Author's note: Thank you very much for all the reviews and messages.

Chapter Ten

"What are you doing in the corridor? Go give her the bath towels! She needs you." Emma pushed Maura towards the door of the only bathroom of the house then resumed her walking towards the kitchen. She stopped by the door frame and looked again at Maura. "You have twenty minutes, girls. After that, we'll eat your burgers." Emma winked.

Maura didn't reply. She stared at the bathroom door instead and swallowed hard. William had immediately led Jane to the bathroom so she could have a very hot shower and change into warm clothes while Emily and Vera had put on some music in the living-room. Norah Jones' voice was now filling the tiny house, bringing peace and charm to the unexpected turn of events.

The calm after the storm. Everything seemed to come back to a slow pace as if by closing the door behind them, they had left the frenzy of the weather and of the past events outside. The house was a refuge, a quiet one.

Maura knocked softly on the door.

She couldn't just walk in without making sure that Jane was fine with it. As a matter of fact, Maura had been unable to take the slightest decision since Jane had kissed her in the rain a few minutes earlier. Her brain had stopped working and she had lost herself in some sort of twilight zone. The sudden change of pace had taken her aback to the point that she didn't know anything anymore.

"It's me... May I come in?"

Jane's stifled voice rose behind the door. Maura timidly stepped inside then closed back behind her. She didn't need to lock themselves inside. Her roommates and colleagues were polite enough to not walk in without knocking first.

"I brought you warm bath towels."

Maura set the linen down on the counter and bit her lips, not really knowing what to do. Jane was sitting on the edge of the old bathtub. She was still wearing her soaked wet clothes.

"Do you want me to leave? I can wait... I can wait in the living-room with everyone. We've put some music on and... And..."

Jane stood up and shook her head at Maura. She took her shoes off – unzipped her jeans – and proceeded to take off her sweater. Even her tank top was soaked wet.

"You must be cold." Maura made a step towards her friend to help her get undressed. "The house is old but the water is very hot. You'll enjoy it. Do you want to take a bath or a shower?"

Her fingertips were brushing Jane's cold skin – sliding furtively on her waist, on her stomach – while she made sure to avoid the mere eye-contact. The moment was strange, oddly intimate. But Jane didn't complain either. As a matter of fact, she remained quiet and let her own hands come across Maura's while working on taking off the wet clothes that were sticking to her body.

"Maybe... Maybe we should turn the water on."

Intimidated by the situation, Maura went to fill the bath tub but as soon as she turned around again she came to face Jane's shoulder blades; the thin white strap of her bra delicately embracing the olive skin under it. Jane was standing there - in her underwear - and didn't seem to be eager to move an inch.

Without thinking twice about it, Maura planted a quiet kiss on the exact spot she had been staring at before succumbing to an obvious eagerness - a not so timid desire - that caused her to look for Jane's lips instead. She cupped her friend's face with her hand to pull her closer to her own body and deepened the kiss in a stifled sigh of pleasure.

...

"Everyone tells us about the whales but we haven't seen any yet. How could we? The weather you've seen tonight is the weather we've had all week long. We've even given up on the idea of an excursion for the weekend... It's the weirdest summer I've ever lived. How is it in Boston?"

Sitting on the floor by the fireplace – eating her burger with everyone – Jane shrugged away Matthew's question. It was strange to spend the evening with people she barely knew, especially after the intimate moment she had shared with Maura in the bathroom. Their long and quiet kisses had led them to dance an odd waltz of feelings until the bath had been ready.

Then she had helped Maura get undressed and they had resumed their caresses, embraced by the hot waters of the bath this time.

They had made love but hadn't really had time to process anything. By the time they were over, they had had to step out of the tub and get dressed again to go have dinner with Maura's colleagues. She and Maura couldn't ignore them, not after all the things they were doing for them. Besides it was Maura's birthday. Everyone wanted to celebrate it.

"A scorching heat. We had a huge storm on Wednesday that caused a big blackout. Nothing was working anymore: the phone, Internet... Everything had shut down. It was a freaking' mess."

Maura almost choked on her glass of wine as she heard Jane talk. A storm. They didn't have any television in the house and the truth was that nobody had tried to read or watch the news during the week. They were literally cut from the rest of the world and enjoyed the idea.

