This had to be quite possibly the best sandwich being prepared right now on the face of planet Earth. Seriously, right now, no other sandwiches could compare, they couldn't even come close.
What could further elevate such a masterpiece? Jane Rizzoli wondered as she stood over her kitchen counter regarding the open sandwich on her cutting board piled high with thinly sliced olives, prosciutto, mortadella, genoa salami, tomato, lettuce, spicy mayonnaise, provolone cheese, marinated red pepper, freshly cracked black pepper all on thick whole wheat bread crumbling with sunflower seeds.
"What do you think, Babe?" Jane asked the tank sitting at the end of the counter where a now slightly bigger, but still incredibly tiny tortoise chewed slowly on some spinach Maura had put in there for the car ride over to Jane's place that morning before heading in to work. "You think we need some mustard?" George continued to chew slowly and watching the large but familiar human fret over something he just couldn't understand. He was in no danger though, and he had plenty of spinach to occupy him until the other human with the soft voice returned. He watched on curiously. "I think we need some mustard." Jane nodded.
It was around eleven now, and after sleeping a dreamless sleep Jane woke and shuffled her way into her kitchen around nine where she found George Herman perched on the counter in his tank and a small note from Maura giving Jane instructions for the little animal with prescription like specificity. Apparently he had had nightmares the night before and was reluctant to leave his shell this morning. Jane hadn't noticed any odd behaviors but she made a mental note to call Maura around one when she knew the medical examiner would be taking her lunch hour to fill the doctor in on his behavior. She'd appreciate the call and Jane wouldn't be lying with wanting to hear what Maura was up to.
After splashing some water on her face she made coffee and watched the sports channel and then the news which was playing quietly in the background now as she made her lunch. After coffee Jane started a load of laundry and picked up a few things before deciding that what she should be doing was focusing her energy on making one of the best sandwiches this side of the eastern hemisphere.
Realized fantasizes of culinary stardom were cut dry when her cell phone began to ring on the counter and the detective leapt for it as if it would explode if the call rang out twice. "Rizzoli." She frowned when her mother's voice came over the phone and not Kennedy's her usual dispatch monitor. "Hey Ma." Jane stuck the phone between her ear and shoulder and opened a crusted jar of mustard before looking for a butter knife. "No I'm at home…Making something to eat…" She smiled softly at the not so veiled attempt to check up on her. "I'm okay, really…Oh yeah?" She licked her thumb free of mustard before raising the volume on the television a few feet away. "Yeah that looks like a bad pile up…" She wondered if Maura would receive the victims of the other medical examiner's office. "Well its high profile enough they will probably send it Maura's way." She agreed before sighing. "She doesn't mind…" She wondered if accidents like this bothered Maura. At least in homicide there was a villain, here there was no such thing, just a faceless truth of life's uncertainty. "Yeah… just last week there was an accident like this off Broadway…. Yeah…" Jane glanced at Gorge Herman who was still watching her and chewing the same piece of spinach slowly. "Go shopping with you?…..um, Maura's got me babysitting so, maybe some other time, Ma." Jane chuckled. "Yeah, that would be okay." She was still going to bring by some lasagna to cheer her up. "It would have to be today though, Ma." She shied some. "I got this thing tomorrow…um, dinner thing. No not a date for the love of— yes, yeah okay—Goodbye mother." Jane hung up and sighed. The mustard being spread just evenly so now seemed as important as corded telephones. Jane slipped the knife into the sink and stared at the open faced sandwich and then George Herman. "I don't know how to do this, Babe." She could acknowledge the fact that her feelings were there, she couldn't go a whole half hour without thinking about the shorter doctor, and seeing her yesterday; hearing that gunshot and willing to literally use herself as a human shield without a seconds thought was automatic, but leaving her in the elevator, not knowing the exact situation, if she were safe there, if she would see Maura again, it woke an urgency in her she couldn't place. All she knew was that it was about her feelings for her best friend.
