It is only two weeks after their return from Paris when Jealous Jane appears again, for the first time real time since their friendship ended, and their relationship began.
Maura is leaning against the vanity in her bathroom, applying eyeliner for work, when she sees Jane appear behind her in the reflection of the mirror.
"There's a man at your door."
"Our door."
Jane watches Maura raise a perfectly shaped eyebrow in the reflection. Maura had been blow-drying her hair when the doorbell rang, Jane realises.
Jane nervously lowers her stare to the hem of Maura's black leather skirt, the one with the cut so high that it drives Jane crazy. It's how the uniforms stare that makes her mad. It's the way that even Frankie drops his gaze that irritates her. Jane swallows over the lump in her throat. "It's Father Brophy, Maura."
Their gazes catch in the mirror before Jane turns, and Maura isn't blind to the hot darkness of Jane's worried glare.
Jane is quiet while she sips her coffee in their kitchen for longer than usual. She lingers, listening to their conversation about the church and Daniel's trip to Vatican City and the art galleries of Rome. Maura is the one who tells Daniel that they've just returned from Paris, and when he asks Jane what she thought of the city, she answers all of his questions as succinctly as possible.
He doesn't get it, Jane realises as she watches Maura lean over the island counter and pass Daniel an espresso that just took her fifteen minutes to make (Jane had been watching the clock just as much as she'd been watching the way Maura's smile had almost reached her ears). He doesn't realise that they're dating, that they are a couple now. Jane wants him to know about them when she catches his gaze briefly fall to Maura's cleavage as the blonde covers her face to laugh at something he's said about hot-blooded Italians.
"No offence to you, Detective," the gentle man pauses with a friendly smile. "Boston Italians and Italian Italians are very different people."
"You are very different, Jane," Maura assures her. "Hot-blooded, but very different."
Jane waves her hand jokingly and reaches for her keys. "Well, if there's anyone I can trust to tell me how hot-blooded I am, it's you, Dr Isles."
Maura slips in beside her late at night.
"Your feet are freezing", Jane groans as Maura reaches for Jane's arm.
"No", Maura whispers as she reaches to turn out the bedside lamp. "You're just warm all over."
"It's because you bought bedding fit for Eskimos." Jane presses her forehead against the curve of Maura's shoulder.
"It's because you're Italian."
They laugh.
The tilt of Maura's head and her quizzical stare immediately tells Jane that she's said the wrong thing. The words and their implication go straight over Daniel's conservative head, but they don't have to. Jane pauses and waits for Maura to direct the conversation in the way Jane has had to in front of her mother and her brother and her colleagues the last few weeks.
But for the woman who, of the two of them, is most desperate to feign intimacy, Maura does not attempt to clue Daniel to the fact that they are lovers. Partners. Girlfriends.
What Maura says is, "We do work together, Jane. And you are very passionate about your work," with a flittering laugh.
By the door, Jane bites her lip and waits for Maura to meet her gaze. When the blonde does look up, her eyes are unreadable. Jane nods once, and leaves without saying goodbye.
Jane ventures down to Maura's office after lunch. She spots Maura in the morgue, and sees the woman in scrubs look up from an autopsy as Jane drops a file on her desk.
"Jane," Maura calls, and Jane hears the clatter of instruments being replaced on their tray. Jane ignores the call of her name, but Maura catches the detective on her way past the morgue door.
"Are you upset with me?" Maura asks as she round the corner into the hall, gloves still on, the tips dark with brown blood.
Jane shrugs, the tightness of her bright blue t-shirt slick against her abdomen like a second skin.
"Well that's very mature of you to refrain from speaking."
Jane rolls her eyes, hurt by the fact that Maura seems to have no idea what she's done wrong.
Maura blows at a stray piece of hair that has fallen in her eye line. "I'll be home late tonight. Daniel has asked me to dinner."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You're going on a date with your ex?"
"He's a priest, Jane."
"That didn't stop you before."
"What did you think of me back then?" Maura wonders in the dark safety of Jane's bedroom."Before we were really friends?"
Hoyt has another apprentice out for Jane, and although Jane spent that evening teaching Maura how to fire a handgun, she's asked Maura to bring the gun with her into the bedroom and lay down with her for a moment under the guise of "You need sleep, too."
Jane's breath is hot against Maura's chin. "I was kind of intimidated by you. You were wild in a quiet way. You seemed beyond everyone else. I know that doesn't make sense, but…you just were."
"I was wild?"Maura whispers, and Jane doesn't miss the hint of excitement in her voice.
"You were sleeping with a priest."
They are silent.
"Did you love him?"Jane asks. It's not something she'd usually dare to ask, but the darkness of their second sleepover is providing a cover that is allowing Jane to form a real friendship, the best kind of friendship, with this woman who always seemed so cold and emotionally-stunted.
