Author Note: I originally wrote this for my songfic collection but it grew into something far bigger than I anticipated. I'd like to thank wolvesjr34 for the help in getting some of my thoughts together. This song is inspired by Goodbye My Lover - James Blunt and Where I Stood - Missy Higgins. The original story contained lyrics from these songs, so if you want to see the full story as it's meant to be, please contact me and we can sort something out.

Disclaimer: Rizzoli & Isles are not mine. I wish they were, but then I wouldn't be able to do things like this...

Warning: Mentions thoughts of suicide.

Where I Stood

It came out of left field. Jane sat in Maura's living room, her hands in her lap, the furrowing of her eyebrows. She opened her mouth to speak but her throat closed over and she choked on the surfacing tears.

"I don't understand." Jane laughed, the curve of her lips barely reaching the corners of her mouth. "I thought, you said." Her voice trailed off into the silence.

Maura looked away. "I'm sorry."

Jane rubbed the corners of her eyes. "Is it something I did?" She shrugged her shoulders. "What did I do? Tell me how I can fix this."

"You didn't do anything," Maura said, with a modicum of calm that unsettled Jane. "You can't fix this."

"Then why?"

"I should never have allowed it to get this far."

"Get this far?" Jane shook her head. "We've been together for two months, Maura. How long has this been getting too far?"

"It wasn't right for me to start," said Maura. "I'm so sorry."

Her heart thrummed against her chest, her rib cage ached with each harried breath. The speed at which her chest rose and fell forced her off the road. She was in no fit state to drive. When she shut off the car engine, her eyes filled with the tears she'd been holding in. Each salty droplet forced its way across her skin, leaving her exhausted.

There was no turning back. Even if she turned the car around. She'd made a decision and she had to follow it through.

"Don't go," Jane said, gripping her wrist too tightly.

She ran a finger across the tiny bruise forming over the scaphoid bone. She only had herself to blame.

"We can talk about this."

"No," Maura said. "We can't."

Her bag was packed. The arrangements had been made. Everything could be undone at the touch of a button. She could pick up her cellphone and change her mind. But the damage had already been done.

"She'll come home," Jane said, sitting at Maura's kitchen table. "She has to."

Angela paced back and forth, shaking her head. The silence unnerved Jane. She'd spent too many of the past forty-eight hours alone. Her mind ticked over, speeding through the scenarios, the reasons, the problems. Tears flowed, her heart felt like it was going to break, she barely slept. Forty-eight hours of thinking. Still she was no closer to making sense of why it happened.

"We're her friends. Friends came first." She wrapped her fingers around her mug of coffee, it had long since gone cold. "She doesn't make friends, Ma. She needs us."

"I know," Angela said, taking the mug out of Jane's grasp and pouring the contents into the sink. "But you weren't just friends anymore."

"No." Jane pulled the envelope she'd picked up at her apartment out of her pocket and held it out in front of her. "I took my sergeants exam."

"You did, what?" Angela asked, marching towards her. She stared at Jane, her arms folded across her chest.

"She made me want to do better, Ma," Jane said, turning the envelope over in her hands. Her words caught in her throat. "She changed everything. They're giving me a shot."

Angela wrapped her arms around Jane's shoulders and gave her a squeeze. "Oh, my baby girl is going to be a Sergeant. Congratulations, Janey."

"It'll take a while, there's protocols to follow."

"It doesn't matter how long it takes, I am so proud of you."

The empty feeling inside her heart overshadowed the news. Taking the first steps towards advancing her career was something Jane had previously felt excited about. She'd done it in secret. She desperately wanted it to be a surprise. She wanted to tell Maura first, to tell her that she'd pushed her to want to be a better person, to want to do more and succeed. They talked about the future over and over again.

She never once mentioned that she didn't plan to be in it.

The bed had seen better days, the door struggled to swing on its hinges. Maura could afford better than a cheap motel room, but she didn't deserve it. She lay in the middle of the bed, her arms and legs splayed out at her sides. She stared at the unusual marks on the ceiling and wondered how they got there. She felt stained.

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

Jane spoke candidly, an openness that Maura admired in that moment. A moment forever etched in her mind for reasons other than the ones expected of her.

"Say something, please, even if you don't feel the same way."

She didn't.

She loved Jane up to and including as a very close friend. If she could fall in friendship with Jane and they live together, forever, as two people who cared deeply for one another, she would have jumped at the chance.

Maura could still see the sadness in Jane's eyes, supported by the build up of tears. It hit Maura where it hurt the most two months ago, and it hit her all over again now.

