Jane Rizzoli was spineless. She was a coward, unable to state those few words that she had been given more than one opportunity to whisper, to speak into a comfortable silence. There were so many times she should have said so many things. And she had planned to. And then her courage had taken a private vacation to Barbados. Hell, she could shoot herself, or be at gun point countless times. But speaking such simple words? Nope, could not do it. She would just suffer in her own depressing silence.
Like now, in her kitchen for instance. She should not have been prompted to start this particular argument, with this particular person, over this particular subject matter. It just simply should not have happened.
"Damn it, Maura! You're being unreasonable!" She growled out, slamming her beer on the counter. She had not asked for this, for any of it. Why was this happening to her, and why now?
"I'm being unreasonable? Have you looked at yourself today Jane? You've barely said two words to me all week, and you've been avoiding me, and taking extra cases! I'm leaving tomorrow, I would have thought you would want to say good bye to your best friend!" The medical examiner was pissed, and rightly so. She had a valid point, but she was missing one key point. Jane's excessive lack of courage when it came to this woman.
"Maura Isles, he's not right for you!"
"Do not start this again, Jane!"
"Why the Hell not! He's using you! I don't understand how you don't see it!" Maura opened her mouth for some sassy retort that Jane was not in the mood for. The doctor just did not understand. She didn't understand at all what Jane was feeling, what the idea of Maura following some guy to France was doing to her, inside. How it made her want to snap in half, or melt into the ground. "You're being stupid, Maura!"
"I'm being stupid?" The detective caught the dangerous change in her friend's tone. She caught how Maura stilled, her muscles contracting in anger. "Jane Rizzoli, don't you ever dare to call me stupid." Jane bit down on her lip. She had jumped the line of things not to say to Maura Isles. She regretted it, immediately. She had never intended to make Maura angry, not in the slightest. "You can not, nor will you ever, tell me how to live my life, let alone where to live it! Mike has been everything for me, which is more than I could say about you. He is thoughtful, quiet, and so many things that you are not!"
"I don't like him!"
"Well then I suppose its a good thing that you are not the one engaged to him! I am, and he loves me and-"
"Damn it Maur, no he doesn't!"
"How the Hell would you know-"
"He made you so upset you slit your wrist-"
"That was not his fault and you know it! So don't you dare go there Jane-"
"It never would have happened if you had been with me!" Silence met her words. Maura stopped, her brain frozen mid retort. Jane only ran a hand through her hair, looking away. Maura would never look at her again. Why had she spoken the damn words aloud, even? She should have just kept them inside, hidden away, like she had been.
"Could you... repeat what you just said?" Jane snorted, shaking her head.
"You're a brilliant, gorgeous doctor. Figure it out on your own." She dropped the bottle into the sink, leaving it to empty and get rid of later. "I would have done anything you told me to, whenever you said to." She hissed, when the blonde doctor said nothing.
"Look at me." Jane couldn't help it, she turned around. But she couldn't meet those hazel eyes. Instead, her gaze dropped to that scar.
No matter how spineless Jane could be when it came to the doctor, that partially healed mess on her arm always brought forth a massive mix of emotions. She would get angry, and upset, and so many other things she couldn't even place. It was her fault; she hadn't been there for Maura when her self esteem had dropped so low. Hell, she hadn't even known until so long after that she couldn't even fix it. They were supposed to have been best friends.
Jane had failed.
She dropped to her knees, covering her face with her hands. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have let things get so out of hand? She shouldn't have ever allowed anything to happen to the beautiful doctor. She should have been there to protect her.
"Jane, I don't know what to say." She rested her hands on the detective's shoulders, trying to get the latter to look up to her. Maura didn't understand what the other woman was feeling; she rarely understood people in general. But she wanted to see Jane's face, to know that this pain was all a lie. To know that she had made the right choices, that she should be going away.
"Then say nothing. Say nothing at all." Maura bit down on her lip at the choked words. She had been trying to run, always running away.
"What are you thinking?" She finally whispered. They had an agreement between the two of them; they would never ask a question that they did not truly want the answer to.
"How I would do anything to fix what Ive done to you." Maura only stopped, to think about the meaning behind those words. To think about how they made her feel.
"You should have told me. Earlier."
"Yes."
"I would have listened."
