Disclaimer: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles
Chapter 1
Detective Jane Rizzoli sat at her desk with her arms folded across her chest and a scowl on her face. She stared absently at a package of fudge clusters that sat atop a stack of files at the edge of her desk and chewed the corner of her lip. All morning she had been finishing up the paperwork from her most recent case but she kept getting distracted by the damn gift basket that Jorge had sent, and the memories that it conjured up. She wished she had remembered to toss the whole thing in the dumpster before she'd gone home for the weekend. But instead, she had arrived on Monday morning to find the fudge clusters sitting there, just where Maura had left them.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that Jane didn't seem to notice when her former partner, Vince Korsak, walked into the room and sat down at the desk opposite hers until he asked her a question.
"Hey, Rizzoli, what'd that bag of candy ever do to you? You're staring at it like it just insulted your mother."
Jane looked up, her eyes still unfocused. "What?" She stared at Korsak blankly for half a second before responding. "Nothing, I'm just . . . thinking about something."
"Oh, I remember now," said Korsak in a teasing tone, "those are the chocolates from Jorge, aren't they? Are you thinking about Jorge, Janie?"
Jane snorted and then sneered at her former partner. "Shut up, Korsak." She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hand and groaned.
"Is he still sending you stuff? Cooking any more dinners for you?" Korsak kept teasing, since it was only the two of them in the office and he liked getting Jane all riled up.
"No, Maura managed to get rid of him for me." Jane sighed, and stared off into space again.
"How'd she do that? Did she diagnose him with some disease or something?"
"No, she told him—" Jane stopped herself before finishing her sentence. She suddenly didn't want to tell Korsak that Maura had led Jorge to believe that she was a lesbian in order to let him down gently. She was certainly grateful that Maura had finally been able to get Jorge to stop calling and emailing, but that didn't mean everyone needed to know all the details.
Jane avoided Korsak's eyes. "I don't know what she told him. She just convinced him that I wasn't interested. Now can we get off of this? If I hear the name Jorge again I might vomit."
Korsak waved his hand in the air dismissively. "Fine, fine. Whatever. If you don't want the chocolates though . . . can I have them?"
Jane picked up the bag and tossed it—none too gently—to her colleague, who caught it, smiled broadly, and popped a chocolate into his mouth before turning to his computer.
Jane returned to her half reclining, half scowling position at her desk, and was silent for a couple of minutes. Then she sat up and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk and her chin in her hands.
"Hey, Korsak?"
The detective mumbled something through a mouthful of chocolate that sounded like "yeah." He didn't look away from his computer screen.
"Do you remember what Maura said the other day, when we were talking about Jorge?"
Korsak swallowed. "What, about the CHUMP study?"
"No, not that." Jane mumbled "chump study" under her breath and shook her head. "Remember, I said that maybe if I got fat Jorge would stop calling, and then Maura said that if I just let him see all sides of me, or something about some characteristics that I had, then he'd stop calling."
Korsak bit into another chocolate. He remembered the conversation that Jane was referring to, and he also remembered the hurt look on Jane's face when Maura had tried to backtrack away from her suggestion that Jane had some "bad traits." He didn't like where Jane's train of thought was headed. So he just took his time chewing the candy and hoped he wouldn't have to say anything definitive about the subject.
Jane continued, once again avoiding looking Korsak in the eyes by doodling on a notepad on her desk. "What do you think she meant by that?"
Korsak decided to play dumb. "How the hell do I know? I never understand half the things Dr. Isles says."
"Yeah," said Jane, leaning back in her chair. "I know the feeling." Jane was silent for another minute before turning toward Korsak again.
"I just want to know—" Jane paused, and then stopped speaking when she heard the sound of heels clicking in the hallway. Within seconds Maura Isles appeared in the office and headed for Jane's desk.
Jane gave Korsak a look that she hoped would keep him from saying anything to the medical examiner about their conversation, and then turned to her friend and smiled.
"Hey, Maura."
"Hello, Jane. Are you ready for lunch?"
Jane cringed inwardly. Although she usually jumped at the chance for a lunch out with Maura, she suddenly didn't feel like spending time with her friend. She was confused, and she didn't like being confused.
Jane had spent her entire adult life cultivating her skills as a cop and a detective, and she had reached a point where she actually had a lot of confidence in those skills. She didn't date much, but was generally confident in her social skills as well. Especially since she had met Maura. She had never really had a best friend before, and she had discovered how nice it was to have someone in her life that she could really count on. So to find out that Maura had studied all aspects of her personality, and found one, or even some, of those aspects lacking, bothered her.
And it bothered her that she was bothered.
She decided to make up an excuse to get out of lunch, just to give herself more time to think.
