AN: I haven't written for these two in a while. And it's rainy here today and and cold and quiet and I couldn't help it. Sorry if it's rough uncultured swine. But anyway. These two are beautiful. Love.
"Maura?"
"Hmm?"
You've been watching the rain. Watching as it blurs the trees outside the window, the dark green of the leaves running together, the edges disappearing into the gray of the sky. You imagine the way the earth will be after the clouds have passed, the grass brighter, the flowers glowing, the air smelling of dirt and life and promise. You love it when it rains.
"Maura," she repeats.
You tear your eyes away from the sight before you, forcing yourself to focus on her instead. Her brown curls are mussed and flattened on one side. She's wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants, an old BPD t-shirt that's been washed so many times the seams are starting to come apart. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes hooded, darker than midnight. She looks exhausted and undone and beautiful.
"What are you doing?" She asks, her rough voice deeper than usual. You try to suppress the shiver that makes its way down your spine. You tell yourself the goose bumps along your arms have formed because of the slight chill coming off of the window.
"Maur?" She sounds worried now, and she takes a step forward, reaching out one slim, scarred hand as though she is preparing to place her palm in your own.
"I'm sorry," you murmur, and you cannot continue looking at her, so you glance away, back towards the pane of glance in which you can just barely make out your reflection, pale, a bare wisp of a person, nothing more than something. "I was watching the rain," you explain. And you feel more than hear her approach you. You wonder what might happen if you were to lean towards her; would her own body gravitate towards yours as yours does when she is nearby?
She's only inches away from you now; you imagine that you can feel her arm rubbing against yours, her skin soft against your own. But the space between you is also cavernous and limitless and you feel further from her here than you do when you're miles apart. You study her in the windowpane. Her reflection is solid. Steady. Unwavering. She's looking out at the rain now, too, her lips pursed only slightly as though she's thinking hard but is unaware of it. She is wonderful. And gorgeous. And so very, very alive.
When she glances over at you, you stare straight ahead, the warmth in your stomach flooding up into your chest. She takes to studying you, openly and without embarrassment. You let her, reveling in the feel of her eyes on you. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Licks her lips. You force yourself not to mirror her actions, not to look away from the water that is now falling in sheets upon the lawn, bowing the fragile pieces of grass beneath the onslaught.
"What is it about the rain?" She finally asks, although you're quite sure those aren't the words she meant to exhale.
"It brings both life and devastation," you answer before you have a chance to think through your response. You flush slightly, when she tilts her head to the left slightly, as though looking at you through a new filter.
The silence is heavy, its invisible presence weighing on you. You straighten your spine in an attempt to withstand the crushing force, an illogical force, but one you are more aware of than ever. Before, you took pleasure in silence. In the quietness that accompanies stillness, emptiness. You found peace there. But now. Now the silence is stifling, drowning you from the inside out, as though the rain has found its way into your lungs and is quickly taking the place of the oxygen your body so desperately craves.
"Jane, I-" you cannot stand it any longer. But when you look at her, turning your body to face her, you catch your breath. She's watching you almost fondly, a melancholy grin on her face, a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, and you wonder what you've missed, when you fell behind. "I-" you begin again. There is coffee in the French press in the kitchen. You could offer her some. There are eggs in the refrigerator. You could make her breakfast. "I-" you cannot think straight. And there are words between you now, whole sentences you have not spoken, but that are loose and free to make their way across the chasms between you.
You want to take her hand. You want to shake her. You want to beg her to speak, to say something, anything. To guide you. To answer all the questions you are unable to formulate. But she's just…looking at you. Jane, who is never still, never quite, always moving and doing and acting.
She sighs, so gently you wonder if you've imagined it. You wonder what it is about today, this morning, the rain and the clouds, and the silence. Why today is the day you find yourself at a loss for words. Why today, of all days, neither one of you has to work and both of your phones have remained silent. Why today, of all days, she'd gotten up later than you and instead of going to the kitchen for coffee first thing, she'd come to find you, wandering into the living room as a child might in the grocery store, looking aimlessly for its mother. You wonder why you feel for Jane the way you do, what it is about her that draws you – a moth to a flame – no matter the circumstances. Why she chose you, why she befriended you, the strange woman in the morgue, the ice queen, the doctor of death.
