Chapter 10 :
Back to basics :
The next morning Jane wake up around 7 am still holding Maura as tight as she could. After spending most of the night sobbing and shaking Maura had finally fallen asleep a few hours ago and now seemed peaceful. Unwilling to wake her up Jane laid there looking up the ceiling thinking about their last conversation.
Over the past few years Maura had slowly opened up about her parents, her education and the neglect she suffered from her entire life. Unfortunately up until now Jane had failed to see how deep this neglect had affected her. Now determined to make up for her mistake Jane quickly realized that even if she would probably be able to make up for the lack of love she experienced during her childhood Maura, in order to heal would have to confront her parents and if not fix their relationship at least tell them how she has been feeling her entire life.
Around 8 O'clock hearing her belly desperately crying for food Jane decided to slowly slipped out of Maura's embrace hoping she wouldn't wake her up.
"Don't forget to lock the door behind you please."Maura mumbled her head deeply buried in her pillow.
"I…I'm not leaving, I was just going to prepare some breakfast." Jane replied sitting on the edge of the bed trying to put her sweater on.
"Oh. I'm sorry. I just thought…"
"You thought what you told me last night completely freaked me out and that I was about to leave without even saying goodbye?" Sitting back in bed rubbing Maura's back trying to make her open her eyes and look at her Jane knew being extremely pride and secretive herself that telling the truth about how she felt must have been hard even painful for Maura and couldn't blame her for thinking she was about to leave like that.
"Yes. I suppose I did. I apologize for assuming that, I know it's not your type." Maura sighed flipping on her back.
"Exactly, I told you I wasn't going anywhere for now and I meant it, so just relax and let me get you something to eat."Jane smiled gently stroking Maura's cheek with the back of her hand.
"For now? Fair enough. I couldn't expect you to come back to me just because I opened up to you. Actually you should leave now, please."Pulling up the covers over her head Maura realized that Jane's interest as genuine as it was didn't mean anything, that she would go back to her apartment eventually leaving her heart broken.
"Don't do this alright? You're smarter than this. You know that even if you told me the truth I'm still hurt and it's going to take me time for me to forgive you and move on, but I'm here for you. I want to help you, so let me."Seeing Maura's pain Jane started to realize that staying and sharing her bed might not have been the smartest thing to do, that it might have confused Maura and lead her to believe this meant that they were getting back together.
"I can't. I can't be here with you and not being able to kiss you or to touch you. I would much rather take care of myself with my therapist's help. I will contact you once I recovered now please go."Under her covers almsot unable to breath Maura was embarrassed and didn't want to have to face Jane after making such a fool of herself.
"Not going to happen, I failed you once and I won't make the same mistake twice, so take your time, I will be waiting for you in the kitchen."Walking towards the kitchen Jane knew that Maura was right, being here with her, talking to her, helping her without being able to truly be with her would be excruciating. She knew that as hurt as she still was refraining the urge to hold her and kiss her would be hard, especially seeing how her hurt she was.
Maura stayed in bed for another thirty minutes, cursing at Jane for being so stubborn. The only good thing with being separated was the she was free to work with her therapist at her own pace without feeling pressured, but having Jane here with her was more than she could handle. She knew that she would probably not be able to refrain from the urge to jump in her arms and beg for forgiveness. Unfortunately she knew that there was no way she could make Jane change her mind.
So after half an hour of debating rather or not she should fight Jane a bit more Maura jumped out of bed, cleaned the dried make up off her face and joined Jane in the kitchen.
"It smells good in here." Maura said forcing herself to smile.
"Well the only thing I was able to prepare was french toast and a fruit salad, you really need to get something shopping done."
"I don't fell like cooking these days so I just order in."Maura replied shrugging her shoulder as she sat at the counter.
"Hasn't my mom been here recently?I know the two of you love to cook together."Sitting next to Maura leaving her plate and cup of coffee in front of her Jane had a feeling that Maura had completely isolated herself since they had broken up.
