Disclaimer: All recognizable Rizzoli & Isles characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to Tess Gerritsen. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fanfiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: And the fallout from "I'm Your Boogie Man" (1x08)… I'm still debating if I let you in on the overall arc that I see for the first season and what it meant to seasons 2, 3 and now 4 or if I just bring this all to the end of season 1 with a peek into season 2 and leave it there. In any event, it's still a work in progress. I know almost as little as you! ;) –dkc

To Get Me To You – Chapter Nine

Jane had fucked up.

She slammed a scarred hand on her steering wheel almost as hard as she had slammed the car door when she got in.

What was she going to say to Maura? She had to tell her the truth.

It was a kiss, just a kiss, right?

She could feel the tears escaping past her eyelids and she did nothing to stop them. She placed her forehead on her arms over the steering wheel as she let out a strangled sob. The last several weeks had been too overwhelming for her. Hoyt's reappearance in her life was the tipping point. And she couldn't use that as an excuse for her behavior. Not after Maura had been nothing but wonderful and supportive.

Maura.

Thinking about the doctor brought on another onslaught of anger and shame. Jane was angry with herself for behaving as she had on the heels of Maura's selflessness.

Maura Isles had walked into that prison and faced down Charles Hoyt with an unbelievable strength. She had done it for Jane. She had done it to protect Jane from having to face the man who haunted her waking and sleeping mind. And she had done it without Jane having to ask. The doctor had insisted. That confrontation with Hoyt hadn't been without a cost, either. Jane could still see the hurt and disgust on Maura's face as she compared her childhood with that of Charles Hoyt. Maura was nothing like the monster that had inflicted the pain on Jane that she still felt anytime she used her hands extensively or when the weather suddenly changed. Maura was the most caring, compassionate woman Jane had ever met. She was quirky, yes, and the detective had told her as much, but she was not Hoyt.

How had Jane repaid that caring compassionate, woman for confronting her personal boogey man? By going to dinner with Special Agent Gabriel Dean.

Finally putting the car into gear, Jane Rizzoli took a deep breath and pulled into traffic. She pointed her car in the direction of the only place she should have been tonight.

oOo

When Maura heard a soft knock on her door at eleven, she was suddenly quite worried. She wasn't expecting anyone, not even Jane who she knew to be busy. Standing from the spot on the couch where she had been lounging while reading a medical journal, she was suddenly self-conscious about being in her silk pajamas.

"Jane?" she opened the door to find her best friend with puffy red eyes and fidgety hands. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"Can I come in?" Jane asked.

"Of course," Maura stepped aside, touching the detective's forearm gently as she walked past. "I thought you had gone to dinner with Gabriel?"

"I did," she ran her hands through her mess of hair, cringing, before turning back around to look at Maura.

"In that?" the doctor smirked.

Jane looked down and remembered she had changed her clothes at home when she was fretting about how to talk to Maura. She was now in blue running shorts and a Red Sox t-shirt.

"I went home and changed."

"Did something happen with the case?" Maura was quite concerned.

"No," Jane shook her head. She assured the doctor things were as they had been earlier that evening—Frankie was safe, Hoyt's latest threat halted.

"Let's sit down and you can tell me what's going on then," the shorter woman's bare feet padding through lush carpet made Jane suddenly sad.

"Maur..." Jane was choking on emotion once again. "I'm sorry. I fucked up and I'm so sorry."

Now Maura was extremely confused. Her brow furrowed as she thought over the possibilities in her mind. What could Jane have done?

"You're going to have to give me more information," she said. "I'm afraid I don't have any idea what you're talking about. "

Sitting next to Jane on the couch with a foot separating them, the doctor turned her hips to face Jane and placed her arm on the back of the couch.

"I know you said you didn't mind if I went to dinner with him. When we wrapped up at my apartment and I called you, I didn't tell you he'd asked me to dinner to seek your permission or your—" she didn't say jealousy, but it was what she was thinking. "I should have come here, Maur. I should have been here with you."

