This is more like it! In the past my fanfics in other fandoms were always angsty pieces about two women having the slowest get-together ever (Charlotte and Bron forever!). Somehow the Jane and Maura in my mind had escaped that treatment until now, but, here goes. This was another one of those things that just came to me. I don't plan on expanding it any further, because I haven't really created enough of a universe to head off out into. Maybe getting this off my chest will get me back into "Who Is That?" (which, btw, desperately needs a new name, if you have any ideas let me know).
Most of my Rizzles stuff tends to not include any omniscience, I guess because I'm writing the characters like I see them on tv, where all the clues about the story come from their words and actions, so I've had a bit of fun with trying to get inside Jane and Maura's minds for this.
Maura wasn't very often looking around in a house that wasn't her own. Unless the owner was dead.
Okay, occasionally, she'd been in a man's house, and maybe, if he was in the shower, or on the phone, she had taken a few minutes alone to peek in his closet.
Being alone in Jane's apartment felt completely different. Being alone in Jane's house felt a lot more relaxing and 'home' like, but also a lot more like snooping.
Jane had left her here alone, asleep on her sofa, while she went off to work. She, Maura, had been feeling unwell with a cold in her head and her chest and a lethargy that had meant that she had hardly been able to drag herself home last night let alone this morning when Jane had busied herself around the place getting ready for work. So Maura had dozed in the lounge all morning. When she opened her eyes she saw magazines that Jane liked to read stacked (messily) under the coffee table, or she saw the photos of her family that Jane kept by her tv.
If she got up and looked closer there would be things in Jane's house that could be interpreted as little bits of Jane's life. There would be things here, that if read in the right way, would tell Maura more about Jane than Jane would ever tell her herself.
Like the body of a victim, Jane's house would tell her what it was that made Jane happy, and what made her sad, what she chose to hide - the broken things, the hidden things, the unfinished things – and what she chose to display.
This possibility of putting together a picture of the private Jane Rizzoli made being alone in Jane's house feel like snooping, which it never did with victims or suspects, and certainly never had a with a man.
What was the difference, then?
Well, it had to be that there was some different type of emotion involved. The dead weren't going to care what Maura saw or deduced. That was obvious.
A man she had slept with, or maybe would sleep with in the future, had never seemed like a person Maura felt the need to know more about, or to care too deeply about the feelings of.
With Jane it seemed that this was much more of a personal place. And the 'snooping' was more personal too; she knew that as she looked through Jane's house it wouldn't be having a look for the sake of something to do, or an interest in the facial features inherited through a recessive gene as could be determined by looking at family photos on a hallway wall. What Maura was embarking on was a calculated search for something about Jane Rizzoli.
Maura had no idea what it was that she was searching for. But then lately being with Jane had often given her that feeling. Maura had never had a close female friend before, so maybe this unease that had crept up on her and made her want to know more, and which now resulted in her planning on creeping around her friend's house opening bottom drawers and turning over unread mail, was not unusual?
Maura sat up, pulled on a sweater and gingerly began to move through the apartment. She wandered slowly, stopping to sit when lightheadedness threatened to overtake her, and looked at the pictures on the walls. There were pictures of Angela and Frank Snrs' wedding, and one that might have been Jane's grandparents, with the three Rizzoli children on a beach. There was a stylised map of the New York Subway. In the kitchen the dishes weren't done, but they were stacked ready.
In the bedroom Maura resisted the temptation to open drawers and cupboards. It was the things that Jane didn't chose to put on public display that were potentially the most revealing, but what if she found diaries, or a stack of photos or a box of mementoes of some kind? If Jane intended her to see those things then Jane would have shown her those things herself.
Yet if Jane had not been happy to have Maura in her house, alone, then she would not have gone off and left Maura alone. Jane would certainly have bullied Maura into going with her or going to her own house if she hadn't felt okay about leaving her.
Although an alternative hypothesis was that Jane trusted Maura not to go opening drawers and looking for the things that weren't on display.
Of course, Jane was a detective; she would understand a desire to open to doors and look through things. Wouldn't she?
Maura was shocked by own need to snoop – and even more so by her attempts to justify it. But what if Jane asked, and, not being able to lie, she didn't have a good reason for what she was up to?