"No, she calls me almost daily but I always find a way to keep her from coming here. I just don't know what to tell her. I know we agreed on what we should tell people but your mother is…well she has been more of a mother to me over the past 5 years than my own mother has been over the past 35 years. I just can't lie to her."Ever since Maura had met Jane 5 years ago she has always felt part of her family and Angela has been treating her like a daughter since the first time they met. When Jane and her started dating the two women became even closer and Maura was able to experience what having a mother meant and she couldn't bear the thought of having to tell Angela that she broke her daughter's heart.
"Alright, I understand, but you I can't stand the idea of you being away from my mother like that so once you feel ready to talk to her I will be here by your side to tell her the truth."Jane said holding her hand.
"Thank you. Maybe if she sees that you don't hate me and that you're willing to work with me to rebuild our relationship she won't hate me." Maura smiled taking a sip at her coffee.
"My mother would never hate you. Actually I'm pretty sure she's going to understand once you tell her what you told me and she might be able to help you if you want her to of course."
"Maybe..Can we please talk about something else?"
"Sure. So is there anything you would want us to do today?It's mid november so it's pretty cold out there but I'm sure we could find something to do inside."Taking a bite at her toast Jane understood that not inly Maura had to deal with forgiving herself for hurting her but also for disappointing Angela and the trust she had put in her and was praying that Angela would understand and give her a second chance.
"Look Jane, not that I'm not grateful for what you're doing here but what exactly are we doing? I mean you're here, you spent the night in our bed holding me, comforting me and now you're refusing to leave but you still don't feel ready to give me another chance. What are we... friends?"
"We have to start somewhere right?"
"I agree, but I don't know if sending us back 5 years ago is the right thing to do Jane. I mean I spent so many years being your friend, talking to you about my past, allowing you to help me, spending nights sleeping in the same bed, allowing people to make all kinds of assumptions about us and it almost killed me Jane. Having to ignore my feelings all those years because I knew you weren't ready to face your own feelings almost killed me . I know that I deserve your lack of trust and your hesitation but I don't think I can handle being your friend and wait for you to be ready all over again. I think we should just go our separate ways until my therapy is over and I finally come to terms with what happened to me as a child."
"Maura look at me. I'm so sorry for being so scared for so long but…this is not the same. I'm hurt and I'm a bit reluctant to give you another chance , I'll admit it, but I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you and I have no intention of denying those feelings. I will spend the rest of my life telling you that if that's what you need but I'm convinced that we both need time, that rushing in a relationship too fast would be a mistake. You have a lot of soul searching to do and so do I and I don't want to rush things, you're too important for me to take the risk to screw things up, please try to understand."Holding both of Maura's hand looking at her straight in the eyes Jane cold see the pain in her eyes and the tears at the corner of her beautiful eyes but couldn't help but being convinced that rushing into a relationship without having solve their issues wasn't the proper way to do it.
"I suppose you're right, rushing back into a relationship would be a mistake and I have to admit that being myself has been beneficial so far. It allowed me to work with my therapist without feeling pressured, to go at my own pace you know. I just don't know if I can be your friend again, and resist the urge to…you know."
"I understand. It might be hard at times but you and I are strong and we after all we have been through together I know we can do this. Come on now eat your toast before they get cold."Over the past 5 years Jane and Maura had been through a lot : They had finding out that Patrick Doyle was her biological father and his ennemies threatening Maura's life, they had survived hostages situations and Jane shooting herself and even survived Hoyt several times . Actually considering the hardest thing they even through together was Hoyt holding them captive and almost captives and it actually lead them to face and admit their feelings Jane was convinced that after going through hell together they could get through this.
For the next half hour Maura and Jane ate their breakfast in silence knowing that starting over and being friends would be hard if not excruciating but they both knew it was the only way. On one hand Maura knew Jane wasn't ready to forgive her just yet and was grateful to be close to her again and Jane that as hard this was gonna be knew that Maura needed her and wasn't willing to fail her again.
