A/N: I just got this idea in my head and had to write it out. Just wanted to see if I got any interest in this before I continued - and I know this isn't the only high school AU out there, but I was curious to explore these two in another element, so I hope you enjoy. Please let me know what you think :]
The first time Jane saw Maura, she was naked.
Jane dreaded having PE first period, despite the fact that she never bothered to tame her wild hair, and makeup was a foreign concept to the fourteen-year-old tomboy. It was still a drag to start out the day covered in a layer of sweat. Of course, with the stifling heat of August seeping in through the walls of the unairconditioned school, Jane realized this fate was inevitable. As she neared the gym, the heavy odor of old sweat hung in the air, mixing with the strong scent cleaning products, creating a sharp scent that took Jane's nose a moment to adjust to.
It was strangely silent as she entered the locker room, and she noticed only one other girl changing among the rows of empty lockers. She had long honey-colored hair and a lean build, but Jane hardly noticed these attributes as her eyes landed straight on the girl's generous breasts, fully exposed as she changed into her PE uniform. Jane managed to tug her eyes away, feeling embarrassed, especially as her eyes darted down to her own flat chest. She had never seen another girl (or perhaps woman was the better term, she decided as her eyes widened just a bit more) completely in the nude. Sure, she'd seen those anatomical drawings in health class, a glimpse of a boob here and there on television, and in the limited privacy of her home, she'd seen her mother's body only very briefly. And she was pretty sure that didn't count.
"Hello," the girl greeted her cheerfully, unembarrassed by her lack of clothing, and Jane's cheeks only flushed deeper. She tried to find an appropriate place to keep her eyes as the girl tugged away her panties as well. Jane had spent her middle school years changing in the bathroom stalls, and never had she witnessed a girl so confident and unashamed of her body. The girl continued to speak, now completely naked. "I'm glad to see someone else here. I was beginning to think I misread my schedule, and there wasn't a PE class this hour."
"Nope, uh," Jane coughed, her voice stuck in her throat. She allowed herself one last glance at the girl's chest before she locked her gaze on her eyes. "You've got the right class. We just must be early."The girl rummaged in her bag, pulling out a pale pink sports bra and a matching pair of underwear. Once again, Jane was staring, embarrassed by her intrigue, but not quite enough to overcome her blooming curiosity.
"Aren't you going to change?" the girl asked, her eyes landing on Jane's bewildered face.
Jane quickly nodded, pulling her PE shorts out of her bag. "Do you really change your underpants for gym class?" Jane blurted out, incredulously, as the girl tugged the pink panties over her thighs. Jane wished she could remember what underwear she had put on this morning, though she knew they were inevitably old and faded.
"Of course," she answered. "I don't want to sweat on my good clothes." Jane didn't know that "good clothes" applied to undergarments as well. She wore the same sports bra regardless of the occasion.
While the girl (finally) tugged on her bra and searched for her shirt, Jane quickly changed her shorts, covering whatever unfortunate pair of underwear she was wearing before even she could catch a glimpse of them. She was glad she was wearing a tank as well, and she changed her shirt just as hurriedly, completely in her PE attire as the blonde girl finally pulled on her shorts.
"Well, looks like it's just us," Jane muttered, slipping a socked foot into her ratty tennies as the girl tied her brand new pair of nikes.
"I'm Maura, by the way," the girl finally introduced herself, smiling at Jane. Jane found herself finally at ease as she looked at Maura in her fully clothed state.
"Jane," Jane answered a bit gruffly. "You new here? I feel like I've never seen you before."
Maura nodded. "I used to attend Willard Academy."
"Oh that fancy girls' school?" Jane had only ever heard of it.
"Yes. Well, used to be," Maura explained, looking a bit wistful. "We recently lost private funding so it is no longer a functioning facility."
"Well, welcome to public school," Jane laughed a little darkly, though she was slightly impressed, a little intimated and mostly annoyed as she realized what type of girl Maura was.
"I'll only be here briefly. I'm waiting for a spot to open up at Collège Stanislas de Paris—it's a boarding school in France," she further added in a nonchalant manner.
