A/N Been feeling some friendship fluff lately. Sorry. But not really.
Its something Maura had noticed Jane had been doing ever since they'd known each other. At the end of a case, Jane would go into her room and walk up to her dresser. and proceed to empty her pockets out. Any loose change would go into a jar, which was quite full, and all other little things like little scraps of paper with notes, or a button or whatever else the brunette picked up over the course of a case, would get separated into little piles atop the dresser. After a few months, Maura would notice that the piles would grow and grow and the change jar would get overfilled, and suddenly, overnight, they'd disappear. The jar would be empty and the top of her dresser would be cleaned off.
Whether it was some sort of psychological tic or closure, Maura didn't know. She figured it was a lot of things, but she never asked. Jane was pretty private about most things, and Maura didn't like to ask too many personal questions.
"Jane?" she couldn't help herself
"Yeah Maur?" Jane asked. The brunette was standing at the dresser, slacks in hand, unloading her pockets. Her hair was a little damp, and she wore a pair of loose, worn out boxers and a long sleeve, t-shirt.
They had just finished a hellish case. Six bodies found floating in the Charles River. All tied back to a Jack and Jill murder team. Maura, Jane and the rest of the team had decided to get together for drinks, but once they all reached the Robber and sat down, they realized how tired they were. After no protest from anyone, they decided to just call it a night. Frankie went home with Angela to get some of his favorite kind of therapy: Italian Food and motherly love. Vince went home to his wife. Maura watched Nina discreetly make a phone call, and while Jane and Maura waited for a cab, they saw her get into a fancy looking car and have a short, but passionate make out session with the driver before driving away. As for the two women, Jane had the idea of pizza, beer and bed, to which Maura wholeheartedly agreed. And without complaint about the unhealthiness of the food.
They ate in silence around the peninsula in Jane's kitchen; too tired to carry on a conversation. But now that they were both showered and ready for bed, Maura wanted to know.
Jane finally turned to look on her friend, who was sitting cross-legged on her bed in a pair of silk pajamas that permanently resided in the brunette's dresser, the blankets resting over her lap, "What Maur?"
"Why do you do that?"
"What?"
"Empty your pockets. I notice you do it after we've solved a case. Normally, you just empty your pockets onto the bathroom sink or your bedside table. But after a case, it all goes up there."
Jane shrugged, "It gives me a sense of closure I guess." she dropped her pair of slacks on the floor and made her way to the bed, "Its all the stuff that gathers in my pockets over the course of a case, and getting rid of it helps my brain get rid of it. Change, a napkin with ideas for a lead, a button that's fallen off something, uh maybe a business card or something."
The blonde just nodded.
"When I first came on as detective, I had a hard time letting cases go. We'd close them, and I'd still think about them for days; and it kept me up at night. I'd go weeks without hardly any sleep. And it started to really affect my work. I asked an old friend of mine who was a psych major in college, and she said I needed some sense of closure. Just a small act that would physically signal the end of the case. She came up with the change jar. She knew I drank a lot of coffee and told me to always pay in cash so I'd have change on me. It eventually became everything in my pockets, not just change. It worked I guess. Cause now, all I can think about at this moment is all the beer and hotdogs I'm going to eat at the game tomorrow." Jane smiled as she sunk lower till her head was against the pillows.
"What do you do with all the change leftover?"
The detective looked up at her friend and knew the conversation wasn't over. She slipped off the bed and onto the floor. Maura watched her arm disappear and then pull out a long, under-bed storage tub. When she lifted the lid, the blonde did a quick length by width count and counted at least seventy two jars, filled with change.
"Wow. How much is under there?"
Jane shrugged, "I once counted a few of them and they averaged about 20 bucks or so each."
"Jane…" she did the quick mental math, "That's almost fifteen hundred dollars."
Jane shrugged again, "I know."
"What are you going do with it all?"
"I always thought maybe I'd donate it or something. Or take a nice vacation with it; go somewhere sandy and warm. Or make a down payment on a house or something."
Maura smiled warmly at her friend, "You should take a vacation. Maybe we could both go somewhere sandy and warm."
Jane suddenly had a flash of Maura in a skimpy bikini, sipping on a drink with an umbrella; lying on a beach chair by the ocean, in the sun, skin all tan and glowing. Or maybe, walking out of the water, all slow-motion and dripping wet...
Maura noted the far off look in her friend's eyes, "Where did you just go?"
Jane's eyes cleared and she looked up at her best friend. With a smile, she pushed the tub back under the bed and crawled back under the covers. Maura laid down and they began the subtle dance of finding a comfortable position in each other's arms. Jane ended up spooning the blonde, her arm wrapped protectively around her waist, and Maura's silky legs were entwined with the long ones behind her.
Jane tucked her chin in Maura's neck and whispered, "Somewhere sandy and warm."