Jane is sitting on the front steps of the house, just waiting, when the doctor and her date pull up. It's the date who sees Jane first, actually, gesturing with his free hand as they head up the walkway.
"Ah, it looks as though you have a visitor," he says unsurely.
Maura looks around as Jane stands, her hands knotting in front of her body.
"Jane?" Maura speeds up, and her date's arm falls from her waist. "What is it? Are you alright?"
Jane looks into her face and then away, biting her lip.
"Yeah," she says, sounding strangled. "I mean," she clears her throat. "No...I'm...not okay."
Alarm radiates outward from Maura's diaphragm, narrowing the world to just the two of them. She hurries forward to pull Jane's hands apart, inspecting her friend for the cause of distress.
"What is it? What happened?" Jane does not seem injured. She doesn't seem to be in physical pain.
Maura tries to meet Jane's eyes, but they keep darting away from her.
"Jane. What-"
"I don't want you to go inside with him."
The words are so small that Maura could pretend that she'd missed them. She could make Jane say them again, more loudly...if she wanted to.
She doesn't. "Why?" she asks simply.
"Because," Jane bites off the end of her sentence like she's angry, but then she meets Maura's eyes and decides to try again.
"Because I want you to go inside with me," she says. When Maura goes to answer, however, she shakes her head and tries again, unprompted. "I want you to date me," she says, still quiet but very clear.
"I can't stand thinking about someone else dating you."
Maura shakes her head, but she knows that her smile is giving her away.
"You told me-"
"Fuck what I said," Jane interrupts. "I was scared. I...I'm still scared. But I'm more scared I won't ever get to kiss you."
Maura is caught off guard. "Kiss me?" it comes out breathless and hopeful.
"Yes," Jane says. She seems to be gaining confidence with every word. "I'm scared I'll never get to kiss you, and I'll never get to...that I'll have to wear some...shitty pink taffeta thing while you marry some asshole, and then I'll have to give the toast, and pretend I'm all happy, when all I'll want to do is-"
But Maura steps up and kisses her then, to shut her up, and to show her what it's like, and to prove to herself that this is really happening.
An intake of breath behind her reminds her that her date is still present. She pulls away and spins to face him, dreading meeting his eyes.
He looks disappointed, but not enraged. "You're Jane, then," he says to the detective. He almost smiles. "Congrats."
Jane has not let go of Maura. Her grip says that she is debating never letting go again.
"Yeah," she says, sounding almost as exhilarated as Maura feels. "Sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry that I-I just…" she trails off confusedly before trying again. "I'm sure you're not an asshole."
With Jane's hand on her side, with the prospect of kissing Jane again (and again), Maura can barely even remember his name. She doesn't wait for him to reach his car again before she is pulling Jane inside.
"You thought," she says between moments of giddy laughter, "that my wedding would have taffeta?"
….
…
For the first time ever, Maura lets herself into Jane's apartment.
They'd planned her next visit on the subway ride to Grand Central, like always, and when Jane had realized that she'd be arriving on a Thursday before the end of the workday, she'd offered to leave her key with Ted, so Maura didn't have to wait.
"I don't mind," Maura protested, albeit weakly. "I don't mind waiting somewhere until you've completed work."
Jane was looking at her, she seemed to only have eyes for Maura on these trips. As though she wanted to memorize her face until the next time.
"I know you wouldn't mind," Jane had said, without looking away. "But I don't like the thought of you waiting for me when you could just go home."
Now Maura stands in the silent front hall, thinking about how easily Jane had called it her home, and how normal it feels to be there.
She smiles as she hangs her coat in the hall, thinking about how in just three or so hours, Jane will see it when she and Isla come in the door.
Maybe they will smile too.
She wheels her bag into Jane's room, thinking she'd like a shower, maybe a cup of coffee, when her work cell buzzes in her trouser pocket.
She puts it to her ear without looking at the caller ID, ready to tell dispatch that this is the week off a month that last week's memo had outlined.
"Isles."
"Maura?" The voice is familiar, not dispatch. "It's Melinda Warner."
Maura breathes a small sigh of relief. "Melinda! Hello! It's nice to hear from you. Forgive me, I thought you were dispatch."
Melinda makes a sound of understanding. "Well, give me your personal cell, and I won't scare you anymore."
Maura chuckles. "Done. How are you?"
"I'm well. I start vacation tomorrow, so I might even be better than that. You're in the city?"
"I am. A week a month now, if you can believe it."
"I can," Melinda says warmly. "And I couldn't be more happy to hear it."
She pauses here, and Maura can tell she's weighing whether or not to continue.
"What can I do for you?" Maura asks, an invitation. "As long as it's not a consult…"
"You'd be opposed?" Melinda asks quickly, and there's something in her tone that catches Maura's attention.
