Disclaimer: All recognizable Rizzoli & Isles characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to Tess Gerritsen. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fan fiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: It has bothered me since Hope left that the storyline was completely dropped. Here's my take on how Maura is dealing with finding and losing her birth mother. I know there is an upcoming episode with Hope's return, but I highly doubt how I see it is how the writers see it. -DKC
Hope
After a long day, I walked into my apartment and went straight for the fridge. Bypassing my standard beer, I grabbed vitamin water and contemplated what to have for dinner.
Night's like these were a reminder of how poorly suited I would be for having my own family. Other women my age came home from work and were responsible for their families—making dinner for their husband and children. I come home and it takes everything I have to feed myself before I fall asleep on the couch. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind having my own family, in fact it would be nice to know that someone was at home waiting for me. I guess I have that from time to time with Maura. More often than not, I don't come home alone at night. I'm either at Maura's house or she is here. I suppose we are both in the same boat when it comes to families. The day Maura has a husband and children, god, I have no idea what I will do.
A knock on the door pulled me away before I could make a decision about dinner.
Before I could say a word to my younger brother, Jo Friday met me with licks to my face.
"Hello, Jo!" I said as I took her out of Frankie's hands and put her on the floor.
"Don't expect any licks out of me," Frankie said as he held up a paper bag. "But I did bring you a sandwich. Heard you had a long day."
"Oh, Frankie, I could kiss you!" I responded as I ripped the bag out of his hand.
"Please don't, I just thought you could use some dinner. Gotta run though, Jane. I've got patrol tonight."
"Thanks, bro," I said, swatting Frankie's shoulder as he turned to leave.
"Yeah, yeah," he said as he walked down the hall and out the front door of the building.
Say what you want about Tommy, but Frankie is a gem. There's nothing he wouldn't do for me and I know it.
I sat down at my kitchen counter, opened the sandwich and finished it off more quickly than I would have had anyone been watching me. Even though it was for the most part fat free, it didn't require making. I threw the wrapper in the trash and was taking a drink of my water when another knock came at the door. This knock I knew immediately. It was soft, but evenly spaced. The staccato knock could be none other than Maura.
"Hey," I said, opening the door to her without even looking up. Once I did look up I saw her puffy eyes and knew something was wrong.
"Here, come in," I said as I reached for her suede jacket.
As I was hanging up Maura's jacket, she walked toward the kitchen. She hadn't said a word since I opened the door to her and I had no idea what was wrong.
"I have a bottle of wine. Would you like a glass?" I said to Maura's back.
"Do you have something, um, stronger?" Maura said quietly, never turning to face me as she sat down on one of the stools at my kitchen counter.
As I rummaged through my cupboards, I was able to locate an unopened bottle of Jim Beam and an opened bottle of Jack Daniels—neither drinks I would ever expect Maura to request. I held them by their necks in each hand and pointed them toward her. She pointed to the Jack Daniels.
"Are you drinking this?" she asked, gesturing to the vitamin water as I poured her a glass of the whiskey. The tone of her voice told me she was stunned by my beverage choice.
"Contain your shock, Doctor," I said, smirking at her as I placed the newly poured glass before her on the counter.
"Thank you," she mumbled as she took a large gulp of the liquor.
"Are you alright?" I could no longer avoid asking my best friend what was wrong. It wasn't often that she turned up on my doorstep with what was left of tears.
"I…" she started, looking to the ceiling as if that motion would push the unshed tears back into her eyes and then took a deep breath.
"Maur…" I nudged her words along as I placed a hand over hers.
"I ran into Hope."
"Oh," my response short. How do I talk to my best friend about someone that has hurt her badly? How do I maintain my own composure while watching her fall apart?
"I shouldn't say I ran into her, exactly. I saw her," she stated, swallowing the remainder of her drink and pointing the empty glass toward the nearby bottle for a refill.
"Where was this?" I asked as I poured her a refill and quickly returned my hand to its place just over hers.
"At the open-air market today. She was…she was with Cailyn," Maura answered.
