Chapter 4

Maura was sitting in her living room pondering much the same thing Jane was. She reached up and touched the spot on her cheek where Jane had kissed her. What would Jane have done if she had turned her face that little bit needed for their lips to make contact? Would she have run away or would she have deepened the kiss. Maybe next time I'll have the guts to try. Will there ever be a next time? Maybe I should just tell her how I feel. Should I call her or go over there? What would I say? Maybe I could write down ways of telling her and conveniently leave it laying around for her to find. Then she could either act on it or ignore it. "Come on Maura, you've faced worse than this and come through it why can't you do this? Because there is too much at stake that's why." She decided to go to bed early and try to figure things out in the morning. Maybe she'll wake and these feelings will have miraculously disappeared overnight. "Yeah, when pigs fly." Maura laughed at her use of one of Jane's favorite sayings. "You got it bad Maura."

Maura woke the next morning and immediately felt depressed when she turned over and found the other side of the bed empty. She would never admit to Jane that she slept in the spare room because it still smelled of her. She still held the pillow that she fell asleep clutching the night before, the one Jane had used Friday night. She got out of bed and took a shower and started on her regular Sunday routine of doing laundry and cleaning house. She turned up the volume on her stereo and was dancing around her house as she cleaned. Her mood from earlier gone completely. She folded and ironed her laundry then cleaned some more. She cleaned until she was too tired to clean anymore and was surprised when she looked at the clock and saw that it was almost time for bed. She took a quick shower and found the journal she had been reading Friday when Jane called and settled in to read until she fell asleep.

She was in the morgue by 7:00 am the next morning getting an early start on the work that had come in over the weekend or were left over from the week before. By noon she had the toxicology report from one of Jane's cases so she decided to bring it up and give it to her personally. She walked through the door of the homicide division and stopped dead in her tracks. Sitting on the corner of Jane's desk was one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen and she was leaning close to Jane whispering something in her ear and Jane laughed at whatever it was she said. She also had her hand on Jane's arm in a possessive manner. She watched as Jane jumped up from the desk as if she had been shot from a cannon when she saw Maura.

"Maura, this is Jill, Jill this is my best friend Maura. Jill stopped by to see what I was doing for lunch and I told her that I'd see if you wanted to join us."

Jill and Maura were staring at each other and it was Maura who responded first. She held out her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jane's told me all about you."

Jill turned to Jane who was standing behind Maura with a questioning look and Jane's quick shake of her head told Jill she hadn't told her everything. She reached out and took Maura's hand between both of hers. "Believe me the pleasure is all mine. Jane hasn't told me anything about you. Where have you been hiding her Jane?"

Jane didn't like the look on Jill's face. She was in attack mode, and she knew what or more precisely who she wanted to pounce on and she didn't like it one bit. Maybe lunch wasn't such a good idea but how could she get out of it now.

"So Maura what is it you do around here?" Jill was standing very close to Maura and she was still holding her hand.

Maura wasn't sure what was going on but she wasn't going to back down. "I'm the Medical Examiner."

"Ooo you're a doctor? Jane you really have been holding out on me." She started to lead Maura out of the room with Jane trailing behind. "Do you like the deli around the corner? We could pop in there and get something quick so Jane can get back to her paperwork." She turned back to Jane. "Do you want to stay here and work on your paperwork and we could bring something back for you?"

Maura turned around and finally reclaimed her hand and used it to reach out to take Jane's arm. "No Jane, come with us please."

Jane smiled at Maura as she pulled her to join the two of them. She now walked between Jill and Maura with Maura holding her arm and she resisted the urge to turn and stick her tongue out at Jill. Maura's hand stayed on her arm all the way to the deli. They walked in and Jane headed toward the line then turned to Maura. "Do you want your regular? If so why don't you just grab us a table and I'll get it for you?"

"Yes Jane I want what I usually get with a cup of coffee please."

Jill followed Jane into the line and stood behind her. "You've been holding out on me haven't you? Is this the lady you left in the parking lot? If so I can see why you wouldn't want to leave her behind. I sure as hell wouldn't have. She is seriously easy on the eyes and she wears designer clothes, those two things alone are enough, but she's a doctor too."

"Leave her alone Jill, she's straight and if she wasn't I'd be with her."

"Are you sure of that? Want to place a wager on it?"

Jane felt her anger was very close to getting the best of her and if she didn't watch it she might do something she would regret later. "She's not a prize to be won. She a very intelligent woman that you can't play with. Just leave it alone will you Jill."

They ordered their food and just before they headed back to the table Jill got one more shot in. "Maybe we'll let her decide." With that she turned and walked towards the table. Maura wondered what they were talking about Jane was obviously angry about something and Jill seemed to be taking pleasure in her anger. Jane set the food on the table and went back to get the coffee. "So how long have you known Jane?"

"Since I started working here which would be about three years." Maura looked up and watched Jane as she got their coffee. Jane turned back towards the table and smiled at Maura as she made her way back to the table.

