Thank you guys. Thank you all so much for your reviews and your pms and your...just your overall support. I can't describe what it means to me. I need like a stadium and an orchestra and...at least 3 dozen highly trained ponies to describe what you guys mean to me. I am humbled and overwhelmed every time i log in. So thank you. From the guests who just started reviewing to people like bnh1969, charlie the CAG, TV crazed, and Cstarj, who have been with me from the very first fic...I can't...there aren't...
just thanks. you all have inspired me, pushed me, saved me, and been like real, herewithmerightnow friends.
happy reading
tc
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...
Something is happening to Maura. Something inside of her is changing. It is not a subtle, wallflower blooming kind of thing, but a strong, sudden change in the fundamental, and maybe even elemental, aspects that make up the dancer's character. She goes to bed at night, and when she wakes up in the morning, she feels different. She showers and dresses and fixes her hair in the mirror and she looks different.
Her mother calls over the weekend before Thanksgiving break to give Maura a choice: She can come to Italy with Constance and Richard, and miss the first week back at school due to a late return, or she can spend the Thanksgiving holiday in NYC.
Maura bites her lip, sitting on the end of her bed, one shoe on. "Um," she says into the phone.
"Don't say-" Her mother seems to catch herself. She takes a breath and starts over. "Your father and I would love to see you," she says, "however I know it puts a strain on your school work, to return late."
Maura nods at no one. "I don't think I can manage it, Mother."
There is a pause, and when Constance speaks again, she sounds genuinely upset. "I understand...Though I am going to miss you." There is another, more pregnant pause, and then, "And I will miss not seeing you."
Maura pulls the phone away from her ear to look at it. She stares long enough that when she puts it back to her ear, she can hear her mother saying her name, concerned.
"I-I'm going to regret not seeing you too," she stutters, and then, because this feels much too formal. "I miss you too, Mother. I think about you often."
Her mother makes a sound that might be a gasp, but that also leans a bit towards a whimper.
"Well," Constance says, her voice not completely back under control. "I will see you at the Christmas holiday, correct?"
Maura smiles, "Yes, certainly."
"Wonderful…" Maura shakes her head a little at her shoes. She has never known her mother to be at a loss for words. "I'll see you soon, darling."
"Yes, Mother."
They hang up, and Maura's phone buzzes immediately, and all thoughts of her mother's peculiar behavior are driven from her mind when she pulls up the little window.
Jane: Breakfast?
Maura practically flies out the door.
….
As the weeks have gone by, Maura is more and more convinced that Jane is playing with her. Not maliciously, and certainly not too roughly, but definitely playing. They spend time together, with the group and without, and in both situations, Jane stands a little closer to her than she used to, looks at the dancer a little longer than normal.
It makes Maura feel like she's getting a fever. It makes her feel uncomfortable and special and important and afraid.
The brunette never touches her, never says anything too suggestive or too forward, but Maura can feel the words on the tip of Jane's tongue, and sometimes, when she catches Jane looking at her, the pianist will lick her lips, like she's wiping unsaid sentences away.
Maura enters the cafeteria for breakfast on the Monday before Thanksgiving break, and waves to her little group of friends before making her way through the lunch line. She sits down just as Susie is leaving. The miniature freshman is looking more and more haggard by the day, and Maura thinks that even if she is dreading the holiday, it might do Susie some good.
"Hi, Susie," she says, sitting down across from Jane and Frost, who are in the middle of an arugument. "You can't stay?"
"Can't," Susie says, yawning, "I have an Extra now."
"You know, Susie," Frost says, breaking off to look at her, "They are called Extras for a reason. You're not supposed to take as many of them as you are classes."
Susie looks at him scornfully, "You're also supposed to have perfect turn out, and be able to memorize combos immediately, and have a perfectly straight legs on the-"
"Susie," Frost cuts across her, "chill, lady. You're the hardest working freshman. Period. Out of any major."
Susie looks a little mollified, but still goes about clearing her things.
"I'll see you before the holiday, right, Susie?" Maura asks hopefully.