"No…," she says slowly. "Is it a consult?"
"Possibly better," Melinda says. "I have a job offer for you."
For a moment, Maura's brain stalls out. "A...you have a what?"
"A job offer," Melinda repeats. "Medical Examiner. Here in the city. It's not a lateral move, Maura, I won't lie to you. But it's got a lot of potential for-"
"Leave Boston?" The words are out of her mouth before she has really registered the thought.
Melinda's silence is longer this time. "I thought things were going well with Jane?" she asks quietly.
"No," Maura says quickly. "I mean, yes. They are. I just, I hadn't thought that far in the future. We hadn't discussed that I would - we've only ever spoken about it in passing."
"But you spoke about it?" Melinda's question is gentle, aimed only at helping Maura process the moment.
"Yes. I'd planned…" the full weight of her plans hits her right them. She'd planned to move to New York. That meant leaving Boston. Permanently.
"Boston is the place I've lived the longest," she says into the phone, hoping that the woman on the other end will understand. "I hadn't fully…" she trails off.
"I get it," Melinda says simply. "I'm sorry, for springing this on you."
Maura smiles, despite the way her heart is pounding. "How could you have known?" She asks. "I didn't know myself."
"Well," Melinda hesitates. "If you need someone to work it through with, please don't hesitate to call me. The job can wait a bit, while you figure out what you want. Rosenbaum isn't out until the end of the Summer."
It takes Maura a moment to identify the emotion building inside of her. Melinda gives her all the silence she needs.
"You know," she begins after a moment. "I think I would like that very much. Jane was always the one who made us a community. She was always the one bringing people into my life. She seemed to know how people would fit without even talking to them."
Melinda makes a vague sound, just to show she is listening.
"Maybe you'd like to meet her," Maura continues. "I think you two would get along very well."
It isn't hard to tell that Melinda is smiling when she answers. "I'd like that very much."
…
…
Maura gets better at reading Jane's moods.
She can see the times when Jane is forcing herself to be cheerful. The times when she keeps moving because stopping means admitting defeat.
"You're having a hard day," she says quietly. They have dropped Isla at school and are wandering back toward the apartment.
Jane takes a deep breath. "Yeah," she says. "It's...I have trouble with today sometimes." she looks sideways at Maura. "Do you know what today is?"
"I don't," Maura says apologetically. "And you don't have to share-"
"Today is the day we found out about Isla," Jane answers quickly. "Well...You found out she existed at all. I found out she was still there."
Maura tries to keep her face impassive, but she is sure that she's failing.
"I thought she was gone," Jane says so quietly, that Maura wonders if she meant to keep the thought in her head.
"I'm glad she isn't," Maura chances.
Jane smiles for a quick moment. "Me too."
"So what do you do?" Maura asks, bolstered that the detective does not seem to be closing up on her. "What do you do on days like this?"
There is that almost smile again. "Usually I go home and get in bed. I think about you."
"Me?"
Jane nods. "I think about what you'd do if you were with me. I think about if you'd love who she is now...About if you'd forgive me enough to love her like yours."
Maura has to work very hard to make words come out of her mouth. "I would love her. I do," she says forcefully. "There is nothing to forgive you for, and I love you both more than I'd ever imagined possible."
Jane doesn't look as reassured by this as Maura would like. "I left you," she says after a moment. "I ran away."
"You're an adult," Maura counters. "Not some child who needs looking after. You did what you had to do. Self-preservation. I couldn't be angry at that."
Jane frowns more deeply. "Sometimes I wish you would be angry," she says, voice dropping even more. "Sometimes I wish you were angry so that I could have somewhere to put my guilt."
She shakes her head. "I know that's shitty. I know."
But Maura can't contain her smile. She puts out her hand, palm up. Jane takes it and she squeezes.
"I do get angry," she says, squeezing Jane's hand again when the other woman looks up at her, surprised. "I did get angry sometimes," she continues. "And I still do, though less often."
"I'm sor-" Jane begins, but Maura shakes her head.
"If my anger ever outweighs how much I love you, how relieved I am to be back with you, how much I adore your daughter...I will tell you."
They have stopped walking, are facing each other on the sidewalk, just holding hands.
"Promise," Jane says fiercely. "Swear."
Maura puts Jane's hand to her lips. "Cross my heart," she says. "Isn't that what Isla says?"
Jane nods. They start to walk again.
They are almost home before Jane speaks again.
"She's our daughter," she says softly. "Or...I'd like her to be someday."
Maura knows that the noise she makes is totally ungainly, but she couldn't care in the slightest.
…
…
Maura stockpiles safe words. She files away the words that Dominic never used and makes sure to use them as much as possible.
