Disclaimer: All recognizable Rizzoli & Isles characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to Tess Gerritsen. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: It's rare that I take a story request, but once aterry91 mentioned the Maroon 5 song "It Was Always You," I was convinced this piece had to happen. I've never written a dream sequence per se, so bear with me. I hope I live up to the responsibility entrusted in me with this idea. For easiest reading, I suggest reading this on the full ff site where the italics appear most consistently. Italics play a big role in pointing out the difference between dream, memory and present. I've placed an M rating on this only because I didn't want anyone to be irritated with any particular part if I rated it T. -dkc
Hazel Eyes
Thrashing in her bed, sheets tangled around her long legs, body immersed in a physiological reaction her mind had not yet woken to, Jane Rizzoli was lost in a vivid dream.
Those hands, she knew those hands. Her attempt to focus on them was halted by the reaction those familiar hands brought to everything they touched. The gentle exploration, hands pressing into her thighs, scorched in a beautiful way.The heels of those hands pressed just above Jane's knees. If the detective had been wearing shorts the ways those hands were progressing would have forced the fabric higher, revealing bare lightly olive skin. Jane squirmed regardless. Those beguiling hands had stilled at the tops of Jane's thighs. Her hips desired more. Whose hands could cause this in her without ever making their possessor known? The owner might possess those hands, but those hands had come to possess Jane.
"Let me see your face," the great Det. Jane Rizzoli had been reduced to begging.
Perfectly manicured fingernails pressed into her needy hips. She couldn't stand not having a face to put to such exquisite hands. Yet she knew these hands. She knew their precision. She knew their gentleness. She knew them as well as her own hands, yet she didn't know this side of those hands.
"Please let me see your eyes," she pleaded.
Her heart was throbbing in her chest; she could hear her own breathing. She felt this alluring being coming nearer. That which had been kneeling at her feet, she now felt straddling her knees. Even in her lying position, she couldn't make out a face.
Those eyes.
Jane saw a penetrating set of hazel eyes, perfectly framed in luminescent makeup. She knew those eyes, but the owner's face was blurred. She blinked repeatedly as the eyes grew closer. She couldn't, as hard as she tried, clear her vision to make out an entire face. Her growing frustration was echoed by the growing sensation in the depth of her abdomen as perfectly manicured hands teased the thinly covered skin there.
An unobstructed view of glaring hazel eyes was forthcoming. Ever closer, ever more clear, those hazel eyes had to be hers.
Jane's body startled awake. Unlike her many nightmares, she woke knowing precisely where she was. Her bed had been the location of her dream just as it was where she had woken.
Looking down, the detective became discomfited when she noticed her sheets tangled around her feet, her shorts having ridden up her thighs, her entire body covered in a consistent sheen of sweat. And her body was on the tail end of sexual arousal. All because of a set of familiar, commanding eyes.
Oh, God, she groaned, rolling on her side away from the sunlight streaming in her bedroom window.
Unable to get her mind off of those eyes and even more ineffective at quashing her physical reactions, Jane kicked off the sweaty sheets and rose from her bed. She couldn't allow the dream to command her complete attention or she would never make it to the precinct on time.
Once in the shower, Jane washed her hair as per her usual routine, but when the time came to scrub her body she found she was unable to touch her own thighs and hips without reacting to the benign touch of the washcloth. She groaned for the second time that morning, rinsing in the stream of water and turning off the shower quickly.
After drying and combing her hair, the humidity of the bathroom had subsided enough for the mirror to clear and Jane to see her own reflection. When she focused on her own eyes, dark circles beneath them, she was once again brought back to the hazel eyes of her dream.
I know those eyes, she thought. Those eyes know me.
She could place those eyes, but it was more than that, she couldn't forget the way her body had felt as she finally saw them. For the first time in her life, despite it being merely a dream, she really saw those eyes.
Completing her routine, barely grabbing a cup of instant coffee before rushing out the door, Jane Rizzoli began the quick drive to the BPD. She avoided the radio for fear something she would hear might cloud the recollection she had of those eyes that she had woken with blazon on her memory.
