Jane stretched and rolled her shoulders, trying to bleed off some of the stiffness from a ten minute wrestle with a tweaker that afternoon. She hated drug busts, and had been glad to leave them behind when she moved to homicide. Unfortunately she didn't get to pick the drug of choice for the perps she had to pick up. Jorge Gonzalez, 24, tweaker, and boyfriend of a now violently deceased 18-year-old, had not taken kindly to the Detective's desire to see him behind bars. He couldn't remember why his girlfriend had ended up dead, but the forensic evidence that a blonde haired ME had found had put the question beyond doubt. Gonzalez, drinking a beer in a worn-out bar and nursing a couple of sore hands, had disagreed with the dark-haired detective when she told him that he had the right to remain silent. He had been pretty vocal until she and Frost had slammed him against the bar. Jane didn't remember him twisting her shoulder, but several hours later it seemed pretty clear that he had. Her left shoulder blade appeared to be committed to arguing with every surrounding muscle and she was sure her collar bone had opinions of it own.

This would have been less of a problem if she was right-handed. And on her own couch. But she was, unsurprisingly, sat on Maura's couch when she absentmindedly reached for her beer with her dominant hand, causing a groan of pain before she had a chance to bite it back. It wasn't her fault. Maura had chosen that moment to put a DVD in the player, and the front row view of a certain posterior had taken up all of Jane's brain power. One minute she was pretending to herself that she was not memorising the view for later, the next second she was biting back the pain of her left shoulder catching fire. By the time she starting rolling her shoulders Maura was already by her side.

'Jane! Did you lie when you said you weren't hurt? I knew there was something more to it. Why didn't you tell me that you had hurt yourself?'

Jane pretended that she was biting her lip in pain as the medical examiner immediately began to massage and roll the painful shoulder with her soft, warm hands. That right there was why she hadn't said anything. Maura may be a brilliant doctor but her diagnostic techniques tended towards the 'hands on'. Jane had enough trouble keeping her hands off the Doc when she was well. Add a divided attention span between pain and her raging libido, plus the doc's hands running over even the most innocent parts of her anatomy, and Jane would rather be dealing with the tweaker all over again. At least she wouldn't moan inappropriately at him grabbing her. Jane valiantly tried to remember her yoga breathing techniques when Maura asked her to raise her arm. Maura took Jane's wrist in one hand and let her other hand slide up Jane's back, tracing the muscles around her shoulder blade.

'You have a lot of tension here'

Jane said a loud internal prayer that 'tension' in her muscles didn't result in a large neon sign above her head explaining the cause. Whilst Maura undoubtably thought it was injury related, Jane was pretty sure that at least one of those signs would be flashing 'SEXUAL' above her head.

Eventually Maura relented and let go of her, although she did use words like 'ice pack' and 'rest'. Jane was piecing it together at this point as most of her brainpower was devoted to not obviously pressing her thighs together or, alternatively, staring down the low cut fitted tank top that her 'best friend' was wearing. 'Best friend because, as much as that was how Maura saw them, Jane didn't lie to herself. She was very much holding back from jumping the blonde at every opportunity. Even as Maura settled down next to her on the couch to watch some documentary that Jane had no interest in, but was worth watching just for the chance to watch Maura from the corner of her eye.

If she was honest it wasn't that she hadn't considered the possibility of telling Maura how she felt. She didn't even think that Maura would have a problem with it. The woman advocated sex as a preventative for the common cold for God's sake! But as much as Maura thought she was 'gorgeous, my friend' (words that repeated in Jane's head on many a night), Jane remained convinced that Maura did not feel the same way about her. Maura was not a subtle person. Yes she was socially awkward, but she thought sex was a totally natural part of life. If she wanted to sleep with Jane she would have made that clear, probably with a 'I am content to remain your friend if you do not wish to engage in sexual activity. Studies have shown that total honesty actually strengthens friendships in the long term, despite short term discomfort'.

And Maura loved her. Loved her and her family. She knew that Maura did not have that many friends, something which, in Jane's opinion, merely confirmed that most of the world was made up of idiots. How someone as funny, warm, intelligent and informed as Maura could find herself on the outside of social circles remained a mystery to Jane. Did people actually want to be bored to death by the people they hung out with? Did they really not want to know more about the amazing world that they lived in? Did they really object to the Encyclopedia Britannica being wrapped up in live, fully fleshed, absolute sex-on-legs?

Given Maura's compassionate nature and devotion to the Rizzoli family, Jane was pretty sure that she would simply be deeply touched by Jane's feelings and would try her best not to create awkwardness between them. So fear of losing Maura was not what held her back. It was simply a fear of hearing that No. 'No Jane, I do not want to sleep with you'.

She remembered, right at the beginning of the relationship, when she had tried to broach the subject. 'Are we having a sleepover or is this your way of telling me that you are attracted to me?'. It had come off as a joke, and Jane had to admit that her own cowardice had made it so. Scared out of her mind with Hoyt, feeling vulnerable but at the same time knowing what truly mattered at that moment, she had sought out the place she felt safest. Maura. And what did it matter, really, telling her how she felt? There were far worse things going on for her. But still, as she said it, she felt her nerves take over and it came out as a joke. Maura had laughed it off with her. She didn't have the guts to tell her she meant it. Later, when she had dared to ask Maura is she wanted to sleep with her, she heard her voice coach it in terms of disbelief. You don't want to sleep with me. Do you?'

Maura's reply - No - came after some hesitation. But having thought about it many, many times, Jane had to admit that it still came under the 'Maura can't lie' rule. If Maura had really wanted to have sex with her, she would have had hives despite the hesitation. In her mind she knew full well what question she was answering when she said no. She did not want to have sex with Jane.

So Jane did not tell her how she felt.

Jane mulled this over, yet again, as she sat there with Maura at her side. The ME had worked her way across the couch until she was curled up at Jane's side. In fact it was more that that. Jane rested her right arm against the arm of the couch using her hand to support her head. Maura had, at some point, managed to lean all of her body against Jane's left side, with her right arm around Jane's back and her left arm draped over Jane's left thigh. A blanket covered them both with Maura's head nestled against Jane and Jane's left arm curled around Maura. Thinking about it, Jane couldn't remember how they had ended up like this. Nor could she remember being so wrapped around any of the guys she dated. Objectively, and if someone walked in right now, she would be hard pressed to explain how they were 'just friends'.

It was at that point that her brain decided to sit up and point out that the genius in her arms understood semantics. And that 'I don't want to sleep with you' could mean that 'I don't want to fall asleep next to you'. And it could mean 'I don't want to sleep with you. Because I want to have sex with you instead'.

Jane knew Maura couldn't lie. But it took until that moment for her to realise that Maura could use language in very specific ways.