Not wanting to push Maura into telling me more than she wanted to and not wanting to rush her, I simply gave her hand a squeeze and waited for her to say the things she needed most to say.
"They were walking through the stalls, their arms looped together. Jane, they…" Maura's voice cracked. "They looked so happy."
"Oh, honey," I whispered as I watched the tears start to fall down Maura's cheeks.
"I don't understand, Jane. I am an intelligent woman and I simply don't understand."
"I don't understand her, either, Maur," I responded quickly.
"Not her, Jane. Me. What is it about me?" the serious tone Maura was employing was breaking my heart.
"No! Look at me," I said forcefully, waiting until Maura's eyes were on mine. "This, the way Hope reacted, is not about you. You did nothing wrong."
"That's quite difficult to believe. Look at me," she insisted.
"I am looking at you. I am always looking at you. I know this has absolutely nothing to do with who you are."
"But Jane there's a pattern here. I am hard to love," she said, the tears continuing to stream down her face.
"Dammit! I hate that she's done this to you," I said, rounding the counter and wrapping my arms around my best friend.
"It's true," Maura mumbled into my chest as she allowed me to hug her to me.
"It isn't," I said firmly.
"I know I have a notoriously poor track record with my love life, Jane. You have said as much on more than one occasion. A person who does poorly in their love life often has poor familial relationships as well," she said as if this were Maura-specific fact.
"Sure, you have a tendency to date terrible men, but that is only because they don't appreciate you for the amazing woman that you are. Your family is totally different. There is nothing you could have done for your parents to have been more loving and nurturing. There is nothing you could have done to change who Patty Doyle is and you certainly can't change the fact that Hope never even knew you existed until a few months ago."
"But Jane, it would have been easier for my parents and Hope, to an extent, if I hadn't been so hard to love," Maura answered, a pain in her eyes like I'd rarely seen.
"No. Just no." I pulled back enough to take her hands in mine and used my height to portray the seriousness of what I was saying. "You are not hard to love."
"How can you say that?"
"Because I love you, Maura, and I've never found that hard," the raw emotion was evident in my voice as the tears I'd been fighting on her behalf fell.
"But you're still here. Why do you stay?" Maura asked, her tear-filled eyes staring into mine.
"Excuse me?" I didn't know where she was going with this.
"Everyone leaves, Jane. Patty left, Hope left. Hell, even Ian left. And my parents, well, they flit in and out of my life without a second thought as to how that feels for me. If I were easy to love, they would stay. That makes me believe you will leave eventually, too."
As Maura continued to look at me, I fumbled for words. I would never dream of leaving her. Just like that night in the woods. I would never leave her. I never knew that she lived in constant fear or maybe acceptance that some day I would actually leave her. All this time I looked at our friendship as a life-long commitment.
"Maura, look at me. I am going to say this once and I want you to burn it into your memory for every future moment when you doubt yourself and doubt our friendship," I said, tightening my grip on her hands as a way to stem the trembling in my own.
"I love you, Maura. I am never going anywhere. I will never leave you." The tears were streaming down her face and my words were catching in my throat. "Never," I choked out.
Standing in front of my best friend, my hands holding hers, all I could think about was how easy it was to be with Maura. Not just around Maura, physically taking up the same space, but sharing our lives. We had shared our lives for nearly as long as we'd known each other. My family had openly embraced her. She wasn't just 'tagging along' with me to family events; she was expected to be there as any member of the family would be. Standing before her, I knew that my words to her were as sincere as any I had ever uttered. I do love her. I love her with everything I am. And I had long ago stopped trying to analyze what that meant. It just was. I loved her.
"It makes me so angry," I mumbled.
"What? Maura sniffled.
"That Hope isn't thrilled to have you in her life. You, Maur, are one of those people that people like me hope to know, but rarely even get the chance to hold the door for," I said, realizing that my sentimentality might sound ridiculous.
"Hold the door?" Maura chuckled.
"You know what I mean…" What did I mean? "She missed an opportunity, an amazing one at that, to know a woman who could have changed her entire world."
