Frankie pulled up to Jane's apartment. The drive had been quiet. Frankie didn't know what exactly had gone down at the bar, but he knew Jane well enough to know he'd lose a precious part of his anatomy if he asked. When he pulled up in front of her place, Jane turned to him.
"Whose idea was it?"
"Whose idea was what?"
"The kiss, Frankie. Whose idea was it?"
It had been three weeks, but Frankie didn't need to ask what kiss. He remembered. He remembered kissing Maura, of course, but he mostly remembered the look on Jane's face when she saw. He remembered sad-small-Maura. He remembered the guilt he'd carried around since that day. He didn't understand why, but he knew things were messed up between Jane and Maura and he knew it was his fault for kissing her. He hadn't known how to bring it up to Jane, but he'd wanted to. He loved her so much. He didn't want her to hate him. He didn't want to feel like this anymore. He was equal parts nervous and relieved to get it out there between them.
"It was Tommy's idea. He and Maura were arguing about which team would score first, and they were both so sure."
Tommy was insufferably cocky. Maura was insufferably superior. Tommy knew he was right, he knew it, and he didn't really how to deal with his lingering attraction to Maura. He always did the weirdest things around her.
"Okay, Dr. Isles, let's make this interesting, shall we?"
She cocked her head to the side. "Don't you already find this game to be interesting?"
He dismissed it. "Naw, I mean, like a bet. A wager. A gamble, Doctor."
"Oh." She considered it. "A wager with what terms?"
He smirked. "If I win, you gotta kiss one of us." He gestured at himself, Frost, and Frankie. Frost clearly panicked. He knew Jane really really well. Maura saw the flash of fear in his eyes. "Not Frost," she said, smiling at him. He loved her so much for it. She looked between Tommy and Frankie. Tommy puffed out his chest, clearly expecting to be picked over Frankie, who was adorably fidgeting with everything around him. Maura was deep in a self-destructive spiral, but she was nowhere near destructive enough to open the can of worms that was kissing Tommy. "Frankie. I'll kiss Frankie."
Tommy's face fell. Frankie's face could not decide what to do, so it just sort of gaped at her.
"But," she held up a finger. Tommy could not stop thinking about sexyteachersexylibrarian. "When I win, you, Tommy, will kiss…" She let it hang long enough that he got excited. She was the only girl in the room. He hoped, hard. He believed. He was so dumb. She really enjoyed it. "Frost. Tommy will kiss Frost."
Strenuous objections erupted from both sides, but she quieted them both by cocking her head and holding up her finger again. "Do we have a deal, Mr. Rizzoli?" She held out her hand to shake.
He'd looked directly at her lips when she'd said his name. His hand was in hers before he knew what was happening. Frost swore quietly behind him.
"I'm sorry, Janie. You know how Tommy can be."
Jane leaned back in her seat and puffed out her breath. "Yeah, I do." She was relieved it hadn't been Frankie's idea. She was very relieved it hadn't been Maura's idea. She was disappointed to be unsurprised that it had been Tommy's idea.
"Janie…do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About why seeing Maura kissing someone else made you look like you were going to rip my head off with your teeth."
Jane looked over at him. "Is that even physically possible?"
His eyerolling had gotten really good.
"Wait, Frankie, what do you mean 'someone else?' You mean kissing you. She was kissing you."
"Yeah, she was kissing me. But what I meant was…uh...you know what? Never mind." Frankie totally, completely, 100% lost his nerve. It was gone like the break of dawn. It would never be back.
"What, Frankie?" Exasperated Jane was not helping Frankie get his grove back.
"It's nothing, Janie. Don't worry about it. I'll talk to you tomorrow, aright?"
Jane shot him another skeptical look, but he had his stoic middle-child face on. She sighed, clapped him on the shoulder, thanked him for the ride, and went upstairs to wait for Frost.
She pulled the door open for Frost a while later and immediately went back to her spot on the couch. Socked feet up on the cushion, knees close to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins protectively. "Hey partner."
"Hey yourself, Jane. How are you doing?"
She thought she might break in half. She plastered a fake smile on her face. "So super good, buddy. Wanna beer?"
He wasn't amused. "Jane." Serious face. "How are you doing?"
She let the fake smile slide away. "Fuck, Frost, I don't know." Her head dropped to her knees for just a moment before coming back up. "I just have no idea what's happening, you know? Why would Maura do something like that? What the fuck was she thinking? Why is she so mad at me? Why won't she call me back, or even look at me? I'm confused, Frost, and I'm really, just, pissed off. And tired."