She didn't want to hurt her.

She didn't want to damage the relationship that Jane had risked everything for. And it had been a risk. After everything they'd been through together; lost loves, miscarriage, Jane shooting her father, Frost dying, Jane jumping off the bridge. Each moment had pulled them closer. Admitting her deepest feelings made Jane emotionally braver than Maura had given her credit for. She admired her for putting their relationship on the line, and didn't want to be the one to cut her down.

"I love you too."

The ambiguity only made it worse. She'd purposefully chosen the words, allowed them to fall from her lips, and faced the consequences. Jane's lips curled into the most ridiculous smile, and Maura felt her heart shatter into a million tiny pieces. Figuratively speaking. When the gap closed between them and Jane's lips touched Maura's, she regretted not being honest.

She ran a finger along her bottom lip. Lips that had been kissed every day for eight weeks, six days, and a couple hours. She enjoyed kissing Jane. Behind the truth she fought with on a daily basis, she didn't hate kissing her.

The voice in the back of her mind telling her to be honest with Jane finally won out. She didn't deserve to have her in her life. Not then, not now.

In the early hours of the morning, Jane lay in her empty bed. She was used to solitude at night. After years of on/off relationships, of short term contact with long term partners, Jane knew what it felt like to sleep alone. Transitioning from her relationship with Maura should have been easier. Jane missed Maura's hair falling across her pillow in the night. The final kiss they shared before one of them shut the lights off. Curling up in each other's arms as they succumbed to tiredness.

"I'm scared."

Fear gripped Jane round the neck and wouldn't let go. It took longer than she expected to sleep with Maura for the first time. Now she couldn't picture anything else. Their first night together reminded her that she didn't know how to be in a physical relationship with a woman. At the time she couldn't think of anyone better to take that leap of faith with than Maura.

"It's okay," Maura said, running a finger across her cheek. She held her hand. The comforting touch of her there beside her, their fingers interlinked, as they fell asleep.

Each step they took was taken together. Each kiss, each intimate moment, was spent in mutual appreciation that they were experiencing something new. If Jane could be grateful to Maura for anything, it was that.

"Oh, oh." Maura moaned against Jane's ear, their bodies entwined. Jane cupped her face in her hands, staring into her eyes as Maura let go.

The empty bed was filled with traces of Maura; her fingers tangled up in Jane's hair, her legs wrapped around her waist, her eyes rolling back in their sockets in the height of passion. Seeing the look in Maura's eyes when she climaxed made it all the more worthwhile. Jane didn't dare close her eyes. She wanted to commit to memory every second she spent with Maura in her arms. Occasionally in relationships, Jane had faked her climax. The final fulfilment of sex came from her own hand, after her partner had fallen asleep. She didn't know what faked orgasms looked like on another woman. But she wondered, like she did with so many things in their short relationship, whether their intimacy was another lie Maura failed to clarify.

She didn't know why the question came to her in the middle of the night. Or why it kept her awake. On more than one occasion she reached for her cellphone, searched for Maura's number, then waited until the moment passed. It would only go straight to voicemail.

"Again?" Maura asked, her chest heaving with exhaustion. "You are insatiable."

Once they got going, Jane had breathed in every moment of their relationship. She wanted - needed - Maura all of the time. When she woke up in the morning she couldn't settle until she'd seen her face, or at the very least, heard her voice. Before she went to sleep, she needed her goodnight kiss.

It had been six days since the last time she saw her. Six days with an empty bed. Six days that were the beginning of a future alone.

Jane stood on every corner, drank in every coffee house, and walked every dog. Whether she was at the store or in the park, Maura's ghosts followed close behind. She spent her days holed up in the motel reading books about romantic entanglements that usually failed moments before being patched up again quite superfluously.

"What are you reading?" Jane asked, perching on the edge of the couch beside Maura.

"Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life by Giorgio Agamben. It was originally written in Italian but this edition was translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Don't you ever read normal books?"

"Normal books being?"

"The Hobbit, Gone Girl, The Hunger Games, Bridget Jones' Diary, Harry Potter," Jane said, shrugging her shoulders.

"You define normal books as being books turned into movies?"

Jane nodded.

The night she arrived at the motel, she tried to continue Homo Sacer. The words swam across the page like they made little sense anymore. Her mind drifted frequently, her thoughts settled rarely. Though she was usually a busy person, she could spend days alone and never get bored. Somewhere along the way, she had lost her ability to be completely alone. Even when she sat and read in silence, Jane was usually there.

She closed the novel and tossed it onto the floor. Maura didn't read romantic novels. She didn't grow impatient with her own company.