"Of course," Susie says already turning away. "I'm always in one room or another. Just look for me."
"That's...not what I…" Maura trails off. Susie is already gone.
She turns back around to her food, and after a quick hello from Frost and a fleeting grin from Jane, the two of them fall back into their previous conversation.
"Just come home with me, Jane, please? My mom will do all your laundry, and you can help me teach Cam how to beat SSX Tricky on the Gamecube."
Jane shakes her head. "No," she says. "No Boston. Hopefully not ever again, and definitely not for the holidays. You can let it go Frost," she says as the boy begins to argue, "There's nothing you can say to change my mind."
Frost frowns. "You don't have to do anything. It just doesn't make sense for you not to come home?"
Jane stares at him. "You are running out of arguments, if that's the weak sauce you are throwing at me," she says, going back to her cereal.
"Jane-"
"You're staying on campus for Thanksgiving?" Maura interrupts, making both Frost and Jane look around.
"No," Frost says, at the same time that Jane nods her head.
"Yeah," she says, waving Frosts protests away. "No, Frost, I love your family, and I love your Mom and Robin and Cam, but I'm always a third wheel," she pause to do some quick addition, "a fifth wheel," she amends.
Maura opens her mouth to say that she is not going home for Thanksgiving either, but what comes out is, "who are Cam and Robin?"
Frost sighs heavily, looking at Jane reproachfully, "They're my mom's partner and her son," he says, distractedly, "c'mon, Jane, think of the turkey...my mom'll make the stuffing you like, I already asked her. And I'm sure we could work out a way to see Frankie and Tommy without actually...you know...going around your-"
"No," Jane's voice turns cold instantaneously. "I'm not going."
Frost sighs again.
Maura picks one of the many burning questions she has and throws it into the air.
"You're mom is a lesbian?" She sounds too interested. Jane chuckles into her cereal.
"Yeah," Frost says casually, "She just came out like...a few years ago. Took her ages. I knew from the moment she divorced my dad."
"I found this kid knocking around an Ally meeting at the Pride Center downtown," Jane says through a mouthful of frosted flakes. "Thought he was gay, and that I could have a decent friendship with a guy that wouldn't get gross and complicated," she grins sweetly at Frost, who throws a homefry at her.
"Too bad for her she has awful gaydar," he fires back.
"And things got gross and complicated," Jane says with another chuckle, "There's a high school prom picture to back that statement up."
"But you came through it," Maura says earnestly, and both of them turn to look at her. She blushes a little, but doesn't look away. "You came through it and now you're best friends."
Jane nods, but Frost looks thoughtful.
In the silence that follows this, Maura allows another one of her questions to bubble up to the surface. "There's a Pride Center in Boston?" She asks now, Jane shoots Frost a look that she can't quite read before responding.
"There's one in every big city I'd guess."
Maura looks down at her plate, one egg, one half slice of toast, one cup strawberries. "Hmm," she says.
"They are full of information," Jane says, and there's that note in her voice again. Maura looks up into dark sparkling eyes, and feels her stomach flip over.
She blushes.
"Knock it off, Jay," Frost says, but his irritation is made less effective by his obvious amusement. He stands with his plate, and Jane follows suit, eyes wide in a perfect imitation of innocence.
"What?" she asks, as he heads to the door.
"You know perfectly well what," he calls over his shoulder, and Jane flashes a grin at Maura that makes her drop her fork.
"See you later, Maura," she says before hurrying after the drama major.
She is still watching the place where the two of them have disappeared, when Ian pulls up a chair at her table. He is usually the last at their table, opting to sleep in to the last possible moment, and then cram as much food as possible into his mouth at the last moment. Maura doesn't know how he does it.
"Wow," he says, and she whips around to look at him.
"What?" Maura says distractedly, "wow what?"
"Just...If I didn't know any better," he says slowly, "I'd say that you have it bad for Jane Rizzoli. Like...really bad."
Out of all of her friends, the new ones like Julius, and her first ever, like Frost, Maura finds she is most comfortable around Ian. There is no point in playing games with him.