Yep, she was definitely that kind of girl, and Jane fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Come on. We're gonna be late."
They entered the gym, dust motes floating down from windows. There were about six boys already in the gym, a few shooting baskets, a few talking among themselves, and a couple standing around tensely as they waited for the class to begin. "So we're the only girls?" Maura whispered, Jane's neck hair prickling as Maura's breath washed over her cheek.
"Would appear so," Jane stated. "Not a bad thing though. Girls get all prissy and annoying during gym class—no offense," Jane quickly added. "Boys are more fun to compete with." A devilish grin crossed her face.
"I can be quite competitive," Maura stated, a bit indignant. Jane shrugged. Maura looked too delicate to get her hands dirty.
"Well, well, well. If it ain't Roly-Poly Rizzoli." Jane jerked around, entering a state of defense immediately. She groaned as her eyes fell on Joey Grant. Jane had been a little chubbier in her younger years, and Grant had been quick to adopt the demeaning nickname for her. Even though Jane had sprouted quickly and developed a lean, athletic figure, Grant had never dropped the nickname.
"Isn't," Maura spoke before Jane could come up with a retort. "'Ain't' is not a word recognized in the proper usage of the English language, though it did enter the vulgate in the early 1700s and has been commonly used in many dialects ever since."
Grant squinted at Maura, his shoes squeaking against the waxed floor, taken aback for a moment. "What are you, a walking dictionary?"
"Oh, I hardly have the vast informati-"
Jane cut her off. "Just shut up, Grant. At least she has a brain."
This earned a few laughs from the other boys who had gravitated toward the scene of the debate. Grant was about to come back with a retort of his own when an middle aged man approached the class, a clipboard in hand and a whistle around his neck. As he took role, Maura gave Jane an appreciative smile, and Jane hesitantly smiled in return, not sure why she had been so quick to defend the girl. Jane was tough and competitive, and she didn't have many friends, but she realized she had inadvertently formed an alliance.
XXX
"Frost! There you are." Jane felt an overwhelming sense of relief wash over her as she spotted her tall, lanky friend. "Where do you want to sit?" she asked, glancing around the crowded cafeteria, scanning for an empty pocket.
Her stomach flopped a little, the first day of high school nerves fully settling in. Finding a lunch table always stemmed down to survival of the fittest.
"We could sit with the basketball team," Frost suggested, a bit hopefully. She knew he planned to try out for the high school team.
"Nah," Jane muttered, knowing that Frost would be quickly swept up into their conversation, leaving Jane to eat her lunch in silence. Jane had never done well in groups.
She knew she'd need to find a place quickly, or else they would be defaulted to the basketball table. She felt yet another pang of relief as her eyes fell on Maura, sitting at the edge of the cafeteria at her own table, content with her nose buried in a large book. "Over here," she motioned to Frost, and he followed. She coughed a little, stopping in front of Maura. "Mind if we sit here?"
Maura looked up from her book, a little startled, but she quickly composed herself. "No, of course not." She closed her book, and Jane read the title, Dante's Inferno.
"Frost, Maura. Maura, Frost," Jane introduced the two, pulling out a chair beside Maura."Already have homework?" she asked as she arranged her tray in front of her, chewing on a greasy fry as Maura took a spoonful of an unidentified substance in a tupperware container.
"Oh, no. I'm merely reading for pleasure," Maura informed her, pushing her book gently out of the way so she wouldn't spill any food on it.
Frost let out a whistle. "Pleasure? That looks like some heavy reading to me."
"I enjoy it," Maura assured him. "My workload this semester is lighter than I'm used to in the past, so I should have more time to read for enjoyment."
"She went to Willard," Jane informed Frost with an inconspicuous eye roll. She turned back to Maura. "What's your schedule like?" she asked Maura. "Mind if I see?"
"Not at all," Maura reached into her bag and pulled out a pink folder, handing Jane her crisp schedule. Jane thought of her own schedule, crumpled and jammed into the bottom of her pocket, a splash of orange juice on it from breakfast.