As I was saying these things to Maura, these completely un-Jane-like things, I released her hands and placed my hands flat on her shoulders. There was a heaviness that set in; a heaviness signaling a change in what we were actually talking about. Maura seemed to notice the shift as well. She reached one hand up to place on one of mine and her eyes seemed to darken as they locked on mine.
"You changed mine," I whispered.
"Jane…" Maura rose slightly off the stool, continuing to hold my hand to her shoulder and touching her lips gently to mine.
"I'm never leaving," I breathed as our lips parted.
Maura pulled my head to her, sitting back down on the stool. The second kiss was firm. She tangled her fingers in my hair as her thumbs remained just below my earlobes holding my head to her. Her tongue began outlining my bottom lip as my hands migrated from her shoulders into her silky hair.
"Mmm…" she hummed as our lips parted and our foreheads rested against each other. "It never ceases to amaze me how capable we are of ignoring the obvious."
"We are quite good at it," I answered.
We have spent the entirety of our friendship knowing that there is a love shared between us, a love unlike that of best friends, even most lovers. Yet despite knowing this, we navigate around it. We ignore the obvious for the sake of the simple and yes, for the sake of the friendship.
"I love you, too, you know," she said while tilting my chin up so she could look at me.
"It is a constant in my life."
I pressed my lips to Maura's once again, a warmth carrying through my body. And then my phone rang. The distraction I least wanted in that moment. I looked down at the phone and saw that it was my mother. If it were dispatch, there would be no ignoring it. Unfortunately, that was similarly the case with Ma. She would continue to call if I did try to ignore it.
"Ma, your timing, as always, is terrible," I said into the phone.
Maura rested the side of her head against my chest and I wrapped my free arm around her.
"Okay…" I said into the phone as my mother told me that there had been a delivery for Maura at her house. "Yeah, Ma, Maura is right here."
I looked down at Maura as my mother told me that a large bouquet of flowers had been delivered that afternoon and she wanted Maura to know they were there. Why my mother cared that Maura had flowers, other than the fact that she had to sign for them, was starting to make sense.
"How do you know who they were from?" I asked, responding to my mother informing me that the flowers were from Hope. "Ma! Boundaries. We've talked about this. You have to respect Maura's privacy."
Maura looked up at me with a lifted eyebrow questioning what my mother had done. I took the phone away from my ear and held Maura just a bit tighter.
"You received flowers—flowers from Hope. Ma read the card," I said as I rolled my eyes.
"What did it say?" Maura whispered.
"Are you sure?" I questioned and saw Maura nod her head slightly.
"Ma," I said into the phone. "Can you read me the card, please?"
Before I began repeating what my mother was reading over the phone, I pulled Maura to me, keeping my arm tight around her. I wasn't letting her go through this alone, no matter the outcome.
"Maura, May I someday find the apology you rightfully deserve. May I someday be the mother I always wished to be for you. May I someday earn your forgiveness. Hope," I repeated.
I felt Maura sob into me and I needed both of my arms to comfort her.
"Thank you, Ma. I need to go," I said.
I ended the call, placed the phone on the counter and wrapped my other arm around Maura. Kissing the top of her head and holding her, I couldn't begin to imagine the feelings that were enveloping her.
"Maur…" I whispered.
Maura stood up and fully embraced me. Our bodies were flush against one another, her head on my shoulder.
"May I stay?" Maura said into my neck.
"Of course, honey, of course."
"Do you have something I can wear?" Maura asked as she broke away from me and started moving toward the hallway.
"Help yourself to whatever you would like," I said.
I put Maura's glass in the sink, put away the whiskey and grabbed my phone. I quickly sent a text to Ma thanking her again and telling her that Maura would be staying the night. I shut off the kitchen light as I reached the hallway. What awaited me, I had no idea, but I didn't want Maura out of my reach tonight. Walking into the bedroom, I found Maura sitting at the foot of my bed, sleepwear in hand.
"Did you find something to sleep in?" I asked as I sat down next to her at the foot of the bed.
"I did," she uttered, never looking up at Jane.
"Maur?"