Jane Rizzoli hated running, but after cleaning and laundry, and pacing it seemed like the only thing really that would help clear her thoughts. She had forgotten her sandwich out and went over to pick up the plate with it on it and distractedly put it into the refrigerator as is then went to change into something she could move in but was still warm and after giving George Herman some gentle reassurance about her return she was out the front door and down a familiar route toward the docks. The tickle of salted sea air invigorated Jane as she pumped her arms into gravity and propelled off the brick pathway leading to wooden planks. The midday sun cast a warm sensation against her back as she ran away from it into the brisk nor'easter like air.
In the distance she noted her father's hotel, brown and crumbling against the brilliant and more affluent Boston horizon. The hotel looked almost fake against it. She wondered if he were there, if he cried for the choices he had made, where it had put him in a city full of unavailable family subjected to horrible take-out and peeling paint. She hadn't once considered her actions wrong until now. Was it possible to truly be sincere? She couldn't trust it. Maura had been right to say that she didn't want to be disappointed, but she didn't want to miss him either. How could Maura protect someone who lied about her, put her out to be the enemy though? She didn't know what she would do if he had said all of that in front of Maura,.. Maybe Maura wasn't protecting him at all, maybe she was protecting Jane from him, or at least the memory she had of him.
Focusing her attention forward Jane let mind run with her at a pace she preferred to manage. She thought of yesterday and the pain everyone seemed to be in some way or another, she thought of Dr. Dooley and her greying temples, TJ and then naturally Tommy, Frankie and Nina, their mother and her strength, Tasha and how scared she herself had been, how certain she was she couldn't see a way out. The miscarriage… Casey, Frost…Frost. Jane let herself exhale heavily and hold the lack of oxygen in a deafening and near intolerable protest to not sulk because Barry would only laugh at her for it.
Toward the end of her run, and as the sweat on her back clung desperately at the cotton of her grey BPD shirt, and after all her other thoughts became resolute in nature, Jane thought of her best friend, and how warm and soft her lips had been on her cheek, and how ever since their class on Saturday she found herself randomly thinking of excuses to hold her hand again.
Could they really go back if after tomorrow things didn't quite fit? Jane doubted it, the risk had already taken itself and cashed itself in without either of their permission. Maura had kissed her, and Jane wanted her to want to do it again, she wanted to be the person Maura wanted to kiss again, and she knew that that meant a number of things, the entirety of the list hadn't made itself clear yet but there was for certain something she knew she could no longer ignore.
After a quick shower Jane changed into baggy sweat pants and a random shirt she got a few years back for waking up at the ass crack of dawn and volunteering at the zoo with Maura and her geek squad.
"How's that spinach treating you, Babe?" Jane asked with a chuckle at George who had seemingly moved an inch from the spot that he was in, the generous dark leafy greens had been diminished two a small dried pile but George seemed all too happy to continue to eat the crackling leafs. She made herself another cup of coffee and sat at her sofa to pull her lap top from under it with a sigh.
Half an hour later while elbow deep in a large bowel Kent came over with Maura's cell phone. "Dr. Isles—"
"Kent, at this current moment I am a little preoccupied." Postmortem hemorrhaging was messy, and required all of her immediate attention. Maura hadn't had much of a breakfast this morning trying to get the tortoise ready and out the door and her relatively light work day was thrown for a loop when the neighboring county's medical examiner's office was reportedly at capacity, which having helped built the facility herself she knew was a false truth, which meant after two more autopsies she would need to sit down and draft a disciplinary letter. That and Internal Affairs was circling the parking loop waiting to ask "a few more routine questions" about yesterday.
The absolute last thing The Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wanted right now was an automated phone call notification from Amazon stating that their delivery attempt failed and they would try again on the next business day.
Nodding knowing this to be true Kent let himself wrinkle a smile. "It's Detective Rizzoli."
Maura frowned into the gaping cavity of Lamar King, a victim in the recent collisions. "I will have to return her call." She nodded to herself and then nodded to Kent who was holding her phone.
Kent hesitated before bringing Maura's cell phone to his ear. "Dr. Maura Isles phone. This is the incredibly handsome and intelligent Kent Drake speaking."
Jane snorted. "Where's Maura?"
Kent nodded at the fast and efficient work Maura was doing to stitch up the medical oddity. "She's indisposed at the moment, can I take a message?"