At an undefined moment in time, she had changed.

She just couldn't pinpoint when, or by how much. All she knew was that the past five or six years of her life had been defined by Jane. If she got takeout, she wondered what Jane would order. When she walked through the store to buy snacks, she chose the things that Jane would have liked, regardless of their salt or sugar content. Every thought she had, every decision she made, was influenced by what Jane would want.

It should have bothered her, but it only made her feel more alone.

Doctor Pike sat behind Maura's desk. He belonged there as much as Jane belonged in a sorority full of pink. The latest case they'd picked up that morning neither distracted Jane, nor motivated her. The murder was rudimentary and the sooner it was resolved, the better. In her mind, regardless of who sat behind the desk, Maura was there smiling up at her from a case file.

"You got anything?" Jane asked, sitting down in her favourite spot on the couch and watching Pike bang the keys of Maura's work laptop.

"Unless you have something for me, Detective Rizzoli," he said, raising his eyes towards her. "I suggest you go back upstairs until I call you."

She hesitated on her way out the door.

"Not here," Maura said, batting away Jane's hands as she attempted to unzip the back of her dress.

She slammed the door closed behind her. Doctor Pike shouted something she couldn't make out. Memories lingered in Maura's office, but she was not there. Jane couldn't pretend otherwise. The tears she'd cried since Maura left were replaced by a fire burning inside her chest. Her fist clenched involuntarily as she waited for the elevator to take her back to the first floor.

"I'm going to marry her, Ma," Jane said, watching Maura from the bar.

Angela raised an eyebrow. "You're engaged?"

"No," said Jane. "We've not been together long enough. You've been waiting for me to meet the right person. Well, she's it. One day I will marry her."

Jane dropped onto a bar stool opposite her mother. The lunchtime rush at the Dirty Robber slowed and the crowds were beginning to disperse.

"Why did I think I could marry her?" Jane asked.

"You loved her," Angela said, placing a glass down on the bar and filling it with cola.

"I need something stronger."

"You explain that to Sean when he drags you over the coals for turning up to work drunk."

It took Jane so long to reach the point where she felt able to admit her true feelings, that she didn't think she could ever go back. Maura was it. The one. The only one she really wanted. All of her relationships before failed because they were not Maura. She doubted any relationship in the future would survive, either.

"Maybe it's time you went out and found someone to screw," Angela said.

Jane raised en eyebrow. "Did you just say screw?"

"You need to move on."

"I need Maura."

"You need to explore your options."

As far as Jane was concerned she had no options. They were taken away from her the second Maura decided to walk away. It was all or nothing. Jane couldn't see herself with anyone but Maura. If that meant she'd be alone for the rest of her life, then so be it.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Maura shook her head and continued to nurse her third glass of wine in a couple of hours. She averted her gaze and ran a finger along the rim of her glass.

"Come on," the man said. "I won't bite."

She lifted her head and searched his dark blue eyes for a sign that he wanted something more than a quick hook up in the restroom.

"What are your intentions?" she asked, unable to analyse his expression.

He frowned. "I'm sorry?"

Maura turned in her seat. "Are you buying me a drink because you are a kind human being offering the hand of friendship, or are you searching for someone to have sex with you?"

"I," he trailed off, opening his mouth and closing it promptly.

"Whilst my primary aim of this evening is to sit here and drink wine, I have not ruled out the possibility that someone may offer to have sex with me."

"And would you?" he asked. "Have sex with me?"

"Providing you can assure me that you have been properly tested for various sexually transmitted diseases and are not looking for something more than a release of immunoglobulin A."

"Immuno-what?"

"It's an antibody released during sex."

"Right," he said, nodding. "Then I'm sexually transmitted disease free and all I want is plenty of immuno-whatsit A."

"I'll have a large Pino Grigio," said Maura, holding a finger up towards the bartender.

Before Jane everything was simpler. Sex was something she enjoyed for recreation. Any emotional attachment came from relationships she opted to progress beyond a first date. Maura poured her half empty glass of wine down her throat and accepted her free drink. When that was empty, she followed the man out of the bar and down the street to her motel room.

The bed squeaked with every thrust of his body against hers. Maura lay stationary against the mattress, her eyes wide open as she watched his unfamiliar face scrunch up before he fell against her. He rolled onto his back, breathless.

"How was that?" he asked, staring up at the ceiling. "Get enough of your whatsit?"

Every emotion she'd struggled to deal with over the last couple of weeks hit her with full force. Her shoulders shook and tears filled her eyes, overflowing down her cheeks. A small whimper escaped her lips.

