A/N: I had an editor/beta person thing, IsaBabisa, who without probably wouldn't be a thing because I get really frustrated and neurotic sometimes.

Disclaimer: Don't own. No Money. ETC.

Maura's anger was only fueled as the glass broke. Everyone made out like breaking things made it all better but it just made it worse.

"Because I'm in love with you!" Her confession still rang in her head. Why had she said those words? It had been her confession, her harried confession in the midst of a case that she had gotten too emotionally involved in. Because when you're friends with Jane Rizzoli, when you worked with Detective Jane Rizzoli you couldn't help but feel it the way she did which was to feel all of it. Victims weren't victims they were people with names and lives and Jane became a part those names and lives. Maura could cope with it on a normal day but not that one. That one led Jane to go undercover, led Jane to facing the barrel of the gun sans bullet proof vest, led her to getting shot at point blank and somehow coming out the victor without shedding blood. And then Jane had bragged in her nonverbal Jane way about it. She had come to the morgue all shoulders back and chest puffed like a prized rooster strutting her stuff and it was too much.

They argued. Maura snapped and it slipped and she ran. She found herself almost laughing at that. The truth was supposed to set her free but instead she had felt as if she had set some sort of alarm off and bars were falling into place around her trapping her in place. And she didn't feel free at all. She didn't do well caged or confronted. She worked in facts, in science, in figures, in…in anything but emotion and love and random non-thought-out confessions so she ran. That's how ridiculous she was. It was her confession, her secret, and she was the one who ran from it.

But the thing, the thing that left her throwing things in the middle of the night was that Jane had let her leave. She'd let her get lost.

What was wrong with her? She blinked watching the amber liquid from the broken bottle fill in the cracks between the tiles, watched the glistening of the glass as it leaked its contents. Jane's beer. She had thrown Jane's beer. God, she was so angry at herself. She always had to go and ruin everything. And then all of a sudden the anger was gone and she fell to the wet kitchen floor a heavy, choked sob escaping her. Her chest hurt in a way that was completely metaphysical, an ache she knew all too well.

This was the second time in less than a year her relationship with Jane had been stretched beyond its means. What was so wrong with her that everyone always left her? Was she so fundamentally flawed that she couldn't be loved in return unconditionally? Or even at all? Because at this point she would take conditions and sometimes and maybes. Those were all better than nothing, better than silence, better than locked doors and shocked faces. She scoffed as she remembered once again that it was she who locked the door, she who started the silence, she who left Jane with nothing but a shocked stare. That was the only thing Jane had put into the equation, the look that was on her face as Maura fled. She brought her knees to her chest and let her back hit the cabinet behind her hard. She dug her short nails into the skin around the backs of her calves and shut her eyes tight. Why did it always end up like this? Her alone crying her eyes out?

Angela Rizzoli crept into Maura's house a fire poker in hand. She saw Bass had taken refuge underneath the coffee table. The closer she got to the kitchen, the more the stench of alcohol permeated the air. Of course her thoughts automatically went to worst case scenarios – scenarios where she was about to walk in on Maura bleeding to death or dying or in some other ungodly tragic way. She tightened her grip on the poker. But then her ears caught up with her and the worst sound she'd heard since Tommy broke his leg during football practice when he was fourteen hit her eardrums. It was a mewling kind of whimper followed by a choked heaving breath. She dropped the poker instantly at the sight of Maura curled into herself on the floor surrounded by shards of broken glass. "Oh, honey." She whispered as she brought the younger woman into her arms.

…

Jane laid in bed wide awake. She stared at the ceiling with Jo Friday resting her head across her stomach. She blinked. Maura…Maura was in love with her. God. She blinked again hoping that maybe blinking would make her chest stop hurting, blinking would make everything better. But it didn't.

She had Casey. Or something. She was…And Maura just…She swallowed blinking again.

Jane thought if she could just stay ahead of it all she'd be okay. If she could just keep swimming, the tide, the waves wouldn't pull her under. She thought if she could just fall in love with Casey it would be okay. She would be okay. They would be okay. Everything would be okay.

And every time Casey called she felt herself slip more and more towards him and away from Maura because his eyes were blue and not Maura's special brand of hazel. Only being with him was also a double edged sword because Hoyt's eyes were also blue and Hoyt's name was also Charles and sometimes her nightmares twisted both of their faces together and she couldn't look Casey in the eye for an extended period of time. But when she looked at him she wasn't looking at hazel-green with flecks of gold and that was the important thing.

He wasn't feminine either not even a little bit, even with his injury he was still very much a man, very masculine. Where amazing curves would be he had ridges of muscles. There was no swell of breasts, no curve where hip met side, no dimples in his smile. His skin was rough, his hands big, his voice deep and accented and manly. He was everything Maura wasn't and she thought, god, she thought if she could just stay ahead of it all everything would be okay.

If she could just fall in love with him she wouldn't fall in love with her.

But he kept leaving and Maura kept staying and the scale would even out and dip in Maura's favor every time she wound up passed out on her magic couch. And she would always find herself falling, tumbling head over feet, heart over head, for Maura's hazel eyes because they weren't blue, for her curves and her ridiculous facts. For her smile, and the way she always seemed to stay when everyone else left. It was every tiny miniscule piece that made up Dr. Maura Isles that she felt herself falling for and it terrified her because so many things could go wrong, would go wrong and then what would she do?

