DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me. Everything belongs to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, TNT and others...but not me.

A/N: Well, actually I should be writing on my 'Doctor Who' story right now but this popped up. But this plunny was just too cute to be ignored. And it was persitant. It wanted me to finish this story no matter what. I told it, I had other things to do, but it didn't listen and attacked me. (You ever been attacked by a not-pink plunny? They're martial arts masters. ;) )
Anyway, here is my first (and probably only, but you never know) Rizzles story. And a nice "Thank you!" goes to 'The TV-Junkie' for eliminating the few mistakes I left.
But I don't want to start rambling. (There's a time and a place for that, after all. ;) ) On you go, read it and please leave a review. They make me happy.

A/N2:I almost forgot to mention. This story is following the lyrics to Nickelback's 'Trying Not To Love You'. Go look it up, if you please. On YouTube or wherever you want.

Trying Not To Love You

'Cause trying not to love you only goes so far
Trying not to need you is tearing me apart
Can't see the silver lining from down here on the floor
And I just keep on trying but I don't know what for
'Cause trying not to love you
Only makes me love you more

Jane sat on a bench in the park. Exactly the same bench Maura and her had sat on when Maura had found out that she had had a brother and was troubled. But this time it wasn't Maura that was troubled, it was Jane. And Maura wasn't even there. Maura was God only knows where, doing God only knows what.

After the shooting in the warehouse Maura had shunned Jane. Hadn't even said a word to her since. No, that wasn't right. Maura had said a word to her, four to be exact. 'Stay away from me.' Accompanied by the most guarded, most angry look in her eyes that Jane had ever seen. And Jane had done that ever since. Although it was slowly killing her.

In the mornings, she got up, went to work and went straight home afterwards. At home she almost always immediately fell into bed and asleep. But her sleep wasn't restful, it was full of variations of what could have happened, should have happened and filled with the most disturbing images, the most gruesome of which were Maura getting killed.

Usually she'd call Maura or go to her for help. But it wasn't a possibility. Maura didn't want to have anything to do with her anymore. She had to forget Maura.

And God knew how hard she tried to forget Maura. She stayed away from Maura's part of town. She didn't even go to the places they had been together for lunch or dinner. Not even the Dirty Robber. And that said something. They had really good beer there, after all.

But everything Jane tried, it didn't work. She always had to go to places where she was reminded of Maura. Well, with her being a homicide detective and the murderers in this city murdering and dumping their victims all over the place that was no wonder. They didn't know what she was going through. And even if they did, they couldn't care less. After all it was her problem and she had to get her act together. But she really didn't know what for sometimes. Mostly the times she sat at home, alone and had too much time to think and a beer too much.

Her mother had tried to help her. But Jane was too stubborn to admit that she needed anyone. 'At least not as bad...ly as I need Maura.' Jane thought. 'God, now I'm even remembering Mr. Adverb. What's wrong with me?

Jane's mother had told her to give it time. The sentence 'When you're ninety and married to a nice bloke and have children, all will be forgotten.' might have even been spoken. That only earned her mother a free pass out of Jane's apartment. That woman wouldn't even get a hint, if it stared her right into the face. All Jane wanted was Maura. Not some "nice bloke".

Her mother still stayed at Maura's guest house. She had said that Maura told her to keep watch over Bass and the house for her, whilst she was gone. Jane hadn't gone to visit her mother there, yet. It was too painful.

Jane had even deleted all contact information on Maura from her phone, lest she got stupid and tried to call her. But that didn't help much, Jane knew Maura's phone numbers by heart.

And every time she had to go down to the morgue to see the medical examiner that was substituting for Maura, she was doing so very unwillingly. She always tried to get out of going down there, but Frost and Korsak got tired of her evasions. Korsak even pulled rank once and ordered her to go down to the morgue and get the preliminary autopsy report.

Everyone around her knew that she was struggling, but they didn't know how to help her. And Jane didn't let anyone come close enough to let herself be helped.

But recently it began to affect her work. The pile of paperwork that usually resided on her desk, had grown to staggering heights. And she had been absentmindedly staring out of the window for hours sometimes. She lacked her usual fire.

And it was tearing her apart that she couldn't get her act together. She was majorly depressed. And she knew it. But everything she tried to stop herself from slipping even deeper into depression failed.

And she had asked herself on more than one occasion what it was all worth for. What the whole point in living was, when all life did was hurt. But whenever her thoughts strayed into that direction, she mentally whacked herself up the head, hard, and steered her thoughts into the opposite direction.

Jane let her head fall into her hands.

"What am I going to do?" She whispered to herself. "I screwed up. Big time. And now I can't fix it. How am I going to go on without her? Will I ever see her again? Maybe I should just find out where she is, corner her and beg on my knees for forgiveness."

She let out a resigned sigh.

"God, Maura, what have you done to me? Didn't you see that you're all I need? All I want? Didn't you see that I love you with every fiber of my being?"

"I honestly didn't. And I'm terribly sorry for that." Said a breaking voice suddenly from behind Jane. That person moved around and sat down beside Jane on the bench. Jane didn't want to look up, she feared that it was all a figment of her imagination. That it wasn't Maura, couldn't be Maura. After all, Maura hated her, didn't she?