"Oh God," the man said, sitting upright. "You're a cryer."

"No," Maura said, shaking her head. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't love you," she said, closing her eyes.

The bed squeaked and the weight of the man's body shifted away from her side. She listened to him zip up his pants and replace his shirt. He muttered something she didn't care to remember and closed the motel room door behind him.

For years Maura compartmentalised love and sex. They were not mutually exclusive and she could enjoy one without the other. Having sex with Jane changed that.

"Looks like he's been strangled," Korsak said, standing beside the body on the side of the highway.

Jane crouched down to get a closer look. "It looks like someone used rope."

"Not necessarily," Doctor Pike said, pushing Jane out of the way.

"Then what was it?" Jane asked, standing up and folding her arms across her chest.

"I won't know until I get him back to the lab." Doctor Pike stood up. "Detective Rizzoli, I had an interesting phone conversation with Doctor Isles last night. She seems to believe that I am going to be the next Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I was under the impression that her absence was temporary."

Jane's hands shook. She swallowed the lump settling in the back of her throat. "I don't know."

"She informed me that she's interviewing for a teaching position at Yale. I thought since the two of you are friends, you might be able to shed some light on her decision."

She lowered her eyes. Her chest ached. She searched the body for something to distract herself. "What about this blood stain?"

"We don't know that that is a blood stain," Pike said, taking out a swab kit. "It is a reddish-brown stain."

"Then what is it?" Jane asked, gripping one hand in the other to keep them steady.

Pike stood up. "Detective Korsak, will you please request that your subordinate stop asking me ridiculous questions. We're not here to guess what we think the answers are, we're here to establish facts. "

Jane rolled her eyes and crossed the barrier back on to the slip road. She kicked at the ground. Her fists clenched at her sides. On the other side of her car she placed a hand on the roof and forced oxygen into her lungs.

"What's going on?" Korsak asked, stopping beside her. Jane stood upright. She took one final, deep breath and forged a smile.

"Nothing, everything's fine."

"I call bullshit."

She turned around. Her eyelids overflowed, tears strolled down her cheeks and landed in the corner of her mouth. She wiped them away. Korsak rested a hand on her shoulder which only made it worse. She gasped for air, her lungs squashed behind the inside of her chest.

"It's okay," Korsak said, turning her around and guiding her around to the front of the car. He pushed her gently until she sat down on the hood. "I know you're hurting but if you don't get yourself together soon, you're going to miss out on this sergeants opportunity. They won't take you when you're like this."

"I'm fine," she said, standing up straight and wiping the tears from her eyes. She fought against her desire to curl up in a ball and cry. "Just a little emotional."

"Talk to me," Korsak said. "Let's sort it out."

"Can you bring Maura back?" She placed her hands on her hips and took a step back.

Dearest Jane,

I have stared at a blank sheet of paper for hours. Finding the words to explain, knowing where to begin, is harder than I ever knew possible. I have hurt you in ways I cannot fathom. I lied and I allowed you to think that I loved you more than I do. My feelings for you run far deeper than that of friendship, but as you know, they do not bridge over into anything more.

Allowing you to believe that I love you the way you love me was a terrible error of judgement and I am the only person to blame. You did nothing wrong. I am so proud of your honesty in telling me how you feel. Something you did far better than I.

Whilst my actions are incomprehensible, I need you to know that I had to leave. I couldn't keep you hanging on to a hope that we could be together, when my intention was the opposite. Knowing I have hurt you to the degree that I have breaks my heart and I will never forgive myself.

I have damaged our relationship irrevocably and I recognise that by doing so, I have broken the heart of the one person on this earth who I promised to love unconditionally.

Knowing what I have done, I cannot be there to watch you fall apart, or rebuild your life. I am not worthy of the love you have bestowed upon me over the last few years. But please know this, you have given me a gift far greater than love. You have given me hope that the lonely child - and adult - I once was does not need to settle. I can be the fully functioning human being that you have helped me to become. I can live a fulfilling life without sacrificing who I am.

My only regret is that you will not be part of it.

One day you will find someone else. They will love you the way you deserve to be loved. You will move on and be happy again. I am sure of it. You deserve the world, Jane Rizzoli, and I wish you the very best in your future.

All of my love, forever,

Maura

Jane clutched the letter in one hand and her gun in the other. She ran a finger across the careful script she would recognise anywhere. Each letter looked like a work of art only she could appreciate. Her grip tightened on the gun, her knuckles grew white.

"No," Angela said, unlocking the apartment door and rushing to her side. "No, Janey, no. Don't even think about it."