"AP Calculus, AP Biology, AP Anatomy," she listed off, and then she stopped herself. "Is there anything on here that's not AP?" Frost had stopped chewing, and Jane stared at Maura incredulously.
"Well, PE isn't." Maura thought for a moment. "And I'm almost certain my government class is only honors weight."
"You call that a light workload?" Frost sputtered, and Maura blushed.
"AP is just a title," she explained, suddenly look a little bashful. "I just love to learn."
"Well I'd say," Jane scoffed, taking a bit of slightly undercooked pizza. "What's that you're eating anyway?" Her curiosity got the best of her as she glanced over at her dish, which looked like a salad but not quite a salad.
"Tabbouleh—it's traditional middle eastern dish in which often people enjoy dipping pita bread, but I like it on its own," she explained, taking another bite.
Maura was certainly the most bizarre, yet most intriguing person Jane had ever come across. She had certainly misjudged her this morning when she had written her off as merely a snobbish rich girl.
"So you blackmailing Jane to be friendly to you or something?" Frost joked, digging his spork into his fruit cup.
"Excuse me?" Maura asked, her gaze falling on Jane, who looked especially pissed as she tore off another piece of pizza with her teeth.
"Well, she's usually too busy judging all the girls and competing with all the guys to bother making friends with them," Frost chuckled.
"Can it, Frost," Jane hissed, viciously severing a fry with her teeth.
"Would you like to tell her about yourself then?" Frost laughed again. He was unaffected by her sour nature, immune to her grizzly words. Jane only grumbled, chomping on another fry.
"So what makes you different, Frost?" Maura asked, seeming quite intrigued by their relationship.
"My dazzling looks and my charming smile." Frost cockily raised an eyebrow, and Jane promptly reached over to give him a good shove in the arm.
"Oh, you wish," Jane snorted. She addressed Maura instead. "Frost moved here last year, guess I just kinda took the poor thing under my wing."
"Oh, you wish," Frost scoffed. "More like I took you under my wing. I have a lot of places I could be sitting right now, but I chose to enjoy your lovely company," he reminded her, dragging her in for a noogie.
Jane swatted his arms away, grumbling as he laughed. Maura watched the pair in fascination. "It seems like you're making a habit of befriending the new kid," she stated. "I don't think you're as callous as Frost makes you out to be."
"Nah," Jane muttered, sitting up a little straighter as she saved what she had left of her reputation. "It's just because I haven't had as much time to get sick of you yet. Just wait for it."
"Yeah, she really is just a big softie," Frost whispered loudly in Maura's direction. Jane punched him again.
Frost's (fake) howling subsided as Jane peaked over at Maura, who smiled as soon as she felt Jane's eyes on her, and Jane had to wonder why she didn't deny it when Maura had called her a friend.
XXX
Jane's hair was frizzing more than usual in the suffocating heat as she left school that afternoon. As usual, she headed down the Boston police station, just a few blocks away from the school. Her mother had started working at the station coffee shop about five years ago when her father's plumbing business had hit a rough patch, and Jane and her brothers had grown accustomed to coming here after school was over to wait for their mother's shift to end.
Even though Jane was old enough to be home on her own now, she still preferred to come down to the station. The officer at the front desk smiled at her as she entered the refreshing airconditioned interior, waving her back.
The coffee shop was usually empty this time of day. Her mother had no customers, and instead, Jane found her laughing with Detective Korsak. As he caught sight of Jane, he coughed a little, straitening himself. "How about that coffee?" he reminded Angela, who promptly disappeared to the back to fix his drink.
"Afternoon, Detective," Jane greeted him, sitting down on one of the barstools.
"Good afternoon youself, Jane," he greeted in return, smiling at the fourteen-year-old, whom he had grown quite fond of over the years.
"Got any interesting cases?" Jane asked eagerly. Jane had made it known that she aspired to become a detective herself, and after years of overhearing the officers talk of the gruesome, yet fascinating life of fighting crime over coffee, Jane had absorbed every detail and could not wait until she was old enough to make a career out of it.