"Lunch? Oh, sorry, Maura, I forgot—I have to run some errands for my mother. Her car's in the shop and she's been calling me all morning asking if I can pick up some stuff for her." Jane quickly stood up and grabbed her purse, and before she finished her sentence she was already halfway to the door. She didn't want Maura offering to come with her.
She called out over her shoulder without stopping, "We'll do lunch tomorrow, okay?" She almost turned back as she caught a glimpse of the confused look on Maura's face, but instead she let her momentum carry her out the door.
When Jane was out of earshot Maura turned to Korsak and gave him a quizzical look.
"Did Jane seem to be acting strangely to you?"
Korsak was only too happy to cover for his former partner. He did not want to get into a conversation about Jane's feelings, and how they might or might not have been hurt by a certain doctor. "Nah, she's probably just thinking about a case. She was talking about Jorge earlier though—something about how she's glad you got rid of him for her. And she gave me his fudge clusters." He held the open bag out to the medical examiner, who took one and nodded her thanks.
"Jorge." Maura frowned and bit into the chocolate. "That date did not turn out like I had planned." She chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds, and then looked at Korsak. "I am done trying to set her up with men—and if I ever do try it again, you," Maura stabbed her index finger into the air in Korsak's general direction, "are responsible for reminding me of the Jorge disaster." Korsak laughed and nodded, and Maura turned and began walking out of the office. Before she reached the door she stopped abruptly and added, "You won't tell her I said that, will you Korsak?"
"'Course not, Dr. Isles," Korsak called out after her, rolling his eyes as she disappeared around the corner. He muttered "women" under his breath and turned back to his computer screen.
Jane drove around Boston for an hour, thinking more about what Maura might have meant when she said that if Jane allowed Jorge to see all sides of her, he would stop calling. What, exactly, were these characteristics that made Maura wrinkle her nose and grimace when she thought about them?
Jane began compiling a mental list while she drove.
Bossy? That's probably true—but she's just as bossy. We both like to get our own way. She can't deny that.
Can't relax? That is definitely not true, and Maura knows it—we've spent enough time at the Dirty Robber together for her to admit that. Was she just teasing me when she pointed out that I was wearing my clothes and shoes to bed? Maura doesn't really tease though—does she?
Too negative and sarcastic? Well, what the hell does she expect? I've been a cop for fifteen years, and we have to deal with the worst things that humans can possibly do to each other—is it any wonder that I can't just conjure up a positive attitude any old time? Especially at crime scenes?
Impatient? I try to be patient with her, most of the time. I'm a lot more patient with Frost than Korsak is. I'm a good cop—cops can't be patient all the time or nothing would ever get done. And if she'd been dealing with my mother all of her life, she might be a little impatient too.
Fashion challenged?
Jane found herself scowling even harder when she thought about Maura and clothes.
Except for the little black dress her mother had forced her to wear for a date, Maura had never said anything nice about her clothes. In fact, Maura herself had once purchased a dress for her when they had to attend a function together because she was afraid that Jane would embarrass her. Jane hadn't thought much about it at the time, but now she felt—
She wasn't sure how she felt about it. Did she care about what people thought about her clothes? Or did she just care what Maura thought about her clothes? Whatever this feeling was—this tightness in her chest, these flashes of discomfort when she remembered her best friend frowning at the clothes in her closet—it was very alarming.
No one had ever made her question her taste in clothes before. No one had ever made her even think twice about fashion before. Not even her mother.
Pulling into a parking space behind police headquarters, Jane turned off the engine and told herself to snap out of it. She looked at her reflection in the rear-view mirror and took a deep breath. She pulled out her ponytail and smoothed out the long strands of dark hair before sweeping them back again, deftly twisting the elastic and then tucking a few shorter hairs behind her ears. She found a tube of lipstick in her purse and applied a light layer.
As she did so, the thought came unbidden to her mind:
I want Maura to think I'm pretty.
Some sort of electricity seemed to be sparking through her body, collecting in her chest. But she fought to swallow it down as she got out of the car and took another deep breath of cold Boston air. Crossing the parking lot, she tried to pull herself together. She walked quickly, anxious to get back to her desk and the distractions of work.
As soon as she passed through the metal detector and headed for the elevator, she caught a glimpse of a red dress out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to find Maura standing at the coffee machine at the other end of the hall. When Maura looked away from the machine she saw Jane, caught her eye, and smiled.
All thought left her head as Jane smiled back and unexplained warmth flooded through her body.
Maura's smile did that to her every time.
Jane waved and stepped into the elevator, a goofy grin still plastered on her face. By the time the elevator doors opened just outside the homicide department, however, the grin was replaced once again by a scowl.
It was disconcerting for Jane to realize that while Maura had a list of her negative characteristics, she couldn't think of a single thing about Maura that she didn't love.
A/N: I'm trying to get into Jane's head here—leave a review and let me know what you think!
