Jane spends the rest of the day working through her files on each of the girls. Running background checks, financials, known associates or priors. A couple of the girls ping the system for having boyfriends arrested for drugs or domestic violence charges. Jane makes a note of their names and resolves to keep a close eye on how Brockton treats them. But, other than a veritable slew of traffic violations and underage drinking citations, she ends the night with nothing. None of these women seem at all suspicious. Organizing and hiding the files, Jane decides to leave her investigation of the crew for the next night. With a groan, she realizes that it's after midnight and her shift with the women starts at 6am.
This job totally sucks.
But, as she drifts off to sleep, somehow she isn't thinking about how much the job sucks. She's thinking about one particular young woman with flashing green eyes and a wicked smile buried deep beneath a powerful façade.
She spends the morning making sure the ladies are fed, made up, and ready for the second group date of the week. Jane's assigned to babysit this one, which would be a total drag except that Maura's going on it. The date card (the useless plot device that gives a totally transparent clue about the date) said something about "horsing around," which only a couple of the girls were too stupid to realize meant horseback riding. When Jane finally gathers all of them in the living room, she's unsurprised to see that a few are wearing shorts and flip-flops, wildly impractical horse attire. Maura, of course, Jane is pleased to note, is wearing stretchy jeans and knee-high boots with a sturdy two-inch heel. Jane is neither allowed nor inclined to tell the dumbies to change. With a wink to Maura, she just ushers them all into the limo for their "date."
The ranch is about an hours drive from the mansion. This part of western Massachusetts is beautiful, with rolling hills and a surprising amount of farmland. Jane loves it. Of course, it would be better if she weren't in charge of entertaining 12 bored young women while the cameras set up for their shot of the legs emerging from the limo.
This shit is just so stupid.
But, finally, emerge they do.
Some of them squeal about the horses, gush about their childhood love of horses, and run around, enjoying the fresh air. A few look haughty and bored, ambling toward the barn and asking each other if they think Brockton will be shirtless. Two of them clutch each other in a blind panic. "OH MY GOD, NOT HORSES. I'M SO FUCKING SCARED OF HORSES." "Say it again, but don't curse this time." "OH MY GOD, NOT HORSES. I'M SO EFFING SCARED OF HORSES." "Great." Jane takes a mental bet with herself that they'll cry by the end of the date.
Maura, in the meantime, has wandered over the corral and enticed a stunningly beautiful chestnut over to her. As Jane approaches her, she climbs onto the fence to better scratch behind the lucky bastard's ears, muttering softly to it. She settles herself astride the fence, leaning back against one of the posts, with the horse's head in her hands. She looks like a motherfucking goddess.
"Made a new friend?"
Maura looks over at her, quizzically.
"The horse, Maur."
"Oh. Um, well, I suppose. I don't know much about that, though."
"What, about horses? You seem to be doing a pretty good job there."
"No." A pause. She takes a breath. "About having a friend. I…don't really, have, um…"
The blue shard under Jane's ribs expands and twists, cracking her ribs and nearly puncturing her lung. Make her smile, make her smile. "What am I? Chopped liver?"
Instead of smiling, Maura just looks even more confused. "…Liver?"
Jane half-laughs, half-groans. "I mean, hello, kind of rude to say you don't have any friends when I'm standing right here, isn't it?"
Maura is startled. She's never considered this. "I – um, are you…?"
Jane gets a most serious look on her face, and says in her deepest voice, "Most assuredly yes."
She's expecting a blinding smile, but instead, Maura ducks her head so Jane can just see a smile teasing her mouth and blush creeping up her neck. After a moment, she looks back up and catches Jane's eyes. She's controlling her mouth, but her eyes are grinning. It's the fucking cutest thing Jane has ever seen.
Make her smile again, make her smile again. "And you're in luck, you know. Cause that horse might be a bigger friend than I am, but I'm the friend who smells better, and that's what counts."
The producers call them over to line up for Brockton.
Maura kisses the horse on the nose, and slides off the fence in a fluid motion. She walks past Jane, then pauses and turns her head to make smoldering eye contact. "Oh, Jane," she says, in a wildly seductive voice. "You know size doesn't matter if you're doing it right." And with a wink, she's gone.
As expected, a few of the girls cry about getting on the horses. Brockton has to comfort them with his giant beefy arms before they do it. They say things like "love is about trust" and force themselves to do it. Jane feels bad for them. Others nearly cry about having to put on chaps and loaner boots to ride. Jane feels gleeful about them.
Many of the girls have been on horses before, but, simply because he's there, they all need Brockton to help them up. All, except one. Sweet, beautiful, totally oblivious Maura has already swung up onto her horse without the aid of man or machine, and is currently putting it through its paces in the ring. Before most of the girls have figured out which way is go and which is stop, Maura and her horse are jumping over some of the very low jumps set up around the perimeter. She's graceful and sleek, totally one with the horse. And totally doing the one thing that will make the other girls hate her.
They think she's showing off, but she's just enjoying herself. This is something she can do, so she's doing it. The cameramen zoom in on her, and then on other girls throwing shade on her. Jane cringes, but can't interfere. To Jane, it's obvious. Maura doesn't know the rules of girl world. But all she can do is watch.
The rest of the date, unfortunately for Maura, is the same. The other girls pretend to be worse at riding than they are so Brockton will come over and mansplain some things to them. The rest gossip together and pay as little attention as possible to their horses. Maura rides a bit off to the side, speaking softly to her horse and making it do some complicated things with its feet.
