IT'S ALIVE! Sorry for the wait, thanks everyone who asked, I'm fine... does life ever get you so busy that you're too tired to have any feelings? That. So sorry if this chap sucks but, that's the longest I'm going to work on it!
She's already awake, flat on her back and looking at the ceiling.
Laying still also, you spend the first couple minutes of your day trying to sort your memories from your dreams.
She definitely kissed you last night. That part you know for sure, and nothing (save a traumatic injury to your temporal lobe) can take it away from you.
The part you have to think about longer was in the middle of the night, when she felt you stir, and she asked if she could kiss you again. You'd grinned a grin so smitten it was audible in the dark, not because of course, but because it was cute how she asked.
She asked sleepy, and it stayed sleepy. She only scooted a little closer and kissed you with both your heads still resting on your pillows and your fingers linked under the sheets. Dreamily light, lazy kisses that lasted... you have no idea how long. You loved it. Even more tender than before, barely open-mouthed at all, in fact at times it seemed almost like a competition to see who could kiss more softly.
If you were a little more naive, you might have expected kisses that felt so innocent not to arouse you. But it was a gentle sort, not frustrating. Just there patiently, pleasantly in the background, had you needed it.
You have kissed, and been kissed, in a lot of different ways. But none quite like that.
You wondered what conversation the morning would bring. It's time to find out.
"A penny for your thoughts?" you ask.
She doesn't even blink. Maybe she already knew you were awake.
"Penny's not gonna cover it. You got a big-ass change jar someplace? Where half of it's like rusty doubloons and Chuck E Cheese tokens and pennies you smashed on the train tracks? That'd be a fairer trade."
You close your still-heavy lids and smile twice, once for how much you love the gravel in her voice and again when you process what she'd actually said.
"I've never been to a Chuck E Cheese or smashed any pennies, and Spanish doubloons were made of gold; they wouldn't rust."
You wait to chuckle under your breath until you hear her sigh. She knows you do that on purpose (sometimes).
"'Bout you? You have a penny's worth?"
Let's see...
You love the way her long hair looks so wild on the pillow even after a peaceful night of sleep. That's a penny. You love the tiny lines around her eyes. That's a penny, or would it be two? You love the shape of her brows and every plane and angle of her features and the fact that you get to see them as soon as you wake up in the morning. You love that she's still here and hasn't run from you. She may need a change jar as well.
You'd better try something right to the point.
"I really liked kissing you."
"Me too." You catch her smiling a little to herself. "Did you mean it?"
"Mean what?"
"How you kissed me. Did you mean it? Or do you just kiss like that all the time?"
You could tease her about those not being mutually exclusive, but maybe now isn't the time. She's still looking at the ceiling and maybe that's because she doesn't want you to see her eyes if your answer hurts.
"I meant every word," you answer, finding her hand in the sheets and slipping your fingertips lightly between hers. The eye contact you hoped for doesn't happen.
"Then I'm confused."
"How so?"
"That didn't jive with your rules."
"Rules?"
"What you've told me about how you feel about.. y'know, men and women and relationships and.. stuff."
You smile inwardly. She thinks you can only be romantically attracted to men - and to be fair, that usually has been the case. She thinks you cannot care about her in any way between friendship and lust, neither of which explains that kiss.
None of the reasons you've been keeping your feelings to yourself now seem worth complicating whatever is going on here. You owe it to her to be forthright.
"Well.. those aren't hard rules. And you've always been kind of a rulebreaker."
That's what finally gets you your eye contact, and a slow smile. It's unsurprised, cautious. She likes this, but she's making some effort to school her features. Maybe she's flattered and nothing more.
"Yeah?"
You nod, smiling. It feels good to get that out in the open.
"How come you didn't say anything?" she asks.
"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. Still don't. I promised I'd never expect this to become more than we first agreed. So I'm not saying this hoping you're going to say you feel the same... I'm just telling you because you deserve to know."
"I.." she stops and starts a couple of times, glancing away. Looking torn.
"It's okay. Really. I haven't forgotten any of the reasons why you wouldn't," you try to relieve her of the burden of explaining herself. "There were a lot of emotions in that moment... maybe you just felt like being close. You can kiss me without worrying I'll assume it's really about me."
You are saying these words half to her and half to yourself.
She rolls her head on her pillow to look fully at you, her face a blend of so many emotions that you fail to identify any main one.
"Was that what that felt like to you?"
"I.." you pause, your cheeks feeling warm. "No. It... felt like more to me. But.. I know better. I know what we agreed, I know what I promised."
She reaches up and rubs her face hard with both hands, which is not usually an indicator of happiness.
