Sand and Beauty
"It's a little hot out."
"Well it was your idea to take a stroll along the beach after investigating a murder scene. I should be out there canvassing, not—" Jane made a face "—watching half-naked fat men treat the ocean like the first bath they've had in weeks." She yelled towards the offender, "C'mon, man!"
Maura glanced to the side, taking in Jane's rolled-up pant legs, the wide swing of her arms—a remnant from days spent accommodating a kit belt—and the distinctive gait she adopted while donning work attire…only, right now, she was bare-footed. She smiled and tapped the heels of her shoes against her thigh.
"If we don't take the time to appreciate the beauty of the world when we get the chance, then life loses much of its luster."
Jane raised an eyebrow, her swinging arms becoming more forceful. "Says the woman in a little black dress who just a few minutes ago used me as a shield because some kid was splashing through the water."
She reached out to pinch Jane's elbow and talked over the knee-jerk flinch and protest. "You know you love it."
A grunt was the only reply, and Jane made a spectacle of dashing her hair from her face when a strong breeze tangled the curls. "Jesus." She spat out a strand stuck to her lips and Maura stifled the urge to laugh. "Yeah. Life's real beautiful," she drawled.
"But just look." Maura gestured with her arms, spinning in a slow circle before facing forward again as they walked. Her ponytail bounced with the movement and she closed her eyes, soaking in the sensations around her. "The sun is shining." She took a deep breath. "Feel the refreshing sea air deep in your lungs." She glanced down and smiled, wiggling her toes. "Feel the sand beneath your—"
Maura cut off as a spray of gritty sand spattered against her legs and torso. Mouth open in mingled disbelief and outrage, she stared at Jane who righted herself after the strategic kick, eyes dancing with mirth.
"You did not just do that."
Jane grinned, wiggling her eyebrows as she slowly backed away. "If you say so."
Maura advanced, gripping her heels tight in one hand, expression offended, threatening. "Jane. This is couture."
"And now it's suffused with the beauty of the world." Jane gestured with her hands and let out a yelp when Maura lunged forward. She dodged to the side, escaping Maura's reach and sprinting in the opposite direction.
Maura gave chase. The sound of Jane's laughter, deep and rich across the open expanse of sea and sand, pulled laughter from her own chest, even as her arms and legs pumped with exertion. She felt alive, free. It pulsed through her veins with a boldness usually reserved for autopsy evidence and cracking cases. She gained ground when Jane's feet splashed in the shallow remnants of a wave, trying to change course onto drier land.
Maura didn't slow. They collided, and she wrapped her arms around Jane's waist as they went sprawling into an oncoming wave.
It was nothing but salt and sand and water and cold. She emerged sputtering, drenched, shivering. But still smiling as the wave receded. Jane coughed below her, propped up on her elbows with hair wrapped around her face and neck like octopus tentacles.
Maura laughed and helped brush the clingy strands aside.
"What the hell, Maur?" she sputtered. "You can't just… That was—"
"Fun?"
Jane's eyes met hers as another, smaller wave hit, rocking them to the side. Jane braced herself with one arm while the other went around Maura's waist, steadying them both against inertia.
Still smiling, Maura pulled the final dark strand from Jane's forehead. Her skin was warm beneath the chill, and she let her palm linger along the curve of a cheekbone. Dark brown eyes gazed into her own, annoyance forgotten, and Maura welcomed the mix of question and affection she saw there.
"Fun, huh?" Jane asked, voice rough from the cold. Maura felt her shiver, and she ran a hand along her bicep, willing warmth into the muscle.
Jane fingered the soggy silk of Maura's dress. "I thought this was couture."
Maura shook her head and leaned closer against the sudden lap of another wave. The water parted around them—there was little enough space to fit between—and Jane's hand tightened at the small of her back. "Some things are more important than fashion."
An eyebrow quirked, as did the corner of her lips. "Like the beauty of the world?"
Maura let her hand drift down to cup below Jane's ear, fingers slipping into wet hair. "The beauty of certain things, yes." Her thumb brushed the smooth angle of a jaw, and she watched the bob of Jane's throat as she swallowed.
Dark eyes searched her face and dipped lower for a brief moment before returning. "I might…agree with that."