Watching her friend's inner turmoil play out in her facial expressions was causing Maura pain. She still didn't understand why Jane was torn up.

"Jane, you didn't have to be here—" she was abruptly cut off.

"I kissed him!" Jane blurted.

There was a moment of clarity, suddenly. Now Maura understood why Jane mentioned the dinner invitation.

"Oh," she managed to respond.

Unable to determine exactly why, Maura felt hurt. Was it betrayal? It couldn't be. She and Jane were only friends. Weren't they? Was it jealousy? How could she be jealous of something she too had done? Either what she and Jane had shared had been more than a kiss or what happened with Dean had been. Was that the reason for her heartache?

"Did you..." she couldn't bring herself to say it.

"No," Jane's eyes were wide and she moved closer, almost imperceptibly. "One kiss."

"Okay," the doctor said coolly.

Whatever emotions coursed through Maura, on the outside she appeared quite calm.

"I'm sorry, Maura. I don't know what the hell I was thinking," Jane stared at her hands.

The problem with not talking about what their kiss and all of the subsequent flirting had meant was that without any clear idea of what was transpiring between them, neither knew if kissing other people was a big deal or not. They may not have known whether it was, but Jane's immediate and emotional reaction to kissing Dean spoke to her truth: She felt as if she had betrayed Maura and that was a very big deal.

"We never said..." Maura stopped and started over. "Who we are to one another..." she stopped again when faced with the actuality that she didn't know how to talk about any of this. "Were you trying to make me jealous?"

Her question caused Jane's eyes to snap up, filled with surprise and a whole new emotion the doctor couldn't ascertain.

"That's not why I kissed him," Jane answered.

"Why did you kiss him?" the doctor's bravery here was a shock to even her.

Jane didn't have an answer to this question. She believed Dean to be a good man, but that certainly wasn't why.

"I don't know," she said.

"Did you want to sleep with him?" Maura's chest tightened as she awaited the answer.

"No!" Jane's answer was immediate.

Relief came over the doctor, relief that spoke to the underlying jealousy she felt as well as her own wants and needs where Jane was concerned. It was all very confusing.

"You'll have to forgive my confusion," Maura spoke. "You kissed him, nothing more and you feel the need to apologize to me?"

"God, Maura, for a genius you can be awfully dense sometimes," Jane slumped.

"Did you think about me when you were kissing him?" Maura might be socially awkward sometimes, but about this she certainly was not dense.

Jane's eyes met Maura's, though soon made their way to glossy lips. When since she had first kissed those lips had she not thought about kissing them again?

"There wasn't time to think," Jane resorted to denial. Her self-protection mechanism wasn't able to tell good from bad at this point. If she told Maura yes, what would that mean?

Frustrated by the conversation at hand, the pajama-clad brunette stood from her place on the couch.

"If you are not going to be honest with me, I'm going to need a glass of wine to continue listening," she said in a disappointed tone.

"Wait," Jane grabbed her hand, standing to look her in the eye.

"Yes, okay? I am always thinking about you. And when I kissed him I found myself comparing it to kissing you and it didn't compare. Then I left, I told him I wasn't ready for someone like him. Not when I have you in the back of my mind—this constant wonder of whether we could ever be more than friends. I felt like I'd betrayed you, Maur, like I'd blown it and it was the worst thing I've felt in a long time. Maybe ever and I—"

Jane's monologue was brought to an unexpected stop by Maura's lips pressing firmly against her own. Bringing her hands up to frame the detective's face, Maura's fingers were tangling in out of control raven hair.

Unlike their first kiss, this was heated and both women began pressing for more from the outset. Maura's tongue slipped past Jane's lips causing the detective to moan. Scarred hands were on curvy hips and then gripping tightly to the doctor's silk-clad sides just beneath shoulder blades. When Jane's tongue took control and fought its way into the deepest spaces of the doctor's mouth, Maura grabbed Jane by the shoulders to pull their bodies flush against one another.