Parking illegally, she rushed up the few steps of the precinct and through the double doors. She flashed her badge at the desk sergeant; fully aware of how unnecessary this small bit of security was for someone of Jane's reputation and caliber.
"Jane?" Maura's voice brought her out of the place in her head where she was dissecting every detail of her dream. "Are you okay?"
Briefly looking at her friend, Jane nodded without giving any other response consideration. She should have known Maura would notice the dark circles beneath her eyes and the way Jane seemed to be elsewhere in her thoughts. She was elsewhere. So far away was Jane's mind, she never allowed herself to focus on the doctor.
When they reached their respective elevators, Jane stepped inside her own to take her upstairs and Maura stepped into the elevator to the morgue. The doctor kept her eyes on the detective, wondering what it was that had Jane so completely despondent this morning.
"I'll be downstairs if you need me," she said in parting.
It was then that Jane looked up and truly took in the woman in the opposite elevator. She wore a perfectly tailored blue sleeveless dress with a geometric pattern. Her white Louboutin shoes were without a single scuffmark. As Jane's eyes followed the perfect hourglass shape upward, she noted the doctor's unostentatious necklace. Her friend might overdress for work, but Jane loved the understated things Maura did that made her feel as if she fit in. Wearing a necklace like this one was her way of downplaying her attire. It was adorable. Continuing on, Jane's eyes, as if in slow motion, took in the strong lines of Maura's neck and jaw before landing on her face.
Holy mother of God, those hazel eyes, the sight of those wondering eyes brought the return of a throbbing heart.
The elevator door closed slowly with Jane's eyes firmly on Maura's curious ones.
The hazel eyes that had seemed so familiar yet new and arousing were the very eyes she saw every day. Of course Maura was the possessor of those that had captivated and controlled Jane's subconscious.
Of course it was Maura.
Jane arrived in the bullpen with a lost look on her face that was immediately concerning to Sergeant Detective Korsak. Not only did Jane seem lost in thought to her partner, her face was flushed.
"Janie, you all right?" he asked as she sat down at her desk without a word.
"Yeah, what we got?" she responded robotically without so much as glancing in his direction.
"Lieutenant wants the paperwork on the Carter case for the annual review," he continued to raise an eyebrow as he watched her stare at her dark computer screen.
Jane didn't hear a word Korsak said. Her mind hadn't left the eyes she saw, in many ways for the very first time, downstairs. There was no guessing left to be done; it was Maura. It had always been Maura.
Unabashedly ignoring both Korsak and the work that needed to be done, Jane's mind wandered back to a night years ago:
They had finally finished the Boston marathon. The shooting might have derailed their plans and the plans of the entire department, but in the dark, having survived Heartbreak Hill, they ran across the makeshift finish line devised by Jane's parents. They hugged in triumph, their bodies pressed together with nothing but the P.U.K.E. running suits Maura had had made up for them between their sweaty bodies. Jane felt a rush, a rush accompanied by unexpected arousal. When the physical contact ended, the arousal hadn't.
She had never lied, not to herself or to Maura. She might not have identified it after the marathon, but it didn't cease to be simply because she didn't know what it was right away.
Thinking about that contact, the closest their bodies had ever been brought a rush. Sitting in her desk chair, her heart beat fast, her mind raced. Her search for a meaning to those feelings she had woken to, the feelings that overtook her body while both in a dream state and in waking wasn't necessarily a new search. Now the awareness of how badly she actually wanted Maura, had always wanted Maura, made her body hum.
It had always been Maura, hadn't it? From the beginning, it wasn't isolated moments.
Tommy had tried to kiss her. He had tried to kiss his sister's best friend and Jane reacted angrily. She was frustratingly jealous. The thought of Tommy's lips on the plump, perfectly stained and glossed lips that she had looked at with desire for awhile now made Jane want to throw up. Not nearly as much as the awful wine Tommy had given Maura, no, that had made them both want to throw up. Maura told Jane she loved her. And when they no longer had the kitchen counter between them, they stood before one another with a shared look that made Jane's heart beat harder, made her stomach feel like it had relocated to her throat.
The memory of that night remained as vivid as the dream she woke from that morning. Her unrestrained desire startled her. Standing with a huff, she pushed in her chair and turned away from the dark computer screen that reflected nothing but her thoughts back at her.