Maura leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Jane's cheek, soft yet purposeful. Beneath her lips, she felt the subtle shift of skin and muscle into a smile, and she answered it with one of her own.
"Good," she whispered.
The hand at her back squeezed, pulled her closer, and she knew Jane heard.
She pulled back, and Maura didn't know how long they sat there, faces close, sharing smiles, with only the ebb and flow of the sea to gauge the passage of time.
Jane's eyes flickered away briefly and her smile became wry. "We have an audience," she muttered.
Maura didn't look away. "Are you embarrassed to have a beautiful woman straddling you in the shallows of incoming tide?"
Jane seemed at a loss for words, if the bloom of pink on her cheeks and throat were any judge. "Of course you would have the tide schedule memorized," she grumbled instead.
"The force of each wave has increased proportionately while we've been sitting here." Maura staggered to her feet, feeling the wet sand suck at her heels and ankles. She offered Jane a hand. "So has our level of submersion."
Jane rose with a sigh, clothes clinging and water cascading from her body. After squeegeeing her hair, she brushed sand from her elbows and shook her foot free of seaweed. Her hands went to her hips.
"You can't just tackle me like that. You could have been hurt."
Maura shook her head as she tightened her hair tie and squeezed excess water from the ends of her dress. "Based on the angle of collision, my speed, and the depth of the water, I thought the odds were reasonably safe." She shrugged a bare shoulder and slipped the strap of her dress back into place, shooting Jane a smile. "Besides, I had a cushion."
"Yeah," Jane muttered with a laugh as she started towards shore. "And this cushion now has sand in places it should never be."
If her sore muscles and knees were any indication, Maura would have some bruising. But as she watched Jane adjust her belt once, twice, and a third time, adding in a shake of her leg, she considered the pain worth it.
"Wallowing in the ocean fully clothed does have its downsides," she offered as she followed Jane onto dry sand. She found her shoes, dropped during her headlong rush, and dusted off the coating of sand.
"'Fully clothed,'" Jane laughed. "You make it sound like you've been skinny dipping before." She glanced at Maura and her face slowly morphed from teasing to shocked curiosity when Maura merely raised her eyebrows and headed towards the dunes and the parking lot beyond.
Jane scowled. "Wait a min—"
"I have towels in the car," she called over her shoulder, hearing the thump of Jane's feet as she jogged to keep up. "It pays to be prepared."
"But Maur—"
She kept walking. "We can stop by my place on the way to the precinct."
…
…
Maura rummaged through the contents of her freezer, finding too many cartons of ice cream that she didn't remember buying. She turned one around to read the label. Rocky Road. Her lips twisted. Of course. Behind another carton of sherbet—that lessened her ire a bit—she grabbed the gel pack at last. She wrapped it in a tea towel and headed towards the bedroom.
She found Jane unbuttoning her work shirt, one arm held stiffly at her side, wrist at an awkward angle to avoid jostling the shoulder. "We might need to discuss your choices when grocery shopping."
Her fingers paused. Jane's eyes went to the freezer pack then back to Maura's gaze in recognition. "I bought your sherbet," she said defensively.
"At a one to three ratio." Maura laid the wrapped pack on the bed.
"But I eat more than—" Jane seemed to realize the futility of that logic and switched gears. "I got all the other healthy stuff you like." She undid the last button and the shirt parted.
Maura motioned with her hands. "Let's see the damage."
Jane hissed as she tried to shrug away the material, and Maura stepped forward to help ease it off. Once free, it fluttered to the ground, forgotten.
The bloom of purple and black and green was too stark and bold against such fragile skin. It sent a shock along her nerves, sudden and jarring, as she traced the borders with blurry eyes. Maura blinked and trained her face into passivity, feeling Jane's watchful gaze. Worry was all well and good, but overreaction would only push away what she wanted to draw closer. The silence stretched.
"You should see the other guy," Jane said with an attempt at laughter. At Maura's lack of response, she shrugged with her good shoulder. She said, quieter, "Looks worse than it is."
Maura let out a slow breath and raised her hand. She left it hovering over the battered skin, hesitant to touch. "You said you 'bumped into a wall.'" She kept her voice controlled and finally managed to pull her eyes from the damage.