The harder you try to think of what to say to remove the unwelcome silence from your bed, the more time seems to slow down.
"Sometimes when we're working a case, and we've got a few pieces up on the board and we're trying to fit it all together... there'll be a theory we keep looking at. A hunch. Even though there's alibis in the way and it's full of holes and we've already been over it a hundred times, and it just can't be. There'll just be something about that one hunch we keep coming back to..."
She keeps staring at the ceiling until you realize this is where you're supposed to prompt her.
"What's your hunch?"
You wait patiently. She bites her lips together for a moment, and it makes those dimples sink deep into her cheeks. If this were a lighter conversation you might reach out and touch one.
"Sometimes I think I'm falling in love with you."
Part of you is glad she doesn't look over to watch your reaction to that. Because you didn't think it was possible to feel like your heart is sinking and soaring at once.
It's your favorite theory you've ever heard, but wanting it to be true does not make it so.
Jane is not a stupid woman, but there are complex emotions at play here, ones that might be influencing her better judgment. You've been sharing intensely private, personal things, things that have formed an attachment between you that she could easily be misidentifying. Maybe you're a safe and reliable source of physical comfort and pleasure for her, and it makes her feel good, and she's mistaking that for romantic love.
Or maybe that's the exact way people really do fall in love. Fearing it it's untrue doesn't make that so, either.
"I haven't wanted to say so in case... in case I better not trust myself. In case I was misinterpreting stuff. In case I'm just in a weird place emotionally and I'm thinking it's something else."
You're at least glad to hear that she's taking that possibility into account. It would've been awful to have to think of a way to suggest it to her.
"But I can tell you one thing for sure," she continues. "That was the most about-you that kiss could possibly have been. That was me trying to tell you how I feel... I had to tell you but I don't know what it is in English."
You smile understandingly, content just to look at her until you realize it's been your turn to respond for a while. To the fact that she just told you she might be in love with you. How you dropped the ball on that, you aren't sure.
You prepare a statement, but all that comes out of your mouth are the consonants in her name. And you bring her hand to your lips and kiss the backs of her cold fingers. The way she looks at you then, makes you think that maybe your face said what you meant better than your voice meant to.
"What do I do?" She looks back and forth between your eyes, like they each hold half the answer and she can't afford to miss any. She thinks you're smart. A brilliant, objective cyborg that always knows the right thing to do. She's really asking.
"What do you do at work when you have a hunch?"
"Follow it..." she answers slowly, "and see if we hit a dead end or not."
You give your head a tilt, unable to suggest a better plan. Something makes you warm inside about seeing the familiar pattern even in the processes of someone who claims to have no interest in or understanding of science.
"Following a hunch means testing a hypothesis." You stretch lazily. "You use different terminology, but you're still following the scientific method. I love that."
"Nerd," she calls you with half a breath, the most affectionately you ever have been.
"Then so are you."
She smiles and closes her eyes.
"Look, Jane... I'm not going to encourage you to dismiss your concerns just because I'd love it if your hunch was true... but I'm still here however you need me to be. And whatever the conclusion turns out to be, is going to be okay with me."
The respect on her face makes you wonder if what preceded it was disappointment. You could've written yourself as a prescription for her just now, and she would've filled it without question, just glad to be unburdened of the decision. And she knows it.
"See, that's exactly the kind of.." she shakes her head and expels a breath. "I love you. That feels good to say."
You indulge yourself in a tiny kiss to her cheekbone.
"I love you too, Jane. Thank you for telling me."
You don't fully appreciate the loveliness of her expression, just looking at you close-up and sideways and honest, until it sours when she looks somewhere past you. The clock. This is a work day.
You watch her struggle between having a lot more to say, not knowing what to say, and knowing there isn't enough time to deepen this conversation now anyway. Maybe it's better. The day will give her thoughts some time to gel.
"We'll stay in tonight, okay?" you offer, as if this has not been your default for months. "Maybe watch something."
As much as you like to approach everything in your life directly, you've learned that sometimes Jane is a person seen most clearly out the corner of your eye. Being occupied with another activity, or at least the pretense of it - driving, cooking, exercising, tv - makes it easier for her to talk.
So tonight you will "watch something", even if it's one of those moronic comedies she likes, because it doesn't really matter. And she is well aware that you're aware of how this works.
She smiles and nods. Before you rise, you feel welcome to hold that warm gaze for longer than would've been appropriate 24 hours ago.
.
A normal day ensues. You share lunch as usual, dying to know what she's thinking but making sure to avoid bringing up anything personal, until you're sure that's the topic of the smirk you're watching her fight. Accepting you're not being listened to, you trail off.