Before Jane could think to say anything she could hear Maura in the background requesting that she be put on speaker.
"Jane." Maura spoke albeit a little far away. "Is it George?" Her strain and parental concern was audible.
Jane glanced to make sure at that very moment that George Herman hadn't decided to grow thumbs and wings and any other appendage necessary for escape. "No, Maur, he's here, he's okay." She paused. "I um, was calling…to let you know that."
"No news is good news." Kent nodded. Maura looked at him. "What?"
"I'll have to call you back, Jane."
The remainder of the day ran away from Maura. She hadn't had the chance to call her friend to check in like she had planned before lunch and even after the PM techs arrived she knew she would only speak to Jane when she saw her next, which would be when she came by to pick up George Herman. She had a right mind to leave the little thing there but thought better of it when she remembered Jane was hardly home as is, no her home was better, and she would admit only to her own subconscious that she missed having Bass to care for.
The pathologist worked efficiently while taking care to ensure she watched the clock. It wasn't until 8:30 that night when she sat in her car that she was able to take a breath and realize her person. She was no longer Dr. Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, she was just a woman going to pick up her tortoise from her best friend's house whom she happened to be eagerly nourishing feelings for.
Last night after getting safely into her own home and noting her solitude she couldn't help her thoughtful smile. Jane, ever the cautious sibling, the protective friend, the righter of wrongs and keeper of justice had asked her to weigh her options, be reasonable, she had given Maura an out, a way out of the tornado she believed her life to be. Maura had longed to kiss her lips then, as if unable to communicate just how she felt in any other fashion, she could see though that Jane may not have taken it as intended and instead put all her effort into expressing an inexpressible unconditional positive regard onto a single patch of Jane's soft cheek.
The drive to Jane's took 30 minutes.
Angela opened the door and smiled, she had missed Maura's surprise. "Reinforcements."
Behind the sturdy woman Jane stood stubborn. "Good, you're here, now you can explain to me what in God's name this is!" She was put completely off, but not engaged. Maura stepped into the noticeably cleaner living room and smiled at her friend who was pointing aggressively at the counter where a used fork sat beside a baking dish with aluminum foil curled upward revealing a cheesy layer disturbed.
Maura looked at the lasagna, and then George Herman who was in his shell.
Smart
She smiled suddenly finding a humor (and comfort) in the whole thing much to Jane's handsomely vexed features.
"I knew it!" The detective crossed her arms. "You did this."
"Oh leave her alone!" Angela came over and tugged gently at Maura's heavy coat and folded it over her arm. "She's just concerned, and quite frankly so am I."
"Ma the fact that you even went along with this is not only troubling, it's disrespectful."
"Disrespectful?"
"Yes!"
Maura was bent over examining the perfectly fine looking lasagna with crime scene focus as Jane and her mother went back and forth in the background. She turned to Angela upright and pointed to it after a final sniff gave away the last clue. . "Is this with Zucchini?" Angela nodded. "How yummy, I'm actually quite famished" Jane shot her a look "What? Your mother has been working hard to perfect this recipe."
Jane shook her head. "It's not a recipe Maura, its salad and cheese warmed up in the oven."
Angela crossed her arms. "You're going to eat it because you have nothing in your refrigerator and you're going to be grateful because I made it and I'm your mother." Jane pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at the shorter woman she had come from. Angela matched the face and from an onlookers point may have even invented with the ease she positioned in and out of it to smile at Maura. "Help yourself, honey."
"Thank you, Angela."
"I'm going to be late for my dinner date." She rested Maura's coat against the back of Jane's sofa and readied her gloves which had also been in her hands "You'll call me to thank me tomorrow before I go into work and send Maura home with the dish once it's cleaned." She paused. "Actually cleaned, Jane."
Having had enough mothering for one evening Jane began to rush her out of the door. "Yeah, okay, okay." The two women seemed to move in a comical dance fight shuffle to the door until they finally reached it and Jane leaned to kiss her on the cheek obediently. Maura watched as Jane rolled her shoulders and turned back to face her.
"Meatless lasgna, Maura?" She asked in disbelief.
