Disclaimer: They're not mine. They're not each other's. It's depressing.
Artistic license: The lockdown in the NHL has magically disappeared. Tada! The Mystery Baby has also magically disappeared. Tada! And now ladies and gentlemen, I will saw Casey in half!
Summary: A first kiss one shot. Maura takes Jane through the process of Scientific Inquiry, while Jane is trying to watch a Bruins game. The world may end. Jane's POV, K+ rated for some cursing.
Enjoy :-)
"That puck has eyes, I swear! Hah! Did you see that?!" I'm watching a live Bruins game on Maura's super-wide screen TV. It didn't even take much convincing to invite myself over this time. But it hasn't been much fun watching the game with her. She has been distracted all evening. For the past few minutes she has been staring at her nails and hasn't paid any attention to the TV, or to me. "Earth to miss Einstein!"
"Hm? Sorry, what?" She looks up. There's a frown on her forehead.
"What's going on in that big brain of yours?"
"Just thinking."
"About?"
"What would happen if I kissed you."
"Oh." Oh. OH! Keep calm. "What was the conclusion?"
"It wasn't a conclusion yet, Jane," she says haughtily. "One needs to perform a full scientific inquiry for that. You are instead asking after my hypothesis."
"Whatever, hypothesis."
She just nods and goes back to staring at her finger nails. Come on now, they can't be that important.
"Well?"
"Pardon?"
"What is your hypothesis?"
"I've thus far failed to form one. There are many uncertain factors."
Oh god. A 'reddish brown stain' type of conversation. Not now…I groan internally. Not ever, come to think of it, but especially not now. I roll my eyes at her. "Such aaas…?"
"Well…physically I see no problems."
"Phew. Well, that's a relief," I mock.
"Yes!" she smiles brightly. "Yes, but culturally there may be some restricting factors. Socio-economically definitely. Two-women couples have shown to earn a significantly lower mean income compared to man-woman and two-men couples of similar educational and social backgrounds. Emotionally there may be some issues perhaps. And in familial and work-related spheres there is much uncertainty. Repercussions cannot be predicted."
"Right…"
"So."
"So? So what?"
"You want a conclusion anyway?"
"Are you going to give one?" As if.
"No."
Knew it. "Okay."
"No, it requires experimentation based on an hypothesis. I just said that."
"Right, sorry." Well, that's that then. She thought about kissing me and came to no conclusion. I have no idea what that means. I don't even know where to begin thinking about it and it's giving me a headache. So instead of thinking, I do what I do best in situations like this: drink beer and watch the game. It always makes everything go away.
As I take a sip from my beer, Paille hits some 'Cane into the glass, who promptly falls over his own feet when he tries to skate away. Paille gets sent off! Whoa!
"That wasn't hooking you IDIOT! Are you blind?!" I shout at the ref on tv.
"Jane!"
"What?! It wasn't a foul! That guy can't skate!" I shout at Maura, before realizing she isn't talking about the game at all. What was it again we were..ow.
"Are you just…? Why aren't you? …You're watching sports!"
"It's the Bruins, Maur!"
"I just said all that and you…!"
"Well.,. what am I supposed to say?"
The game is picking up again and she's still overanalyzing this nonexistent issue that I can't even figure out she wants to happen, or perhaps she expects me to want to happen, or...headaches!
"You could offer to formulate an hypothesis yourself?" she says with her puppy dog eyes on full force. "You are generally less phased by all possible constrictions..."
"Isn't an hypothesis a 'what if'? You don't like things I say to start with 'what if', right?"
"Jaa-ane…!"
There. I've missed a goal now. I sigh. F—ng 'Canes! Between the Bruins playing like my grandmother and Maura determined to make my evening complicated, I might as well give up. I switch off the TV and turn towards Maura. "There. Full attention. Now what do you want me to say?"
She smiles a little smug smile at the darkened TV screen, and then turns to me.
"What – in your opinion - will happen if I kiss you?"
"How would I know?" I want to leave it at that, but I can see her bottom lip starting to quiver. "Okay, no fine. I'll play. What will happen? Okay. I hypothesize that the damn world will come to an end!"
Apparently I said the right thing, because she beams at me. "That is your hypothesis? Aw..Jane! That's…"
"What? WHAT?"
"That's so sweet."
Ugh. I take the last sip from my beer. Sweet? The world ending?
"And it's testable," she says earnestly, her voice trembling a little.
"Really?" I raise one eyebrow at her and place the empty beer bottle on the coaster she insisted I'd use. "You're going to test the ending of the world?"
"Yes. Now, hypothesis 1 is that nothing happens. Hypothesis 2 is that a change can be observed. Assuming that the world is currently in existence," she starts nervously babbling, "which we can reasonably assuredly verify with our senses, and al…also assuming that we are not living in an individual or shared dream- or shadowworld, we can predict that… that the – so to speak - tangible and shared experience of what we call 'world' will stop being an entity in our universe or stop being an entity at all, and there is a direct and significant correla…"
"Oh for god's sake, Maura, shut up!" I say as I lean over. "For science." And I kiss her.