Disclaimer: I don't own anything; all rights belong to TG/TNT. These characters aren't mine, I just like to take them out and play with them for a while. :)

Author's Note: This story has not been beta-ed, so any mistakes are all mine (if you send me a note/review, I will fix it!). Thanks for reading! Remember that reviews are love! :)

Jane Rizzoli wasn't a complicated person, or at least, she didn't think she was. Her friends and family always said she was blunt; sometimes it sounded more like an insult than a compliment but Jane simply called things as she saw them. She was honest... To everyone but herself, it seemed.

She couldn't deny that she'd looked that way, that her eyes had traveled up and down the length of her fine friend. She couldn't deny that the reason she started backing up into her dance partner was not so that he could cop a feel, but so that she could ease him closer to the side wall of the nightclub, where her friend was dancing. She would deny, however, that watching Maura's hips sway back and forth was causing a stir inside of her. She'd also deny that she was aching to slug the greasy guy eyeing her friend like a piece of steak. She was just watching out for a friend, she told herself. You can take the girl out of the precinct, but you can't take the cop out of the girl, or some similar justification. It didn't really make sense, but it gave her enough of a reason to keep her eyes on the M.E.

Maura glanced up, seeing Jane's intent stare. She didn't know how to react to the scrutiny of her friend's gaze, seemingly raking up and down her body in an almost predatory way. Averting her eyes, she pushed her hips back into those of the man she was dancing with. He was nice-looking, tall, dark hair, dark eyes. His handsomely cut jawline reminded her of someone, but she couldn't exactly figure it out. The music thumped louder and she closed her eyes as she let the sounds accentuate the hardly appropriate thoughts running through her head. Pressing her hips back into ones much softer than his. Reaching back to tangle her fingers in long dark hair. Feeling gentle hands pressing and pulling at her waist. Husky voice whispering in her ear that maybe they should get out of there, go back to her place.

Jane couldn't watch anymore. Maura was practically writhing in that slimebag's hands, her head bent back, biting her lip. Jane looked away as her stomach churned uncomfortably. She politely put a palm on the chest of the blonde clean shaven man currently rubbing himself all over her and stepped away, motioning that she needed a drink. He smiled and nodded, turning to dance with a nearby group of women. Jane stalked off the dance floor and made a beeline for the bar.

"Beer, please," she said when the bartender approached her. The transaction was quick, she handed him a five and he handed her the beer, smiling when she said he could keep the change. Taking a long pull off the bottle, Jane leaned back against the bar and scanned the dance floor, looking for her friends. Barry Frost, her partner at the homicide unit of the Boston Police Department was flirting with a pretty blonde girl near the back of the small club. She caught his eye and raised her eyebrows, wondering about the age of the tart he was trying to pick up; he winked in return and gave her a thumbs-up. She shook her head and chuckled. He's young, she thought, but a good guy. A good partner, like Korsak. Lingering feelings of guilt surfaced briefly before she could stop them. Frost had only been her partner for a short while, ever since she'd recovered from the attack of a serial killer. Her partner then had been Vince Korsak, one of the kindest men she'd ever known, and also one of the most loyal. He'd rescued her when Hoyt had nearly killed her, and it was that very fact that caused her to request a new partner. She just couldn't stand the thought that Korsak had seen her so vulnerable, so victimized. She couldn't go on knowing that he might think she wouldn't be able to have his back if anything like that ever happened again. She loved Korsak, she really did, but she was just too proud to let him see her in that way.

Her eyes continued to scan the dance floor, not really noticing the people, but taking in the atmosphere as a whole. The calculating cop in her picked out all the exits around the small, but crowded club. The hole-in-the-wall hotspot was a well-kept secret in Boston, using the unassuming name of The Lobby to fade into background of the flashy and sordid nightlife scene. The origins of the name were simple: the building had once been a fancy hotel, abandoned in the mid seventies, and left to rot until extensive renovations had uncovered the diamond in the rough during the late nineties. It had started as a simple bar, but encouragement from the patrons turned the establishment into a club every weekend after nine. Jane, a lifelong citizen of Boston, hadn't even heard of the place until a case had brought them within blocks of it. After leaving the crime scene a few weeks prior, Frost and Maura had pointed out The Lobby and it had been decided that they would all go dancing once the particularly gruesome triple homicide case was solved. A celebration, if you will.