I waited for Maura to say something—anything—and then she shocked me. In one graceful, sudden movement, Maura had dropped the sleepwear from her lap to the floor and was in my lap, straddling me. Her lips were on mine, her hands on the sides of my face.
"Mmph," I nearly growled. My hands grasped Maura's hips and I kissed her back. The kiss deepened quickly before I pulled away to look at her.
"Want to talk about it?" I breathed.
"About kissing you? Of course not," Maura said as she looked at me like I was asking her a ridiculous question.
"No," I chuckled. "About Hope. About the flowers."
"Oh…" Maura said as she tipped her forehead toward mine and rested it there. "Eventually, but not now. Not now."
"What do you need?" I whispered.
The seconds of silence felt like hours as the possibilities flew through my mind. What I wanted in that moment and what I needed didn't matter. I wanted to be for my best friend whatever she wanted and needed. If our wants and needs were the same, if we were to collide, I would be grateful this day brought us together.
"Would you think less of me if I said this? Exactly this."
I looked up at Maura, our eyes locked and a passion behind them we'd not seen before. By 'this,' I knew precisely what she was referring to.
"I could never think less of you and certainly not about this. Everybody needs comfort, Maur. Everybody needs to know they are loved. Everybody needs an outlet," I answered.
"Everybody needs release," she said as she kissed me gently and briefly.
I found myself over thinking what she was saying and she caught me as my eyes broke contact with her. She tilted my chin up to look at her.
"You know you are more than an outlet, more than a release for me, right?" she softly spoke, softness in her eyes also present.
"Yes, but you know I will be whatever you need. Always," I responded.
Bringing my hands to the sides of Maura's face, I looked into the eyes of my best friend and saw everything I'd always hoped I would see there; love, compassion, want, need, lust, passion, and a raw vulnerability that I'd rarely seen in her before. Pressing my lips to hers, I could only pray that I was expressing that same love, want and need. Truth be told, I'd never loved anyone as much as I loved Maura. I'd never needed someone in my life as much as Maura.
As the kiss deepened, I felt her hips slowly begin rocking into mine. As her fingers tangled into my hair, I ran my hands over her shoulders and down her spine. The silk material of her blouse felt like heaven on my hands. As I reached her hips, her tongue met mine and a slow, steady duel began.
"Mmm…" Maura moaned into my mouth as my hands slid from her hips to her perfectly sculpted ass.
There have been moments in my life when I've experienced perfect clarity. The day I decided to join the force and signed up for the academy, for one. But this moment stood out above all others in my life. It was like a clear, June day in this moment with Maura. I knew this is what I wanted and where she and I were meant to be.
I slid my hands under Maura's shirt and felt skin that rivaled the silk of the very shirt covering it. Before I could experience much of that glorious skin, Maura abruptly stood up and pulled her shirt over her head. Her impatience brought a smile to my face. And the flush that was evident on her chest shot warmth straight to my core. Maura stood before me, her shirt now tossed aside, and reached behind her back to undo her bra. I was afraid I might be drooling as I watched her rid herself of her silk bra. Now in just her jeans and heels, I marveled at the beautiful being in front of me. Before I could prevent it, a few tears escaped my eyes.
"Wait. Let me," I said as I stood up and took over the job of unbuttoning Maura's jeans.
My eyes never left Maura's as I unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and then slowly slid them down her perfect legs. Standing back up as she stepped out of her pants and kicked them aside, I was at a complete loss for words. The woman standing before me was everything good in my life. She was beyond perfection. And she loved me. That in and of itself meant more to me than any single thing in the world.
"Jane?" Maura spoke, jarring me out of the trance she held me in.
"Hmm?" I answered.
"You're staring," she said, grinning as she did so and taking a step toward me to reach for my belt.
"I can't help it. You're astonishing," I stated.