"I assume by 'it' you mean...That I feel an attraction to her that goes beyond friendship?"
Ian nods, biting his lip in the way that tells her he's trying not to laugh. She sighs good naturedly. "What's the slang term for what I just said?" she asks, and he grins at her.
"Got the hots for," he says, and when she makes a face, "no? Okay, how about...you want her. You want in her pants. You would not mind a roll in the sack with that fine specimen."
She laughs, easily, and Ian laughs with her looking impressed. "You know, a week ago, if I had said any of those things, you would have crawled under the table in embarrassment."
Maura pushes a lock of her hair behind her ear and considers. Yes, she feels comfortable with Ian, she feels comfortable discussing these things, but there is still the popcorn like jumping of her insides, like she's had too much coffee.
"Don't rule it out just yet," she says.
Ian puts an entire croissant into his mouth, and Maura shakes her head, feeling a twinge of jealousy at his metabolism.
"Still," he says, "Am I wrong?"
Maura tries to swallow, but finds that her throat has gone completely dry. "That I, what was it, have the hots for Jane Rizzoli?" She takes a sip of water to avoid answering for a moment, and then, because there is nothing else to do, she replies honestly. "I don't know."
Ian makes a face, "Well your expression certainly knows."
She smiles fleetingly, but ends up sighing.
Ian sobers, "You really don't know?"
She shakes her head, and they fall into silence for a bit, Ian chewing on a second croissant, Maura reliving the way that Jane's smile had hit her in the chest, hard and full, like a pillow.
"I really don't know," she says again, and out of the corner, she sees Ian roll his eyes.
"What's not to know?" He asked. "She kissed you, and you ran away. She had you flustered enough that you stole CD's from the music library."
"Shhh!" Maura says, looking around. Ian laughs.
"You brought them back, Maura...anyway, besides that, Frost says you danced on Parent's Night, thinking about her, and Jesus fuck Maur," He runs a hand through his hair, "I know you don't like swears, but your dancing was the most amazing fucking thing I think I've ever experienced."
She blushes at the compliment, even though she wants to be upset over his language.
"Thank you," she says, even though she's shaking her head. "Thank you."
Ian huffs, "So what's the problem then?" He asks.
Maura opens her mouth, and then shuts it again, unsure what she wants to say. What is the problem? Jane is funny, smart, talented, passionate, clearly attracted to her, and she's…
"the first person I've ever kissed," Maura says, looking around at Ian.
"Huh?"
Maura raises her voice a little. "Jane is the first person that I've ever kissed," she says again, and Ian raises his eyebrows.
"You didn't kiss anyone in High School?"
Maura looks down into her lap, "No," she says shortly, unwilling to delve back into her high school social life, even with Ian.
"But...Garrett?"
"He kissed my cheek."
Ian sits back in his chair, thinking. "So," he says after a moment, "Jane is the first person that…"
"I've ever kissed," Maura supplies a little impatiently, "I just said that."
Ian nods, "Yeah, you did. That makes twice now that you said you kissed her. Every other time we've talked about it, you say she kissed you. I think that's a pretty big deal."
Maura looks back at him, completely shocked.
Ian smiles and glances at his watch, his eyes widening. "C'mon," he says, standing, "we've both got class."
Maura stands, and follows Ian out of the cafeteria, her mind a million miles away.
…...
Maura doesn't get to tell Jane that she is not leaving for Thanksgiving until Wednesday night, when she spots the pianist in the Student Center, on the public phone by the mail boxes. She heads over to her quickly, excitement pumping through her, but stops when she gets close enough to hear Jane's words, which are coming harsh and fast.
"No….no. I'm not. I'm not a child anymore, legally, so you can't make me."
Jane pauses, and whatever is said makes her go pale with new anger. "You don't control me anymore. You don't pay for my school, I don't live under your roof. I don't need anything from you and I-"
She's cut off, and Maura watches her listen for a minute longer before slamming the phone down.
She spins away, from the little kiosk, running her hands through her hair, "Fucking bit-" she begins before looking up and seeing Maura. She stops dead.