Slowly she would feel the okayness of it all, of everything, slipping right through her fingers like smoke. And Casey would call and she was desperate because she needed it to be okay. He would pop back up just in time to save her from herself, from the ledge she was about to jump off of. And the scale would tip back to him and it was okay again for a minute until he left and Maura stayed and she was tumbling again and again like a bad joke.

And Maura sprung this on her. Maura…Maura was in love with her too? It was too much to take in, too much to try to understand. How could Maura possibly love her? She was a bull in a china shop. She was a ball breaker. She was a bitch. She was whatever other name they called her that was floating around the precinct. Mostly, though, she was just a broken mess. And Maura loved her?

…

Somehow Maura wound up in the passenger seat of Angela's car. Angela who was more of a mother in the three years she'd known the woman than her mother had been for a lifetime. And then at that thought a wave of guilt washed over her because her mother, Constance Isles, had jumped in front of a car for her, had nearly died for her. And that was the most motherly thing she'd ever been witnessed to ever. She sniffed wiping her nose.

Before she could ponder any further the car came to a stop and she was being ushered from the car and up steps. Before she knew it she was standing – leaning – next to Angela as the woman banged on a door. She was still too teary, still too emotional, too caught in her own head to fully process just exactly whose door they were standing in front of.

Jane opened her apartment door wondering who in the hell had the right mind to come knocking on her door at midnight. Her edginess quickly faded as she saw her mother and Maura standing opposite her on the threshold. Automatically she reached for Maura her eyes connecting with her mother's.

Angela's look was hard. She raised one eyebrow. "I'm entrusting her with you." Her voice was deadly serious. Jane gulped. "Don't make me regret that. Now, fix what you broke and I expect both of you on civil terms at family dinner on Sunday." Angela said curtly as she turned on her heel quickly leaving Jane alone with a very emotional Maura Isles. Jane blinked as the phrase actually hit her 'very emotional' and 'Maura Isles' did not belong in the same sentence with each other. But there was no other way to describe it.

She locked the door her arm never leaving Maura's shoulders. She wrapped her arms around her best friend, her maybe-something-more, her…person. Because that's what Maura had become. Maura had become a filled in chair on her right, a movie night pizza, the person she went to when she felt her whole world crashing down around her. Maura was refuge and redemption and love and home and, shit, she was stupid. Because that was more than Casey or anyone for that matter could ever be to her. She squeezed tighter and finally felt Maura applying pressure back as her arms wrapped around her own slender frame.

Jane held Maura's hand as they walked into her bedroom. She helped her change clothes, tucked her into the right side of the bed. "Jane," She heard Maura sleepily say as she crawled in beside her. "Will you hold me?"

Jane felt her heart ache a little more. She wrapped arms around Maura's waist and tossed her leg over Maura's hip. The doctor snuggled closer into her chest letting out a small sigh. "Always, Maur. Always."

…

Jane stared at a sleeping Maura. Stared and tried to not let her heart get ahead of her, tried not to let it rule every decision she was about to make. Maura was curled onto her side a pillow cradled to her chest her face serene and kind and wonderful. And Jane felt her insides turning into mush because this was Maura. This was the epitome of everything she'd fallen in love with (and what a scary sentence that was.) All of those things she should've felt with Casey she was feeling right then. The scale had irrevocably shifted and was soldered and stuck and frozen. Her chest seized, her heart ached and words she only thought of during late lonely nights came floating back to her and Maura was walking away from her and she was letting it happen, just because she was afraid. And it all came down to this. One moment. One single moment.

"Jane." Maura mumbled sleepily, groggily. Maura rolled a fraction of an inch and squinted at Jane through heavy lidded eyes. That was what broke her.

Jane leaned down with one knee on the mattress and brought her lips to Maura's softly for a quick barely there kiss and then she all but collapsed onto the bed, on top of Maura. She nestled her face in between Maura's shoulder and the pillow. Her throat burned and her eyes filled with unreasonable tears. "I'm so sorry, Maura. I'm so, so sorry." Maura wrapped her arms around her best friend confused and dazed from heavy sleep, her lips burning where Jane's had been. But she knew she wanted Jane to kiss her again, a real kiss. But the detective was crying into her shoulder.

She had a bit of an emotional hangover from the previous night. She didn't remember going into Jane's place exactly. But she remembered safe and sheets and arms and home.

She remembered walking into that apartment felt like home. And that feeling was still with her there in the early morning hours as Jane lay on top of her.

She knew on some level what had caused her to become so emotional. She thought she lost Jane, again. She thought her slip had sent a wedge through their friendship bigger than any bullet wound ever could. She already knew what life was like without Jane and she did not want to have to go through that again and she was angry and sad and Jane kissed her.

Wait.

Jane kissed her. She blinked. The dog barked. Jane kissed her. She felt herself smiling. She pushed at Jane's shoulders enough so that she could see her face and captured Jane's lips with her own. The kiss was soft, chaste and when it was over they rest their foreheads together. "I would very much like it if we could start over." Maura said softly as her arms soothed over Jane's back slowly, trying to calm the woman above her. "Will you go on a date with me tomorrow evening?"

Jane smiled weakly through a nod. "I'm – I'm in love with you too. I – I tried not to be but –" She was cut off by Maura's lips once again and she found she didn't mind being shushed this way.

A/N: And now I go take three finals and do a presentation. hah.

Thanks for reading!