"Yes."
"Kiss me. Right now." Jane leaned forward, slowly, carefully. As if she thought Maura was going to break, to disappear. That all of this was going to end up being one sick, twisted lie. Maura's breath caught as warm breath brushed up against her own mouth, as her lips parted slightly in yearning. She had blocked her own feelings. Had been acting stupid. No man had ever made her feel this way. With little space between them, Jane paused.
"I won't." She ran a thumb over the scar on Maura's left wrist. "Because if I didn't, it would hurt you more tomorrow than it hurts me today."
That was how Maura Isles remembered it all. How she had made sense of so many things in such a short amount of time. How she had found out that her best friend had loved her, and for an amount of time that she had no ideas about, and refused to guess at. When she had woken up that next morning, and Jane had not come out to say good bye, it had stung. She had nearly cried. When her fiance leaned over and kissed her in the cab, she had cried.
Her life had been flipped upside down. Because Jane had been right. Jane was always right. She had just stopped listening. The doctor closed her eyes as she stepped through airport security. She rubbed the last few tears from her eyes. If this hurt so badly, she couldn't imagine what Jane was feeling. What the detective was going through. Why had it taken her, Maura Isles, brilliant chief medical examiner, so long to figure out something that Jane had obviously realized so long ago? She turned to the man that was preparing to board a first class flight to France. Could she even make it right?
She should have been chasing her. She should have woken up on time, and been there for Maura to leave. She should have been the friend that was always there by her side, ready to take whatever blow if it made Maura happy. Maybe she shouldn't have been chasing Maura. Maybe she shouldn't have forgotten to tell the doctor how badly she loved her. None of this should have been happening. She should have either grown the spine to tell the doctor, or been prepared to let her go.
But Jane Rizzoli could do neither.
Instead, she slammed on the accelerator of her car, chasing without he slightest shred of a plan about what she was going to do. She jumped out of her car, flashing her badge to the security at the door in her haste. She hurried past everything, not noticing the stunned onlookers as she headed to the finally security check for international flights. One of the guards held up his arm, blocking her.
"You need a ticket, ma'am."
"That's good. I don't have one. And I'm kind of in a rush so-" she tried to shove past him, and was all but thrown back. Angry, she shouted. "Look! You don't understand! I'm from the homicide department, and there's someone I have to see that's getting on flight 5525 to France! I have to tell them that I love them-" she had drawn out her badge at some point, had started crying at another. The man's eyes softened slightly.
"I regret to inform you detective, but 5525 departed not even five minutes ago." Jane shook her head, raising a hand to her forehead. She couldn't believe this. Couldn't believe it at all.
"Thank you." She turned, shaking her head again.
"Ma'am, would you like a ride home? It is the least we could do." Jane just shook her head, didn't look back.
"No. I'm sure I'll manage." Someone, an elderly woman, placed a hand on Jane's shoulder, which she only shrug off as she walked. She had been too late. She had missed her last chance to make things right. It wasn't fair.
She had failed.
The detective turned towards one of the massive windows, looking out at the many planes there. Perhaps she would ask Korsak and Frost if they would help her get to France. She couldn't bear to let Maura get away. Had to try something. Had to fix this all.
"Jane?" She was dreaming. Maura was gone. The detective wiped her eyes, turning away from the mirror, towards the way out. She was kidding herself; she had nothing to hope for against that guy. It was pointless. "Jane!" Reflexively turning, it was a shock to be crashed into, to have arms thrown around her. She didn't know what to say. "Jane."
"Maura... I... What are you doing? They said the plane left, and-"
"It did." The blonde looked up, tears welled up in her own eyes.
"But you... you're here."
"I got off. Someone owed me a kiss."
"You ditched a ticket to France for a kiss?"
"It was one-way." Jane gave up, leaning down to the shorter woman, arms tightening around her neck as she did so.
"Maura... I need another chance." The doctor sighed, closing the distance between them with her whisper.
"Yea, well, so do I. Could you ever forgive me?"
Jane's answer was silent; a promise that she planned to fulfill completely. And she would never give up until she had.
I have no excuse for this one. It just happened... And that is really all I could say about it. Also, it started much different in my head, and this is the end result. It took on a life of its own... As they often do. Hope you enjoyed!
~SnapTobiume