She wasn't a sneak. She was trustworthy. She was just sick, and not acting like herself.
xxx
Later Maura woke, still on the couch, but with darkness outside the window. The wind had picked up and she could hear rain being pelted against the glass. She looked at her watch; she really needed to be getting home. Yes, Bass would need feeding, and her headache was much better so she would need to be getting her things together for work tomorrow. And she was tired, and still a little achy, and in those sorts of situation she knew that one craved the familiarity and implied comfort of home. However, as another gust hit the house Maura lay back down amongst the blankets. Around her were the things of Jane's that didn't get hidden: the crockery with the blue pattern around the edges, the octopus shaped crack in the plaster over by the television, which Jane was concerned about but which Maura had assured her was purely cosmetic. These were familiar things, and comforting things. Jane would be home soon and that thought relaxed Maura more than any other. She might be on the mend, but she was too weak and tired to drive home now, and Jane would be home soon because it really was quite dark.
xxx
If she was going to stay another night she was going to make herself comfortable. Gathering the blankets around her Maura made her way down the hallway and into Jane's room. Jane's apartment wasn't big enough for a spare room, although looking around the mess in Jane's room Maura thought that she certainly had enough stuff to warrant a second room. Maura selected a clean looking shirt from the laundry basket on the end of the bed and then took a towel from a cupboard she'd seen in the hallway earlier that day. She showered and changed and using the covers she'd slept under the night before made herself comfortable on the full length of Jane's bed, expecting to get some rest before her friend came home.
Lying on the bed was much more physically comfortable than being on the sofa, however Maura didn't sleep as she had expected. The symptoms were similar to if she had had something important on her mind at work, but they currently had no big cases and in fact she had been catching up on research work that she'd been promising a Boston College colleague for close to a year, so that wasn't it. Her mother, her colleagues and few friends were all well, as far as she knew.
Bzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzz
She leaned over and picked her phone up off the bedside table. For some reason Maura's first thought that it would be a message from Jane. Maybe Jane asking her how she was, and explaining why she wasn't home yet.
It wasn't.
And that sometimes unexplainable link between her amygdala and her lacrymal gland was active again; Maura felt herself begin to cry.
What was going on? Of course illness was likely to lead to emotional distress as the body put all its resources to fighting the virus, but this felt so much more than that. She wasn't simply feeling a bit low, or a bit confused or bored. She felt that at any minute the tears that were currently leaking slowly from her eyes would burst out and that she would find herself curled up and sobbing. The thought that was leading her to this was also the one thing that was keeping her under control: Jane.
All she could feel herself thinking was how much she wanted Jane. The distress of not have Jane beside her was what was making her want to emotionally fall-apart, but it was also the thought of Jane coming home, standing in the bedroom door (silhouetted against the brighter light of the living room) and then being the one who would sit beside her, that was filling her with some sort of positive emotion that was what held her together.
Obviously, the conclusion was that she wanted Jane to be there with her. No one liked to be alone when they were sick, and there were other people she might have wanted, people who might have been more patient and more nurturing than Jane Rizzoli was likely to be.
However it was definitely Jane that she craved.
She sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and, opening the top drawer of the bedside table began to rummage through its contents. She just needed any piece of Jane Rizzoli.
"Jane," she whispered upon finding a folded piece of paper pushed up against the back of the drawer. She switched on the bedside lamp and then, carefully unfolded the paper. Oh, it was just a shopping list. Maura wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She needn't feel any guilt about finding Jane's old shopping lists, yet there had to be more to Jane than shopping lists.
Getting out of bed and down onto the floor Maura searched through the bottom drawer. This was well beyond 'unintentional' looking; this was snooping. Yet, yet... Maura cried again. Her whole, aching body was telling her that the only thing that would make her feel better was to have Jane Rizzoli with her.
How much she would like to find the pieces of Jane: the envelope of a first hair cut; the unsent letters to a highschool sweetheart; birthday party photos; things that had made Jane who she was; things that had made Jane laugh or cry. Where were the things that Jane Rizzoli treasured?
Shuffling the contents of another drawer she found a small cardboard box, not much bigger than a match box, with an intricate child's drawing of a heart pasted onto it. Her own heart beat sped up as she opened it. What did Jane keep here? She lifted the lid, and inside, on a bed of cottonwool, was a tiny, pearl-like tooth. A human baby tooth. Jane's?
A little piece of Jane?
At that moment Maura heard the front door of the apartment opening. She flicked off the light, shut the drawer and with the tooth held tight in her fist climbed back under the covers.
xxx
Jane sat on the edge of the bed, watching Maura, who had her eyes closed. It was a stereotypical pose of the sort of woman that Jane Rizzoli had always been certain that she wasn't. Jane wasn't 'tender', she didn't stroke the foreheads of the sick or anything like that.