She looked up at him, still standing by the other end of the couch. Frost realized belatedly that these weren't rhetorical questions. She was genuinely looking to him for answers, asking him to explain this to her. Asking him to explain the one thing that brilliant Detective Rizzoli had been totally missing forever.
Frost loved being her partner, but times like this made him wish he'd been assigned to the K-9 unit. Dogs did not tend to ask such awkward questions with such trust in their faces. Maybe if he pictured her as a poodle it would help.
It didn't. It just made her more confused as he swallowed back a snort of laughter, sounding like a cow getting the heimlich.
He sighed, resignedly. "Okay, Jane, I'm gonna take you up on that beer offer. Do you want one?"
She nodded. He grabbed two from the fridge, opened them, and sat down on the couch. He handed hers over and rubbed his free hand over his face. He didn't know where to start.
"Frost. Come on. Talk to me."
"Okay. Just, hear me out, okay?"
A nod.
"Jane, what would you have done if you'd caught Frankie in the position Maura was in tonight?"
"If I'd caught Frankie on his knees about to give some guy a blow job at the Robber? I'd have a lot of questions."
Frost flinched at the description. He hadn't known the details. He wished he still didn't. But he bravely pressed on. "Jane, come on. Be serious."
"I'm sorry, I'm struggling to seriously imagine my little brother giving someone a bathroom blow job. It's weird. It would never happen. And also, gross, Frost." She wrinkled her nose. "That's my brother."
"Okay, fine. What if it had been me, Jane? What if you'd walked into that bathroom and caught me on my knees with my head up some girl's skirt?"
"Ew, Frost! Gross!" She punched him in the arm. It seemed like the only thing to do.
"Jane. What would you have done."
"I dunno, Frost. I probably would have yelled 'ew, Frost, gross,' and then given you shit about it for the rest of forever."
Gotcha. "You wouldn't have pulled a gun on her?"
Silence.
"You wouldn't have shouted at me? You wouldn't have wanted to cry and puke at the same time? You wouldn't have driven me to tears?"
Heavier silence.
"Jane, I know that you love me. I know that you'd take a bullet for me. You're like a sister to me, and I like to think that I'm like a brother to you."
A strong nod. His chest purred a little.
"You and I, Jane, we've been through a lot. We're tight. We'd have laughed it off. We'd have moved past it. But that's not what happened with Maura. Jane. Why was it different with Maura?"
"I thought he was forcing her."
"I assume she told you he wasn't?"
Another nod. Slower this time.
"What then, Jane?"
"I wanted to kill him." Softly. "I really wanted to kill him."
"And then?"
Nearly a whisper. "And then…I have no idea what happened, Frost. One second I had my gun on him, and then the next second, I don't even know. I wanted to hit her and I wanted to hug her and I wanted to pull her out of there behind me like we learned at the Academy. I wanted to puke, like you said. I was like, I dunno, panicky. Everything happened too fast."
"Why, Jane? Why was it different with Maura?"
"Because it was Maura."
Gotcha again. "Yeah, Jane. It was Maura." He paused, giving her a moment to collect herself before continuing. "Jane. What's been going on with you and Maura lately?"
"Ugh, God, I don't know. I mean, I sort of know. I guess…" Deep breath. Jane was going to be honest with Frost. It was going to suck. "I guess I've been a really shitty friend to her lately. I guess I got with Casey and then, like, I don't know, I forgot that Maura's really important to me. I started spending all my time with him and I didn't notice I was doing it. And she never said anything, Frost. She never said anything to me!" She looked desperate for him to believe her, to absolve her. He did the first. He wouldn't do the second. "And by the time I noticed it, she'd totally pulled away from me. I've been trying to get back, Frost, I really have. These last few weeks, I've been calling and asking her to have dinner and lunch and go running and stuff, but she keeps turning me down. And then, tonight, I don't know what happened. But I freaked out, I know that. Maybe I overreacted or something. And she looked me in the eye and told me to leave her alone and stay out of her life."
Frost nodded. He was sympathetic, empathetic even. But he was not absolving her.
"What do I do, Frost?"
"You gotta make it right, Jane. You gotta prove to her that you still love her, that you value you her. You gotta make sure she knows that you know that you really fucked up with this whole Casey thing." He'd let her interpret that as she saw fit. "Jane, Maura…well, she really loves you. And not a whole lot of other people. You're her number one person, Jane. And you just totally left her in the dust because you got a new number one."
"Casey isn't my number one." A knee-jerk reaction. Good, thought Frost. That guy is a total dick.
"Jane, you left her."
Jane let her head slam down on her knees as she finally got it. She'd left her. She'd left Maura, just like everyone else in the world had.
"Fuck."