Jill saw the look on Maura's face and realized she may not be as straight as Jane thinks she is. This could be interesting. Jill engaged Maura in a conversation about designer clothes and had her attention through most of the lunch and Jane was seething by the time they got back to the office. Maura reluctantly said good bye at the door to her office, she hadn't spent nearly enough time with Jane because Jill kept interrupting every time she tried to talk to Jane.

"What the hell are you trying to do Jill? I told you to leave her alone. But you still kept hitting on her. Back off."

"Maura sure didn't seem to mind the attention. Maybe if you paid more attention to her you'd be in her bed at night instead of alone in yours." Jill gave Jane a knowing smile. "Maybe I'll go see what the good doctor is doing for lunch tomorrow. Have a good day Jane."

"I guess you've added bitch to your description of yourself huh?" Jane hoped that would get to her.

"No Jane it's always been there, you just chose to ignore it because it fit your needs at the time. And I was happy to fulfill those needs. Now I might see if I can fulfill Maura's needs. See ya around."

Jane grabbed her arm and swung her around to face her and she stood toe to toe with her when she spoke. "You hurt her and I will hurt you. Got that?" Jill just laughed as she pulled her arm free and walked away from Jane. Jane went back to her desk and slammed the drawers shut as she started back in on the paperwork.

"Hey Jane you ok?" Korsak asked from his desk across the room.

"I think I'm just having one of those days Korsak. I never should have gotten out of bed."

Korsak pushed his chair over so that he was directly in front of her desk and he rested his chin in his hands. "So what happened at lunch? You seemed to be fine before you left."

"I don't think you'd understand Korsak but thanks." Jane tried to start on the paperwork but her mind kept wandering to Jill hitting on Maura. What bothered her even more was the fact that Maura really didn't seem to mind just like Jill said. When Korsak snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention she realized she had zoned out for a minute. "What?"

"I was saying that I might understand more than you think. Things are slow around here and we haven't had a murder in two days and all you've done is paperwork. I've seen the way you go to Maura when you need to talk, I'm not dumb ya know. I've seen the way you smile when she walks into the room. So who can you talk to when it's Maura you need to talk about?"

Jane was surprised at what he had said. Was she that obvious? "Damn Korsak not now. I can't deal with it here at work. I have to put it away for now and deal with this paperwork."

"How about we go out for a drink after work and we can talk then."

Jane thought about lunch and the anger started again. "Yeah maybe that would be a good idea. Thanks again Korsak."

"Well what else ya gonna do, talk to your partner Frost? He may be Mr. Sensitive and all but he doesn't know you like I do Jane."

That made Jane smile. "You got that right. Now let me get this paperwork done so that we can get out of here at a decent hour." Two hours later Jane was ready to scream. "God I hate paperwork! Why do we have to write all of this down just to have someone else enter it into a computer? Why don't we just enter it into the computer ourselves? I'm getting writer's cramp." She flexed the fingers of her left hand and went back to work.

"They make us do paperwork to keep us busy on days like today. By the way where is your partner?"

"Cavanaugh pulled him for some special duty assignment at the mall. At least he's out of the office. I'd to just about anything to get out of the office for just a couple of hours. When will this day be over?"

Korsak got up from his desk and walked over and grabbed Jane's hand and pulled her out of the office. "Let's just go out on the street and drive around for an hour then go out for those drinks."

"You are a lifesaver. Let's get out of here." They drove around until 6:00 pm then went back to the office and punched out for the day. Jane stopped by the morgue and was surprised when it was empty and Maura was gone for the day. She then went back up to the office to get Korsak to go out for those drinks.

Once they sat down at the table Korsak didn't waste any time getting to the point. "So how long have you had a thing for our Medical Examiner."

Jane took the time to swallow the beer in her mouth before she spoke. "Don't beat around the bush Korsak let's get right to the point." She smiled across the table at him.

"You didn't answer my question." Korsak took a sip of his beer and pointedly looked at Jane.

"Ok you're right. I like Maura, I like her a lot but I don't know what to do." Jane huffed out her breath in frustration.

"Do what we guys do. Ask her out and if she says no then move on to someone else." He said it as if it was the easiest thing to do.

"It's not as easy as that Korsak. If I did that she would freak out and run as fast as possible."

"But how would you know if you don't try?"

"I've fought this for years and it's going to take more than this conversation to overcome the fear that I would lose everything I do have with her if I said anything. How many beers have we had?"

"Three, why?"

"I'll need a lot more than that to get me to confess to her. I think I'm going to head home." She stood up and walked over to Korsak and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for listening Vince I'll see you in the morning." Jane drove home as fast as she could because she really wanted to talk to Maura. No sooner did she have the door closed and she was dialing Maura's number. "Hey Maura it's me. What are you doing tonight?"

"Not much, I missed you today, you never came down to my office to talk. I really wanted to talk to you after lunch."

"Hey Maura can I have one of these beers in your fridge?" Jane heard the voice in the background but prayed she was wrong.

"Those are for Jane but you can have some wine." Jane tried to smile but she found she couldn't. "Jane are you still there?"

"Yeah I'm here but I can hear that I'm interrupting your date with Jill so I guess I'll let you go." She hung up before Maura could say anything.