Title: Distance
Author: cardiogod
Rating: PG
Word Count: Approx 1800
Pairing: Jane/Maura
Spoilers: Through 1x07, "Born to Run"
Summary: Running a marathon takes training.
Disclaimer: They belong to Tess Gerritsen and TNT people.
Author's note: I have changed the title a million times. I feel you should know this.
Running a marathon takes training.
This wasn't something Jane had really considered when she filled out the entry forms she'd found cleverly placed on her desk between autopsy reports.
She moaned and groaned until Maura bought her a couple of beers, and then she picked up a pen, wrote the correct information in all of the correct places, and paid the obnoxious entry fee.
("Seriously? You have to pay to do this? I can run around the block about a million times for free.")
But she never really stopped to think about what that would mean, running a marathon.
Jane played sports all her life. Basketball, softball, field hockey. It's not like she doesn't know how to run. She chases after people for a living, for pete's sake.
But the thing is – criminals never run very far. And yeah, you run a lot in basketball, but it's more sprinting than anything. A burst of energy, a spike of adrenaline, taking off down the court. Nothing like this.
Maura assures her that it'll be fine, that she's never run a marathon either, that she'll be by her side every step of the way.
Jane wishes she could find that comforting.
Yeah, it's cool that they're doing it together, that they're doing something outside of their comfort zone of corpses and suspects and scalpels and interrogation rooms. But she kind of wishes that they could do something else, something that isn't intimidating and vaguely terrifying the way a marathon is.
She'll never admit it out loud, but Jane is scared.
She's only ever run short distances.
Twenty-six miles is not a short distance.
Twenty-six miles is a really freaking long race.
What if, even with Maura running with her, she can't finish the race? What if she's not really a long-distance kind of gal?
She can manage short bursts and quick strides, but she wonders (mostly when she's in the shower – it's her thinking place) if she can really go the distance.
The first time they run together, Jane quits after mile four.
They are in the middle of Fairview Cemetery – it seemed a fitting choice for their first marathon training session.
("That way, if it kills me, I'll already be in the right place."
"It won't kill you, Jane."
"Don't be so sure. And then you'll have to do the autopsy because it's your fault I'm in this mess in the first place.")
She stops on the path between the Roarke gravesite and the Davis mausoleum, and Maura jogs ahead of her a couple of steps before stopping and turning to look at her.
"You okay, Jane?"
"Dying. Death. Dead."
She smiles and walks back to stand beside her. "You're being dramatic."
"Death, Maura. And after I'm done dying, I'm going to kill you."
"I am fairly certain that your heart rate is not high enough to cause tachycardia, and that would be the most likely cause of death in this particular situation."
Another smile. "Besides, if you die, how will I buy you the beer you've been talking about all day?"
Jane relents.
"Fine. I'm not dying. But I quit this stupid marathon thing."
Maura gives her a look that is part confused and part sad and Jane hates that look more than she hates running, so...
"Fine. I don't quit. But you owe me at least three beers. And a sandwich." A pause. "Two sandwiches."
They start walking back the way they came.
"That seems reasonable. Do you want it on top or bottom?"
"Uh. What?"
"The fluff. Does it go on the top or the bottom?"
"Oh. Right. I mean a real sandwich, Maura. The kind you get at a restaurant. The kind that is more like a burger and less like a sandwich…"
"You're hungry."
"We just ran four miles. What do you think?"
Maura laughs. Jane likes Maura's laugh.
"Okay, Jane."
It takes a solid three weeks for Jane to get in the right mindset.
Just because you haven't done it before doesn't mean you can't do it at all.
New doesn't necessarily mean bad or doomed.
Past failures don't predicate future ones. (That one, she got from Maura. Who else would use "predicate"?)
She is experimenting, doing something she's never done before, and although it is daunting at times, it is also exciting.
She feels a little bit like her world has opened up.
She won't tell Maura that, though. It's easier to get her to pay for beers if she acts miserable.
She is training.
She goes a little further most days than the day before.
Four miles turns into six turns into eleven turns into fourteen.
Sometimes she backslides, sometimes her mileage stays the same, but the progress is steady and rewarding. Maybe she's not just a sprinter after all.