"Jane. Please, look at me." Jane obeyed. Like every time Maura asked for something. "I need to tell you something. And I'm terribly sorry I didn't tell you this sooner. And, please, just let me say this, please don't interrupt me." It was visible that tears were threatening to fall from Maura's eyes at any moment, but that she was adamantly fighting them. So Jane just nodded, tears shining in her eyes, too.

"When you shot Paddy Doyle in the warehouse, something in me snapped. I was in shock. You just shot my biological father. The only chance I might have had for finding my biological mother. In that moment I feared that everything was slipping away from me. Everything that had happened in the hours before had just piled up and then fell in that moment and for every little thing I blamed you. In that moment I truly hated you. But it's like that old saying: 'It's easy to be angry. But it's hard to be angry with the right person in the right moment.' In that moment, I was angry, but I wasn't angry with you specifically. I was angry with the world, angry with life." Maura stared right ahead with a forlorn expression.

"After that I ran away. And I'm sorry I did, but I had to get away from everything for a while. I went to a very isolated place I know. Very solitary, on top of a mountain. It has this great view over the world. And it also has this cliff where you can lean into the wind and shout out all your anger. That's what I mostly did in the first week. I shouted until there was nothing left. I raged with everything. And after that a tranquil peace befell me and I literally just sat there in silence for a whole week, re-evaluating my life and what was really important in my life." Now Maura looked at Jane, who was intently watching her.

"And you know what? I could look at it any way I wanted. I always came back to you. You were the only constant. You were with me through the good times and the bad. You have seen me at my best and at my worst. And you still stayed at my side. And in the week after that I tried to find out the why. Why were you the constant? Why were you always there for me? And most importantly, why was I always there for you? Why did I actually put up with your abuse?" They shared a small reminiscing smile.

"Well, the most basic answer to that question would be that I need you. That I can't be without you in my life. All that time I was up on that mountain contemplating, all I could think about was, what if you were there with me. I was thinking about what you could be doing. I was wondering how you were coping with me gone. And I was remembering all the times we had together. And I was noticing all these small things that I had noticed before but it was as if their meaning was suddenly unveiled to me. And then it occurred to me, rather forcefully I may add." Maura let her gaze sweep the park before directing her gaze back at Jane. "And then I went into full on denial." Maura heaved a heavy sigh.

"I traveled around the world. I tried to forget that I could even remotely be interested in you. I tried to talk myself back into hating you. But that hate had left me when I had shouted it in the wind. I could try as I may, I could not shake off what had been revealed to me. And the yearning for your closeness was growing. I wanted to be near you again. I wanted to touch you again. And I wanted to be touched by you again. All that was missing for me to come back home was my acceptance of the facts. I just could not accept the fact that I might be attracted to you. That I could actually love you." Maura looked down. She struggled for a moment with what she wanted to say. When she lifted her head again there was determination shining in her eyes.

"I stayed a few weeks in Africa. Helped the locals. And I ran into Ian. It would be an understatement to say he was surprised to see me there. But he lost no time trying to rekindle our relationship." Jane started to uncomfortably shift a bit. Maura noticed. "But I told him in no uncertain terms that it was over between us. And that there would be nothing anymore between us in the future. And if he should try to contact me again or come near me, I would alert Interpol to his whereabouts immediately. He got the hint...and then he surprised me. He said that I should be happy with you. That he knew the moment he saw you and me together. He knew it was just a matter of time until we figured it out and finally came to our senses." Maura chuckled slightly. That chuckle that held the power to bring Jane back down from the ledge whenever she heard it.

"And that was the moment that I realized that it was of no use to run from it. I couldn't escape it. Wherever I would go, it would be right there with me. So I decided to stop running from it and instead run to it. So...here I am. Telling you that I need you, want you and love you with everything I am. And I think, as long as we have each other and neither of us starts to run from it, we can make this work. We can be strong together. An unstoppable force."

"Oh, Maura. Sweet Maura." Jane took one of Maura's hands in hers. "I don't deserve you. I really don't. But I will give you my word that I will not run from you...or us. I will go wherever you go, I will be there, right beside you. I love you, Maura. I really do. And I am really very, very, very sorry about what happened back at the warehouse. I shouldn't have told Dean anything. That was stup-"

"Ssh..." Maura had lain a finger over Jane's lips effectively stopping her flow of words. "Never regret what you can't change. What happened, happened. And all we can do is do better in the future."

"Where did you pick up those wise words, Rafiki?" Said Jane after Maura had removed her finger. Maura only shook her head. Jane just couldn't help herself.

"Although I don't see how I resemble a mandrill, I get what you're implying. When in Africa, I shared long talks with the wise man of the tribe I stayed with. All that sagacity must still be in me somewhere." Answered Maura, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Well, then. What do you think we should do next, oh wise one?" Jane smiled playfully, inching closer to Maura.

Maura leaned in conspicuously. "I think you know what we should do." And with that she closed the distance between them and laid her lips on the woman in front of her, leaving no doubts.