Right after breakfast Maura took a quick shower, went back into their bedroom, grabbed Jane's dirty suit, threw it in the washing machine and came back with fresh a pair of jeans, a tank top, socks, panties, and bra and handed them to Jane.
"Oh, I thought I took everything last time I was here."Jane replied surprised to see she had actually left some clothes behind.
"I…kept those aside hoping that you might need them at some point. Your suit is in the washing machine , it should be clean in an hour but it might take a while for it to dry because…"
"You can not possibly put a designer suit in at the dryer, I know. I'll go take a shower if you don't mind. Shouldn't take long."Jane smiled ghosting a tender kiss on her cheek before walking towards the bathroom.
Leaving Maura out of breath standing in the middle of the living room Jane walked towards the bathroom, took a quick shower, got dressed and sat down for a few minutes trying to figure out if this was a good idea after all.
"Is this a good idea?Damn, how am I suppose to be friends with her?She's right being friends for years without being able to kiss or hold her almost killed me too. But am I ready to give her more?No, I just…it's not that I don't trust her I just I feel that until she works out on her self loathing and self confidence issue we can not be a couple or I'm going to spend the rest of my life fearing that she might feel insecure and cheat on me again. Actually I don't think she's ready either. Going to therapy and figuring out why she cheated and having all her insecurities resurfacing like that must have been hard and I'm convinced that being together as a couple again would put too much pressure on her and might lead her to make another mistake. Until she's healed and regains confidence in herself you can not be more than friends. How am I going to rest kissing her, those lips, and those breasts…Come on Rizzoli you resisted for years, it shouldn't be that hard…."
After putting herself together Jane joined Maura back into the living room and was surprised to find her sitting on the couch, the remote control in her hand.
"Are we watching tv?"Jane asked seeing all the gummy bears and marshmallows packages on the coffee table.
"Yes, I was going through our external hard drive and after considering it I thought that we could watch…"
"Oh please not a romantic comedy please please…"Jane pouted sitting next to her.
"No. I found the perfect compromise between your tastes and mine. We my dear are going to watch… Forrest Gump."Maura proudly stated knowing it was Jane's favorite movie.
"Sweet…"Settling as close to Maura as she possibly could instinctively wrapping her arms around her shoulder knew that watching movies together and spend the afternoon might be what the needed, that chilling out for a while was necessary after having so many heavy and heart breaking conversations.
"Indeed. It's as much as a historical movie as it a romantic affair between this man and the woman he loved since he was a child and it has a reasonable amount of action."Maura smiled shivering a little as she felt Jane's arm around her.
"Well, thank you."
For the rest of the afternoon Jane and Maura stayed home watching movies eating gummy bears and marshmallows. Maura wasn't actually paying too much attention to the movies but was thinking about what happened last night and this morning and couldn't wait to talk her therapist about it. As disappointed as she was she was also full of hope that with Jane's help she would be able to close her wounds hopefully for ever and move on and work on their future. Jane on the other hand was trying to focus on the movies and not on Maura in her arms breathing heavily on her chest.
For the past two weeks the two women had struggled to find away back towards each other and today for the first time they had seemed to have found it. After considering it carefully the two women decided that the best way to rebuild they relationship was actually to go back to where it started hoping that with the Dr Turner's help and thanks to Jane determination and unconditional support their newly found friendship would turn into a committed relationship once again, but this time free of fears, shame or self loathing.
Alright guys, I know some of you must be disappointed that they're not back together yet. But if you think about it, it doesn't make sense for them to rush into a relationship. Clearly Jane isn't ready to trust her again at least until she solves her issues and Maura isn't ready either and knows that being on a own give her the time and space she needs but as both of them know Maura can't do it without Jane and considering they can't live without each other I think that this is a fair compromise. Going back to where it all started...
Next chapter will be a new therapy session, time for Maura to open up about her childhood.