"Hi," Maura says quietly. "I wasn't eavesdropping, I swear. I just saw you across the hall and-"
"Are you parents dicks?" Jane asks, stepping right up to Maura.
"W-wha?"
"Sorry," Jane rolls her shoulders. "I mean, do you ever just want to scream at the top of your lungs that...that time doesn't just make everything better? That age and understanding can actually sometimes make things worse?" She searches Maura's face. "Do you ever just want to...to…"
But Maura must look scared or confused, or a combination of the two, because Jane drops her hands, and looks away.
"Sorry," she says. "I just...sometimes I think it's a good idea to talk to my mother...and I'm always wrong."
Maura doesn't know what to say. It is the first time Jane has offered up information on her past voluntarily. Maura resists the urge to reach out and take Jane's hand.
"I'm sorry."
Jane shrugs. "Doesn't matter."
The dancer frowns. "Of course it does," she says, and when Jane looks up at her, she offers a smile. "you matter. A great deal, Jane."
Jane looks taken aback, and they just stand there for a time, until the brunette seems to shake herself. "Why are you still here?" she asks.
Maura looks down at the floor, confused. "We were talking and I-"
Jane rolls her eyes, "No...Ms. Literal. I mean, why aren't you at home with your family? Thanksgiving? Turkey?"
"Oh," Maura blushes, "My mother and father are in Italy...they couldn't arrange for me to come out just for the four day weekend.
Jane looks at her a little skeptically. "I thought money could arrange anything," she says.
Maura makes a disgruntled noise. "Apparently not everything," she replies, mildly surprised at how bitter she sounds.
Jane seems surprised too, because she doesn't say anything for a moment, and then when she does speak, it comes out like a rush.
"I'm going to a soup kitchen if you want to go with me tomorrow night."
Maura's eyes widen, and Jane's mirror hers, a little panicky. "But if you don't I would totally understand-"
"No!" Maura smiles wide. "No! I would love to donate food with you! My family donates every year around the holidays."
Jane raises an eyebrow, "You go to soup kitchens?"
Maura frowns, "Go? No...we send food each year...is that...not what you're talking about?" She watches as Jane holds in a smart retort.
"No," the brunette says finally. "I mean actually going. I mean getting on the subway and going to ladle out soup and turkey and talk to the people and stuff. That's what my family did. You know…" she mumbles, "when we were still a family." She looks up from the floor at Maura, whose mind is racing.
"So?" she asks, and she almost manages not to sound hopeful. "You in?"
Maura does not say she's never been on the subway before. She does not say that the idea of meeting dozens, maybe hundreds of new people makes her a little weak with nerves. She holds on to the smidgeon of hope she'd heard in Jane's voice and she smiles up into the dark eyes.
"Yes," she says "I'm definitely in."
…...
Maura has never seen this side of Jane before. The ride to the soup kitchen is a whirl of metal sliding doors, and nauseous stops and starts. At one point, Maura forgets to hold onto one of the bars as they take off from a station, and Jane just manages to catch her around the waist before she topples head first into a row of seated passengers.
When they finally emerge, climbing the stairs up and into the chilly November wind, the tall buildings and friendly shop fronts have vanished, to be replaced by metal grates and cold, dark store fronts.
"Oh," Maura says, and Jane takes her arm, cautiously. She'd never imagined her donated food coming here...not in a million years.
.
The soup kitchen is in the back of a Catholic School, the auditorium converted into a cafeteria of sorts, and Maura cannot imagine a more dismal place to spend Thanksgiving. In the back of the place, there is a raised stage, with a dusty old piano sitting forlornly in front of an old greying curtain.
A smiling dark haired woman named Yvette greets them as they move further in, and they don aprons and pull their hair back, and stand in line with the other volunteers behind cavernous tureens of gravy and mountainous platters of turkey.
It is an eye opening experience. The phrase comes to Maura, and even though it feels stilted and lame, she cannot come up with a better one. She'd understood the general idea of where her family's donated food went, but there is something about donating time, actually looking at the people as she gives them their dinner, that feels deeper, more fulfilling.
