Sorry for the wait! I hope y'all like this chapter. I liked writing it. ;) Let me know what you think!
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Maura was still standing there, leaning the back of her head up against Jane's closed door. She'd regulated her breathing for the moment and she struggled to focus her thoughts through the slurry of wine and desire muddying her brain. She put her hands up to her face, feeling their coolness against her flushed cheeks.
"I can't keep doing this," she whispered to herself, her hands still over her face. And with that she took a deep breath, dropped her hands and squared her shoulders. Maura turned and knocked gently on Jane's door, biting her lip, unsure if what she was doing was right or wrong, just that she needed to do it. Maura wasn't the kind of person who could live a lie and she was dangerously close to trying. She wasn't going to let that happen, no matter the outcome.
"It's me Jane," she said, her voice shakier than she expected.
"Come in," Jane's voice was muffled through the closed door.
Maura opened the door slowly and stepped into the dim room. There was a lamp on by the bed, and Jane was propped up on the bed, against some pillows next to it. Her legs were crossed in front of her and her head leaned back against the headboard. Her eyes were closed, her face relaxed. The scar from her surgery, still red, but no longer needing bandaging, peeked out from the scoop neck of her white tank top. She had a fluffy bathrobe that was open and flowing around her on the bed. Maura thought about how un-Jane-like the robe was, and then she recognized that the robe was hers and her heart leapt into her throat.
"Jane," she said, her voice nearly sounding strangled. Her breath was coming fast again, nervous. She cleared her throat and ran her fingers through her hair, tucking a long strand behind her ear.
Jane's eyes opened slowly. She said nothing, but her gaze was intense, her eyes locked onto Maura's. Her cheeks were pink, her bottom lip partially tucked between her teeth.
"Jane, I— Well," Maura crossed her arms over her chest and took as deep of a breath as she could manage. "The thing is," she said, looking into Jane's nearly black eyes. She took a step forward, rubbed both hands over her face, and tucked her hair behind her ears again. She put the corner of her thumb into her mouth and chewed for a second, then, all in a rush... "I'm in love with you, Jane." She looked away from Jane for a split second, catching a glimpse of the framed Ted Williams baseball card on the wall. Maura looked back at her raven-haired best friend, who was staring openly at her, no sound escaping her, her expression open, but unreadable.
"I think I've loved you since we first became friends. Even when we first met I just couldn't get enough of you. You're the smartest, most infuriating person I've ever known, Jane Rizzoli. And you… you just destroy me." Maura's words were coming out in a rush, years of torment spilling from her lips. "I mean, you destroy me mostly in a good way, but sometimes I feel like you're this thing happening to me, this uncontrollable force that I will never recover from. Not that I want to recover from you. I don't. I want to be infected by you. I want you in my bloodstream. I…"
Jane's unreadable expression had the barest, tiniest smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"This is coming out wrong," Maura said, starting to feel flustered. "I just mean that when I wake up in the morning, you're the first thing I think of. When I go to bed at night, you're the last thing I think of. When I'm at work I have conversations with you in my head all day."
Jane's eyebrows went up ever so slightly.
"It's true," Maura said, feeling the words tumble out, feeling her cheeks and chest go scarlet. "I talk to you more in my head than I do in person, I think. I always wonder about your opinion, your ideas, what you might see that other people miss. And not just at work. When I'm shopping or running or eating or anything. You're a part of me, Jane." Maura took a step closer, though she was still almost half a room away. Her arms crossed over her middle, causing her to hug herself in a childlike way.
"When I'm falling asleep at night, I hope to dream about you. I replay our texts and emails and jokes and conversations in my head and I laugh and smile like someone with a clinical disorder. I plan intricate vacations for us that I know you'd hate." She felt a knot rising in her throat as she laughed-sobbed. "I am just so in love with you I don't even know what to do with myself anymore." Maura hiccuped, causing Jane's head to tilt ever so slightly; to show a minuscule sign of affection. "At first I thought it was just an infatuation," Maura continued, swiping the treacherous tears from her cheeks. "But then, as the months and years passed, I realized it wasn't an infatuation. Then I thought, well, I hoped, I could just ignore it. I didn't want to admit what I was feeling, and you were involved with Dean and then Casey. I kept thinking maybe it would go away. But it just kept getting worse and worse and once you were sick and in the hospital, everything that I'd spent years trying to tamp down – it just all came to the surface, Jane. There is no tamping this down. I am so in love with you I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can barely form a coherent sentence when I'm around you. I'm beginning to think it's not safe for me to be helping you convalesce. I am a mess, Jane. I'm just… I'm…" by this time, tears were rolling down Maura's face and she'd given up on trying to hold Jane's unblinking stare. Maura's gaze had wandered to the corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall. She felt that she was on the brink of a true crying jag. All of these feelings, this huge confession, she was breathing hard and irregularly. Hyperventilating.
A hand appeared from nowhere, gently pulling on her arm. Maura jumped at the contact, and moved her eyes from the corner. Jane wordlessly pulled her to the bed. Jane backed into the bed, holding Maura's arm with one hand and pulling the covers down with her other. She let the robe drop from her shoulders and climbed into the bed, wearing her tank and boxers. She reached up and pulled Maura onto the bed. Maura, still sniffling, still hiccuping and breathing weirdly, climbed over Jane and curled up next to her, just like she had done so many nights in the hospital. Laying on her side on top of the covers, she pulled her knees up and tucked them against Jane's hip. Jane's hand moved out from under the covers and curled around Maura's knee. Maura dipped her forehead forward and pressed it against Jane's shoulder.
They lay like this for minutes, hours, Maura didn't know. She'd lost all track of time. And just as she was finally breathing normally again, just as the tears had dried on her face, just as she stopped worrying about Jane having said nothing since her confession, Jane's body moved. Very slowly, Jane's shoulder slid away from Maura's forehead, moving lower. Maura opened her eyes and found herself face to face with Jane. She moved her hand to Jane's cheek and Jane's eyes closed and then opened again, slowly.
"Hi," Jane whispered, her breath blowing gently onto Maura's lips.
"Hi, Maura whispered back.
"Are you OK?" Jane asked. "That was quite a... display."
Maura did her best to nod, given that her forehead was pressed against Jane's. "Are you OK, Jane?"
Jane swallowed and did that slow blink again. "I don't know what I am."
Maura tilted her face, and pushed it forward, unable to resist the closeness of Jane's lips. There was contact for only a nanosecond before Jane pulled back.
"Don't," she said, her eyes closed, her breath quickening. "Please."
"Why not?" Maura asked, her voice barely audible.
"It's not OK, Maura," Jane said. Her hand gripped Maura's knee now, almost painfully. Her lips were still centimeters from Maura's.
"I don't understand," Maura said, her body liquid with desire.
"It goes against everything I've been taught," Jane whispered back, her hand now sliding up from Maura's knee to grip the side of her thigh.
"You've had the wrong teachers, then," Maura breathed. Jane's hand was burning a path up her thigh.
"I love men," Jane breathed. Her hand ran up the side of Maura's bottom and into the curve of her waist where it stopped, her fingers toying with the hem of the t-shirt Maura wore.
"So do I," Maura said. "Sometimes." She pushed her face even closer to Jane's, brushing their lips together. "I've never loved one like I love you, though."
Jane's face went slack. Her eyes opened half-way, catching the hazel stare of her best friend. And then they were together, their lips melting into softness, wetness, hunger, desire.
For the first time in a very long time, Dr. Maura Isles' brain went slack. There were no thoughts, only sensations. Sensations she'd been dreaming of for years.