"I'm going to the archive to find the evidence report and everything else we need," she informed Korsak without looking at him. "I may be awhile."
Korsak had been confused with Jane in the bullpen and was now just as confused with her gone. What was going on with her?
The archive provided the detective cover as she both worked and sorted through her thoughts. It was safer in the silent, out of the way archive for a woman whose face portrayed her inner turmoil. A day that had started like this would unfold slowly, but in the solitude of the archive Jane could be free of prying eyes and the likelihood of encountering the one set of eyes that could be her complete undoing.
Jane had no idea that while she sorted box after box of evidence and documentation from a case that had taken them over eight months to solve, Maura had stopped in the bullpen to check on her. The doctor was concerned about her best friend. When Korsak mentioned that Jane had acted strangely, she said she would go find her and talk to her. She was persuaded not to trek to the police archive by the elder detective who thought his partner might simply need some space.
Later in the afternoon, long after any opportunity of meeting up for lunch had passed, Maura was semi-relieved when her friend texted her with questions related to the Carter case. If Jane wasn't avoiding her completely, the doctor figured that whatever was bothering her wasn't something between them. She figured wrong, of course. There was something between them, something she had no idea she had even participated in.
When Maura got ready to leave for the evening, she stopped by Jane's desk upstairs and learned that Jane had dropped off a stack of paperwork before departing for the day. It wasn't entirely unusual for Jane to leave without mentioning it to Maura, but it did seem strange given how the detective had behaved all day. Truly concerned, Maura sent Jane a text message.
Whatever is bothering you, I'm happy to listen, it read.
She had reached her car and was pushing the ignition button when her phone chimed with an incoming message.
Would you mind coming by? Jane was asking.
Surprised that Jane might actually want to talk about whatever was bothering her, Maura was eager to listen.
Be there in 5.
Pulling out of her parking spot, Maura went over in her mind the myriad of things that could possibly be bothering Jane. She hadn't noticed any particular case getting to the secretly sensitive detective. There were no current Rizzoli family squabbles that she was aware of. She knew her friend hadn't been dating anyone since Casey left for Afghanistan, for good this time, so it couldn't be a recent breakup or relationship issues. What could it be?
Arriving at the detective's condo, she parked her car and found herself suddenly nervous. What if whatever was bothering Jane had to do with their friendship? She couldn't allow her mind to open the door to that possibility for fear she would break down in anxiety and fear. She could no longer imagine a life that didn't include Jane in it.
The slightest thought of losing Jane caused her stomach to ache, her eyes to tear up. Since Jane had shot Maura's father, the man the detective not so warmly called 'the sperm donor', and their friendship had been revived, being without Jane terrified the doctor. She knew life before Jane, a solitary and lonely existence. Going back to that life after having the brightness that life with Jane brought was a fate she hoped to never face.
Things had been good between them. In fact, since Casey disappeared from Jane's life and the doctor had stopped dating Jack, things were better than they had been in years. What could possibly be bothering Jane?
Maura attempted to calm her frayed nerves. It was unlike her best friend to be despondent and distant. It was especially unusual for them to only see each other once at work on a day when Jane didn't have an open case.
Are you coming up? she looked down and read her chiming phone.
Looking out her window, she could see Jane standing at her living room window on the second floor. Giving the doctor a short wave, Jane appeared to be smiling.
Climbing out of her car and making her way up the stairs to Jane's door, Maura felt herself relax under the assumption that there had been nothing to prepare for. Jane's smile hadn't seemed force. Perhaps nothing was bothering the detective after all. She was about to be very surprised.
She let herself in without bothering to knock.
Taking in Jane, she noticed there was something about her that seemed more relaxed, more self-assured. She was barefoot, Maura's same height given the doctor's heels. And her brown eyes seemed darker than usual.
"Jane?" Maura asked.
The detective didn't speak; she seemed laser-focused on a picture in her hand that had previously resided on a shelf next to the windows.
"Is everything okay?" Maura spoke softly.
"Do you know when this picture was taken?" Jane turned the frame in her hand to show it to the approaching woman.