She tries to smile at everyone who files past her, and she gives the little kids extra mashed potatoes when they shuffle through with their parents, but being surrounded by people who have no where else to go on Thanksgiving makes her feel a little achey with pity.
But Jane! If Jane feels the way Maura does, she is hiding it amazingly well. Maura watches her turn regular mashed potatoes into volcanoes of gravy, watches her talk honestly and earnestly to the parents and the older men and women, and she feels like there is a well of information on this girl that she has yet to plumb,
"She's a natural," Yvette says, coming up behind Maura and making her jump. "What's her story?"
"mm?" Maura turns, pretending she hasn't heard the question so she can have a chance to think of an answer.
"She said on the phone that you guys were a couple of college kids, but she's done this a bunch, right? It can be difficult, coming into a situation like this when you haven't before. Jane seems right at home though. Have you to done kitchens before?"
"I...no...I mean...I haven't. I don't know about Jane," Maura says honestly, "and we are college students. We go to Julliard."
Yvette looks impressed. "No kidding! And you're slumming down here with us?" She looks Maura up and down, then Jane. "What are you two...dancers?"
Maura smiles, "I am...Jane plays the piano."
Yvette looks excited, and Maura realizes why too late. "What?" She asks excitedly. "No way. Jane!" She calls out to the brunette who is talking quietly to a mother of three in the corner of the room.
She looks around, her eyes falling on Yvette and then Maura, trying to find the cause for excitement.
"You play the piano?" Yvette cries as Jane makes her way over. "You should have said! There's one right up there!" She points to the dusty piano that Maura noticed on their way in.
Jane's face has gone blank.
"Play us something, Jane!"
The brunette shoots a glare that goes straight through Maura. "Oh...no...I...couldn't."
"Maura says you play the piano at Julliard. Don't tell me you can't...EVERYONE!" Yvette turns to the crowd, and Jane takes the opportunity to glare at Maura again.
"Everyone! We are so lucky to have two volunteers with us tonight from Juilliard! And...doubly lucky that one of them plays the piano!"
"I'm so sorry," Maura whispers, "I wasn't thinking...I-"
But Jane shakes her head, and makes her way towards the little stage at the back of the room. "It's fine," she says, and Maura can tell she's just flipped the switch from reluctant to committed. She's not going to say no. "It's fine."
She climbs up onto the stage, and turns to face the audience.
"Hi," she says, "And as nervous and hesitant as she looked before, her voice does not shake now. She does not shy away from the hundreds of eyes that are now all looking at her. "My name's Jane, that's my friend Maura…we're really happy to be here with you guys tonight...so I can play some stuff for you, I guess. What do you want to hear?"
"Play jingle bells!" A little kid yells out before his mother shushes him.
Jane chuckles, "I can do that...of course...so could a monkey."
This garners a laugh from the crowd, and Jane's smile softens as she relaxes.
"Play something for Thanksgiving! Play something for us to say Grace to!"
Jane's eyes darken, as she seeks out the person who's suggested this. It takes Maura a moment to understand why.
"Grace?" She asks quietly.
"Yeah...play something, for grace!"
There are murmurs of agreement, and Jane turns from them abruptly, facing the piano.
For a moment it looks like she will get down from the stage, that she might walk out altogether. But then she sits down on the piano bench and puts her hands against the keys.
"Okay," she says, and her voice is a little lower, and a little rougher than it was a moment ago.
"Okay," she says again. "For Grace."
…...
If you were there, you would have been proud. I wasn't letting the same mistakes
get me this time around.
I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.
Wishin' for good advice, I was looking for you, Grace.
Looking for grace…
Maura is frozen. Every single part of her body seems to have gone numb. She's never heard this song before, and it is different than the pounding chords and intricate melodies that Jane usually plays. This song seems heavily reliant on her voice, the chords just running back up. Keeping Jane in the right key. Guiding her.
She's tied her hair back, to keep it away from the food she was serving, and so Maura has an unobstructed view of her profile, and the way, when she doesn't play, the soft skin of her temples jumps with concentration.
