CHAPTER 20: Be Yr Mama

"Jane?!" Maura held Jane's waist from behind as their eyes plastered at the door.

"Just stay behind me okay?" Jane said bluntly, her tone low as she aimed her gun with both hands as she started walking towards the door with Maura close behind.

"Maur, stay back."

"No."

Jane sighed. It wasn't as if this was the first time Maura put herself in danger to be close to her before though. She continued reaching the front door.

"Who is it?" She called out, her voice almost hostile.

"Jeez Jane, settle down it's just me."

Jane took a deep breath of relief. It was only Frankie. Her relief turned to anger quickly though as she ripped the door open and dragged him inside.

"What the hell Frankie? What are you doing here?" Jane pushed his shoulder hard, annoyed at him for scaring the fuck out of her.

Frankie instantly averted his eyes seeing both women without their shirts on. "Hang on, please put a shirt on first Jane, I can't talk to ya like this." He covered his eyes with his hand as both the women gathered their shirts off the ground putting them on.

"Okay, talk." Jane ordered.

"Well you just left and I didn't know where you were so I uh, called Ma.." He shrugged his shoulders looking guiltily at Jane. The look Jane gave him caused him to quickly continue, explaining himself. "Come on Jane, I'm allowed to get worried about you. Anyway, I figured you'd be here because you basically live here anyway. Uh. Speaking of which, she's waiting in the-"

Frankie was cut off by the door swinging open and a visibly upset Angela busting in. "Janie, why didn't you tell me what happened!? You're coming home with me right now young lady."

Jane sighed pinching the bridge of her nose. "Ma, I can take care of myself okay?

"You almost died Jane and now you're telling me you're in danger again? When will you leave your job!"

Jane sighed again biting the inside of her lip to keep in the swear words that wanted to come out of her mouth.

"Ah, Angela if I may" Maura moved next to Jane, "I have very good security here." The Doctor tried to calm down the situation

"You need a man in your life Jane, to keep you safe!"

"I don't need a man in my life." Jane stated, her fingers still clamped on the bridge of her nose.

"Yes you do!"

"No, Ma."

"Why are you so opposed to the idea of settling down with a nice man?"

"Because I'm gay." Jane found herself shouting out, her arms shooting down at her sides. "I'm fucking gay." She confessed to everyone and to herself.

The room was now in a stunned silence. Frankie had a satisfied smile on his face as if he was thinking 'Yeah, I knew it!' Jane's mother on the other hand had her mouth agape and a mortified look on your face.

"...No you're not." She whispered visibly alarmed.

"I.. I am Ma."

"What about Casey?"

"What? My high school crush?" Jane was signifying her discontent in this conversation by throwing her hands up in the air. "I'm a really good Detective, why can't you ever be happy with me? What do I have to do? Go be some working males wife and be a stay at home breeder? Come on!"

Angela was taken back by Jane's comment. She let out a sigh and avoided her daughters gaze.

"Frankie. Take me home."

"Come on, Ma." Frankie tried to defuse the hostility but she stuck to her words.

"Take me home." She uttered turning around and walking out the front door. Frankie gave Jane an apologetic look and then said with a wink, "It's great to see you two girls together." Before going after his Mother leaving Maura and Jane alone once again in the house.

"Well, at least I know where Ma stands on homosexuality now." Jane muttered mostly to herself. She thought she'd feel Maura's comforting arms wrapping around her but they never delivered. She turned around to see a crossed armed Maura looking at her.

"Why didn't you tell me." Maura tried to sound tough and annoyed but her love and worry for Jane slipped through her words.

"What? That a sick creep that tortures couples raped and brutalised me is after me again and now we're an item?"

"Are we?" Maura raised her voice a little. It wasn't like her to let things get to her and vocalise her displeasure but she was tired of Jane feeding her half the truth and messing around with her feelings. "You're hurting me Jane! Can't you see that?" The pain in Maura's voice hit Jane hard breaking down her barrier.

"Yes." She quietly said swallowing hard. As much as it pained her, she knew she was hurting Maura, that she was the cause of the Doctors distress. She deserved to be told that though, she wanted it to hurt. She felt she deserved the pain.

"Yell at me Maur, come on. Fucking hit me if you want. Just get your feelings out. I know you hold so much in to be polite but tell me everything on your mind." Jane slowly met Maura's eyes. "Please."

Maura looked down for a split second before looking Jane in the eye. "I would never hit you but okay. I am utterly frustrated at you for your bipolar attitude in regards to me." Maura sighed closing her eyes for a second, a hint of a smile appearing on her face relieved that she was getting her feelings out. "It is beyond confusing and I'm having a hard time grasping what is going through your mind that made you do this. First, you break up with me and..." Maura closed her eyes tightly trying to work out how to contemplate her feelings into words.