"Yes, I believe it was taken at the softball fields two years ago, why?" she surely wasn't here because Jane couldn't place a photo.
"But I'm not in my BPD softball shirt," she immediately countered.
"We were spectators. Remember that summer Frankie joined the beer league?" Maura smiled at the memory.
"Oh, right."
Jane's mind wandered back to that summer, another game if not this very one.
Cheering for Frankie as he stepped up to the plate, Jane was as thrilled to be watching her brother play as she was to be standing close to her best friend. Crammed into stands half the size needed for the crowd watching the game, Jane and Maura were pressed closer than they usually would be.
"Go Frankie!" Jane shouted after the cop put a ball into the air between the shortstop and left fielder.
As the crowd in the stands began to sit, their excitement for Frankie's single short-lived, Maura said something to Jane that the detective couldn't hear despite the quieting of cheers. Jane shook her head to imply she hadn't heard whatever the doctor had asked. Maura then turned her head and tilted her chin up just as Jane had tilted her own head down. What transpired was Maura's nose coming in contact with Jane's neck, rising the few inches from where her nose naturally met due to their height difference up to Jane's earlobe.
Jane had a sudden intake of breath. She thought, but couldn't be certain, that the doctor was taking in her scent. It was a combination of the very body wash that Maura kept for her in her guest bathroom and the soft vanilla body spray she had switched to from the lavender she'd worn until Hoyt.
Her body buzzed with the sensation of the tip of Maura's nose against her skin. Her mind buzzed with the implications of feeling this surge of adrenaline and dopamine because of a touch from her best friend. They were on the verge of crossing a line.
"Jane?" Maura's concerned voice brought Jane back to the present. "You seem a bit off."
"Off?" Jane didn't know what this meant precisely.
"You hid in the archives all day? You left work without saying goodbye?" Maura had made her point.
"I wasn't hiding," Jane retorted.
It was particularly telling to the doctor that her friend became defensive over how she had spent her day. What had she been doing if not hiding?
"I needed some time to think," the detective ran her hands through her hair. "Or to process, I guess."
"Did something happen?" Maura was growing in her concern and confusion.
"No," Jane's response was forceful, but her body language contrasted with her words. "Well, yes."
"Tell me about it?" Maura's face softened.
"Have you ever wondered why things didn't work out between Casey and I?" Jane asked.
If this was to be the topic, Maura was going to need to sit down. She found any discussion of Casey trying.
"I assumed it truly was because neither of you wanted to abandon careers you love," Maura said while perching on the arm of the couch.
"Before that, though. It was obvious that we weren't..." Jane trailed off.
"Happy?" Maura asked.
"Satisfied."
The M.E. was brilliant and yet even her superior mind had no idea where this conversation was going. A quirked eyebrow spoke to how little she was able to follow Jane's thinking. What kind of satisfaction was Jane referring to? Emotional? Sexual?
"When I found out I was pregnant and I had sent the ring back to him, I was relieved. I should have felt horrible telling Casey I didn't want to raise a child with him, but I didn't. You know when I realized I truly wanted the baby? When I truly felt happy about the future?"
Jane had been fidgeting, pacing near the couch, until she posed the second question. As she spoke those words, she looked directly into the gorgeous, curious and concerned hazel eyes of her best friend and stopped moving.
Maura shook her head, unable to cite a point when she noticed her friend's attitude change about motherhood.
"The day I asked you for help, Maura. The day I said I'd need and want your help raising my child," Jane revealed.
There was a deep sadness in Jane's eyes that came with the reminder of having so painfully lost the baby. Maura felt a similar sadness for both her friend and herself.
The day Jane had asked for her help was something Maura would never forget. The day she sat next to Jane's hospital bed and had to tell her friend that she lost the baby was one of the worst she could remember. She had never felt anything that compared to the highs and lows of this period in her friendship with Jane.
Jane had spent her day searching for the meaning of how she had reached an acceptance of motherhood if she could share it with Maura and only Maura. How had she missed its significance? It was as important as the meaning she was searching for behind the dream that had woken her.
"You could have asked the same of Casey," Maura brought herself to say the words.
"No," Jane sat down in the middle of the couch, turning her body toward the doctor who remained perched on the arm of the couch. "Don't you see it? I wanted it only if I could have it with you."