"Oh, God," Jane moaned, breaking the kiss. Feeling all of Maura's curves against her was rapidly turning her on.

The taller woman tilted her head to the side, allowing the M.E. to trail kisses along her neck. Her long arms found hips again and traveled under the silk top. Touching the perfectly smooth and soft skin at Maura's sides, Jane knew her friend was liking her touch by the way her lips gave way to teeth. The delicious pain where the doctor bit caused Jane to groan.

"Jane," Maura's voice was sultry, bringing the detective's lips back to her own for another scorching kiss.

"Jane, please," she said again when their mouths broke for breath, pleading for them to slow down.

Somehow knowing what Maura's objection was, Jane dropped her forehead to the shorter woman's shoulder.

"We can't do this again and then not talk about it," she spoke softly, playing with the curly tendrils underneath Jane's messy mane.

"You're right," Jane mumbled.

Lifting her head to look at her best friend, she knew they had to talk about this. It would be too easy to dismiss or destroy if they weren't on the same page. Even more dangerous would be the fate of whatever this was if it became casual and meaningless.

"I need that glass of wine," Maura smiled.

oOo

Sitting against Maura's headboard, the doctor held her nearly empty glass of wine with Jane's arm around her.

"I don't know how we make this work, Maur," Jane admitted. "I enjoy being near you, flirting with you, kissing you, but I wouldn't know the first thing about being with you."

Placing her glass on the nightstand, Maura slipped down, pulling Jane with her. They faced one another with nowhere to hide from the other prying soul.

"When you need something who do you call?" the doctor asked.

"You long before Ma," Jane replied.

"With whom do you spend the majority of your free time?" Maura continued on this path.

"You."

"Who knows most of your secrets?" she asked.

"You, but Maur those are things any best friend would—" she was stopped by a finger placed to her lips.

"In the last two months, when you have looked at me, how often have your eyes wandered to my lips or your mind to the thought of kissing me?"

"Um..." Jane's voice was raspy. "Quite a bit?"

"And when we almost kissed that time how badly did you want it?" Maura's pupils were growing.

Jane couldn't find words to respond. Her lips parted but no sound escaped.

"Since we kissed how often did you think about if we had gone on?" Maura hummed.

"Maura," Jane pushed back. "Want isn't the problem."

At this Maura grinned.

"My point is that if we were merely best friends that want wouldn't exist. Don't you think wanting someone might be important to being with them?" Maura's eyes weren't going to let Jane out of this. Her emerald gaze was convincing.

"You remember when I asked you if you ever had a best friend?" Jane said.

"You asked me if I would tell you if I was a cyborg," the doctor's smile told Jane it was a good memory.

"I had my brothers. I always hung out with the guys. Friendships with the girls my age never worked and I never felt like I could be myself. Even my girl cousins were a mystery to me. Honestly, I thought after the first few times you and I had lunch you would find me off-putting and we would go back to being colleagues," Jane sighed. "I never imagined we would even friends."

"I sense a 'but' coming…" Maura took Jane's closest hand and entwined their fingers.

"But I liked you, I mean, as a friend," she shook her head knowing she was saying it all wrong. "I wanted to be your friend, of course, I also was captivated—drawn to you in ways that scared me. Scare me."

Maura had rarely heard and felt Jane's honesty like this. She suspected that Jane had never let someone in the way she was in this moment with the M.E.

"You don't think I'm scared, too?" Maura used a finger to tilt Jane's discomfited head back up to meet her eyes. "If I were to bungle this, I would be out the only true friend I have ever had."

For the first time Jane realized how much they truly were in this together.

They didn't arrive at a plan or put a name to what was happening between them. They had acknowledged both the exhilaration of it and the enormous weight of it possibly going wrong. Speaking for several hours while lying exactly like that in Maura's bed, never breaking eye contact, the two women were able to fall asleep thinking of one another and not worrying themselves sick about what it all meant.

To be continued…