"You know I'm not supposed to talk about my cases," Korsak reminded her, but he lowered his voice and added, "Though I will say we did found a body in the harbor this morning a suspicious head injury, and I smell a homicide. But you didn't hear anything from me," he winked at her.
"Can't you just make me your intern?" Jane begged, wanting nothing more than to scope out the body for herself.
"Sure, you wanna do my paperwork?" Korsak laughed, "Because that's where I'm headed now." As if on cue, Angela emerged from the back with a steaming cup of coffee.
"On the house," she winked ever so slightly as she handed Korsak his beverage. He laughed a little, and Jane didn't miss the blush that rose to his cheeks.
"Ma, you gotta stop flirting with him," Jane muttered once he was out of sight.
"Oh, hush, a little harmless flirting never did any harm," Angela defended, pulling out a tray of broken cookies and pushing it toward Jane.
She took half a snickerdoodle. "Ma, you're a married woman."
"Harmless, Jane," she emphasized. "Anyway, how was your first day of school?" She quickly changed the subject, rinsing a frayed rag and wiping down the countertop.
Jane shrugged. "S'okay, I guess."
"That's not very convincing," her mother sighed. "And I cannot believe you went to school with your hair like that—and I thought you were going to wear that new shirt I bought you." Instead, Jane was wearing her favorite Red Sox t-shirt.
"You know my hair has a mind of its own," Jane defended. "And Ma, I told you when you gave it to me, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing pink."
Angela rolled her eyes. "God forbid you actually act like a girl. It's like I have three sons."
"From my baby pictures, it sure seems like you got your share of bows and frills then," Jane reminded her, wrinkling her nose at just the thought.
Before her mother could lament any further, Jane's two younger brother's clamored into the station, and Angela let out a howl as Tommy emerged into sight. "Thomas Anthony Rizzoli, what in heavens name happened to your face?"
"I fell," Tommy answered, while Frankie spoke at the same time, "He got into a fight."
"Frankie!" The ten-year-old shouted at his brother, defiantly crossing his arms across his chest.
"A fight?" Angela shrieked, stomping out from behind the counter. Tommy cowered as she approached him. "On your first day of school?"
"Alex Grant made me feel stupid for being so short," he grumbled, and Jane knew that being the shortest kid in his class was tough on him. Even many of the girls had surpassed the fifth grader in height. "And then he made fun of my new glasses, so I showed him," Tommy announced, a bit proudly, rubbing his right fist.
"Speaking of which, where are your glasses, Tommy?" Angela raised an eyebrow as Tommy looked up sheepishly at her.
"In my bag. I'm pretty sure that doctor was wrong. I don't need 'em," he assured her. Angela sighed, knowing she'd have to fight this battle later.
Jane hopped down from the stool. "Those Grant boys are all assholes," she spat, getting a better look a her brother's injured face. "If you were the one to show him, then I'd hate to see what his face looks like right now."
"Language, Jane!" her mother scolded, "And don't encourage him." Though her warning had come to late as Tommy's expression became considerably smugger. Angela gripped Tommy's face, assessing the damage. "Let me go get you some ice for that lip."
Once Angela disappeared into the back, Tommy grinned wolfishly up at Jane. "Oh, don't think you're gonna get away with this, mister," she warned, but couldn't completely bite back her own grin. "Next time, knee him straight in the balls," she added.
"Jane!" Frankie was the one to scold her this time.
"Oh, hush." Jane climbed back onto the stool, swiveling around with the tray of cookies, which her brothers promptly attacked. "If you had a Grant in your year, you wouldn't be such a goody two shoes," Jane advised him.
"Jane, are you encouraging bad behavior?" Angela eyed her daughter as she handed Tommy a baggy of ice wrapped up in a paper towel.
"No, ma'am. I'm counseling them with the guidance of scripture. Thou shalt not maul the face of Alex Grant," she mocked, and the boys howled with laughter, and Angela smacked Jane on the side of the head.
"Come on," their mother sighed. "My shift is almost over. Get your bags, and we'll head home."