed to be.

I agreed, of course. It wouldn't have been right.

I agreed even when all I really wanted to do was throw myself down on the floor, pound on it with both fists while I flail my legs in protest. Anniversaries are supposed to be celebrated. I wasn't asking for a grand ol' fiesta. A dinner maybe. Anything to acknowledge that two years of being with me, being my girlfriend, was something worth commemorating.

Even a fucking card would've sufficed.

I didn't get anything. Well, nothing other than a text message.

I couldn't really feel bad. Not when the day had fallen on the exact same day Maura had her first chemo sessionb after all her radiation trials had not really done much. One look at her heaving form when I stopped at her place to greet Jane - and to visit the ill blonde, too, of course - was enough to wash me free of any bitterness. I had watched my girlfriend kneel beside her as she emptied foul-smelling liquid out of her system. Jane never seemed to mind, even leaning in close to wipe Maura's mouth free of remnants with that green washcloth.

They've had the damn rag since. I can still remember Jane's glare when I had suggested one time, jokingly, that said rag deserves a break. Needs to be retired. You'd think I had suggested it was Maura who needed to retire from the sharp beams she had shot me through her eyes.

I had to look away, forcing a laugh. Those beams were too reminiscent of the beams my mother's eyes used to shoot me whenever I had come home with a girl. Beams that always carried a "how could you?" note with it. Those beams always made my insides turn. They always make my heart beat nervously, in both fear and restrained indignation.

I had to insist that I was joking. It took that and a few playful kisses on Jane's cheeks and neck before she softened up and forgave me for my trespass.

I never talked about the green washcloth ever again. It was one of those untouchables.

Untouchables.

I hear my sigh escape spontaneously, the sound forlorn and exhausted.

I feel forlorn and exhausted.

Jane and Maura had a lot of them, untouchables. Things and topics and memories no one else outside of their small group of two are ever allowed into. It's like this little chest...no, more like a closet, full of their untouchables, always locked and off-limits to unworthy individuals.

Like the green washcloth.

Like "Maur."

Like that "incident" in Jane's first year as a detective they would never share with me, only ever mentioned once by Jane, and by accident. From the look of guilt on her face, you'd have thought she had inadvertently admitted to knowing where Jimmy Hoffa's body is.

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is in their "untouchables" closet. Wouldn't surprise me, from how protective they are of it.

I digress again.

Back to this celebration thing. This celebration thing that has Jane's face all lit up with excitement and thrill.

It tickles me.

It's been a while since I've seen her genuinely happy. Not even with me has she been, I think. I quickly dismiss the thought before it could provoke sadness. This is a time for "happy," not "sad."

"Maur, I'm taking you to Cabo. We're going for a whole fucking week, even two. Sun and ocean, just as you've wanted all year but hasn't gotten. Blue skies and clear water."

I think I'm actually shuffling my feet in excitement. Jane's excited tone, other than being sexy as hell, is thoroughly infectious.

"Just you and me, Maur."

And just like that, my feet stop shuffling. How can they when I feel those balls and chains clamped around each one of them again?

Just like that, I feel heavy.

Again.