"There are so many reasons why a plant based diet can help chronic hormonal irritability."
"You're so full of it."
"It smells lovely."
Jane let herself curl a corner of her mouth upward in a smile that made Maura smile back fully now. She padded towards her. "You're going to get her flogged at the next Sunday dinner if she pulls this." Jane stopped at the back of her couch and picked up Maura's coat to hang it on a hook near the door.
"It was her idea to switch it."
"Are you really hungry?"
Maura looked over to the lasagna. It must have just come out of the oven with the way its aroma took over every scent. "Yes, however I—"
Jane was by her side now moving the dish. "Take your shoes off; my feet hurt looking at you in them." She moved easily to the other side of the island to grab something a little more suitable to serve it up in. "Stay and eat or take it with you." She joked hoping it didn't seem like she really wanted Maura to stay, which she absolutely did.
Maura didn't protest. She slipped out of her heels and groaned softly before moving to put them by the door under her coat. "You cleaned?" The thin layer of dust that sat behind the display case of baseball memorabilia was gone, and Jane's entryway closet door actually could close.
Jane shrugged as she pulled down two plates. "Some." The detective stole a few glances at the ME as she walked the living room area curiously barefoot and impressed. She was wearing a black skirt today and bright yellow blouse that wrapped itself around her frame in an envious way. Her posture relaxed some from when she first arrived and the absent hand to the back of her hair ruffling it every now and then meant she was in fact comfortable here.
Jane was glad she cleaned.
"Ready for something else?" Jane took her time looking back to her divisions of cheesy white sauce and greens and Maura took her time making it back to the island.
"Yes."
"I completed my FBI portal information." Maura began to smile. "AND—"
"There's more?"
"AND I went for a run."
Maura chuckled. She saddled up onto the bar stool nearest her. "I'm very proud of you, Jane."
The detective shrugged again as she continued to cut pieces for them both, Maura's obviously a bit larger. "Yeah it was time to do it."
"I agree. How do you feel? Accomplished?"
"Sitting on my hands all day? No." She opened a drawer to retrieve two forks. "I rather be out there actually doing something."
"Self-care is important too—Oh Jane I couldn't possibly eat all of this."
She moved to grab some water glasses. "You look tired, you should eat something."
"Angela logic."
Jane caught herself and laughed as she filled the glasses. "Oh no."
"Well I am glad you had such a productive day regardless of where you were." She watched Jane come around from the island and pull up a stool beside her with their forks. They hadn't been this close since last night. "Internal Affairs had some more questions for me." She forked a reasonable bite from the still steaming vegetable lasagna.
"Oh yeah?" Jane paused after elbowing Maura. "Sorry." She was left handed and Maura right, sitting like this reminded Jane of all their differences beginning with those awkward fumbles to plan and place elbows.
Maura smiled gently and gave Jane room to adjust. "I don't mind." She picked up her fork.
Jane nodded. "We'll have to make sure we sit the other way tomorrow." T intended to come out as a joke, one they had told one another before when encountering the issue, but it came out timid.
Maura felt herself flush. "Yes, perhaps reservations—"
"I've already made them so... I can call tomorrow."
"Was that done today too?"
"No."
Maura looked back to her plate. "Where will we go?" She busied herself with chewing.
"It's kinda…" Jane shrugged. "Cliché, kinda romantic."
"Cliché and romantic?." She asked a tickle of teasing in her voice but she dare not look at her. "My."
"Seafood, then to that cannibal movie… I didn't' think going to that first would work out too well."
"And our control?"
Jane busied herself with eating now too. "Well we won't dress up, right? That would keep things as normal as possible and this seafood place isn't ritzy.." She paused. "I can pick you up from your place instead of the precinct since I can't be there."
Maura nodded signaling it was a good plan. She'd have to find out if she had anything that wasn't dressy but that she could do privately. "You won't ask me again what you asked me last night will you?" She found she needed to know.
Jane looked at her, Maura didn't. "No..."
It was an earnest answer that for some reason allowed the ME to relax more, Jane noticed and finally understood somewhat what it must have been like for Maura navigating all of this on her own. It had to be just as hard right? She turned back to her meal. They were going to figure it out together, whatever that meant. "How do we read the results?"
