"Please," Jane arches her back, her voice catching on the one word she can seem to stop repeating. "please, please."
She flexes her hips, looking for release. The woman above her (not her wife) giggles against her ear, lowering herself so that they are flush against each other.
"Please what?" she whispers.
Jane grunts, pressing upwards, "please. Please more."
The woman's dark blonde hair drags across Jane's chest as she obliges, and Jane bites the unfamiliar shoulder to muffle her moan as it is ripped from her chest.
"Oh," she says, breathing hard, and the tendrils of guilt that had wrapped themselves around her seem to give way to waves of pleasure. This woman is not hers, not her wife. She is too soft and too small. But she is right.
She is right too.
"Oh," Jane says again as another wave of pleasure crests and breaks over her, and she can feel the other woman moving against her in time, her own gasps pushing Jane higher and closer.
"I-I love you," it is true the moment she leaves her lips. It is not just the rush of adrenaline that brings the words out of her, but a deep and powerful desire to say them. She puts her hands on the other woman's hips, to steady herself, to prepare. "Oh," she says, feeling herself getting closer. "Oh, I-I love you so much."
"and the woman pulls back, her deep green eyes coming to rest on Jane's face. She smiles, and it is affectionate and loving and lust filled all at once. Jane shuts her eyes, sure that she will come apart if she's watching the woman as she says the words back.
"I love-" the woman begins, but then she sucks in a deep breath of air, as though she is surprised.
Jane opens her eyes to see her looking back, green eyes wide and astonished, lips parted as though she's seen something upsetting and can't quite comprehend.
Jane frowns, and leans herself forward to kiss the pink full lips above her, like she could coax them back into life with her own.
And that's when she feels it, dripping down between their bodies, coating her hands that still rest on the woman's hips. It is hot and sticky and there is far, far too much of it.
Jane looks down, and the cry that comes from her now is not of pleasure but of despair.
She rolls them so that she is on top, so that she can take her red-dyed hands and press them firmly against the woman's abdomen. Panic makes it hard to think, makes it hard to breathe and her sobs are choked and stunted as she tries to pull in enough air to feed her brain.
"No," she says over and over again, a plea quite different than the one from moments before. "No, nono no" until her words run together and she feels tears hot and wet on her cheeks.
The woman's eyes stay the same wide open surprise as Jane trembles above her, praying and pressing her hands hard against the wound. Her mouth moves soundlessly, and she isn't saying words so much as mouthing the vowles of her surprise and her pain.
She does not look accusatory, but Jane knows this is her fault as sure as she knows that Kate's death was. She did not see him coming. She allowed herself to get comfortable. to have fun.
She did not see him coming.
She cannot protect this woman.
She cannot protect anyone.
"No. No." She says, and she's truly crying now, her tears dripping of the end of her nose and on to the woman's neck.
"Maura."
As soon as she says the name, that's who she is. That hair, those delicate wrists and fingers. This eyes….losing life.
"Maura. No," There's nothing to do. No one that could come fast enough.
Maura's lips (pink a moment ago, now blue) move again. just vowels. I…O…U…
Jane hiccups a sob, her red wet hands coming up to carress a cheek.
I O U
No. Not just vowels. Jane realizes as the light leaves Maura's eyes. She hasn't been saying nothing. She's been saying everything.
I love you.
"Maura." she pulls the name out long, like if she could stretch it and bend it she could bring the doctor back.
"Maura."
She is nothing but guilt and torture and pain.
She does nothing but betray.
She is empty. A shell.
"Maura."
Jane opens her eyes.
…
Maura sips her coffee and looks at the clock above the oven which reads 7:15am. It's Saturday, but it's still rare for Jane and the girls to still be sleeping. Usually they all wake up before her, and she brushes her teeth to the sound of Zoe and Maya laughing in the living room.
But this morning she had descended the stairs to find the kitchen as silent as a ghost town, nothing stirring. She'd made herself coffee and watched the 6:30 news, wondering at the way her old rituals seemed too quiet and too empty without the Rizzoli's to add some color.
But 6:30 turns into 7:00 turns into 7:35, and Maura sighs and settles herself at the kitchen counter with her newspaper. She knows that Jane has not been sleeping well. She can read it in the dark circles under the brunette's eyes, and the way that, after dropping the girls off at school, Jane slumps against the window of Maura's car, her eyes almost falling shut.
Yesterday, when they had pulled up to the precinct, Maura realized that Jane was deep asleep, her fatigue already catching up to her. She'd put her hand tentatively on the detective's shoulder, and Jane had started awake, reaching out and grabbing the doctor's wrist with enough force to make her wince.
"Maura!" Jane's eyes had been wide and a little glassy.