"Yes," Maura confesses, and Jane gets the feeling that Maura hasn't had a real friend to share these kind of things with in a long time, if ever. " I loved how gentle he was with me. But I also loved the way he saw me."
"How did he see you?"
"Like I was his saviour and his temptress all at once."
Jane sighs, and a bolt of irrational jealousy filters through her. "I think you were more than that to him."
"I know. He wanted to make me feel safe, but I don't think he knew how to."
"How do you mean?"
"He was always so haunted after we made love. He was so guilt-ridden. And I don't think he knew how to guard his emotions to keep that from me. This is going to sound so vain, but it was wonderful for him to be with me. To find pleasure with me. But it was too much for him. I think he was scared by the enormity of a woman's love, of what it could mean to him, and what it could threaten."
Jane swallows. Who knew that Doctor Isles was so troubled? It seems bizarre to Jane that a man could consider leaving a woman like Maura for anything after he'd had her. Maura Isles was the perfect woman, everything that was the opposite of the kind of perfect Jane thought she herself was closer to. Were men intimidated not only by Maura' intelligence, but her physical beauty, too?
"Making love to someone you're not supposed to is scary," Jane whispers in response.
"I was never supposed to make love to Daniel. But I did."Maura's words are heavy and troubled, and they almost sound as though they're asking for forgiveness without Maura's permission.
"You don't have to apologise for that. Not to me, Maur." Jane sighs softly. "On some level, I get it. I really do."
Maura comes home after dinner with Daniel to find the house in darkness. Jane isn't home.
Maura removes her makeup, brushes her teeth, and slides into bed with a book.
She considers texting Jane to ask where she is, but she knows Jane's at The Dirty Robber, probably with Frankie and Frost and Korsak, and Maura's too angry with Jane to stoop to texting Jane first.
Maura slides lower in bed, and finds her toes tangled in soft material. She hooks her toe into a sleeve and drags her leg up the mattress to pull one of Jane's tank tops from beneath the covers. Maura tosses it onto Jane's side of the bed, and sees the headlights of Jane's car as an engine cuts outside.
"Maura?" Jane calls as Maura hears the lock of the front door turn.
"I'm in bed."
When Jane steps into the bedroom in her work clothes, Maura is surprised to find that Jane's demeanour is pleasant and calm.
"Were you at The Dirty Robber?"
"Yeah. How was your date?"
"Dinner was fine, thank you."
Jane sits on the corner of the bed to remove her work boots, her back turned to Maura. "I'm not comfortable with you spending time with him. I can't get the image of you in this bed with him out of my head and I just…I don't want you to see him again. I'm not telling you that you can't, but I want you to know that I don't want you to."
"He's my friend, Jane."
"He's not your friend, and you know it. Were you attracted to him?"
Maura pauses. She cannot tell a lie. "Of course I was attracted to him."
Jane ignores the answer that she knew was coming. "What did he want to talk about?"
Maura sits up on her knees and shuffles across the mattress to sit beside Jane. "He's thinking of leaving the church."
"For you?"
"For himself."
Jane huffs and throws her head back to look up at the ceiling. "This is what I meant. This is the kind of thing that was bound to happen."
"I don't want to be with him," Maura whines in assurance.
"Yes. You do."
"No. I don't want to be second best."
"Hello?" Jane gestures between them, "What do you think this is?"
"This isn't second best. He chose the church. You chose me over any opportunity that may come your way."
"So…nothing. You're saying that I chose you over nothing. Because no more opportunities are coming my way. But you certainly have many opportunities coming your way."
"He isn't an opportunity, Jane!"
"He is for sex!" Jane rises from the bed and paces manically before Maura. "And I just can't get that out of my head and I don't know why it's making me so mad and I feel betrayed, and I shouldn't because I don't even like you that way, I'm not attracted to you at all, but I just can't live like that." Jane fusses with the distraction of trying to open her belt buckle. "I can't live waiting for the day when you come to me with another proposal, the kind that sounds like, 'Hey, Jane. Let's keep this as it is, a real 'commitment', but let's get our rocks off with men in the meantime.'"
Maura tilts her head again, and her confused expression is clouded by betrayal and pain. "How could you think that of me? That I would choose sex over the love I feel with you? Are you trying to push me away?"
Jane swallows. "I'm still not sure that you're sure. We've been together for almost three months, and everything just seems so messy. We went to Paris and we had a great time. But we didn't…"
Maura watches as Jane brings a hand to her forehead. She closes her eyes and reaches blindly for the bed.
"Are you alright?" Maura whispers as she rests a hand against the side of Jane's neck, more for comfort than to feel her pulse.
"I feel lonely," Jane announces suddenly. "And I never thought I would feel that with you."
Maura takes a moment to consider Jane's honest words.
"I make you feel lonely."
"No. I just feel like you…
"What?"
"I feel like I'm not making you happy like I used to."