Maura was attempting a poker face, afraid that if she misread what the detective was saying her disappointment would be written all over her face when the other shoe dropped.
"I can't believe I didn't see it," Jane mumbled.
While she had felt the rush when in close proximity to Maura and had more than once acknowledged that they were flirting with a line they dare not cross, she had never realized the depth of her feelings, her desire for this woman she was looking at with such clarity.
"Jane?" Maura's voice was hesitant.
Scooting slightly closer to the woman beside her, Jane reached a hand out to touch the folded hands on Maura's lap. Her touch was soft, hesitant in the way the M.E.'s voice had been. Using her thumb to graze the back of the well cared for skin of Maura's hand; she felt a burst of confidence.
"It was always you, Maur."
She allowed her words to hang in the space between them.
How much time had they wasted? It felt like a lifetime. A lifetime without the intoxicating feeling that came with being allowed to touch, to smell, and to linger. Simply touching Maura's hand acted as a catalyst.
With quick, fluid movement Jane was kneeling on the couch next to where Maura sat. Unsure of Maura's reaction to her words, she used a hand on the back of the couch to steady herself rather than cup Maura's beautiful face like she wanted.
"Why did you lie?" Maura's words brought Jane back down to earth.
"I didn't lie," she insisted.
"But you weren't completely honest, either; not with me and certainly not with yourself."
Jane took a deep breath. She had to make Maura understand.
"I could never be happy with someone else. I could never be happy when you were with someone else. We never crossed that invisible line. God knows we could have. You have to have felt it, right? The pull between us?" Jane gave a firm squeeze to Maura's hands before releasing them and using her hand to trace a path from knee to upper thigh.
Maura's breath caught and her eyelids fluttered shut momentarily.
There was no question in Jane's mind that Maura felt it. In fact, once it became obvious to her in the dank archive earlier that afternoon that they had been doing nothing but wasting time, she knew Maura felt it, too.
No longer holding onto the couch for support, Jane placed her hand on Maura's bicep. Her other hand moved higher, to the exact place where upper thigh ended and the bend of a curvy hip began. Hazel eyes glittered with inclination. The doctor tilted her head to the side, giving Jane the silent go ahead.
Jane obliged.
When Jane's lips met Maura's, slow at first and then increasingly sensual, she felt her hidden desires coming to life as they had in her dream. When they parted, taking a breath, Jane's hands moved to finally cup her friend's beautiful face.
What they were feeling was evident in their fixed gaze.
"It was always you," Jane whispered.
Maura leaned in and pressed her lips firmly to the detective's, her body turning further toward Jane. She used the detective's bony shoulders to steady herself in the awkward position. This was not what the arm of a couch was designed for.
"Maura?" Jane's questions came in a staccato fashion between Maura's continued kisses. "Maura."
"Don't tell me after that speech you're having second thoughts," Maura teased.
"Of course not, but you will if you keep twisting your body like that while sitting on what I know is a very uncomfortable surface."
Rather than continue the verbal sparring, Maura released Jane and stood from the couch. She watched Jane watching her as she ran her hands down her torso, smoothing the few wrinkles of her dress.
"You may think there was a suddenness to your epiphany, Jane, but you have always looked at me the way you are right now."
Still on her knees, Jane reached out to grab the doctor by her hips.
"Believe it or not, I have never undressed you with my eyes," Jane couldn't believe her own words. How was it possible she had never considered what Maura would look like standing before her naked?
"Is that so?" Maura stepped closer, her slight height advantage in this position putting her ample breasts just beneath Jane's line of sight. "I wish I could claim to have been as disciplined."
Jane's eyes snapped up from the woman's chest as the implication of Maura's words set in.
"We have wasted so much time," Jane shook her head.
"Then we better not waste anymore."
As Jane attempted to pick up her jaw, she was further stunned when Maura simply turned her back and gestured for help with the zipper of her dress. No longer needing more of a push, not after the realizations she'd had today, Jane stood from the couch and reached for the honey locks Maura was holding to one side. She took the hair in one hand while slowly unzipping the dress. She nuzzled her nose in the space where she had seen Maura apply her expensive perfume many times.