Unless the sick person was Maura Isles, evidently.
"How are you feeling?" Jane asked, softly.
"Better I think," said Maura. She had urge to add, "Now you're here," but the cold tooth in her fist reminded her of what she'd been up to when Jane came home, and that she, Maura, probably didn't deserve a friend like Jane.
"Your forehead feels much cooler," agreed Jane. But before she could say anymore Maura was crying.
"Hey, Maur! Maura what's wrong?" Jane shifted on the bed so that she could put her hands on her friend's shoulders, in a sort of imitation hug.
Maura continued to weep.
"Sshh, shhh. It's okay," comforted Jane.
"No. Jane. I've been so stupid. I'm so sorry." She lifted one arm out from under the covers and there, revealed in her palm as she unfolded her fingers, was the petite, porcelain-white baby tooth she'd taken from the drawer earlier.
"I'm so sorry, Jane," she said again.
Jane, with one hand still resting on Maura's shoulder, examined the tiny thing out of her best friend's hand.
"Is it a tooth, Maur?"
"I'm so sorry, Jane!" Maura managed to get out at least between sobs. "I wasn't snooping. I mean, I can be trusted. Want you to be able to trust me."
"Is that my tooth, Maur?"
"Ye-es. I was looking for your treasure, Jane."
"You beautiful sweetie, I'm not mad. Now lie down and relax. You're not properly well yet."
"Don't leave me alone, Jane," asked Maura, removing her second hand from the bed and placing it on Jane's knee.
"Of course not, Maura."
And Jane kicked off her boots and climbed into bed on the other side of Maura.
"So, do you have any secrets, Jane Rizzoli?" asked Maura as they beside each other in the dark.
"You mean, other than a matchbox of babyteeth in my underwear drawer?" Jane laughed. The answer on the tip of tongue was to say, "no," because that was how she rolled. She was Jane Rizzoli. She didn't have secrets, she didn't tell secrets, she didn't have a soft girly side that lay in bed with her best friend and talked about stuff like this. Except that maybe she did.
However Jane's secret wasn't the sort that she cold just blurt out while lying in bed. It was the sort of thing that really shouldn't even be a secret, except that it was also the sort of thing that got hidden really easily if you didn't talk about it. And in a lifetime of denying, denying, denying, everyone was just going to end up feeling weird.
And, really, what was the point? Why did best friends feel the need to tell each other secrets? It was something that Jane didn't share, because it didn't involve anyone else. Until now.
And that she was trying not to think about that. Anyway, it might not really be true. It was just an idea.
"You don't need to know my secrets, Maura. Secret telling is something that teenage girls do. It's not about being closer to your bff. It can be about gaining information that can be used against her should the need arise. Secrets are secrets for a reason sometimes."
"Like if I'd buried a body you'd be okay with me using that defence?"
"You know, you can be funny sometimes."
"Only when I don't try, it seems. But, come on. There are also plenty of psychological theories that tell us about the cathartic nature of sharing and of not being able to be emotionally blackmailed by others, or by yourself, if there's nothing to hide."
"You sound like Google, even when you say you're not well," smiled Jane, leaning over to feel Maura's forehead again. Maura, reached out from under her blanket and took Jane's hand, holding it in her own. She closed her own eyes and said, "close your eyes, Jane. Tell me your secrets. Why are secrets bad? Tell me about your treasures and your jewels and your beautiful things that don't want to share in case they get lost or damaged."
Jane didn't say anything for a very long time – until she though she heard Maura's breathing even out and the small twitches in the ME's body made her believe that Maura had gone back to sleep.
Then Jane, with her eyes closed, and her hand being held by Maura, in this strange, middle-of-the-night netherworld, whispered, "You are my treasure, you are my secret. I think, maybe, I am in love with you, Maura Isles." Louder she said, "Sleep now, Maur. I'll be in the other room." Jane, removed herself from the bed and left Maura alone, clutching the baby tooth in her fist.
As Jane left the bed Maura rolled over so that her hands could be in the warmth left behind. Maura felt herself nuzzle her nose into the pillow where Jane's hair had been. In her head she heard Jane telling her that she loved her. Over and over again. She didn't realise that she had been asleep long enough to have begun to dream. As beautiful as dreaming about Jane felt, intellectually it was not relaxing. These were difficult thoughts at the best of times. Now with this foggy feeling in her mind Maura wanted more than ever to be able to push them aside, yet, for some reason, there it was again; that persistent feeling that maybe she was in love with Detective Jane Rizzoli.