The chords might be simple, Maura thinks, but the lyrics are anything but.
The clouds were there, the rain and the sun. Everybody showed up
to this party for one.
I wasn't sure if you made it, through the rocky terrain
There was so much commotion, I couldn't see everything.
Oh, but I was shouting Grace
I have a heart that's breaking.
Just need some space to fall apart.
I have been stubborn lately,
running from you, grace.
Grace. grace. Maura can hear the change, can understand the verbal shift by the way Jane curls herself around the notes each time. The way she holds them, and the way she lets them go, like a hand she doesn't want to release. Like she doesn't have a choice.
The song itself is difficult, misleading and challenging, double bridged and minor winding, the physical manifestation of Jane's internal struggle, and Maura realizes, as Jane's hands shift slightly to hit the minor fall that she needs, that the brunette must have written it herself. There is no other way that something could embody her so perfectly, so naturally.
But what would they do without me to save once in a while from disharmony
And I am asking for patience, I just need some time
I have got some bad habits onto my mind.
Have I fallen from you, grace?
Maybe we are dancing, cheek to cheek.
And we could not be any closer and I still cannot reach…
grace.
Maura finds herself shaking her head. The song has pulled on something inside of her. Maybe it's the way she can see Jane reaching to hit the last notes of that bridge. The way she can so perfectly see her reaching for the real Grace. She looks up at the brunette now, trying to steady her breathing. Trying not to leap up and call out that Jane is the epitome of everything she thinks she lacks.
But the music quiets, and Jane opens her eyes, and looks down at her hands like she hadn't been fully aware that she was playing. Maura folds her hands together, holding her own fingers tight enough to turn her fingernails white.
I know things aren't perfect. I push you away. I get so full of myself.
And angry
And I know it is pride that keeps us apart
I think I am stronger with this wall round my heart
But I can't hold this wall up, Grace
I have a heart that's breaking.
Just need some space to fall apart.
I have been stubborn lately
running from you…Grace.
The last note lingers. Maura realizes she's been holding her breath. For a moment there is complete and utter silence in the tiny cafeteria. Jane stares down at her hands, lost in her own mind, until a man in the back row starts to clap and cheer.
Slowly, the others join in, until nearly everyone is clapping, and Jane looks up and around at them like she'd completely forgotten where she was.
"Good job, Janie!" A woman near Maura cries out, and the brunette's eyes settle on the woman, and then on Maura.
Maura is clapping too, clapping so hard that her hands hurt, and smiling up at the pianist, though her heart is screaming at her to get up! Go up there!
She doesn't. She stays in her seat, and looks up at Jane and tries to show with her face how beautiful and amazing the song was. She tries and maybe Jane understands, because slowly, like the first time a flower gets touched by the sun, Jane starts to smile too.
"Enough of this sad, heartfelt, mushy gushy crap!" An old man in the back yells. "Play something upbeat, girly! Play something to make the food taste better!"
Maura thinks that Jane is going to decline, that she'll step down from the piano, and defer to one of the volunteers. But she looks hard at the old man, like she's sizing him up, and then, without looking down at her hands, she begins to play a new song, fast and upbeat, and when Maura glances at the man again, she sees he is grinning from ear to ear.
"That's more like it!" He cries, before beginning to sing
Give him a fire in his heart, give him a lion in his eyes.
Give him the wild wind for a brother, and the wild Montana skies.
It's a song that Maura has never heard before, but by the end of the last chorus, Jane has people clapping. She catches Maura's eye as the song comes to an end, and then, much to Maura's surprise, she calls out. "Who's next?" She fixes them all with a glare that is both challenging and welcoming.
"You can't stump this!" she cries.
A rush of sound fills the little auditorium as people rush to get their songs out before the person next to them.
Jane takes requests like a jukebox. Maura can only sit in the little plastic chair at the volunteer table and try to keep her mouth from hanging open in awe. The people at the soup kitchen are mostly older men and women, although there are some kids tagging along with their parents as well, and they shout titles and genres out to Jane as though she should know each person's private rolodex of favorite songs.