She looked up into Angela's eyes, her own watery and red. Angela's fingers wrapped around the end of the gun and after a brief resistance, she let go. The lump in her throat ached beyond measure. Tears fell, bypassing her face, and landed on the ink, smudging it beyond recognition. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and let go of the letter, watching as it fluttered carelessly to the ground.

"Give it back," she whispered, choking on the tears that enveloped her completely. The more she wiped at her face, the more tears followed, until she gave up on her wet, stained cheeks.

"You will not do this." Angela sunk onto the couch beside her, wrapping an arm around Jane's shoulder until she felt the comforting embrace of her mother's unconditional love. "Don't let what happened define you, or ruin you."

"It already has. I didn't make sergeant. They changed their mind."

"Oh, Janey."

"I told them they can shove my job where the fucking sun don't shine. I don't deserve it."

"You do." Angela ran her hand across Jane's knee and gave it a squeeze. "You deserve your future."

"It's just…too hard."

"I know," Angela said. "I know it is. But you can survive this."

"I can't," she said, placing her elbows on her knees and resting her face upon her hands. "It's not your fault, you did everything you could. I just can't do this without her."

Angela took one hand and wrapped hers around it, holding it carefully. "You can and you will."

Jane looked up into hazel eyes. So similar and yet so different from Maura's. Her heart crushed inside of her chest, the pain was unbearable. "How do you know?"

"I know you," Angela said, cupping Jane's face and wiping away her tears. "I didn't bring you up to give up. I brought you up to fight. You're a fighter Jane Clementine Rizzoli and I will not accept that this is the way you are going to go."

"I want to hate her. I want to hate her so bad. I want to rip that letter into a million tiny pieces and throw them down the garbage chute."

"If that's what you need to do to survive this."

"I can't do it." She shrugged. "I can't hate her. I just need her here. I need my friend to come home, I need her to not walk completely out of my life like none of it ever mattered."

"And if she doesn't do that?"

Jane shook her head. "I don't know."

Maura walked into the hall and took a seat at the back. The crowds in front of her quickly dispersed and everyone sat down. She could see Jane sitting in the front row, her curls as unruly as they had been some five years earlier.

"It gives me great pleasure to be here tonight to honour one of Boston's finest heroes," Korsak said, from the stage at the front. "She joined homicide as a fresh faced young detective keen to learn and progress at every available opportunity. Six months ago she went above and beyond the call of duty and she saved a lot of people, and today we can reveal that she is the youngest female, and first openly gay, lieutenant to be appointed to Boston Police Department. I'd like you to put your hands together, for the Boston Globe's hero of the year, Lieutenant Jane Rizzoli."

The room erupted into applause. Maura's eyes trained on Jane as she stood. She wrapped her arms around her mother on her left, then a redhead on her right. When Jane closed the gap between herself the redhead, Maura felt a sadness she had locked away years ago. A regret that she had given up the one thing that had mattered most to her for a long time.

Jane reached down behind her family and stood back up with a small child of no more than two in her arms, his chubby little hands wrapped around Jane's neck and she placed a kiss on his cheek before the redhead took him from her. The unruly dark curls matching Jane's. A humble smile spread across those all too familiar lips.

Maura had found a way to move on and forgive herself for her indiscretion, but deep down she always wondered what had become of Jane Rizzoli. Though she tried on several occasions to get in touch, her attempts were thwarted by the surrogate mother she had lost along the way.

Standing in the crowd as Jane walked up onto the stage and received her award filled Maura with an overwhelming glee. She couldn't give Jane what she wanted then, and she couldn't now. But someone else could. As if on cue, a number of people stood up, followed by everyone else. Until Maura joined them in their standing ovation.

Before the applause ceased, Maura slipped out of her position at the back of the hall and walked towards the exit. She took one final glance at Jane stood up on the stage. Her smile never faltered as she posed for photographs, her lieutenant rank visible on her uniform. Their eyes met and Jane's smile slipped momentarily until she forced it to remain. Maura tilted her head to one side, her eyes filled with tears as they connected for the first time in too long. Part of her wanted to stay and talk to her afterwards, but she couldn't find the words. Finally, Jane held up her award and nodding at Maura, the briefest of recognition before turning back to the cameras, as Maura slipped out of the room.

THE END

Author Note: Thank you for reading. Favourites and comments are appreciated but not necessary; if you do comment, please be kind of constructive.

P.S. I know that Jane having a child at the age she will be at the end of this fic is probably a quite slim (especially given her career success), in my head they used her egg but her wife, who is younger, carried their son.