Maura woke up to the sound of Jane and Frankie yelling in the living room. In a sudden surge of panic, she jumped out of bed and threw open the door. When she saw what was going on, she rested a hand on her chest and sighed. They were just cheering on the basketball players.
"Pierce is lookin' good this year," Frankie mentioned and picked up his beer.
Jane nodded, "I'm just waiting for Garnett to get his game on."
"Yeah," Frankie stood up, empty beer bottles clanking in his hand, "Do you need anything?"
"Some more water would be great," she mentioned looking up at him. When she looked up, she saw Maura standing in the doorway of her bedroom behind her brother.
Frankie turned around and saw Maura. He walked to the kitchen and dumped the bottles in the trash. Then he grabbed his keys, "I'll see you two tomorrow."
"Bye Frankie," Jane turned the TV on mute and motioned for Maura to come over.
The doctor walked over to the couch and carefully sat down, as far away from Jane as she could get.
Jane just offered Maura a bottle of water, which Maura took and murmured, "Thank you." However she didn't open it. She just rolled it nervously between her hands.
"Maura," Jane gently offered, "It's just me."
Maura sighed and tilted her head down, "You're never just you Jane" She peeked at the detective from the corner of her eye, "I don't know what's going on with me. I keep having these flashbacks to that day." She felt chills run up and down her arms, "I don't think I've ever been so scared."
"I don't think I have either," Jane sat up and put her hand on Maura's arm. "And it's understandable."
Maura took a deep breath. "I just…Based on the angle of the gun and the estimated bullet trajectory, the bullet might rip through your intestine, liver and stomach. The-the internal bleeding and the leaking stomach acid could have serious…"
"Maura," Jane interrupted her, "That's what you thought. How did you feel?"
"I was terrified," Maura breathed, scooting closer to Jane.
Jane swallowed hard and nodded. She felt terrible for making Maura feel like that even though what she did was necessary and she'd do it all over again given the chance. She just wished that Maura would never have been involved.
Maura closed her eyes and tried to shake the feeling that was crawling back up her spine. The feeling of overwhelming sadness and fear. She almost lost the most important person in her life three days ago and it still had a lingering effect.
"Maura, honey, are you okay?" Jane asked in a low voice.
Maura couldn't manage to choke back the tears any more. She leaned into Jane and let go. Jane stroked her hair and tried to think of every soothing thing she could think of to say, assuring Maura that everything was okay and that she was okay and they were okay.
After a while, Maura sat up out of Jane's embrace and wiped her face, "I'm sorry."
"It's perfectly okay," Jane assured her.
"It's not okay," Maura shook her head and held Jane's eyes, "I could have lost you that day. If I would have lost you, I would have lost…everything."
Jane smiled, "C'mon Maura, not everything."
"Yes everything," Maura said firmly, "Before I met you I was just a pathologist. The mysterious Queen of the Dead that understood more from corpses than the living. When you came a lot, I was part of a team. Suddenly, I had friends and a strange family surrounding me. You're the one the keeps us all together Jane. You're my best friend…and so much more."
Jane pulled Maura to her. Maura didn't want to hurt Jane, just the detective seemed insistent on the close physical contact. Jane was already leaning back on the arm of the couch so Maura settled between her legs with her head on Jane's shoulder. "You're so much more than my best friend too Maura. I'm sorry I scared you that bad." Maura leaning on her like she was, was uncomfortable and occasionally a sharp pain would shoot from the front wound to the back one, but it was worth it to comfort Maura in any way possible.
Maura shook her head into Jane's shoulder, "You can stop apologizing. I know you did what you thought you had to do to save Frankie."
Jane stroked Maura's hair. "I'm not apologizing doing what I did. I'm apologizing for upsetting you in the process."
Just as she was getting comfortable, Maura sat up and stood from the couch.
Jane tried to get up with her and sunk back into the couch in pain. Her face went from contorted in pain to deeply concerned when she saw tears in Maura's eyes. "Maura, what's wrong?"
"I just," Maura forced the tears back into their ducts, "I think I realized something when I was in the waiting room of the hospital."
After Maura had washed her hands of Jane's blood, everything was another whirlwind of senses. She could smell the ammonia they used to clean hospitals, not very unlike her morgue. She could hear the beeping of equipment and the shuffling of live people walking all around her. Finally the gravity of everything sunk and she felt immensely overwhelmed.
After about an hour, Maura had a horrible headache, but that was nothing compared to the feeling she'd been having of her heart being ripped out. Her hands were shaking as she reached around herself. She sighed when she realized she forgot her purse at the morgue. It was probably in some evidence locker at another precinct in the city by now.
"What do you need?" Frost asked, softly putting his hand on his shoulder.
"I was going to get some water from the machine, but I forgot my purse," Maura wiped her face, knowing her makeup was probably all over the place and not caring.
"I got it," Frost stood and walked off. When he returned he handed her a bottle of water.
She took it, the cold from the bottle sending chills up her arm. She took a long refreshing drink before setting the bottle on the coffee table in front of them. She looked up at the TV that had been talking to itself since they arrived. A news story about the shooting was airing. Her eyes shot to the ground. She didn't want to see it again. Any part of it may send her into another sobbing fit and she needed to be reasonable and logical because at this point those were all she had.
Sitting there in the waiting room, she was thinking about all the plans she and Jane had the next week that were probably going to have to be completely forgotten. Then she began to think of all the things she always wanted to do with Jane, but haven't gotten around to yet. Everything she ever wanted to do, she wanted to share with Jane in everyway. Then it clicked with her. A fresh set of tears made its way silently down her face. Today had changed a lot of things, but this most recent realization shook her up.
"I've thought about it for a long time and have made an analytical, logical assessment. My assessment has ended with the conclusion that," She paused, her eyes flickering from Jane to and then back to the floor, "I'm in love with you."
Jane snorted and a smirk made its way to her lips, "Are you serious?" It was an automatic reaction. When faced with something like that that caught her off guard, she would chuckled and blow it off. Like the time Maura told her what kind of animal Bass was. Then like the time she actually saw Bass for the first time. However this was Maura and she knew when Maura said something she meant it.
When Maura shrunk away at the way Jane was handling it, Jane reached forward and took her hand, gently pulling her back down on the couch, "I'm sorry, Maura. I didn't mean it like that." She kept Maura's hand in her own, "You just caught me off guard."
Maura didn't say anything for fear that she'd already said too much. So she studied Jane's face. Her brows were furrowed which means she was deep in thought. Maura focused on Jane's eyes, knowing that they were most likely to tell her the truth about what was going on with the detective.
However, because she could focus long enough the front door opened. A loud voice brought them out of the moment. "Hey Janie! You're out of bed!"
Jane sighed looking at Maura who had already gotten off of the couch to greet her parents. She slowly stood, "Hey Ma. Hey Pop."