I watched the grin break into a smile on Maura's face as she pulled my belt from the loops of my pants and began unbuttoning them. In one quick motion, Maura had my pants unbuttoned, unzipped and tugged toward the floor. My shoes having been removed when I got home from work, it was easy to kick my pants away. As easily as I kicked my pants off, Maura had my shirt over my head. Standing before her in my tank top and boy shorts, I couldn't help but feel inadequate. Before me stood the most beautiful woman I'd ever known in nothing but a silk thong. I couldn't compete. Regardless, the emotions surging through me were like nothing I'd ever experienced and I knew from the expression on her face that Maura was feeling the same way. I rid myself of my tank top, flinging it toward the mounting pile of clothing in my bedroom. And that action brought Maura closer.
So much closer.
With mere breathing room between us, her lips crashed into mine as she placed her small hands on my hips. I moaned into the kiss and tangled my hands in her hair. Using my height as leverage, I turned us and pushed Maura back toward the bed. Her reaction was far more graceful than mine ever would have been. She slid up the bed without ever losing contact with my lips.
"Let's get this off," she mumbled as she reached behind me and unhooked my bra.
Keeping her hands near my shoulder blades, she pulled me toward her and our breasts pressed together. That alone caused both of us to gasp and Maura's hips to thrust up to meet mine. The gasp gave me the opportunity to break away from the crushing kiss to kiss my way to Maura's earlobe. Taking it into my mouth, I sucked gently and enjoyed the quiet mewling coming from the woman under me.
"How do you need me?" I whispered into her ear.
"In every…oh…way," Maura moaned, my mouth finding her pulse point.
Sliding my hand down Maura's arm to her hip and further down to her knee, I was confident that the immense want I felt was mutual. I used Maura's knee to gently spread her legs. Her hands were quickly on my leg, practically begging for something to thrust against. Instead, I ran my hand up from her knee to her inner thigh. Softly tickling the inner portion of her thigh, I knew the teasing would drive her over the edge if I didn't move on. Slipping my fingers under the elastic of her thong on her hipbone, I pulled them down and her lifting hips welcomed the effort. My hand slid up the inner part of Maura's calf and her thigh on the way back up. My fingers ghosted over her lips and rested on her toned stomach as I watched her face express the want she was feeling.
My lips found Maura's, our tongues battled for dominance. Giving her control of the kiss was something I never did with the men I'd kissed. This didn't surprise me. I gave Maura everything I had on a daily basis. Giving her control now was exactly how I imagined making love to her.
"God," I rasped, breaking the kiss as I felt the woman I love grasp my breasts.
As long as I had known Maura, I had marveled at the softness of her hands. Her hands encased in latex for most of her working life, constantly washed to sterilize them and protect herself from the unseen threats on her autopsy table on a daily basis, they managed to remain soft due in part to her incessant skin care regimen. As much as I had marveled at the softness of those hands in our few touches, I never could have imagined what they would feel like on my body like this.
Maura moaning as she touched me was making me impossibly wet. Her yoga-trained legs wrapped around my hips and pulled me into her.
"Fuck!" I hissed as I felt her own wetness on my stomach as our bodies pushed together.
Thank god for yoga.
As our mouths collided again, I placed Maura's hands above her head. This new position gave me the opportunity to trail kisses down her neck and chest until I reached her pert nipples. They were hard and needy. I licked around each nipple and tried desperately to concentrate on them instead of the gentle thrusting Maura was doing into my lower abdomen with her increasingly slick core.
"Jesus Christ!" Maura practically screamed as I took the first nipple into my mouth.
I rolled her nipple in my mouth, marveling at the sensation and then sucked. The sucking caused her to begin panting. It was a beautiful sound. As I took her other nipple into my mouth, her arms came down and wrapped around me, pulling me closer and increasing the friction between our bodies. After a moment, the need for further friction forced me to replace my mouth with my fingers on her nipples. The need for less clearance for my hands seemed to be giving Maura the contact she needed as her pants starting turning to gasps. I could feel her slickness on my stomach and with every thrust I could feel her hard, swollen clit hit just below my navel.
With closed hands, I circled Maura's nipples with my thumbs. It was an entirely different sensation with my thumbs than my mouth. Rolling each between my thumb and forefinger, I was amazed at how their hardness continued to grow. As I was lost in that thought, Maura's hands reached mine and she began opening my fingers so my palms were flat.