The soothing press of Maura's warm lips on Jane's neck sends a spark of arousal through Jane, and she shakes it off as a reflex to anybody's lips on that spot. Jane turns her neck, but Maura continues to press kisses along Jane's skin to where the edge of her t-shirt meets shoulder. Up and down, tight and soft.
"I'm not in love with him, Jane. I want you. You make me feel safe. And I am happy with you. So happy, sweetheart."
"Did you kiss him?" Jane dares to ask.
"Of course not," Maura replies sharply.
"Of course not!" Jane mocks teasingly, matching Maura's tone.
Maura pulls back quickly, and the anger of her gaze pierces through Jane. "Don't pretend that you would have been okay with it."
"What did you tell him about us?" Jane bites back.
"I told him that you were my girlfriend."
"Did he get it?"
Maura shifts closer on the bed and drops her gaze. "If you are asking if he understood the implication that we live in the same house…" Maura's dainty middle finger traces over the back of Jane's hand, pressed against the mattress and holding her up, "That we sleep in the same bed, and know each other…intimately, yes. He 'got' it. And he didn't pry, Jane. He isn't like that."
"Yes," Jane agrees. "But you do have a habit of over sharing."
"Well, I can't lie. And there is nothing to over share at this point." Maura's fingernail draws a line over the length of Jane's elegant index finger. "We haven't even kissed yet."
"Mmm," Jane hums, closing her eyes at the sensation. "Doesn't compare, does it? I suppose if you told him the extent of how intimately we know each other, that all we do is sleep together, we would have seemed ridiculous. I'm sure you did a lot more with Father Brophy than kiss.
"What I had with him…" Maura trails off, watching the way Jane's expression morphs into one of pure pleasure and serenity at her simple touch. "It doesn't come close to this. With him, there was always a sense of guilt. I was always wondering what he was thinking. With you, I never have to wonder."
"Oh really, Doctor Isles?" Jane falls back against the mattress in defeat, and Maura shifts with her, her fingernails lightly scratching up the length of Jane's forearm. "Am I no longer an enigma to you?"
"No. You aren't."
"Touche. With you and your fun facts, at least I'm committed to a woman who says what she's thinking."
"I don't tell you everything, Jane."
Jane fights the impulse to open her eyes at the statement, and keeps them closed as she feels Maura return to her side of their bed.
"Don't fall asleep in your work clothes, Jane."
"I won't."
Jane falls asleep in her work clothes, and wakes forty minutes later when she rolls over and her opened belt buckle presses into her hip.
I don't tell you everything. The words play on Jane's mind as she reaches a hand between her abdomen and the mattress and simply shifts the buckle, too tired to undress. The detective wonders what Maura has kept from her, what Maura is still keeping from her. What couldn't Maura tell Jane? What wouldn't she want to tell Jane?
The covers shift, but Jane stays still. She feels still. She feels cheated, too. Somehow, if Jane moves, Maura will know. She'll know that Jane is lying awake, chewing her words over and over. Jane hates herself for thinking that if Maura knows she's awake, Maura will win. Because they're not like that. They have never been about winning or losing, or someone having the upper hand. Why, Jane wondesr, does it suddenly feel like they are?
Maura's whimper is so very soft that, had Jane not been listening for, and trying to regulate her own breathing, she would have missed it. And if Jane were sleeping like Maura thought, she would never had known that such a whimper existed.
But now, Jane knows. She knows that kind of whimper, and recognises it for what it means when the scratch of Maura's nails against their satin sheets gives her away.
Jane squeezes her eyes shut in discomfort. Why can't Maura do it in the shower like Jane does? She can be as loud as she wants in there.
Briefly, Jane considers rolling over and whispering, "Maura, I'm awake." But she imagines that pretending to remain asleep, to just roll over, shift and sigh and feign unconsciousness, would be better. Easier. Maura would hopefully stop, and neither of them would have to face the embarrassment. Not that Jane thinks Maura would be overly embarrassed to be caught with her fingers in her panties.
Jane continues to lay there, stunned and still, pondering what to do while Maua gets closer and wetter.
It's been four months that we've been sleeping together, Jane realises in the silence. It is in that moment that Jane realises how stupid she has been. Of course, at some point, this was bound to happen. It could have happened even sooner.
Maura has not made another sound, but Jane just knows that Maura isn't finished yet.
Jane imagines the heat beneath the covers, but she does not imagine a body shifting and falling gently on the mattress as Maura arches in release.
Jane lies there for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, to sort through them and decide which ones are shock, which are understanding, and which are excitement.
The most surprising thing to Jane is not that, after a minute, Maura's warm foot slides between hers. It is not that Maura's sweaty forehead presses against the base of Jane's skull, either. The most surprising thing about the whole experience of hearing Maura come is that, strangely, Jane is left feeling completely inadequate, and a little bit desperate, too.
AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Please read and review to let me know how you're feeling about the pace of the story and what our girls are getting up to!