The ride ends at a riverbank, already set up for a picnic. The girls purposefully exclude Maura, and she eats on the corner of a blanket with most of the women's backs to her. Her façade is perfect. She seems undisturbed, and a little conceited, but Jane's seen happy Maura, and she knows it isn't this. The shard in her gets colder, more brittle, and threatens to snap her in half.
The ride back to the limo is excruciating for Jane, who is ridiculously following the horses in golf cart with another PA. Maura tries to speak with a couple of the girls twice, and each time she's rebuffed so quickly and sharply that Jane can't believe there isn't a sound effect. When they reach the corral again, Maura walks her horse over to the corner and slides off him quickly. As Jane grabs a load of picnic supplies out of the cart, she sees Maura reach up and hug her horse. Supplies forgotten, Jane's heart breaks as she watches Maura cling to the horse, taking slow deep breaths that seem to catch every once in a while, making her back shake a bit.
The shard punctures a lung.
After a moment, Maura collects herself, pulls away from the horse, and with a last kiss on his nose, walks into the limo and doesn't look back.
After the ranch, everyone goes to a French restaurant back in Boston for dinner. Maura sits at the end of the table, the furthest from Brockton. Their waiter has a thick accent, and is clearly struggling to understand the orders. When it's her turn, Maura orders in perfect French. The man chats her up for a moment, and then asks her some clarifying questions about the other orders. She flawlessly and gracefully answers all his questions and deflects his flirtations. By the end of the meal, he's clearly in love with her, Brockton has no idea who she is, and all the other girls hate her a little more.
And she knows it.
That night Jane finds her curled up in the corner of the small living room, reading a different journal. She's showered and changed into loungewear. She's washed off all her makeup and she looks beautiful and vulnerable. Jane hovers in the doorway, trying to decide if Maura wants to be alone or if she'd welcome Jane's company. She watches as Maura reaches up to silently wipe away a tear, without taking her eyes off the page she's reading. What really breaks Jane's heart isn't that Maura's crying. It's how practiced she clearly is at this. At wiping her own tears, at working through her own pain alone. At barely noticing the tears.
Before she's made a decision, Jane's inside the room, sitting down quietly next to Maura.
"Rough day, huh?"
After a moment, Maura nods softly. "Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"I thought…I don't know. I thought it would be different."
Jane doesn't know what to say. After a few moments, Maura continues. She speaks softly, calmly. She reminds Jane of a true believer at confession. "I know that being good at something isn't always a good thing. I learned as a child that being the best in classes meant no one wanted to be friend. I learned that winning at fencing or getting the solos in ballet meant that everyone hated me. I know that. I know that. But, I just…I hate it. I hate it and I don't understand it. We went horseback riding and I'm good at horseback riding and I don't understand why that made them hate me. And I was sent to boarding school in France when I was ten, and I speak French, and for some reason that I simply cannot grasp, that's appalling to them. And I just – God, I just want…" She drops her head into her knees. "I don't know."
Jane reaches over and rubs her back softly, saying nothing. Maura hasn't finished yet.
"I feel like I've been lied to my whole life, and I've lied to myself too – I've always believed that being the best was good, that if I worked hard and became good, exceptional, at something, I'd be admired. But never once, never once has it happened." Her breath catches, just for a moment. "I just want, for once in my life, for being good at something to actually make me happy."
The shard has taken over Jane's entire torso, stealing her breath. All she can do is rub Maura's back and try to clear the red from her vision before she murders all the other girls in their beds. After a few moments, she casts around for something to ask Maura, something that might bring her back a bit.
"You seemed like you were having a good time with that horse this afternoon. Were you making it do something weird with its feet?"
Maura lifts her head off her knees. Her eyes are dry but red, and Jane has to resist the urge to gently touch her face. She looks at her hands. "I – yes. It's called dressage. I used to compete in it, at school."
"Were you any good?"
Maura looks up at Jane, sharply. Sensing only comfort and safetly, she nods once, dropping her gaze back down to her hands.
"Was it fun?"
An unexpected chuckle rumbles out of Maura. She rubs a hand over her face and leans back, finally unfolding her body as she reclines against the cushions.
"What? Why are you laughing?"
"I don't know if I'd call it fun, but there was one time in college, I don't know what came over me, but they were cutting the funding to our equestrian program, and I was quite upset. So I competed in a big dressage competition completely naked."
Jane's brain misfires a couple times. "You – what?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Jane leans back, mirroring Maura and ending up a bit closer to her. "Sounds…uncomfortable."
Maura laughs. "Yes, quite."
I made her laugh, I made her laugh. A moment of companionable silence.
"Did you get the funding back?"
Maura turns her head to look over at Jane. "Yes. Yes we did."
"Nice."
"I was pleased."
"I bet you were." Jane softly punches Maura's arm, because she's feeling a lot of things and has no idea what to do with them.
"Hey!" Maura swats her arm away and somehow ends up dropping her head onto Jane's shoulder.
"No, seriously though, Maura, that's awesome. Doing something like that – it's pretty badass."
"Really?" Her voice is small, pleased.
"Yeah, totally badass."
Jane can feel Maura's soft smile shrinking and softening the icy blue shard, extricating it from her lungs and nestling it back below her ribs.
For a few moments, neither dares to move for fear of disturbing this precious unspoken equilibrium. But, after a while, Maura stirs and announces that it's bedtime. Jane walks her to her door, but before she turns away, Jane simply cannot resist one more thing.
"See, I told you I was a better friend than that horse."
Maura's soft smile turns positively wicked. "Indeed, you are. But remember: my last friend was my horse in college, and I rode her naked." She opens the door and tosses the last words over her shoulder. "For hours."
A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews, follows, favorites, and reads. I know this is ridiculous, but here we all are. I really appreciate your support, ideas, and encouragement.