"I want you to touch me," Maura whispered.
Fear was engulfing me and that fear had to be playing out on my face.
"Maur, my hands are not as soft and flawless as yours," I ashamedly admitted.
Continuing to hold me fingers open, she guided my hands to her breasts. I was holding her breasts in my hands as she held my hands. My eyes were filling with tears as I felt her nipples grazing the raised scars on each of my palms.
"But they're yours," she whispered. A tear escaped and ran down my right cheek. "All part of the woman I adore…Janie."
With that one word, a word I had come to resent when uttered by those closest to me, I unraveled. It was as if that one word from the mouth of this woman I trusted with my life and had come to share so much of my life with allowed the final barriers between us to crumble. As a few more tears escaped, I attacked her mouth with mine and kneaded her luscious breasts.
Her toes met my hips and hooked into my underwear. Those toned legs that I'd gawked at over the years were pushing my underwear down my legs while she continued thrusting her hips. Her grace was astonishing.
I begin dipping and grinding to give Maura's clit contact with my curls.
"Jaaaaane," Maura groaned at the newly added texture.
"God," I moaned.
I could feel Maura's drenched core wetting my curls and that wetness reaching that which I'd created on my own.
"Ohhhhh…" Maura moaned.
I placed my mouth against Maura's right ear.
"Is this what you want?" I growled.
She was losing the ability to form words as she got closer to her climax and simply nodded her head a few times.
"Is this how you imagine it?"
She let out a noise somewhere between a cry and a moan.
"This is how I imagine it," I whispered, continuing my slow, steady dips and thrusts. "When I'm in my bed late at night…"
Maura whined.
"When I see you in yoga pants," I purred. "When I'm in my shower…"
She slid down less than an inch, but that inch brought our clits in contact with one another. I opened my legs as best I could with her legs wrapped around my hips. The contact was pure bliss.
"When I'm in your guest bedroom…" I hissed. My clit was as hard as hers and the simply touching of them was electric.
"Oh, Jaaaaane," she hummed.
"When I'm in your shower and there's only a door between us," I was beginning to struggle to articulate these thoughts as the friction was bringing me closer and closer to the edge.
"Yes, god, yes."
"When you're in the shower and I'm in the other room," I rasped. "And I can't stop my hand from sliding into my pants…"
"God! Jane!" the volume increasing in her pants and moans, I knew Maura was close.
"When…Ohhhh, mother of god!" I screamed.
"JANE!"
And we crashed over the edge together. Our bodies flush against one another, the sides of our faces pressed together, our panting in sync.
"Oh," Maura cried as she rode out the waves of her orgasm.
I knew that tears were falling from my eyes and I didn't care. This was a moment I'd been imagining for years. This was a moment that may have been, for any two other people, an epiphany, but for us it was as if we had always been here. As if this moment was merely like any other we had shared in our friendship.
"Maura…Maura…Maura," my chant became a hum.
I turned on my side, Maura's legs still wrapped around me. We held each other for what felt like an eternity. No words needed to be spoken.
"You should have told your mother I was staying. She'll worry," Maura said, her voice raspy from the sounds of sex.
"I sent her a text," I answered.
"Wasn't that presumptious of you," Maura grinned as she kissed the tip of my nose.
"Who are we kidding?" I chuckled and pulled her tighter to me.
With Maura in my arms, my chin placed atop her head, I couldn't think of a single reason why what we were and what we'd become couldn't be shared with our inner circle. If anything, this was the only epiphany of our love making.
"Should I say something to Hope?" Maura asked, her voice cracking as she said it and her tears reaching my neck.
"I wish I knew, Maur. I wish I had some wise counsel," I answered.
"You don't always have to be wise. Just holding me is plenty."
And I did. I held Maura in my arms, thinking about how any person could walk away from this incredible woman. I held her tight and wished with all my being that Hope would come to her senses and repair the broken heart she left in her wake.
I held Maura in my arms until we both drifted to sleep.
-finis-