Jane wants to come. She revels in her orgasms, and Maura revels in giving them, urging the woman above her in heavy, lustful words.
Jane is not sweet, pretty, easy, kind. She isn't perfect.
She is gorgeous and sexy. She is wild, and fuck, yes yes yes just like that, darling. When you come I'm going to come too. That's what you do to me.
Maura catches Jane coming out of the shower, a towel wrapped above her breasts, leaving her shoulders bare. It is the first time in over six years that Maura has seen the scars left by Dominic in the brightness of the day.
It is the first time she isn't catching glimpses of Jane's skin through her tank top or running her hands blindly underneath t-shirts.
For a moment they just look at each other. Jane watches Maura's eyes roaming over her body.
"Say it," she says finally.
"I want you," Maura says, breathless. They were intimate last night after Isla was asleep, but it is not enough. Maura doesn't think it will ever be enough again.
"You-"
Maura clasps her hands together. "I want to touch you."
"Where?"
"Anywhere," out like the end of a moan. "Everywhere."
Jane backs up slowly until she is on just the threshold of the bathroom. She meets Maura's eyes again. "Okay," she says. "In here."
Maura hopes her expression makes it clear that she would follow Jane anywhere.
It is still humid from her shower, and the mirror is still partly fogged. It's an advantage, Maura thinks, and she presses it.
She presses Jane against the far wall, watching her eyes for hesitation. When she doesn't see any, Maura leans in for a kiss. It is returned passionately enough to make her moan.
"Give it," Maura says, breathing hard, already so turned on that full sentences are hard to form. "Give it. I won't take it from you."
Jane pulls away just slightly so that she can tilt her head to the side. She pulls Maura's mouth to her shoulder, lower, to the place where the top of the towel should be.
Maura finds that it isn't there any longer.
"He never," Jane whispers. Her head is in the bend of Maura's neck. Her hands have slid up, under the fabric of her shirt to rest against her back. They pull and push her slowly, building.
"He never," she tries again, but Maura has understood and so she pushes closer to Jane and grips a bare hipbone in her hand.
She is determined that Jane will not think of him again for the next twenty-five minutes.
No, for the next hour.
And a half.
"I want to see you come," Maura says, so boldly. And when Jane does, hard enough that they have to slide to the floor, Maura pushes the dark, sweaty hair out of her eyes, and kisses Jane's flushed, beautiful face.
"I'm so hot," she groans against Jane's lips. "I'm so hot, Jane."
Jane's mouth twitches upwards in what might be the beginnings of her usual smirk. "Yeah?"
"God. Yes."
Two hours.
Maura's going to make this one last.
…
…
"Look, Morah! Baby shark!" Isla points into the aquarium tank excitedly. "Baabeee shark doo, doo, do-do-do doo!" she sings, giggling.
Maura chuckles too, reaching out her hand. The song is too cute (and the little person singing too excited,) for Maura to point out that what she's pointing at is actually a fully grown catshark.
"Did you know that that type of shark uses camouflage to catch smaller fish on the bottom of the ocean?"
Isla turns to look at her, slipping her tiny hand into the doctor's. "For food?" she asks, looking a little worried.
Whoops.
"Yes," Maura says, deciding to commit to her possible mistake. "Sharks eat small fish. It's part of nature."
Isla is quiet, thinking this over. Her brow is furrowed just like her mother's might be in a stressful situation and Maura waits for her to work through this new information, all pins and needles.
"Cats eat mice," she says finally. "I saw on Tom and Jerry. Tom is always trying to get Jerry for his soup."
Maura nods. "Yes. In real life, cats like to chase and eat mice."
"Hmm. In real life, Mo, what eats Islas?"
"Nothing," Maura says immediately. "Your mommy would never let anything eat you. You're too special."
Isla grins, proud. "Even when I'm a crabby patty?"
"Even then," Maura assures her.
They stand looking into the large tank in silence for a few minutes until Maura decides that this is as good a time as any.
"You know," she says slowly. "Isla, if you ever feel scared, you can always tell your mommy. She'll take care of whatever it is."
Isla looks up at her, frowning. "Scared of what?"
"Well, remember when Jojo pinched you during nap time?"
Isla rolls her eyes in a very dramatic fashion. "Yeah. He's always pinching. Even when we're not doing pretend."
Maura nods. "Well, if you told him to stop...even when you weren't supposed to be talking, Mommy would be proud of you for standing up for yourself. She would be proud even if you didn't get a gold star."
Isla considers this very seriously. "Because if you touch my body with no permi-shun, then I say "NO," real loud, huh?"
"Yes," Maura says. "Even if it's during a time when you're supposed to be quiet."
At that moment, Jane returns from the food court. She is holding Isla's requested hot dog, and a cup of coffee for Maura.