Jane ducked her head to the side, avoiding Maura's probing gaze. Her hair curtained to hide her face, and Maura resisted the urge to reach up and tuck those strands aside. To cup her hand around a scraped cheek and ask Jane to trust her with these small pieces of vulnerability.
"So maybe it happened more than once."
A low noise escaped Maura's throat, a sound of disapproval and incredulity. "And you went through interrogation this way? All day?"
Jane shifted her weight. "It didn't get bad until a couple of hours ago."
The rough edge of annoyance sharpened her tone, and Maura heeded the warning, biting back any further rebukes.
She let her fingers rest on the darkest patch of purple, a feather light touch, but Jane still flinched. "Painful?"
Jane cleared her throat, her voice hoarse around the words: "A little."
She traced the margins of the bruises with careful fingertips. The skin was overwarm, inflamed. The bruises wrapped around her shoulder, onto her scapula, and down her bicep, as though a giant's hand had enveloped her right side and squeezed. The mental image was disturbing, and Maura didn't realize she had paused, lost in thought, until Jane spoke.
"Your fingers are cold."
The statement surprised Maura, and she jerked away, curling her hand into her own shoulder in a silent apology, but Jane caught her fist and held it within her own—a gentle enough grasp to accommodate raw knuckles and swollen digits—and pulled their clasped hands up between their bodies. Brown eyes met and held hers, and Maura saw the edges of a smile color the corners of her lips.
"It felt good."
Jane ran a thumb along her knuckles, and Maura became aware of how close they were standing, the sound of their breathing in the silence, the soft echo of some emotion in Jane's expression that made Maura linger in the moment a while longer. Made her wonder.
"Ice and rest," she said, pulling away slowly and indicating the ice pack on the bed. "After a shower."
She was already at the door when Jane spoke again, and she turned. Jane stood at the end of the bed in bra and dress pants, arms loose at her sides, dark curls framing her face, purple-black shoulder shadowed in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Her gaze was steady.
It occurred to Maura that beauty encompassed colors and depths and curves that she had only just begun to comprehend.
"I can drive."
Maura leaned against the doorframe, ran a hand along its solid edge before looking back up. "I would feel better if you stayed."
There was a pause. Maura waited, felt Jane's consideration in the ensuing quiet.
Jane nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
…
…
"Special plans?"
Maura turned from the wicker basket to see Jane in her office doorway, hair in a ponytail and hands in her pockets. The casual posture spilled a few dark curls over her shoulder and parted her blazer to reveal a badge and sidearm.
Maura smiled. "With you? Yes."
Susie passed by as she spoke, and Maura caught her curious glance before the criminologist's eyes went wide and she hurried on. Maura hid her amusement.
Jane eyed the large basket and straightened. "Shit. What did I forget?" Her eyes drifted toward the ceiling, brow furrowed. "Your birthday isn't for a couple of months…" Her fingers wiggled, as though willing the information into her grasp.
Maura chuckled and slipped her purse over her shoulder, hefting the basket with two hands. "It's nice outside. I thought we could enjoy the day."
"Oh." Jane blinked at her for a moment before her words seemed to register. "Oh, yeah. Of course."
Standing in front of the doorway, which Jane had yet to vacate, Maura raised her eyebrows. Jane sported a crooked smile, and when it seemed she wasn't going to move, Maura said, "Shall we?"
Jane backed away and Maura pretended to miss the flush of red creeping along her throat.
"Of course." She reached for the basket handle, fingers brushing Maura's with a murmured, "Let me take that."
Maura relinquished her hold.
…
"This was a good idea."
Ankles crossed, Maura popped another grape into her mouth and leaned back on her arms, tilting her face to better catch the dappled rays of sunlight filtering through the trees. "I'm glad you approve."
A gentle breeze brought the subtle scent of wildflowers growing rampant in a nearby flowerbed. The park wasn't crowded, and Maura enjoyed the occasional bark of an enthusiastic dog or the jubilant cry from a child on the swings.
She heard the rustle of cloth and the crunch of an apple followed by messy chewing, and Maura couldn't hide her smile. Easy and effortless. Like it should be.