"God, Jane," Maura moaned as lips touched the skin on the back of her neck.
The hand not still holding Maura's hair to the side slowly traced the opening from the unzipped dress. She paused for a moment as she reached the bra clasp.
"Not yet," Maura spoke, reaching for Jane's hand.
She turned enough to be able to take Jane's hand in her own. Leading the way into the familiar hallway, Maura had the same confidence about her that Jane exhibited.
Reaching the bedroom, Maura turned around and with one slight movement dropped the dress from her shoulders. She couldn't ignore the goofy grin on Jane's face.
"What?" she asked.
Moving closer and placing her hands on revealed hips, Jane let her in on what had crossed her mind.
"Clearly I should have been undressing you with my eyes all along."
A beautiful smile lit up the doctor's face. She pushed the taller woman backward until the edge of the bed forced Jane into a seated position.
"You were, in your own way. Trust me," she said prior to straddling Jane's welcoming lap and resuming their kissing.
Maura's hands deftly removed Jane's shirt, hardly breaking their electric kiss. It wasn't until Jane's hands slipped beneath the lace encasing Maura's backside that the doctor broke the kiss. The feeling of strong, loving hands on her ass made the honey-haired M.E. moan into the thick air between them.
"I'll take that as a good sign," Jane rasped coyly.
She responded with a smirk and her own hands pushing Jane's shoulders back onto the bed. With spread fingers, she simply grazed olive skin from lithe shoulders, over perfect breasts, sculpted abs and to twitching hips. Still straddling the detective's thighs, when she bent over she had to bow her back to allow her mouth to touch the skin just above Jane's navel. Grasping hips that wanted nothing more than to come into contact with the other woman's lace-clad core, Maura pressed kisses across abs, the scarred area on Jane's side and the line beneath each breast where the bra stopped.
"Maur…" Jane moaned.
It didn't take a medical genius to read the moan for the plea it was. Her hands began undoing belt and pants. She stood to drag the pants down Jane's lean legs, appreciating the skin along her path. When the pants were on the floor, she remained standing, her knees touching Jane's. Looking down on the supine woman offered a beautiful sight. She couldn't help but lick her lips.
"God, you are gorgeous," she spoke reverently, her hands pressing above Jane's knees.
She slowly and smoothly began feeling her way up Jane's thighs. Midway she saw a look on Jane's face that she couldn't read.
"What?" she paused her movement.
"This is so much better than my dream," Jane was reminded of the hands on her thighs in her dream, the hands of her beautiful best friend.
"You had a dream about me?" Maura climbed onto the bed, once again straddling Jane.
Jane couldn't answer due to the doctor's knees on either side of her hips. Her hands greedily grasped curvaceous hips, pressing them down until Maura was sitting at the apex of Jane's thighs, hips and core. She groaned at the initial contact and then blushed when her hips thrust one time upward. This brought Maura lower, her hands planted outside Jane's shoulders. Her new position gave Jane a view that she couldn't tear her eyes from. The detective had allowed herself subtle glances at the doctor's cleavage from time to time, something she couldn't deny herself when Maura wore certain attire, but she had never had this view. Full, alabaster breasts were barely contained in lace.
"Did this happen in your dream?" Maura's mouth caught Jane's attention as she breathed the words into an ear before gently nipping at the lobe.
"God," Jane groaned.
"Is that a yes or a no, detective?" Maura smiled.
Hazel eyes were now on full display before Jane as her body responded to the woman atop her tilting her hips. It was both intensely arousing and a sudden reminder to Jane of how this had all transpired. This woman was the woman she had always loved. It had always been right in front of her face. There would be no more guessing after this.
"What is it?" Maura noticed Jane slightly shake her head.
"How is it possible to be madly in love with someone and not know it?" Jane's eyes were still locked on the hazel eyes that had been her rock and strength for as long as she had known them.
At Jane's question, Maura sat up, her hands behind her own back as she spoke with the seriousness of a woman who loves someone and wants it to be perfectly clear.
"You knew," Maura spoke. "We both knew."
And with her words, the woman unclasped her bra and dropped it down her arms.
Oh, yes. They always knew.
-finis-