My first R&I fic, hoping I can do these characters justice. I'm currently watching season four and it frustrates me how underdeveloped Jane and Maura are. I think these two amazing characters deserve a lot more than the writers give them.

All That Matters

Chapter 1

by Bone Structure

Maura didn't think it was at all weird when she felt the sun wake her – even though her bed didn't face a window. She didn't seem to notice that her sheets weren't the same color they had been yesterday. Or even that the poster next to her was totally foreign.

What she did notice was the alarm clock – well, the lack of one. When she peaked her head out of the sheets to look at her alarm clock, it wasn't there. She sat up in the bed to look around and made sure it hadn't fallen in the course of the night.

That's when she realized she wasn't in her room.

Quickly, Maura glanced around the room for clues. Perhaps it was someone she knew. The poster right next to her was drawing of stylized red socks on a blue background, which Maura assumed could only be the logo of Boston's prized baseball team. But did she know any Red Sox fans?

It only took a minute to realize that nothing in the room was familiar to her, so Maura deduced that it was likely the room belonged to a stranger. She sighed to herself, trying to recall the night before, but it was mostly a blur.

Maura decided that she wasn't going to get any new information while staying put so she got out of the bed. Upon pulling off the sheets she saw that she wasn't wearing last night's outfit anymore. Somehow she had changed into a pair of gray sweatpants, that donned the Boston Community College logo, and a Boston Police Department t-shirt. Maura secretly hoped that the Police Department t-shirt was a sign of someone with good values.

It was that thought that set Maura off on a panic. She was wearing someone else's clothes. She was in someone else's room. All she could remember about the night before was that she had gone to a party with her friend, Susie, and now she was here. She remembered how desperate she had felt to fit in last night, and how she reluctantly drank a third and a fourth beer. How far did her desperation take her?

Maura started to cry as she sat back down on the strange bed. She took the sheets in her hands and wished she were in bed, touching her own satin sheets.

"Hey, are you up-" the raspy, foreign voice came through the doorway in a half whisper as the door opened.

"Oh shit, you're crying!"

Maura barely stopped crying enough to open her eyes. The stranger had knelt down in front of her, putting her hands on Maura's knees.

"I know you're worried, but nothing happened last night, I swear."

Maura's crying slowly came to a stop. She took in a few shallow breaths as she looked down at the girl kneeling before her. She had wild, curly hair that was thick and black. Her cheekbones were sharp and incredibly well defined, just like her jaw. It was the look of worry on her face that let Maura feel like she could calm down.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Jane, I was at the party with you last night."

"Did we...," Maura took a pause and looked at Jane straight in the eyes, "Did we engage in coitus last night?"

Jane couldn't have taken her hands off of Maura's knees faster. "Coitus? What, like sex?! No!" Somehow Jane had gotten off her knees and was standing back up again, taking a few steps back from Maura. "I don't do that."

"You don't have sex?" Maura was confused by Jane's reaction. Maybe Jane was religious? She knew that some religious students on campus looked down at those who chose to engage in more liberal activities.

"Yea, I do! I do have sex."

"Then what is 'that?'" Maura added air-quotation marks. "That was not a very clear usage of a relative pronoun."

If Jane's eyes could have rolled out of her head, they would have. "Relative pronouns? Is that really what you wanna talk about right now? And forget what 'that' is, the point is, we did not have sex last night!"

"Can you explain how I got into these clothes then? I presume they are yours."

Jane ran her fingers through her hair, pushing the curls back out of her face. She let a pause go by, looking at Maura as she sat on her bed.

"Look, I'm starvin' and I'm gonna make some breakfast. We can talk about this over some bacon."

Maura didn't say anything but followed Jane as she walked out of the room. Following behind the girl, Maura saw that Jane was wearing a pair of red plaid boxers and a white t-shirt. The boxers looked short on Jane's legs, which only made Maura realize how tall Jane must have been. Maura wasn't short by any means, she knew that at 5'7" she stood two inches taller than the average Caucasian female in Amercica, but Jane seemed to have an extra two or three inches on her.

"You are much taller than average," Maura blurted out.

Jane was half bent over the fridge when she replied, "Oh really, and here I thought I was short."