"Of the experiment?" Jane nodded. "Oh, I've prepared a questionnaire."
Jane shook her head and stabbed a piece of zucchini. "I know you're not kidding, but I still have to ask."
Maura shook her head seriously. "It's the standard means with experiments suited for qualitative findings. You can't simply quantify how you feel, don't you agree?" Jane just looked at her with that same half smile as before. "After some dedicated time alone, my anticipated time would be around forty eight hours—"
"Forty eight hours?"
"Yes, away from one another."
"What about work?"
"Personally I mean. It will give us time to reflect on our feelings."
"Wasn't that what meditation was for? All that hand holding?" Jane swore she just made this stuff up because no one cared to check, she was the fool to keep going along with it while still holding her suspicions.
"That exercise was about connecting on a human level, leaning into the discomfort of the unknown."
"Maura."
"Forty eight hours has been proven as the shortest time span in which decisions can be made once presented with all the evidence."
"Where are you getting this?"
Maura smiled. "Geraldine Hoy and Mark Bowin's 2014 study on Regret."
"Just the one?"
"in 2014."
Jane gave up. "Alright, seems like everything is on a two day limit."
Maura went back to her meal. "Reflection time."
Jane did as well. "Yeah, reflection time."
They ate speaking idly after that. Jane asked about Maura's day taking special interest in the police work behind it all and her IA questioning. She asked questions she knew Korask would never answer upon her return. She asked about the pile up and then when it was time to speak and not listen she reassured Maura that she was a great doctor and though someone else had been slacking a county over the families of those lost were better off speaking with her anyway. Maura was gracious enough but certainly seemed as if she was ready to move passed it. She in turn asked about George Herman, and then Jane's run. Jane made a sweat lodge joke before taking about remembering Frost. Maura asked what she had felt then and in a polite closing off Jane admitted to feeling sad but knowing he wouldn't want her to be. It came to a point in the evening where Maura envied Jane's comfortable clothing, and Jane simply grew tired. Jane cleaned up the dishes and paused.
"Anything about Miles Novak?" She asked a she rinsed off the plate after noting with a bit of pride that Maura had cleaned hers.
"He is still in psychiatric care."
Jane nodded. "Probably for the best, whoever interviews him is probably chomping at the bits, and with me out—"
"Unjustly so."
"—The only thing they have to go on is my statement and the video footage."
"Dr. Dooley wanted me to give you her thanks on behalf of Blackwell admin. If you weren't there Jane…." She watched Jane come around the island and slide her stately frame onto the stool beside her again. "I won't say the H word."
"Accountants are heroes too." Jane nodded.
"You put yourself in front of a mentally unstable student with a gun."
"Maura." She whined causing the ME to laugh.
"Which is it?" She turned her stool to face Jane, their knees brushing against the other's instead of their elbows. Bellies full now, and with their undeniable ease returning completely half way through dinner made the motion fluid and natural. They could reach out, see, feel, bend, to the other which was preferred.
"Which is what?"
"Is it that you actually do not prefer the limelight, or that you really believe what you do doesn't impact people?" It wasn't a new question, Jane just never gave her a straight off answer.
Jane thought. "There are a lot of people like me out there."
"I don't think so."
"What about, saying it's a cop thing?"
"No. Try again."
"Has anyone ever told you that sometimes you can fixate on things?"
They wore sure but small smiles, flirtatious may have been what they were called but the two had no comparison to recognize it, and George Herman fortunately or unfortunately could not speak English.
Maura reached for her glass of water. "I've always been naturally very curious."
"Too curious."
"Do you suppose, Jane?"
Jane's smirk fell in place of an honest smile. "Nah, are you kidding? There is no way my case record would look as good without you and that big brain."
"The average human brain weighs 2.7 pounds, you'd do much better with a Sperm Whale, their brains are 17 pounds."
Jane chuckled. "I don't think a sperm whale would fit in my car, or that skirt, and I thought all that size talk doesn't matter."
"Well actually it is the matter that matters." She laughed at her own joke which made Jane laugh too.