The only issue Jane had with the plan was that she was not the dancing type. Her only experience with dancing had been in high school, during Prom and Homecoming, neither of which brought forth the best of memories. But Maura had insisted, batting those hazel eyes and giving her that perfected kicked-puppy face. That face could get Jane to do just about anything. So where was she spending her Friday night? At a damn club.

She was so caught up in thoughts of Maura and her many faces that she didn't hear the very object of her musings sidle up beside her to lean against the bar.

"I noticed you left," Maura said, motioning to the bartender for a drink. "Quite suddenly, actually. Are you feeling okay? Are you sick?"

Jane looked over at the compassionate expression, etched with just a little bit of sympathy and concern. She smiled and took another pull of her beer.

"Nope, just thirsty," Jane answered, holding up her half-empty bottle. The bartender approached and Maura began inquiring about his wine stock. Jane took the opportunity to give her friend a thorough once-over. Not that she hadn't done this about a hundred times since Maura had shown up at her apartment earlier this evening.

Jane had been standing in front of her closet, trying to decide between a blue tshirt and black slacks and a purple tshirt and black slacks when she heard a knock on the door. Clad in just a white tank top and boxer shorts, she'd strolled through her small apartment to the door, hoping that it wasn't Maura. She'll be pissed that I'm not ready yet.

Of course, it had been Maura, dressed in a sleek grey skirt and a white button up with small frills down the front. Her four-inch black satin high heels had put her at just above eye-level with Jane. Predictably, she had gasped at Jane's outfit, or rather, lack thereof.

"Tell me that's not what you're wearing, Jane," she'd said by way of greeting before pushing past her friend into the apartment, laying two garment bags over the side of the couch.

Jane had rolled her eyes dramatically, closing the door before turning to Maura and giving her a deadpan look. "But these are my going out clothes," she'd said with a flourish of her arms.

Maura had pursed her lips, trying to hold back a smile, succeeding for only a second before chuckling. "What ever am I going to do with you, Jane?" she'd asked rhetorically, arms crossed with one hand near her mouth, faking pensiveness.

Jane had scoffed, bending down to pet Joe Friday for a second before walking past Maura to her bedroom. "I just don't know what to wear," she had called loudly. "You know I'm horrible at this whole being-a-girl thing. Not everyone can always look like they just walked out of a photo shoot, like you, you know."

Maura had followed Jane into her room, and was standing before the woman's poor excuse of a wardrobe, a look of deep concentration on her face.

"I do not look like I walked out of a photo shoot, Jane. You've seen me in these clothes many times."

"I don't know why I'm even bothering, no one will even notice me when you walk in, doing a remarkable impression of Heidi Klum,"

"Oh, I'm not wearing this tonight," Maura had said, as if amused by Jane's implication.

"You're not?" Jane had asked with a hint of desperation in her voice. "Then what are you wearing?"

Maura had just smiled. "You'll see," she said.

Jane had chuckled, reaching into her closet and pulling out the black slacks she'd been pondering before. Maura's hand had clapped onto her outstretched arm with exceptional speed. Jane's eyes had followed the line of Maura's arm up to her face and almost burst out laughing at the horrified expression she found there.

"But you are not wearing that," Maura had demanded, pushing the slacks back into the closet. She had pushed Jane back a safe distance from the wardrobe and gave her an appraising look. A beat later, she had perked visibly and left Jane's room, much to Jane's confusion, only to return with one of the garment bags in hand. The coy smirk on her face had made Jane extremely nervous.

"If that's a dress, you can forget the whole night." When Maura's smile had widened and she didn't answer, Jane groaned. "Seriously, Maura? A dress? Come on!"

So there Jane was, in The Lobby, in a dress, dancing. The black dress was similar to the one Angela Rizzoli had forced Jane to buy for her date with Joey Grant, except this one was slightly shorter, tighter, and had a sexy slit up the side. Jane felt totally out of her element, but the stunned expression on Maura's face when she'd walked out of the bathroom wearing the dress was priceless, even if if only took a nanosecond for Maura to compose herself and compliment the "impeccable stitching". Impeccable stitching or not, Jane took solace in the fact that Maura thought she looked good.