And maybe she does, Maura thinks, as plays the opening chords to a song, and a man and woman stand up and begin to dance with each other.
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop!
But if, baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top!
Maura loves how expressive the brunette is when she plays. So many of their interactions for the past two weeks have been cloaked in a sort of guarded sarcasm, that Maura's forgotten what it's like to see Jane really commit to something.
It occurs to Maura that even if the Jane she's been getting has been a bit sarcastic and a little teasing, that she has at least adapted in order to be around the dancer. That means she must want to be around her...doesn't it?
Maura is roused from her thoughts as Yvette rises from the seat next to her, along with maybe ten of the other volunteers, and belts out the chorus of the song that Jane is playing.
This girl is on fiiiireeee.
This girl is on fireeee
She's walking on fireee
This girl is on fireeee
up on the little raised platform, at the piano, Jane throws her head back and laughs.
Maura does not want to kiss anyone else.
…
They don't get back on the subway. Jane says that the subway stop they'd have to take is too risky after nightfall, and so they take refuge from the wind at a busstop, Jane flopping down onto the hard steel steet and looking away from Maura, up the road. It's nearly 10, on Thanksgiving, and the streets are as deserted as it is possible to get in NYC. Maura watches the back of Jane's head until she cannot stay silent any longer.
"You were amazing," she says quickly, "I mean...you are amazing everywhere, but especially in there, playing all those songs for those people...it really made their holiday. You're...well, you're amazing."
Jane turns her head slowly to look at her, and when their eyes meet, Maura shudders.
"You cold?" Jane asks, already unbuttoning her coat. "You want to wear this over your-"
"No," Maura shakes her head, though she can't helps smiling. "No, Jane, don't be ridiculous. I'm fine." Her declaration is undermined as she shivers again.
"You're cold," Jane says, "Come over here, sit next to me." She says it without thinking, and her eyes dart up to Maura's and then away when she realizes the implications of her words. "I mean," she adds weakly, "if you want to."
Maura moves closer, but doesn't sit. She inspects the hard metal of the bench. "Do you know how many germs the common bus bench has?"
Jane snorts, "If you could die from a bus bench, Maur, I'd be dead a thousand times over. You can sit. I promise not to let any germs bite you."
Up close, Jane still smells like turkey and gravy, and before she can really think her decision through, Maura sits down on her lap.
Jane stops breathing for a moment. "Uh...Maura?"
"Jane."
"You're sitting on my lap."
"Statistically speaking, your jeans are much less infectious than a bus stop bench."
"Is that compliment?" Maura feels Jane's hands come up to rest in the small of her back. They press her forwards, gently, and when Maura gives in, they slide up to her shoulders and back down, again and again and….
This was the right decision.
"Jane…" She can hear in her own voice that she is gearing up for a real conversation, and Jane must hear it as well, because her hands stop.
"Don't, Maura," she says quietly. "I'm just warming you up. I'm not coming on to you."
Maura bites her lip, and then lets it slide through her teeth. "I wish you were," she says quietly.
The hands stop again, for a second, and then continue on.
"What?" It's not really a question, just permission to go on.
"I…" Maura turns her head, looking into Jane's face. "I cant' do anything but think about you. Think about us. Think about when you...when we kissed."
Jane's hands tighten for a moment on Maura's back. "We kissed?" She asks slowly.
"Yes," Maura replies firmly. "We...kissed. And...I...it was wonderful."
"Was it?" Jane is whispering, like if she yells it will ruin the moment. Maura takes a breath, and slowly, she leans down and presses her lips to the exposed part of Jane's neck. "I danced for you," she says against the warmth of the brunette's skin. "I danced that way on Parent's Night for you, Jane. I know I've been dragging my feet and messing things up...and I can't make excuses for dating Garrett, but I just-"
But Jane dips her head and meets Maura's lips with her own.
And anything Maura was going to say is wiped completely from her mind. She wraps her arms around Jane's neck, and leans into the kiss.
She makes sure there is no way for Jane to run.