"Have you had your brain weighed to know?" She asked goofily.
"It's quite easy to do the math—"
Jane put her hand up. "I'm gonna stop you right there, in this house?" She motioned to their surroundings. "No math past five."
"In the evening?"
"In the morning."
Maura shook her head. "I had a dream about Bass, and Jo Friday."
"You actually slept?"
"It was a very stimulating day."
Jane nodded. "I didn't dream at all, just darkness y'know. Then I woke up and came out here and found Babe."
"I was going to wake you but thought better of it."
"You should have." She said it before she could analyze what it meant, when she had time to later in bed she knew she meant it.
Maura shook her hand as if still unsure. Jane could see she was tired. It was the prim and proper boarding school girl turned woman in Maura who hated to seem it though. Instead of ignoring it Jane quickly calculated what little resources she had on hand to help.
"You want some tea?"
"Tea?" Jane nodded sweetly which only made Maura smile in a way that didn't reach her mouth. "Please?"
Jane hopped off of her stool glad to have something to do that would make Maura more comfortable. She had realized a half hour ago that she didn't really want her to leave. There was so much to catch up on just after one day of being out of work (and away from each other) and her sweat lodge run had made her realize that she was so cranky when Maura was gone because there were no moments like this; no quiet talks or reflections, no one really demanded her comfort, her review of the day, her thoughts the way Maura did.
It was nice.
So she made herbal tea, a dried kind Maura's nose wrinkled at but said nothing but a genuine thank you to. Jane asked how she had slept and Maura recalled what bit of the funny dream she could remember and then gave her a random fact about action potentials and the brains ability to cope.
"I should go." Maura finally said. They could not draw it out any longer.
Jane nodded as if she agreed. "You can always stay in the guest room." She tossed a thumb over her shoulder to the small hall where she knew three stacks of her unpacked apartment sat pushed in a corner. The bed was her old one, hardly suitable for any kind of real rest, and since Maura had already outright demanded she buy a new couch Jane began to figure maybe it would be best she took the guest room instead.
Maura seemed surprised but only for a moment. "I haven't anything to change into and my nightly routine…" She looked over at George Herman who had long since fallen asleep. "I doubt you have anything green for breakfast either."
Jane nodded, she didn't it was true. "We could always give him some lasagna." They both stood.
"If I don't bring that dish back—"
"Um hello, I know you guys are besties now but she's still my mother, trust me I know how she can get about tupperware." She watched as Maura began to gather her things around her. "One time she made me walk all the way back to school in muddy overalls to get a dish from a bake sale."
"Of course your overalls were muddy."
"I'll bring it tomorrow." Jane helped her with getting George situated before walking with his tank to the door while Maura slipped into her heels and her coat. When she moved to walk past her to grab the door Maura stopped her.
"You'll freeze."
Jane frowned and looked down to her socked feet and baggy sweats. "Maura."
"It's thirty degrees outside, Jane." Once her coat was on she took the tank before pausing and with a balance only yoga could inhibit she leaned her weight backward just enough to tip toe and place a chaste kiss on Janes cheek. The same cheek. Jane opened the door for her in a daze, Maura had said goodnight or goodbye or thank you for dinner, she wasn't sure but then she was gone and Jane was left alone, freezing yet.
##
When she dropped off George Herman the next day and for the weekend (since their experiment called for forty eight hours away from one another) Jane wanted to show Maura that she understood she too felt a sort of weight when the other left, so she leaned in to press a small kiss on her cheek before opening the door for her.
"I'll see you tonight."
Maura smiled at the kiss on the cheek, Jane was a quick study after all. Conditioning wouldn't be as painful as she thought, It was important to note it wasn't that she wanted to control Jane's behavior, just make her realize that it was okay to feel a certain way and express it a certain way. "I haven't yet decided if I am going to adhere to this control." She admitted as they stood beside one another at the open door, a tight and chilly breeze pressed against them as they talked.
Jane chuckled. "Casual okay? You're gonna make it weird if you wear a thousand dollar bracelet."
Maura rolled her eyes. "I don't own—" She stopped herself. "Casual."