"Life and devastation," it's a question.
"Yes," you nod.
And when she reaches out, this time her hand finds yours and she threads your fingers together easily, like she's been doing it all your lives. When she smiles at you, all of the questions you've turning over in your mind for the past year, this morning, in the last five minutes, are there in her open and honest gaze. The two of you have been friends for years. Colleagues for longer. Best friends for less. You've never had a best friend before, and so when you're feelings for Jane began to shift, to change, to morph into something which could only be considered more you weren't sure if it was normal or strange, and so you'd kept it to yourself. The tingling across your skin when you placed her hand on the small of your back as you stepped out of the car. The cliché butterflies in your stomach whenever you woke up in the morning and realized she'd fallen asleep in your bed the night before, both of you above the covers, not touching, but still so very close. The swoop of joy you experience when she offers to drive you home after an extremely long day and then ends up staying for dinner and a beer and some mindless television and you don't have to talk, you just have to be. There is nothing to prove with Jane, no fight for understanding. Things with Jane just are. They always have been, ever since you met and the easiness of it is lovely, wonderful, satisfying. And so, when you began to experience what you might only call attraction, affection but stronger, arousal, admiration but more so, you'd stifled it, ignored the emotions to the best of your abilities, because you craved the ease already present more than you longed for the something more.
But now, with the rain outside and her hand in yours, her reflection in the glass so painstakingly real, you are no longer certain if the easiness is enough.
"Maur?" she brings you back gently to earth with a squeeze of her fingers.
"Yes, Jane?" Your mouth is dry.
Are you alright?
"Yes, of course," but only after the words leave your lips do you realize that she hasn't spoken. You flush, looking down at the carpet. You think for a moment that it's begun to well and truly pour outside, but as she dips her head to find your eyes, you realize it's only your heartbeat, the blood rushing through your body that you hear, not a torrent of water finally let loose from its bounds.
She untangles your fingers and you feel emptier immediately. Weightless. As if she was the only thing mooring you to solid ground. But her hand finds your cheek, her palm rough against your skin, and your body leans into her touch. You close your eyes because all five senses are far too many at the moment and suddenly the feeling of her skin against your own is amplified. And you think that if you were blind, you would still know that she is beautiful, simply by her touch.
She's going to kiss you. The thought comes to you instantaneously, even as she pulls you up to face her, and she drinks in the sight of your face, caressing you with a mere look, tracing your lips with her eyes. She's going to kiss you and you've never wanted anything more in your life than you do that taste of her on you.
But even as she shifts her weight onto the balls of her feet, you shift your own onto your heels, separating you from imperceptibly. She feels it though, your movement and she pauses, her hand still on your cheek.
"Maura," she whispers.
You shake your head, because you want to say yes, you want to tell her not to speak, to finish what she's begun. You want to tell her that yes, the rain brings life and makes things green and growing and beautiful once more. You want to kiss her. You do. But you shake your head, because even now, even after months of dissecting every look, going through every conversation a second time, a third time, you are not sure. You cannot be sure that this is what she wants, that she might possibly feel for you the ocean you feel for her. You cannot be sure and if it might mean losing her, you would never risk it. Never.
"Maura," she says again.
You clear your throat. You reach up and take her palm in yours, bring your hands between the two of you once more. And when you let go, she doesn't try to stop your fingers from slipping from hers, but she doesn't simply let go either. And when you step back, your chest tight and empty, she does not move to stop you, but she sets her jaw in a way you know means she's holding herself back. You shake your head again and look beyond her when you say it, because you cannot meet her eyes, you cannot see the pain you feel reflected back at you. You look out at the rain instead, at the green of the leaves of the trees whose edges have been lost in the clouds. "Life and devastation," you remind her. "When it rains. It brings both. And you can never be sure which it will be until it's too late." And you turn your back on the rain, on her, and you head for the kitchen to pour two cups of coffee and make breakfast. And you ignore the ocean inside of you, the restless sea, empty and cold and dark and lonely. And you fight back the saltwater begging for release. And you do not look back. Because you love her, and so you cannot lose her. Because you love her, but you must never have her. Because outside it is raining and inside all is still.