Author's Note: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles or "Recessional" by Vienna Teng. Again, you should listen to that song while reading this piece.
"It's so beautiful here," she says,
"This moment now and this moment, now."
And I never thought I would find her here
It's been three mouths since she broke them. Maura had never believed in metaphors, never understood how people talked about heartbreaks in a literal sense. But now she understands.
In a single night, she had taken a sledgehammer and shattered whatever she and Jane had shared.
The day afterwards, Frost came to the morgue for the pathology results, biting his tongue, keeping from asking what had happened between Jane and Maura. He'd excused himself once she had handed over the file, and she turned back to the DNA analysis she had been running. Her hands shook for a moment before they steadied.
It took two weeks before she saw Jane. She was crouched next to the deceased, but retreated when she heard the clack of Maura's heels. Jane did not look at her once, did not speak to Maura directly ever. Maura couldn't stop staring at every motion Jane made, memorizing the cant of her voice when she talked to Korsak and Frost and barked orders at the techs. When she exited the crime scene, Maura felt her heart constrict and her pulse quicken.
That night, she called off the engagement with Brian, had stated that she just couldn't do this, that she wanted to be alone, that she should be alone. He'd protested a little, weakly, but in the end, he left without much of a fight. She sensed relief in him, his shoulders loosening, his eyes a little brighter. He was free now.
And she was lost.
Now Maura sits in the cafe, smiling without it reaching her eyes, as Angela slides a plate of bunny pancakes, telling her that there's nothing bunnies can't cure. She knows Angela understands that Jane and Maura have fought, but the woman still hasn't picked favorites.
These are the moments when Maura knows she was right to push away Jane. Angela would never understand if Maura and Jane became a couple. Her beliefs wouldn't allow her to accept it, her views of the ideal life structured around traditional family values. If they got together, Jane would lose her mother and probably her whole family, in exchange for just Maura. Before Maura met the Rizzoli's, she might have assumed that wouldn't be a difficult loss. But now? She could never be so selfish as to ask Jane to give up that love just for Maura.
And the precinct – Jane had enough trouble warding off the catcalls of 'dyke', had enough trouble earning respect from men who dismissed her because of her gender. Her job would get that much more difficult if everyone at the precinct saw them together.
Let alone having to deal with Maura herself. Her social awkwardness, her lack of awareness about how to properly love, her google mouth, her quirks, her need to correct people, her neurotic behavior...
No, Maura thinks, as she cuts the pancakes, I made the right choice. I made sure Jane has a family.
Last week, Maura went to a baseball game, sat up in the top of the stadium. She watched without much interest in the game itself. Instead, she leaned back, closing her eyes. When the crowd groaned, she could hear Jane's voice, swearing at the TV, hitting Frankie out of frustration. And then it was easier to smile, to forget for a moment that she'd never have that again.
Last month, she sat in the park closest to Jane's apartment, the one Jane would cut through every time she made a run shorter. She read a book, forcing herself not to look up, so that every person running by was her, was Jane, and the illusion couldn't be shattered.
And at least once a week, she would choose a bar, picked out carelessly. Sitting in a booth alone, she'd drink a Blue Moon, ordering an extra for an imaginary Jane, before downing it herself as well. The taste was growing on her, and she wished she could tell Jane that. Instead, she whispered it into the ears of the few women who hit on her, before taking her leave.
She walks to the counter of the cafe, paying Angela. "Can I get a water bottle?" Angela smiles and hands over one, waving away the extra money. Maura slips it into the tip jar before she exits the precinct.
Today, she's not going to one of Jane's places. She's going to one of hers for the first time since that night.
The drive is quick, and she finds a parking spot almost immediately – a minor miracle in a city like Boston. She strides down Long Wharf, all the way to the edge of the half-mile pier.
This is the one place where she excuses herself from proper manners, sliding off her shoes and sitting on the planks at the very edge of the piers, legs dangling over the side. She always toys with the idea of jumping off for a swim, before statistics about boating accidents and the lingering fuel vestiges in the water ensure that she will not.
Maura loses herself in the water, tracking the small fish as they dive out of sight and then come back up towards the surface again. Sometimes she'll look out at the water, tracking the movements of the boats, trying to identify the make and models of each one. She misses sailing, she realizes today, and she resolves to look up how feasible it would be to dock somewhere a little outside of the city, where the prices are lower.
The time passes, and she has no idea how long she's been there, leaning against the pole next to her, when someone sits down next to her. She startles, pulling her things closer to her, ready to flee from this stranger, before she sees who it is.
