Author's note: thank you very much for all the reviews, I'm glad to see you're liking this story after the long Punta Cana series.

Chapter Ten: How To Fight Against Feelings

It's the story of a girl who likes girls. And boys. It has always been this way and she doesn't see why it should change. She hasn't told it to anyone. Too many remarks already, something that may make her feel uncomfortable. And not a single glorious relationship to eventually break the news.

One day she meets this girl, they become friends and before she has a chance to realize what is going on... She is in love with her. The feelings are there, she knows it. It's clear. But there's no reason for her to say it because it's vain. The other girl isn't into her.

For years she thinks that her friend only likes boys. She speaks about them, dates them. Then one day it turns out that reality might be slightly different.

But it doesn't change anything for the other girl because she lacks courage to make a step. Anyway, she knows that her friend only likes her. She's not in love. Just confused right now.

So why even trying if it's to ruin what they already have? See?

Sitting on a stool at the bar, Jane bit her thumb and looked at Maura. The honey blonde was dancing with Apolline; a Martini in hand. She looked happy.

You're a coward, Rizzoli. A freaking coward.

She had hidden the cameo from Maura. Too complicated. What would she have said? How would she have explained Deirdre's gesture otherwise? She had discreetly put it in her suitcase and tried more or less successfully to let the day carry her away until the bridal shower.

A pub – music – and drinks.

Obviously, it wasn't tonight that Jane would experiment a drastic cultural contrast. Scottish bridal showers looked exactly like American ones.

Sighing heavily, she turned around again and raised a hand to catch the bartender's attention.

Rather hopeless action.

Amy was in full seduction mode with the poor guy who had lost it to her lowcut. A very unfair battle. Maura's cousin surely had appealing curves, Jane had to recognize it.

If the drink doesn't come to you... The brunette pushed on her hands – sitting up – and leaned over the bar to grab a bottle of Vodka that had been abandoned nearby. She was about to settle back on her seat to pour herself a new drink when a sudden – full - contact with her buttocks made her freeze.

"Hey..."

Maura's whisper slid up to her ear; her hot breath sending a shiver down her spine right away. Jane swallowed hard – let go of the bottle – and turned around if only to get her friend's hands off from such intimate part of her body. Needless to say the scientist wasn't very sober anymore.

The blonde ran her tongue over her lips and smiled mischievously. "Dance with me."

Jane shook her head. She wasn't in the mood. As a matter of fact, she shouldn't have come to the pub in the first place.

She needed quietness and felt like being alone. But before she had a chance to add something, the medical examiner's fingers were already going suggestively up her thighs. She tried to make a step backwards but bumped into the counter. Great. Maura had literally pinned her and was now approaching; making her way between her legs like a spider walking to a prey.

"I'm not... No." Uncomfortable, the Italian grabbed her friend's hands – took them off her waist – as she felt Amy's odd gaze on her. "I don't feel like dancing, Maur'."

The honey blonde pouted, shrugged. "Then maybe we can find another kind of activity you would like to take part in...?"

What on Earth, Rizzoli?

Jane giggled at the comment, out of nervousness. It was the first time she saw Maura intoxicated and – for some reason – she hadn't assumed that her friend could turn out to be so seductive after too many drinks.

The timing could have hardly been worse, though. It was pure torture. The kind that made Jane's heart ache to the point she felt like disappearing in an ocean of tears because of so many untold feelings.

...

"Will you... Be quiet!" Holding firmly a very tipsy Maura, Jane opened the door of their bedroom and let her friend sit on the edge of the bed before leaning herself against the wall to catch back her breath.

It had taken her forever to get the scientist up to the right floor. Maura was unable to make a step without losing her balance and giggling hysterically like a schook girl. How many drinks had she had, exactly? And why? She never gave into binge drinking like that.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! What are you doing?" Not a second to have a rest. Jane rushed to the bed just on time to catch back her friend who seemed to have given an attempt to an escape by crawling on the floor.

As expected, Maura giggled and clutched to the brunette's arms to stand back up. "I was going for... You!" Her index finger crashed on Jane's chest as she slurred the last word.

The Italian got tense, swallowed hard. She had spent the evening pushing Maura away. Thankfully, nobody seemed to have noticed anything. Apart from Amy, for a couple of seconds maybe. But the woman had then simply assumed that she wasn't in the mood.

Which wasn't far from the truth.

Jane grabbed Maura's wrists to make her stop caressing her hips suggestively. "I think you should go to bed, now."

"Oh yeah we should... You think I did... didn't see your little game?" The blonde suddenly turned serious – or at least as much as her intoxication allowed her to – and she squinted her eyes at her friend. "I know what you're doing, Jane. I'm not... I'm not st-... Stupid!"

"No, indeed. You're drunk."

Jane's reply got welcome by a chuckle. "And so what?"

With an unexpected fluidity, Maura turned around and walked to the four-poster bed. Someone had lit up the fireplace; probably Charles. The room was warm in spite of the cold outside. Without saying the mere word, the scientist took off her stilettos losing thus six inches within a second. Jane approached and put a protective hand on her hip just to make sure that the sudden difference would not make Maura lose her balance.

"Do you want a glass of water?"

The honey blonde shook her head – looked up – and turned around to face her friend. The pale light of the moon pierced through the window, sliding on the hardwood floor; leaving rays of silver on an expensive carpet which colors had faded away with the passing of time. The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

"No." Maura's whisper echoed the imperceptible touch of her fingers along Jane's arms. The ghost of a caress as she let them travel up hesitantly.

The detective didn't move. Clutched desperately to her friend's eyes, she suddenly felt tired. Tired of pretending, tired of pushing Maura away over and over. Tired of everything.

She didn't react when the blonde passed her arms around her neck to drag her closer, didn't complain a second when she felt her friend's breath getting dangerously closer to her mouth for what seemed to be the prelude to an inevitable kiss, now.

She was losing the battle, losing the fight over her own feelings.

It turned out to be tentative, almost chaste; contrasting sharply with the strong desires that had just started rushing to her heart. The explosion of warm feelings in her lower stomach. Maura's lips on hers in an echo of the fragility of their relation. Until the blonde deepened the kiss and let her hands slide down to Jane's waist with authority.

Succumbing to the embrace, the brunette gasped in Maura's mouth before pushing her towards the bed. She unzipped her dress, smiled at the moan of pleasure her gesture brought to her friend. Her hands went up these curves she had fantasized about shamefully enough. The thighs, the hips. Her breasts.

A frenzy of feelings betrayed by feverish caresses.

And then it hit her.

"No!" The murmur of her scream put an abrupt end to the whole thing. She made a step backwards, just to be sure that Maura wouldn't try to grab her back. "No..." This time, her voice sounded more like a plea; a bitter, desperate one.

The medical examiner frowned. She seemed to be completely taken aback. "You don't want me?"

Jane swallowed hard and looked aside; too coward to lock her eyes into hurt hazel ones. "More than you can imagine." She shook her head, took a deep breath. Her voice betraying the inner battle of her feelings. "But not like that. I don't want it to turn into a blurry uncertainty once you wake up in the morning."

Hardest decision she had taken in her whole life. The wisest one as well, probably.

"Now go to bed. I'll bring you a glass of water."

Without waiting for any complain, she walked to the bathroom looking more for an escape than anything else. She took her time, there; tried to calm down her heartbeats, the strong desire to go back to Maura's lips, sweep away whatever her conscience might have been saying.

After long minutes of indecision, she timidly walked back to the bed - in the dark - and looked down. She smiled. Maura had slipped under the blanket and closed her eyes. She was sleeping now.