Her eyes opened as she found the words. "Break... My heart. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. I always felt a great emptiness resting in the depths of my body when it came to love. I was a shy child, I wasn't given much time and you have been the first friend I've ever had as pathetic as that sounds and the way you treated me made me feel horrible, hopeless and worthless. Then you come here tonight and my feelings overwhelm me, we end up making out and you stop me again and then tell me about Hoyt and you say you love me? Do you? I have no idea any more. Please, just tell me what's going on."

Maura sighed heavily, happy to finally get her feelings out in regards to the massive messed up situation she found herself in. She was not familiar in how to deal with things like these and having been raised in a household where she was taught to keep her feelings to herself it made it really hard for Maura to express them in present day life.

"Maur, Maura can I, can I touch you?" Jane's eyes were raised in concern, Maura's words had brought tears to her eyes. She frustrated herself, bothered herself and now she had done the same to the one she loved. With Maura's nod of approval she leapt forward hugging Maura tightly and kissing the shorter woman's shoulder.

Jane too had reservations about expressing her feeling and romantic relationships in general having been raised in a Catholic home where it was taught homosexuality was a sin. Over the years it progressed to less and less relationships for the dark haired woman and more and more focusing on her work. However, that was until Maura came into her life.

"You really want to know how I feel about you?" Jane whispered into Maura's shoulder.

Maura nodded.

"You remember how we met right?" Jane moved from Maura's arms so she could look at her face.

"Yes, when you were undercover in the drug unit. It was my first day."

"Yeah when I had to wear those god awful fishnet stockings and that blue eye shadow." Jane stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Well, I know I was a bitch to you, that was because I was under cover but the moment I saw you handing me that money, just.. The moment I saw you and how generous you were to a complete stranger, it-you blew me away. I remember how I used to steal glances at you whenever I was in the squad room and you'd appear even though you were even more of a turtle hiding in her shell back then."

"Tortoise." Maura corrected before closing her lips tightly seeing the frown Jane gave her for interrupting her.

"Yeah, tortoise. Okay. Well, still there was something about you Maur, looking back I was fuckin' crushing on you hard but at the time I thought it was just how damn much I respected you. And then I got promoted into the Homicide unit. My dream come true, partly because I got to work with the best damn medical examiner I'd ever seen. I still remember what you said to me over our first dead body together." Jane smiled.

"What was it?" Maura asked, curious herself. She couldn't remember it for the life of her.

"You have quite a beautiful occipital spatula when it's orbiting."

Maura blushed remembering her words to the Raven haired detective.

"I had to ask what it meant, though." Jane laughed a little.

"It means quite a lot to me that you remember that, Jane." Maura smiled warmly at her friend before Jane continued talking.

"Yeah well, after that we basically saw each other every fuckin' day. How could I not fall for you? The way you made me feel, every compliment you gave me, every time we touched and we fuckin' touched so much. It didn't surprise me when I found out there was an office pool going around of when we'd eventually kiss each other."

"Wait, there was?"

"Oh yeah, Frankie decided to be a smart ass and start it." Jane grinned.

"I remember every pang of jealously I felt whenever you went out with someone. Anyway Maur, I'm not sure how to tell you exactly how I feel about you but I'm sure I'm in love with you and I'm sorry for hurting you, I really, really am. I was terrified. I am terrified of what he could do." Jane took Maura's hands in her own. It was time to come clean about everything.

"Okay, so I'll tell you exactly what happened if that's what you want."

Maura nodded, "Please."

"Okay, someone took photographs of us kissing each other and slipped them alone with a scalpel and some lavender under my door. I freaked the hell out and got the fuck out of my apartment and went to Frankies. Then I went and talked to that new Detective and told him what happened, went down to see you and... You know what happened there." Jane spoke as she saw Maura nod her head to signal she was listening intently.

"Then I got a call from Frost and we went to go see Hoyt and he knew about us and tried taunting me. He told me he wouldn't kill you, he'd hurt you in other ways though. And yeah, I just can't have that happen. And I'm scared as much as I wish I wasn't, really scared that something is going to happen." Jane took Maura's hands in her own scarred ones.

"I'm sure everything will work out. I'd be more worried if I didn't have an amazing detective caring about me as much as you do around." Maura smiled warmly and went in for a hug.

"And for the record, I'm in love with you too." She whispered closing her eyes as she embraced Jane.

Being in Maura's arms had Jane feel as though everything would work out in the end. She'd make sure of it no matter what it took.

Before anything else, I have a question. I'm thinking about starting another story. Would anyone be interested in a "zombie" themed story? (What I'm thinking about writing isn't exactly zombies but that's the general theme.)

Not sure because I might end up not updating this one as frequently as I should be. So, no idea. Haha. Might write the first chapter and see if there's any interest. Now A/N for this chapter is below.

A bit of a short update and mostly just dialogue and a bit of a back story but I didn't want to leave you all hanging more than I had to! Enjoy!

Sorry about the cliffhanger... I learnt a lot from TV season finale cliffhangers ;)

Thank you all for reading and your reviews! They mean so much to me.