"Oh my god. That's why Maura couldn't reach you." Emma's enthusiasm died almost immediately as she realized that – perhaps – Jane's silence was actually due to something else. She moved nervously on the floor and started fidgeting a paper napkin. "I mean... The text messages and all. You know... The silence...?"

Jane blinked at Maura's colleague – ran her tongue over her lips – before squinting her eyes at Maura. Something didn't make sense, suddenly; something that nonetheless seemed to have importance.

She swallowed hard, sensing how a wave of panic ready to rush through her veins. Sadly everything was starting to make sense in her head: the reason why she had never got any reply from Maura, why she had succumbed to some heavy panic at the prospect of not being wanted anymore. All these maybe's - all these what-ifs - suddenly seemed to make a lot of sense. Too much sense, actually.

"What messages?" She turned to Maura. "You... You didn't get my text messages? The ones I sent you on Wednesday and Thursday?"

Jane's voice rose in the sudden silence of the living-room. Her tone had rarely lacked so much self-confidence. Her voice had got reduced to an inaudible - shaking - whisper of some sort.

"I... I sent one on Wednesday while waiting in line at the airport and then... Then..." Then her long travel to Oregon had started. Since she hadn't booked any flight ticket, she had only managed to find a seat available for Chicago. From there she had had to wait for six more hours to be able to hop on a plane in direction of Portland. Then she had taken a bus to reach Depoe Bay. Two days of travel, of uncertainty and strong desires. "Oh shit."

Maura kept on staring from right to left, looking for the approval of someone around the small coffee table. Nobody had checked the news, nobody had learned about the storm. And her cell phone had remained tragically quiet.

Confused, Jane grabbed her very own smartphone and went through her history. She frowned. Her text messages had been sent. It clearly appeared on her screen.

"I don't understand... The storm must have screwed up the line because at no moment did I get an alert that'd tell me it wasn't working. I had signal. I..." Jane ran a hand through her hair as reality hit her. "Gosh I'm so sorry, Maura."

At least now she understood why she hadn't got any reply. Maura wasn't angry with her, she wasn't running away from her.

Reading the email had caused Jane to rush into a surreal frenzy. She had burst into tears – everyone present at the barbecue had got worried – and before she knew it, she was dropped at Logan International with the order to ony come back to Boston after seeing Maura. That was when the storm had hit Massachusetts, barely an hour later. It had caused many flight delays, many cancellations as well.

"It's okay, Jane."

"No, it's not!" Jane's loud reply made Maura jump slightly. "You must have thought I was some sort of a monster... It's not okay, it's awful!"

William immediately stood up and went to pick another bottle of wine in the kitchen. Only alcohol would help sweep away the misunderstanding. It was nobody's fault and Jane didn't have to feel sorry about it. She couldn't have guessed that the storm would have such consequences on her cell phone. She needed to relax, everyone needed to relax.

Obviously Jane was taking the situation very much at heart – which was fair – but she needed to be reassured now.

"That's one slog you've just gone through and all this to see our Maura... If that's not love then I don't know anymore. Actually, I'm that close to call my husband and yell at him because he didn't have the same idea!"

Love.

The word made Jane blush. She looked down at her French fries that seemed to glimmer under the candles that Vera had lit up before them to start their improvised dinner by the fireplace. She could hear the rain pouring hard outside but for the very first time Jane found the sound to be relaxing. She was enjoying the evening – the old house – and the presence of these people who were obviously more than mere colleagues for Maura.

Perhaps she wasn't ready to talk about love but a little voice deep inside kept on telling her that she shouldn't be afraid of the word. Things were going fast, the pace was challenging. It had barely been a week since she had kissed Maura at the airport but it felt like an eternity. An eternity of chaos that she hoped to now be behind.

Far behind.

"I've always been here for Maura's birthday. I couldn't imagine myself missing it... There's no storm that will ever prevent me from being by her side on August, 7th. Absolutely no storm."

Her dark eyes landed on Maura who was sitting next to her. It was the closest Jane would probably ever get for the moment to a declaration of some sort. As a matter of fact, her confession in disguise meant a lot. A bit intimidated by the audience they were having, Jane grabbed Maura's hand to squeeze it tightly. Warmly. Sincerely.