"Jane," Maura had said calmly, slipping into her clinical mode without thinking. "It was a dream. You're alright."
Jane's eyes had cleared a little, and she'd let go of Maura's wrist looking ashamed. "I must have fallen asleep," she'd said, reaching for her door handle. "You're alright?" one furtive look at the doctor.
Maura had smiled reassuringly. "Yes. I'm fine. You sure you want to train today?"
Jane had simply nodded.
But as the days go on, and September deepens, the detective's symptoms seem to get worse. The more Jane works towards regaining her badge, the worse her nightmares seem to get, and the worse her nightmares get, the harder Jane pushes herself.
Sometimes Maura wakes up in the night, noise from the kitchen or the sound of the living room will wake her, and once, what woke her was a deep and strangled cry. Maura will sit up, listening to the haunted woman as she prowls the first floor of her house, and wonder if there's anything she can do.
.
Newspaper aside, eyes glassy with thought, Maura almost misses the faint movement at the corner of her periphery. She turns her head just in time to see two light eyes disappear around the corner.
She stands up quietly, heading towards the door to the kitchen. "Maya?" She calls gently. "Is that you honey?"
She rounds the corner into the hall to see both Maya and Zoe standing there looking guilty.
"Hi," Maya tries to say casually.
Maura grins, "What are you two doing up? I thought you were sleeping in."
"I'm completely sleeped out," Maya says huffily. "Mama will not get out of bed."
Concern tempers Maura's delight at seeing the girls. "Oh?" She moves down the hall towards Jane's room. "Did you talk to her, sweetheart?"
Maya nods vigorously. "Yes," she says grumpily. "I told her today was the play, and Nona and Uncle Frankie are coming to it, and she promised to get up to help me practice…"
Maura pauses outside of Jane's door, knocking quietly. There is no answer.
"And what did she says when you said all that?" Maura asks, trying to keep her voice light, her mind whirring over depression and disease.
"She said she had thirty seven minutes of sleep. She said she needed at least thirty seven more to fun-tion," Maya says, and Maura steps away from the door, relief sweeping her. She hadn't heard Jane up last night, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
"Alright," she says, studying the pajama clad children in front of her. "Alright, well what do you say we give your mother some more time to rest, then?"
Maya looks skeptical, while Zoe looks excited. the toddler stretches her arms out to Maura, and the doctor lifts her up onto her hip, surprised at how normal it feels when the little girl burrows in there.
"pans?" she asks hopefully. "pancates?"
Maya grins, looking happy now too. "Yeah!" she cries, "Can we make pancakes?"
Maura nods, happy that both girls seem so easy to please. "Yes," she says turning back towards the kitchen. "Definitely."
.
Maya's first ever school play is happening this evening at her school, and the first grader has been able to talk about nothing else. She and her classmates are doing a rendition of Eric Carl's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," and it was with great pride, that Maya announced one night at the dinner table, that she would be playing the role of "piece of cake."
"I'm sorry?" Jane had said, throwing Maura a look.
Maya had rolled her eyes impatiently. "I got to be piece of cake, Mama!" she'd said, puffing up a little. "It's the last thing the caterpillar eats before he 'cides to hiba nate."
"Actually," Maura had said, smiling at the little girl. "It's not a hibernation at all…what happens in the cocoon is that-"
"I know…I know," Maya had said, "it's a transfahmation!"
Jane had put her hand over Maura's briefly, effectively wiping the correction from Maura's mind.
"So you're…the cake," Jane had said, grinning at Maura.
"Yes! An' I have one line." Maya had gotten up from her seat, her face twisted with concentration. "Dont eat me, Mr. Caterpillar," she'd said in a deep voice "You're fit to burst already." And then she'd looked around at the adults, expectant.
Maura had never seen Jane laugh so hard in her life.
"It's not funny, Mama!" Maya had scolded. But Jane got up and went to hug her daughter, still laughing. "YOu are going to be the best piece of cake there ever was," she'd said, squeezing Maya tightly.
Maya grinned over Jane's shoulder at Maura. "Will you come, Maura?"
And those little eyes, so hopeful. And Jane's eyes on her too.
How could the doctor say no?
…
They are out in the back yard when Jane finally makes an appearance. Maya and Zoe are running around. Maya giggling madly and Zoe running after her calling "fit to burt catter piyar! fit to burt!"
Maura is nursing a third cup of coffee and wondering how she will get them into real clothes if Jane does not wake up.
But she hears the screen door slide open and then shut behind her, and then a moment later, Jane is next to her. Their knees grazing each other lazily.
"I slept," Jane says unnecessarily. Her hair is still bed crazy.
Maura smiles, "finally."