It's Jane, and that doesn't help her relax.
It's Jane, and she's not smiling.
They sit in silence for a while, the tension palatable, and Maura's made up her mind, she's going to move, she's going to leave, when Jane speaks. "It's so beautiful here."
Maura stares. These are the first words Jane's said to her since she spoke in that scary calm, telling her to say something or she was giving up. Finally, Maura speaks. "Yes, it is."
Jane turns and Maura, even as she avoids meeting her gaze, feels her heart skip a beat, thinks that she should go to the cardiologist because certainly such action is cause for alarm, before she forces herself back to the present. Jane's still looking at her, and Maura feels it cut straight to her center. Meeting her eyes, there is no room for any other thought other than being here now, in this moment, this beautiful moment.
And Maura can't remember the reason why she isn't kissing Jane already.
Jane looks away, and Maura's eyes fall to Jane's lap, where she is twisting her hands, rubbing at the scar tissue. Without her gaze, Maura's mind works, she remembers why she doesn't want this – even though she knows she desperately does.
Jane shifts. "You look good."
Maura speaks truthfully. "You look exhausted."
Jane grunts. "Yeah. Not sleeping right." She waits a moment. "Why did you finally come back here today?"
"Because it's calm. Because it's my place to think. Because –" she pauses, calculating. "How did you know I haven't been here?"
Jane stares down at the water. "Because I've been here a lot."
The words pound through Maura's head. She's been here a lot. She's been to Maura's spot. She's been here. Maybe it means nothing.
She should leave.
But she can't move. She's afraid to. Maybe it means nothing.
But maybe it means everything.
Maura forces herself to speak. "You should sleep more."
Under her breath, Jane mutters, "If only it were so simple."
Maura hesitates, but acts, emboldened by Jane's presence here at all. She pulls on Jane's arm lightly, ignoring the way the brunette's muscles tense under her ahnd, until Jane is crookedly leaning against her, her head on Maura's shoulder. "Why don't you just rest for a moment?" she murmurs.
Jane is tense for a few more moments, before she lets out the breath she's been holding. "Okay."
Maura forces herself to look out at the ocean, because when she's looking at Jane, she can't remember anything: why she doesn't want this, why she doesn't want the relationship, why she can't have her. She forgets. And Maura doesn't forget anything.
After a while, Maura looks down at the brunette. Her hair is falling forward, her mouth askew. Jane's asleep. She sleeps through the blare of a ship's horn, the chatter of children chasing seagulls. She sleeps through a siren blaring in the distance. She dreams through the noise, her weight against Maura, her face pressed into the fabric on her shoulder.
And Maura's petrified to move. She tells herself a mantra: you can't have her, you can't have her, you can't make her give up her family, the respect she's earned at her job. You can't have her, you can't.
You can't, you can't, you can't. She shakes with the force of her conviction, with the tension of trying to keep contained, to keep from blurting out just how much she loves Jane.
The shaking wakes Jane, slowly, languidly, without a rush, until she realizes where she is, who she is leaning against. She jumps up with a start, retreats until she's at least five feet away. She stops, offers a goodbye to Maura, who's still sitting, who is still staring out at the water so as not to show Jane her silent tears: "Well, anyway, I'll see you around…" and like that, she's gone again.
And Maura's resolve breaks, and she sobs, as she whispers to the fish under her feet, "I love you, I love you, I love you."
Maybe it means nothing,
Maybe it means nothing,
Maybe it means nothing,
But I'm afraid to move.
Author's Note: I'm not as happy with this chapter as I was with the first, but did you know that there are apparently no songs (or at least none I could find on the internet) about loving someone so much you push them away because you think that's better for them? But there are DOZENS of songs about staying with someone even though they're hurting you? ARGH.
I love this song though, and I hope I did it justice, because it is incredibly near and dear to my heart. I thought there was a certain Maura-esque quality to it, and I thought the music and Vienna's voice - with its speed and ability to bound from one thought to another - was well suited to Maura's mind. (Honorable mentions for songs I was considering go to "Your Guardian Angel" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and "Stay" by Hurts.) Again, I co-opted many of the lines from the songs for the dialogue/Maura's thoughts, for the purpose of showing how lyrics can be so true to our lives.
I'm planning on at least one more chapter, still grabbling with whether I'd like it to be two. I'm not promising a fluffy ending, but I promise they won't be quite so shattered by the conclusion.
Thanks for sticking with this experiment. I'm really enjoying it - I've found myself listening to songs and thinking about how I could write them into stories. ;)