That was what made the afternoon's snooping different. Snooping in the apartment of some strange man was just natural curiosity. Snooping in Jane Rizzoli's apartment was invested with so much emotion because a, if she got caught and Jane was unhappy it could damage their friendship, b, if she found something out that she was unhappy with it might damage her friendship with Jane and c, there was driving desire to find pieces of Jane and to hold them close when she couldn't have the real thing.
The only fault with this theory was that she, Maura Isles, could not be in love with Jane Rizzoli. Jane let off a lot of signals about not being attracted to men and even, maybe, about being attracted to Maura, but she said herself, on numerous occasions, that she wasn't gay, and in Maura's understanding of how these things worked, it was necessary for a person to believe her best friend when she made a claim like that. To say nothing of the fact that she Maura wasn't gay either. She understood from a scientific standpoint that sexuality for most people probably existed somewhere on a spectrum, and she knew that her own was probably not right hard up against the straight end of that spectrum, but that was totally different from socially what it meant to be gay or to be straight. In the context of Boston, in 2012, Maura was straight; she was sexually attracted to men, she dated men. Being gay in this context meant well, people would think they knew her political affiliations, and what he liked to eat and where she liked to shop and that she would want to get home from work in time to watch Ellen. Didn't it?
Didn't it?
Or, could all that contextual stuff be removed, and it (It? It = herself and dark-haired, dark eyed Jane Rizzoli!) could begin again at a point that was about two people and about attraction and how it felt, and worry about what it meant later on?
Except that Jane was straight.
And Maura was unwell, and her mind was rambling. She had Jane Rizzoli's baby tooth in her hand, and she was sleeping on Jane Rizzoli's bed, nuzzling her face into the warmth of her best friend.
xxx
It was after midnight when Jane saw Maura come into the living room. She had a drowsy look about her that suggested that she wasn't fully awake. When she lay on the couch and put her head in Jane's lap, Jane could feel the cosy bed-warmth of her body.
Maura felt her head in Jane's lap and Jane's hands in her hair. The light was low so that Maura could rest but there was enough for Jane to continue reading her case file.
There were things that Maura had meant to say to Jane when she saw her, but she was so tired and so comfortable that she dozed. When she woke again she opened her eyes and she saw the detective looking down at the face of the women in her lap.
"Would you like it be like this forever?"
Small treasures. Hidden things.
Instead of answering Maura said, "I didn't think of it as snooping, Jane. I was looking, I mean I was trying to find pieces of you. I want to know all of you, Jane. I want ... I want to explore and find things I've never known before."
"Are you still going on about that? Give it to me." Jane took the tooth that was in her friend's hand. "You don't need that to have a piece of me, Maur. I'm never going to go anywhere far away. You'll always be my Maura." As she said it Jane could tell how incredibly like something someone might say in a romantic situation it sounded. This wasn't a romantic scenario at all. Apart from the obvious fact that she and Maura were not romantically linked, she, Jane was wearing clothes she'd worn in the morgue which smelt like they'd been worn in the morgue and the women with her head on her lap was pale and snotty. None the less, Jane put her hand on Maura's forehead as she spoke, and stroked her friend's hair back.
She looked into Maura's eyes. A feeling like a wave swept over her, and like a wave it seemingly had the power to knock her over. She braced her feet against the floor and held Maura's hand with her own. This feeling was that she, never-tell-anyone, don't-even-think-about-it Jane Rizzoli, was on the verge of kissing her best friend.
Instead she let her hand that was on Maura's forehead slide down the side of her face, and, without thinking about it, let her fingers slip into Maura's mouth. Maybe it was because Maura was ill that something in her allowed her to be this brave?
Maura opened her mouth to allow Jane's fingers to enter. It was such an overtly sexual encounter that she felt a shudder through the rest of her body. She kept her focus, unblinkingly, on her best friend looking down at her, and in a way that neither of them would ever be able to say who initiated it, Maura lifted her head as Jane dipped hers and they kissed.
It was a kiss in the half-dark that didn't need to be seen to be complete. It didn't need to be understood to be felt, by each of them, as the prize at the end of some search that they had almost not-known they were on. But also the start, the beginning, the uncovering, of something that was glistening beyond their imagining.
Tomorrow there would still be context and there would be secrets and family and words and colleagues and history and the future. Tonight there was just this.
Small treasures.