She learns things about the "sport" (she doesn't really consider it a sport. Real sports have balls), like how to get water at water stations without losing too much time, how to eat while running (little goo packets that taste like caffeine), and how to program her iPod by beats per minute.
She learns that she has a tendency to turn her foot to the inside on each stride ("How many times do I have to tell you, Jane? It's called overpronating and it has nothing to do with how you phonate") and she buys shoes to correct it.
She learns that Maura really likes technical words for muscles and bones and stuff.
But she knew that already.
Every day, a little further.
She is starting to think that maybe she can do it.
It is Maura who has the first major freakout.
They had caught a big case the week before that all but consumed both of them, leaving very little time for running in circles around the park.
She spits out technical words for muscles and bones and stuff and tries to explain to Jane why she can't actually run a marathon.
Jane tells her that she's full of crap.
"Maura, you're full of crap."
Maura blinks. They are in Jane's bedroom, sipping wine and going through her closet in search of "more appropriate running clothes" because, apparently, the BPD t-shirt she got when she graduated from the academy doesn't count.
Maura is in the middle of reorganizing a drawer and in the middle of another sentence that basically is just a big excuse covered by science babble when Jane cuts her off.
"What?"
"I said you're full of crap."
"That's not very nice, Jane."
"You're freaking out. Stop it."
"I am not freaking out. I am merely explaining that my –"
"My dad told me a story once."
"Jane." Annoyance.
"No, relax. Hear me out. This isn't like the one with the three day old burrito with the hair."
They sit on Jane's bed, and Jane does her best to look comforting.
"So my dad told me a story about this kid. He had like three months to write some paper on a bunch of birds. The kid, not my dad. It was seriously a shit ton of birds. Like… all of the birds in North America or something.
"The kid had three months to write this report, and he waits until the night before to do it. Probably spent too much time procrastinating on Twitter.
"Anyway, the kid is sitting at the table, freaking out because he has to write this huge report, and his dad comes up and asks him what's wrong. The kid says 'I have to write this report on all of the birds that ever lived' or whatever, 'How am I going to do it?'
"And the dad says, 'Bird by bird, son. Bird by bird.'"
Maura looks at her, takes a sip of her wine, and leans back against the headboard.
"So what you're saying is…"
"Bird by bird, yeah. Take it one day at a time and try not to get overwhelmed by the bigness of all of this crap."
"And don't procrastinate because of Twitter."
"That too."
Endurance running makes the heart grow stronger.
Jane can now run 20 miles and her heart feels very strong indeed.
The running experts say that you shouldn't run with another person. You run your own race unless your running partner is of similar stature with a similar natural gait.
Some days they run perfectly side-by-side, their strides aligned, their pace fast and strong.
Some days, Maura is head of Jane, and other days, Jane takes the lead.
Either way, they both finish their run.
It occurs to her midway through their makeshift marathon (after all of the murder hubbub has died down) that Maura owes her a shit ton of beer.
They had made a "one beer for every two miles" rule early in their training, and at mile fourteen Jane really wishes she could take a break, drink her seven beers, and then start up again.
Her legs burn.
Her feet hurt.
Sweat is dripping off of the back of her neck.
And, even though she feels like total shit, she feels incredible.
Maura is beside her, keeping a steady pace mile after mile. They are steady now. They have a rhythm. All of their training has paid off.
In some weird way, she thinks that maybe she's been training her whole life to run this race with Maura.
They push on towards the finish.
The twenty-six miles behind her provide fuel, driving her, her legs seeking relief from the unrelenting tension of such a long race.
Harder, faster, climbing and building towards release.
Maura is still beside her and they run together in Mozartean parallel thirds, the climax of their marathon only meters before them.
They finish and Jane thinks she might explode.
So this is what distance running feels like, she thinks.
She has never felt anything like it.
It's even better than the time she got the base-hit that drove home the winning run when they played Narcotics in softball last year.
It's way better than that.
It's way better than just about anything she can think of, in part because she didn't think she could do it.
She looks at Maura, hugging her family, and she thinks that Maura is the key. She couldn't have done it had Maura not coaxed her with beers and encouraging words.
Without Maura, she would have quit after mile four.
Without Maura, it would be all adrenaline and no staying power.
Without Maura, her heart wouldn't be nearly as strong.
Without Maura, she'd be running sprints instead of marathons.
But with Maura, she can go the distance.
END