"Really? How tall are you? You know the average height for females in America is about five feet and four inches. And the average for Caucasian females is five foot five. You seem to me to be about five foot nine. That certainly puts you above average."

"Um, I was being sarcastic?" Jane pulled out some eggs out of the fridge as she looked over at Maura, who had sat herself behind the kitchen's island.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not very good at detecting sarcasm."

"Robot, eh?" Jane opened her cabinet to look for the frying pan.

"I don't think so. Nothing up to now seems to indicate that I'm anything but human."

Jane's face was first frozen as she looked over at Maura, trying to decipher if the girl was just telling a bad joke or genuinely considering if she was a robot or not. Unable to tell, she let the topic go.

"Do you want some eggs?"

"That sounds lovely."

Maura watched in silence as Jane cracked the eggs over a bowl and began to whisk them with a fork. She added some salt and pepper before moving over to the pan.

"Is that how you take your eggs?"

Jane looked back at Maura, her eyebrows knotted in confusion. "Um, yes? What else should I do?"

"I noticed that you had some onions in the fridge," Maura said as she walked around the island and opened the fridge. "This fridge is pretty bare, when was the last time you went shopping?"

"Hey! I'm offering you breakfast here, I don't need criticism about my groceries or how I cook my eggs!"

"Did I offend you? I'm sorry."

Maura's frown was so sad and pitiful, Jane couldn't stand to look at it for long. Jane groaned a bit as she gave in.

"If you want that onion, chop it up. Knives are in the drawer next to fridge."

Maura chopped as Jane started the prepare the bacon. Maura couldn't help herself as she opened all the cabinets looking for spices. Jane watched the blond move herself around the kitchen with confidence, not ashamed to make herself comfortable.

"Don't you have a massive hangover?" Jane asked as she started to pour Maura's eggs into the frying pan.

"Oh, I do have a bit of a headache, but I made sure to drink plenty of water last night. I'm sure that if I hadn't, I would feel much worse right now."

"Wow," was all Jane said as she watched the eggs turn golden.

When everything was cooked, Jane split the meal evenly into two plates.

"Thank you for giving me breakfast," said Maura as she took a bit of egg to her lips.

"Breakfast? This is nothing," Jane grinned, "You should be thanking me for last night."

"Perhaps I would be if I could remember what happened. Would you remind me?"

"You were totally shitfaced." Jane noticed that the term made Maura cringe, "You had way too many beers last night. Anyway, your friend, the asian one, I think her name was Susan-"

"Susie," corrected Maura.

"Ya, Susie, she left with some guy around midnight and promised she'd come for you. It was 3am before I realized she probably wasn't coming back. You were way too drunk to go home by yourself, and one of the guys at the party was getting a little too close to you. So I brought you here."

"Who?"

"That guy Ian. He was trying real hard to get you to come home with him. I didn't let him take you."

Maura felt shivers run up her spine. Ian was in her Quantum Chemistry class. He had often bothered her about going out together, in a romantic sense. And though she thought he was a great study partner, that's where their relationship ended.

The two ate in silence as Maura began to contemplate Jane's motives. Never had a stranger been so kind to her. Hell, her own friend abandoned her at a party. Did Jane want something from her? Money? It seemed unlikely. Jane didn't know her well enough to know that Maura was from a wealthy family. Sex? Also unlikely, she probably had many opportunities the night before to make a move and she hadn't. That was all Maura could think of. Usually, people didn't reach out to her unless they wanted her money or her sex and Maura had become accustomed to thinking of her relationships in that light.

"I don't know how to repay you," Maura said blankly, putting her fork down.

"Mmmm, maybe a million bucks," Jane smiled before picking up her orange juice.

So this was about money?

"That seems rather outlandish."

"That's why it's a joke. Unless you do have a million bucks somewhere and then it's not."

Maura laughed, amused by Jane's sense of humor and the semi-confused look on the taller girl's face, but mostly happy that Jane didn't want any money from her. As her laughter subsided, Maura took her hand and placed it over Jane's.

"But honestly, thank you so much." Maura's smile was large and infectious. Jane's face couldn't help but light up in response.

"I was just doing what's right. But get me a six pack and we'll call it even."