"Fifteen dollars," she scoffs. "For a hot dog and two coffees? I should call in a robbery."
"Mommy," Isla says through a mouth full of hot dog. She has already managed to get mustard on her shirt.
"A shark eats tiny fish because of nature. Also, you will always be proud of me, because of nature too." She turns and points down the carpeted hall. "Can we see the otters?"
She is off before either adult can react.
"That conversation got a bit confused," Maura says apologetically as they head after her.
But Jane shakes her head. She's smiling. "Perfect," she says. "You did perfectly."
…
…...
Lex and Maura don't interact with each other very much. It is not because of a mutual dislike, or rather, it is certainly not because of any dislike on Maura's part. They just seem to be more comfortable interacting through Jane, especially as Maura becomes a more consistent presence in her life.
The doctor finds it hard to forget that Lex traveled all the way to Boston in order to confront her over something that wasn't even in the works. It makes her feel uneasy.
Lex, for her part, seems to vacillate between standoffishness and ferocious jealousy. She arrives every Tuesday, whether Maura is there or not, and Maura can see how relieved and delighted she is when Isla continues to jump into her arms upon her arrival. During Maura's visit this time, Lex is coming over an additional time, and as she pulls off her coat and answers Jane's greeting, Maura wonders if she can sense the intimacy shift that has happened between herself and Jane.
Maura wonders if there is a red alarm bell ringing frantically over her head for anyone who chooses to look.
She wonders if she looks as wildly happy as she feels; as satisfied.
Lex glances at her as they leave, and then away, and Maura has just decided that she is making too much of the situation when Jane touches the outside of her hand with two of her fingers.
Maura looks around at her as they link fingers.
Jane's smile is just to the softer side of a smirk. "I'll talk to her," she says as they step into the elevator.
Maura squeezes Jane's hand and tries for levity. "To her?" she asks. "Not to me?"
Jane puffs a laugh. "We're talking now," she says. "And you haven't done anything wrong."
"And she has?"
"No," Jane sighs. "Not really. But I should still talk to her."
Maura hesitates. She and Jane had discussed Lex's visit to Boston on only one occasion and the conversation had been very short.
"Lex came to see me," Maura had ventured.
"I know," Jane replied, impassive.
Now, Maura gathers herself.
"She's jealous," she murmurs.
Jane pulls away to get the door of the lobby for them. Maura sees that the smile is back.
"Yes," she agrees. "But not in the way you're thinking."
"Not romantically?" Maura's tone is just the smallest bit bitter. She decides it can't be helped.
Jane's smile grows. "No," she says. "At least not now."
It is Maura's turn to sigh. "Explain?"
"She's a kid," Jane begins, but Maura interjects.
"Hardly. She's not ten years younger than you are."
"Twelve."
Maura does the math automatically. "Still. 26 is hardly a child."
Jane quirks an eyebrow. "Do you want an explanation or what?" she asks.
"I'm sorry," Maura says, taking a breath to ground herself. "Please continue."
"I…" A pause that makes Maura's heart race. "I leaned on her too much. In the beginning," Jane says. She offers her arm to Maura. "I took from her and I took from her, and I never wondered what she was getting out if it."
"The knowledge that she was helping a frightened woman and her child?" Maura offers.
Jane glances at her as if to read her sincerity. "No," she says. "That feeling you get when something belongs only to you."
"You are not a thing," Maura says, firing up.
Jane smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners in the way the Maura loves. "I know," she says gently. "That's not really what I meant."
"What did you mean?" Maura asks. She knows she sounds a little desperate.
"Lex gave her entire life over to making sure we were okay," Jane says. "I didn't want to talk to anyone besides her. I didn't want anyone else to hold Isla...I didn't want anyone else in my apartment."
Jane considers their linked fingers. "It felt nice, I know, to be the only one who could reach me."
You don't know her anymore, Dr. Isles.
Maura bites her lip. "I hope she doesn't think I want her gone," she says after a long stretch of silence. "I hope she knows that I value her, that I could truly like her if we gave it a chance."
"She knows," Jane says. "Or...she will when I talk to her."
"I don't want-" Maura begins again, but then she breaks off, not quite sure where she was going.
Jane shakes her head. "Don't worry, please. I started this so you wouldn't worry. Things would have changed if you hadn't been here."
Maura watches a thought cloud Jane's face. "Change was coming," she says.
"How ominous," Maura returns, hoping to pull her companion back into the present. She smiles when Jane looks around at her but doesn't get one in return.
"What is it?" Maura asks.
And Jane pulls in a deep breath and runs a hand through her hair.
"I think," she says, seeming to force the words from her mouth. "That it's time to visit Boston."