Jane nodded. "Yes."
"Denim?"
Jane shrugged. "Sure."
"I don't own denim."
Jane furrowed a brow. "What about those jeans—"
Maura nodded quickly. "Ah yes, I suppose I do."
Jane snorted. "One item, God help her."
"Jeans?" Her brows knitted together in concern. "Maybe I should have—"
"You said you wanted a traditional—"
"There isn't anything traditional about us."
"Dinner and a movie, Maura, we aren't going to the moon."
She sighed dismissively and hugged her coat against her and adjusted her colorful scarf. "For science."
"You're nervous." Jane grinned a little knowing she felt it too.
Maura tossed her a small grin as well. The breeze hitting them flushed her cheeks some. "I keep on thinking about what I would normally do to prepare for a night out, a date." She looked at Jane. "But then I know it's with you, and so all the little things that mattered before seem so silly." She pursed her lips together in a pleasant frustration. "It's very confusing."
Jane nodded. "So… Then I don't have to shave?"
Maura burst out laughing. "Do you normally?"
The detective shrugged. "It depends."
"On?"
Now Jane was chuckling. "Maybe I shouldn't answer."
"Maybe not."
"Will you let me know if Novak is released into questioning? I wanna send Frankie to check up on him."
Maura adjusted her red handbag and nodded. "You're taking this suspension surprisingly well."
Jane shrugged, she supposed she was. "Don't tell anyone."
Maura gave her an affectionate look. One Jane knew she reserved for when she hadn't had to be coaxed into ordering kale or when she brought her down lunch without even checking if Maura had eaten yet. Jane Rizzoli was all fluff and stuff on the inside, all human, no, she wouldn't tell anyone. "No baby carrots." She reminded as she took a step into the cold March morning to leave.
Jane nodded. "I'm gonna grab some spinach and—" She looked at her right palm where she had written something down when Maura called earlier to let her know she was on her way with Gorge Herman. "Parsley, endive… tequila." She pulled her palm down. "You think the little guy takes lime?"
Maura smiled. "Goodbye, Jane."
After closing the door and welcoming George back to the apartment Jane moved to pour herself another cup of coffee and open her refrigerator. There on a plate still unprepared was her sandwich; on the shelf beneath it sat the glass dish of the vegetable lasagna her mother had brought over last night. She reached for the glass dish and put it on the counter.
Had Maura expected her to kiss her on the cheek this morning? Jane wondered as she ate the cold leftovers. She had a feeling she did. The tall woman groaned inwardly a smile playing at her lips the whole time when she realized she certainly did. She wasn't that slick you know, Maura, but somehow Jane found herself amused by the medical examiner's new expectation.
Her phone began to buzz loudly between she and George. "Rizzoli." She answered and reached for her mug to wash her breakfast down.
"Detective Rizzoli."
Jane coughed a little. "Uh, Agent Davies."
"You finally pulled the trigger on us huh? I haven't heard from you in a while. I thought you might change your mind on our offer. Did you get my email?" He sounded hopeful but confident.
Jane nodded dumbly. "I did, I did, yeah I just finished the application yesterday. They have to schedule my psych evaluation."
"Leave it to me, when is best? We can have you do it in Boston if you like. When you're done you can take me out for a drink and tell me about how it made you feel."
Jane chuckled. "Yeah right."
"Seriously, we have mobile recruitment units all over. I have to run now but I'll be in town in a week or so. Would you be available?"
"For the drink or the exam?"
She could hear him smiling. "Both."
"I'd have to see, I'm heading to New York with Maura for something—" Another decision she had made on her run. She really wanted to see Tasha. She had ideas to open the Frost Memorial Scholarship for new applicants and wanted to run it by the two of them in person.
"Even better! That's my next stop after Boston."
"Oh… alight."
"Great, I'll have HR email you some details on the when and the how and I'll give you a ring once it's all set up."
Jane hung up and looked over at George. "What was I supposed to say?" He put himself in his shell. "Nice, no tequila for you."
AN: Sorry for the delay! Writer's block and real life happenings. As always thanks for reading and tell me what you think!
KathleenDee