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"Wait, what?" Maura stuttered, not really sure she had heard her friend correctly.
"She's my sister," Jane repeated, staring into her cup as she stirred the liquid with her spoon.
"You never told me you had a.. I thought you only had two younger brothers?" Maura questioned. As she didn't receive a reply from Jane, she knew the taller woman was crawling back into her tough shell. She reached out and gently took the hot chocolate away from the detective before placing it on the table. Then she faced her friend. "Jane, talk to me."
"It's… complicated," Jane said, still refusing to look at the doctor. She knew that if she dared to look up, all the tears she desperately tried to hold back for five years would come slipping down her cheeks. "Besides, you have enough going on with Doyle being back."
"Jane, you listen to me," Maura said firmly, taking Jane's hand in her own and giving it a light squeeze. She rested her free hand on Jane's cheek, turning her face to look at her. "You let me rant to you so much, it's time for me to return the favor. You always pull back when something happens and let me tell you, it's actually a relief when you can talk to someone about it. Please, let me be that person for you."
The atmosphere in the room changed as Maura's words triggered the tears that Jane had held back for five years. She couldn't keep them in anymore. She was finally allowing Maura to see her weaker side, to see her vulnerable. She felt herself being pulled in a hug as she allowed the tears to fall. Her arms wrapped around Maura's waist, yet after a couple of minutes, she pulled back. If she was going to do this, then she wanted to do it right. She wanted to look at Maura while she did her story. Taking a deep breath, she focused her eyes on her friend's. "Her name's Samantha and she's eighteen. At first, everything went great. We were a happy family. Me and Sam, we were just… we were really close, despite the age difference of thirteen years. She didn't listen to my brothers at all, she only listened to me. Later through the years, we started noticing that Sam wasn't really… growing up like she was supposed to."
"What do you mean?" Maura asked softly, noticing the hesitation in Jane's voice and encouraging her to continue. She wiped away Jane's tears with her thumb before dropping her hand and taking Jane's so that now she was holding both hands. She whispered, "Go on. You can tell me."
"Sometimes, she was acting like a normal thirteen-year-old, but at other times… She was acting as if she were only three years old," Jane explained, tightening her grip on Maura's hands. "Like, literally, she started talking like a three-year-old, she wanted to be picked up and just.. It became really hard. We tried going to a specialist to see what was wrong, but instead of telling us, he took her away from us and placed her in a closed institution. Said it was best for her. It's been five years…"
Maura saw the hurt in Jane's eyes. "You haven't seen her since," she stated, to which Jane only nodded. "Didn't you go and visit her?"
"Oh, there's more," Jane said, a small sigh escaping her lips. "We tried to visit her, but when we went to the address the doctor had given us, we arrived at an abandoned warehouse. That was the point where I knew he screwed us over. They started an investigation and, obviously, I wasn't allowed on the case, but I did some digging on my own."
Maura couldn't speak. She wanted to pull her best friend in a comforting hug, but she fought off the urge. She needed to know the whole story first. She nodded at Jane to continue, tears glistening in her own eyes.
"The specialist we went to see? Yeah, he didn't excist," Jane explained, her voice taking an angry tone. "I should have known something was wrong, I should have – " She swallowed the rest of her sentence as she closed her eyes, yet forced herself to open them again. "The case had been closed a year ago. They didn't have any further evidence, they couldn't find any clues. I tried to find her myself, Maura, I really did." The detective was surprised how strongly her words left her lips through the sobbing.
"Jane, I'm so sorry," Maura whispered.
"And now, she's laying in the hospital and that bastard is still on the loose." Gritting her teeth, Jane stared deep into Maura's eyes. "I'm going to find him."
"We're going to find him together," Maura corrected her, finally pulling her friend in a hug.
Jane relaxed into the warm embrace, closing her eyes. "Ma's going to freak out," she said, her voice lower than a whisper.
"Do you want to go back to the hospital?" The medical examiner questioned, yet not pulling away from the hug. Feeling Jane nod against her shoulder, Maura stood up and pulled Jane with her. "I'll drive you."
"Thanks," Jane smiled, wiping away the tears with her hands.
At the hospital
Jane had stopped crying once they had left Maura's house, but as she walked into her sister's hospital room, she couldn't stop a few tears from leaving her eyes. She sat down on the bed, careful not to hurt her sister and took her hand in her own. "I'm going to find who did this to you, baby, I will," she promised, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Samantha's forehead.
Samantha flinched. Her eyes shot open and she pulled her hand away from Jane's. Everything was a little blurry, until she realised who was sitting next to her. "J-Jane?" she asked, her voice as husky as her big sister's. "Janie?"
Jane couldn't believe that Samantha had woken up. She glanced at Maura as the young girl said the detective's name, before taking Samantha's hand again. "Shh, it's me," she whispered, looking into two hazel brown eyes. "You're safe now."
"Janie," Samantha stated again, trying her best to sit up. After five years, all she wanted to do was throw her arms around Jane and never let her go.
Seeing her sister struggle to sit up, Jane gently laid her hands on her shoulders, holding her down to the bed. "Stay down, sweetie, don't hurt yourself," she said, feeling the girl relax.
Maura, feeling that the girls needed some time alone, turned around and left the room. She went down to the cafeteria to get some coffee, because after today, Jane would need it.
"It was so terrible," Samantha cried, hugging Jane's hand against her chest, clinging to it for dear life. Through sobs, she managed to say, "He-He made us do stuff… and when we didn't.. we-we needed to be p-punished."
"Who?" Jane questioned, the detective inside of her rising to the surface. "Who did this to you, Sam? Who put you through all of this?" Jane's words only made Samantha cry harder and the detective regretted them isntantly. "I'm sorry, baby," she quickly said, leaning down to press another kiss against the girl's forehead. "Go back to sleep. Talk to me when you're ready, okay?"
Jane didn't have to say it twice as Samantha's eyelids grew heavy and she drifted off into a slumber.
Maura entered the room with two coffees, handing one to Jane. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah," Jane answered, gladly accepting the coffee. "I'm coming back first thing in the morning. Frost will call me when he finds something on Doyle's victim."
Maura's house
Arriving back at Maura's house, the two women sat down in front of the tv. "What a day," Jane sighed, kicking off her shoes and laying her feet on the table. "How are you feeling? After everything with Sam today, I haven't been able to ask you about the situation with your father."
"I'm holding up," Maura replied, taking off her heels and neatly placing them next to the couch. She took in a deep breath and turned to look at Jane, not even noticing she was leaning forward. "I could really use a distraction."
Jane kept looking into her eyes as Maura leaned forward. The detective didn't even try to stop herself as her own hand reached up and cupped Maura's cheek, guiding her face towards hers until their lips met in a brief, soft kiss. Pulling back, she saw that her friend's eyes were closed and without thinking, she crashed their lips together, both seeking comfort in the other's warmth.
Not being able to keep it in, a quiet moan slipped from Maura's throat, encouraging Jane to continue. Maura moved her hands to Jane's thighs, playing with the hem of her shirt, yet she didn't pull it off.
Jane pushed forward so that Maura was laying on the couch and the detective was straddling her. Looking down in her eyes for a mere second, she quickly brought their lips together again, moving her hips in between Maura's, earning another moan.
Neither of them felt the need to take it further than kissing. After all, it was just an act of comfort. They both didn't know what this meant either, but that were worries for tomorrow. Tonight, they just wanted to lay on the couch, kiss, and revel in the warmth of each other.
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