Jane doesn't ask what she means by this, but she reaches over and gently pulls the coffee cup out of Maura's hands, lifting it to her own lips. Maura watches, torn between amusement and shock.
Jane wrinkles her nose. "You don't put enough cream in."
Maura laughs, "I don't put enough cream in my coffee, Jane?" She asks, and Jane grins, turning to look at her.
For a split second, Jane looks surprised, like it wasn't Maura she was expecting to see. But then the look is gone. Jane grins.
"Correct," she says looking out at her children. Zoe is too tired to chase Maya anymore. Instead, she pivots on the spot, following her sister's moves by rotating every time she streaks by.
"How am I supposed to mooch if you don't prepare your food and beverages to my liking?"
Maura laughs again, reaching to take the coffee back. Their fingers graze each other.
Was fall always so vibrant?
She clears her throat. "I've been thinking," she says and Jane turns to look at her. "We could fit a little play structure back here."
She watches out of the corner of her eye as Jane contemplates the back yard. "Those are expensive," she says finally.
Maura feels her heart lift. "Well…" she pretends to consider this statement, though she is really working out how to manage Jane's pride. "We could go halves…since you couldn't take it with you…" She pauses, "if you had to go."
"Mama!" Zoe has spotted her, and comes running towards her, Maya in hot pursuit. When they reach the adults, Maya collapses against Maura and Zoe climbs up into Jane's lap.
"Didja hear from Gramma, Ma? Can she come?" Maya asks from Maura's lap.
Jane looks at her for a moment, and then pulls her cell phone out of her pocket, holding it up. "What does this say?" She asks, smiling at Maura as her daughter begins to sound out the words.
"cah, cah, cant w-wait to sssseee you. Can't wait to see you! hooray!" Maya pulls herself up from Maya's lap, running off again. "I'm going to be the best cake ever!" she cries, and Zoe struggles after her, calling "cake!"
Maya laughs, but stops when she looks at Jane. The other woman is looking at her, face hard to read.
"Jane?"
"It has to have a slide that goes in a circle," she says quietly. "And swings."
Maura nods, something warm settling in her chest, next to her heart.
"Halves," Jane says firmly, and she reaches for Maura's coffee again, wrinkling her nose when she sips.
Maura rolls her eyes, but she can feel herself grinning. "Halves."
…
…
The car ride home from the play is silent, and although there is no real tension, the doctor can practically feel Jane thinking in the seat next to her.
Everything had gone well, objectively. Angela and Frankie had arrived on time, Angela with a dozen pink tulips wrapped up in tissue paper for "her budding star of a granddaughter."
Frankie had taken picture upon picture, Maura's personal favorite being of the brother and sister engaged in a furious thumb war, each with an identical look of manic competition on their faces.
And Maya had indeed been a wonderful cake, calling out her line loudly, and enthusiastically and twice (since the first time got her a laugh that she greatly enjoyed), and Zoe had yelled "Hi Maya!" from the audience until Maya had waved back, whispering to the apple next to her, "that's my sister," and prompting another roll of laughter from the audience.
As they drive, Maura keeps replaying the night over in her head. How Jane had handed Zoe off to her so that she could bend down and hug her daughter as she came bursting out from behind the curtain. How Jane had scooped Zoe back into her arms so that Maura too could hug the little girl.
How she had insisted all of them, Frankie and Angela too, come up and meet her teacher, as short middle aged woman with a kind smile.
"This is my family," Maya had said, beaming as Jane had reached out to shake the woman's hand.
"Jane Rizzoli," She'd said clasping the teacher's hand.
"Yeah," Maya had said. "This is my Ma, this is My gramma and my uncle Frankie…my sister Zoe," and then she'd taken Maura's hand pulling her forward a little too.
"And this is my Maura."
.
"Maura?"
The doctor snaps her head around. Jane is looking at her in half light from the streetlamps outside.
"hmm?" Maura says absently. "What is it?"
"Well," Jane almost smiles, "You've been sitting here waiting to turn left into your drive for about three minutes now," she says quietly. "There hasn't been a car for about two and a half."
Maura blushes furiously, pulling the car into the driveway of her house.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs turning off the car engine. "I was…"
"Thinking," Jane says, and her eyes stay on the doctor's profile long enough for Maura to feel hot all over again. "Yeah," the brunette continues. "I know."
They bring the kids inside. They put them to bed. Maura knows where their little shoes go. She knows the drawers where their pajamas are folded. She knows that Zoe likes to sleep on her stomach, with her bear on her left.
She leaves the girls rooms before Jane can kiss them good night. There are tears in her eyes, and so she finds the living room from memory. She stands in the middle of the room and tries to get ahold of herself.
It is too much. Having this family here. Knowing them the way she does, feeling for them the way she does. And always being on the outside.