More shifting, and Maura felt more than heard Jane settle on the blanket beside her. A light pressure tickled then rested along her fingers, and she imagined Jane's hand, casually splayed to take her weight, meeting hers by accident. Accident or no, the touch remained, and Maura played with the idea of turning her hand to meet palm with palm. The soft rasp of Jane's voice jogged her from her ponderings before she could reach a decision.
"You make me appreciate."
Maura opened her eyes and found Jane watching her, brown eyes steady and open in a way she didn't often have the pleasure of receiving. Sunlight slanted across olive skin, painting eyelash shadows along the gentle curve cheekbones.
The wind played with Maura's hair, impeding her view, and she tucked a stray strand behind her ear. "Appreciate what?"
Jane shrugged a shoulder, gaze shifting into the distance and returning. The strength of that singular focus gave her words added weight. "Just appreciate."
"Then you're looking for an adjective. Appreciative."
Instead of a sarcastic comment or an eye-roll, Jane quirked her lips and glanced to the blanket where her fingers picked at a small tear in the worn fabric. The bashfulness piqued Maura's interest, and she sat up, resting her hands in her lap. She waited, sensing Jane gathering her thoughts.
After a while, Jane let out a slow breath. "Look. About what you said on the beach the other week…"
Maura tilted her head in question and encouragement.
"About appreciating beauty." A small smile formed before fading into uncertainty and knitted brows as brown eyes rose to meet hers. "Did you mean it?"
It took a special kind of courage to ask a question that can build or destroy with its answer. And the beauty in that courage—now colored a shade of caramel that Maura knew she would never forget—made her heart beat to a new rhythm.
Reaching out to smooth the collar of her blazer, Maura met courage with reckless honesty, trusting Jane to catch her should she fall.
"Yes, Jane. I meant it." Her thumb brushed the soft skin of Jane's throat and lingered, hoping to convey what her words couldn't. Several moments passed while Jane remained unmoving.
The newfound beat of Maura's heart stuttered in that growing silence and doubt clouded her veins, chilled the spreading warmth in her limbs. Never had they come so close to addressing this nameless pull, a quiet yet relentless gravity built over years that felt inevitable—at least, to Maura it did. But perhaps, once again, she had misinterpreted.
She pulled away, swallowing against the tightening of her throat.
Jane caught her retreating hand and brought it to her lips, brushing a feather-light kiss to the backs of her fingers. Maura's heart regained its rhythm even as her lungs stumbled over a breath.
"Jane…"
"Thank you." Another kiss, this one more firm.
Maura tried to order her thoughts against the distracting press of Jane's lips. "For what?"
Brown eyes crinkled, then smoothed with sincerity. "For being brave."
She read the message in those eyes, open and waiting, and for once Maura was certain she wasn't misinterpreting. She leaned forward, resting her hand around the curve of Jane's jaw, and as lips met, Maura tasted a new kind of beauty in the gentle press of returned affection, warm and soft and eager. One that silenced thought and thrummed warmth through her chest until there was nothing but Jane and heat and more. A hand encircled her waist and pulled, and the touch burned against her skin even through the fabric of her shirt.
She pulled away to breathe, to gather her scattered thoughts, but Jane chased her lips, eyes still closed, thumb stroking along the curve of her jaw as though saying, no, come back. It sent a jolt through her neurons, delicious in its intensity. The small noise Jane made in the back of her throat became a please, and Maura met her searching lips with her own again. The hand tightened around the back of her neck and Jane tilted her head to deepen the kiss, still slow and soft and thorough, and Maura lost the concept of time.
A warm wash of breath tickled along her skin, waking her from her daze, and Maura mumbled, "We need to go. Our lunch hour is probably almost up."
Jane laughed and pulled back, hand now cupping Maura's face, a thumb stroking along her cheek. Mind still hazy, Maura became self-conscious under Jane's continued scrutiny.
"What is it?"
Jane smiled and leaned to press her forehead against Maura's. The action brushed their noses together, and Maura shut her eyes at the sensation.
Soft lips murmured against hers, "Just appreciating the beauty of my world."
Just this once, Maura was okay with arriving late from lunch.
…
A/N: This story is an expansion of a pic fic of mine. If you're interested in seeing the gif that inspired it, go to my tumblr page. The url is in my profile. Hope you enjoyed.