"I saw that guy you were dancing with," Maura said, interrupting Jane's train of thought. "Did his hands feel particularly scaly?" Her nose scrunched up and her head tilted to the side: the signature Doctor Isles analysis face.

"Wha- Maura, why?"

"Well, it looked like he had patches of rough, discolored skin. I wondered if maybe said skin felt particularly scaly, which could indicate a number of diseases like psoriasis or dermatitis, possibly eczema if the patches were particularly itchy. Did you notice him scratching at all?"

Jane just looked at her friend, absolutely baffled. "Maura, eww. Why are you diagnosing right now? We are supposed to be celebrating and you're concentrating on skin conditions? How could you even tell what his skin looked like? It's dark out there," she nodded her head towards the dance floor where the colored lights blinked and flashed on the undulating crowd.

Maura visibly recoiled. After she'd received her glass of wine, she'd looked at Jane, who'd been gazing at her with that same hungry look she'd seen on the dance floor. Seeing that gleam in Jane's eyes had caused the coil that had been riding low in her abdomen all evening to tighten just a little more; it wasn't an entirely uncomfortable sensation. Her impromptu diagnosis had been a split-second reaction to the tightening of that coil, a misdirection from what she was sure was arousal written all over her face. In all truthfulness, she'd been staring at Jane all night and watching some... derelict running his hand all over her best friend made her slightly uncomfortable. She felt the bizarre need to associate the man with something disgusting, if not for her friend's sake, then for her own peace of mind.

Jane knew immediately her words had caused some harm and moved quickly to rectify the situation. She wrapped her hand around Maura's upper arm and ducked her head, the better to see into her friend's averted hazel eyes.

"Oh honey, I'm sorry," she said, rubbing Maura's bare arm. "I'm just wound up from that case. I mean, I know we're supposed to be celebrating, but I just can't get that girl's face..." her voice broke off in a strangled sigh.

Maura looked up, seeing Jane's pained expression. As a medical examiner, she had trained herself not to see the faces of the unfortunate people who'd laid on her table. She preferred to look at each corpse like a puzzle, something easily dissected and analyzed. Living people were so much harder to understand, and for once she lacked the words to comfort her friend. So she just pulled her into a hug. Her arms wrapped around Jane's shoulders, on hand on the back of Jane's head.

The hug took Jane by surprised, but was not unwelcome. She immediately wrapped her arms around the smaller woman's waist, pulling their bodies flush together and tucking her face into Maura's neck. It wasn't just the case that was getting to her, it was the rush of emotions she'd been having lately. Feelings that she couldn't explain. Feelings about Maura, about the two of them together, about her life. It had all just seemed to accumulate this week. She sniffed and pulled away from Maura quickly, realizing she'd hung on too long.

Maura kept a hand on Jane's shoulder as she pulled away, studying her friend's face closely. She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind Jane's ear, watching as Jane sighed and subtly let her cheek rest against the hand for longer than conventionally necessary.

"Are you okay, Jane? Do you want to go home?"

Jane turned away from Maura, grabbing her beer and finishing it off. "No, no, I'm fine. Let's uh... let's dance."

"You sure?" Maura still wasn't confident that Jane was feeling completely okay, but was willing to concede, knowing that the last thing Jane needed was to dwell on the situation. Plus, there were things she herself needed to mull over first. Like how she'd been feeling about their relationship lately. She tried to shake off the thoughts as a new song started up and the crowd cheered. It must have been one of the new hits on the radio. While Maura didn't exactly prefer the throbbing techno beat, it was Jane's fingers tightening around her wrist and pulling her towards the dance floor that changed her mind.

"Yes! Dancing, let's go!"

Jane pulled Maura into the middle of the crowded floor, and they were shoved together by the surrounding gyrating crowd, with barely an inch between them. She looked up and saw that look on Jane's face. The hungry look that made her weak in the knees. Jane's hands fell to Maura's hips and she began to move in time with the song. At this rate, Maura thought, the pulsing cacophony of a song could wind up being Maura's absolute favorite.