It is too much.
"Maura." Jane, in the doorway. Her voice soft.
Maura shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak. But she hears Jane cross the room anyway. "Maur," closer, close enough that Maura can feel breath on the back of her neck. She shakes her head again, and turns around, wanting to say good night. Needing to get away before something happens that she can't take back.
But she is too late.
Maura's eyes close as the long fingers slip into her hair. The sensation is better than she'd imagined, it leaves her extremities feeling tingly, like they've fallen asleep.
"Maura," there's something about the way Jane says her name that makes the doctor open her eyes. What she sees in Jane's face makes her gasp.
It is desire, at war with itself, there is no other way to describe it. Jane's eyes move from the doctor's chin, to her lips, to her nose. Up, up, up with agonizing slowness, and then back down, settling on her mouth again.
"My Maura."
And Maura wants to say, do it. Wants to say kiss me. wants to press herself hard against the woman in front of her until some of her pain and suffering is transferred. Until Jane is hers, and they can share whatever pain is left.
She opens her mouth. "Don't," she says softly.
Jane blinks, and when she opens her eyes, they have gotten darker. "I want to," she says, and her voice sounds the way fire does on fresh pine. It sparks her.
And Maura is not a selfish woman, she is not, but god damnit. She wants this too.
"Please," the doctor whispers, and Jane's hand contracts in her hair, her eyes jumping to meet Maura's, confused and a little hurt. Questioning.
Maura takes a shaky breath. "Don't kiss me," she breathes, "anywhere that you aren't going to kiss me again."
She watches Jane hesitate, pulling back slightly, weighing the words in her mind. turning them over. And then she leans in, the hand in Maura's hair drawing her irresistibly forward too, and Maura closes her eyes, holding her breath, terrified and elated and on fire.
Jane's lips brush the side of her mouth, at the place where her smile would turn up, if she were smiling.
Maura's sharp intake of breath makes the brunette loosen her hold by a fraction, and pull back. And Maura doesn't have the chance to feel the loss, because Jane is leaning in again, and her lips are on the base of the doctor's ear. Her teeth bite gently at Maura's earlobe. and hen she is moving down, over the doctor's chin, and with a slight tugging of her hair, Maura tilts her head back and feels lips on her throat, at the bend of her neck, on the exposed skin of her shoulder.
"Oh," she says quietly, and her hands come to rest in the small of Jane's back, holding her there.
Each kiss is chaste, but slow and deliberate, and Maura knows that Jane has understood her plea, that she is only picking places she will revisit.
"Maura," Jane says against her shoulder, and the blonde is startled to hear the threat of tears in her voice. "Maura."
And her hands move up to Jane's shoulders pulling her closer, and Jane's hand moves down to the back of Maura's neck, and they embrace.
It is as though they have been doing it for years, the doctor is both surprised and unsurprised at how well they fit.
It seems to startle Jane, though and she pulls away jerkily, and then fits them back together, as though making sure it is not a fluke. She shudders as they come together a second time, and Maura knows that she can feel it too.
"Tell me," she whispers against the dark brown locks. "Tell me what you need."
Jane shivers again, and her whisper is strained when she replies, "be with me."
Maura nods, knowing she doesn't mean sexually, but unable to stop the thrill of pleasure that shoots through her at the words. Jane pulls Maura closer. "Be with me…even though." She doesn't finish.
She doesn't have to.
Maura pulls back, and takes Jane hands in her own. she tugs the fingers when she starts to walk, and for the second time, Jane follows her without question.
…
The brunette's room is eerie in the darkness. the pictures on the walls glimmer in the light from outside, and make the room feel both close and far at the same time. Hundreds of miniature mirrors. Maura shuts the door, and turns to Jane. The taller woman looks back at her, eyes wide. Maura takes a breath and crosses the room. She puts her hands on either side of Jane's face, watching as the brunette fights with herself. It looks agonizing.
"Can I kiss you?" Maura's heart feels like it will beat out of her chest. She has never been so bold.
"Nowhere I can't reciprocate," Jane breathes, and Maura leans forward to press a kiss to Jane's cheeks.
"Can I stay with you?"
Jane hesitates, and her eyes flick around the room once, before landing back on the doctor's.
"Here?"
Maura nods, pulling Jane close to her. "You don't have to choose," she whispers, and Jane tenses so she says it again.
"You don't have to choose."
And the woman in her arms crumples.
They don't undress.
They don't speak, or kiss again, or even hold each other tightly before falling into sleep.
Maura takes Jane's hand in her own, and presses it to her heart. She breathes in and out, focusing on making each inhale the same length as the exhale. Jane follows suit.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Until they are both sleeping deeply, fingers entwined, heartbeats in sync.