"What?" you ask.
Her grin only intensifies.
"You know something I've been wanting to do for a while.." She nudges her drink in a circle for a moment, watching the condensation it leaves on the table. Already amused at whatever she's going to say. "Walk in your door and give you a big dumb 50's sitcom husband coming home from work kiss." She glances up at you only after completing the thought.
You match her grin.
Three hours later, you start obsessively checking the time. You put off two emails and speed through a yellow light to make sure you're there first. To make sure that when her key scrapes in your lock, you're already waiting two feet inside the front door with your lips pursed.
She startles and laughs (and even with your eyes closed you know it's the kind where her cheeks puff out with air) before she drops her keys on the table, wraps her arms very precisely around you, and presses her lips to yours.
How you can like a kiss so much and struggle to think of a single descriptor about it leaves you stumped. It's not quick, not long. Not hot, not delicate. Balanced exactly on the line between comfortable and thrilling. The kiss of a couple who's kissed a thousand times already. And at the end of it she slides her arms further around you and just holds you to her for a minute. It's a content, swaying hug in which you can find no other motive than that she likes you.
And although you have a lot to talk about, this leaves you feeling like it's going to be okay. And like you've had half a glass of wine.
.
How many Beverly Hills Cop sequels there could possibly be? You make popcorn to sell how much you're really watching this one. And for an agonizing while, that actually is all you're doing - rather, you're staring at the screen pretending to be unaware that you're being stared at.
It's more bearable when you lean over and rest your head on her shoulder. Not only does it feel nice, but you can get away with closing your eyes and enjoying the way her cheek is resting on the top of your head. You should've done this thirty minutes ago.
"Maur?"
"Hm?"
"What do you do at work if you're not... prepared to do the experiment you know you have to do?"
"Gather more data."
"Right. Can't... can't be hasty about science."
"No," you smile into her shoulder, unseen. "Sometimes spending more time in the research phase will clarify things that make the experiment as you originally envisioned it unnecessary."
Silence is all you get in response to that.
Some man is shouting on the screen and you don't care why, but in case Jane does, you don't add anything more.
You like the smell of her laundry detergent.
"You have such little pinkies."
You lift your head and find her attention directed down at your hand in your lap.
"What? They're of average size," you object, holding up your hand.
She reaches up and grasps the digit in question, wiggling it gently.
"It's cute." She spreads her palm against yours, comparing your fingers. Hers are longer. You already know that.
"I've always thought you ha-" you receive a kiss on your temple, and look up questioningly at an emotional struggle going on on her face. "...beautiful hands."
Deciding against saying something, she folds her fingers lightly between yours and rests them all into her lap.
And it's back to quiet for a little while.
"We have to throw out this arrangement thing," she starts suddenly when she finds her voice. "You aren't just some... outlet for me. Or a placeholder. You haven't been for a long time. I want everything we say to be real."
A smile expands on your face. You feel like a genie freed from a bottle, but you can't decide whether you ought to say that.
"And the stuff we talk about... it isn't strictly fantasy. Not anymore. I think I'm starting to want things I... wouldn't know how to do."
"Because I'm a woman?"
"No. Kind of. I mean, if I was gay, fine, it's just that I never have been. I feel like this is the part where I should say I guess I was gay all along and didn't want to admit it, but.. I keep thinking back and looking for clues and honestly, I never liked a girl like that in my life."
"There are no rules," you shrug. "You don't have to revise your entire past to justify the way you feel right now."
"You made that easy," she looks away with an amused breath. "But it's not a gay thing. It's more that I'm not... ready. For a long time, I haven't even wanted anybody to touch me, so it didn't matter whether I was.." she shrugs and swallows. "Terrified."
Your heart aches at that word, but you know she doesn't need you to repeat what you've already told her.
"The Jane Rizzoli I first met would've hated for me to even touch her hand," you recall, squeezing your fingers lightly between hers. "Think of how much you've already done that used to frighten you. You've already come a mile in baby steps. You're already halfway there."
She blinks at you.
"If you want more... and if you become ready for it. It will be my mission to please you in the exact ways you're afraid you can't be. To make you feel so good that you forget feeling any other way."
Longing and apprehension battle for halves of her face. You wonder if there is any combination of emotions that would render her features any less stunning. Probably not.
"I know," you assure her before she can speak. "I'll wait."
"I have no business asking you to wait," she shakes her head.
"You didn't. I offered."
"What if I made you wait and the answer turned out to be no?" she asks, more troubled. "What if it time goes on and on and I still didn't know?"
"Then I will have spent time with the person I most enjoy spending time with."
She drags a hand down her face.
"Would you quit being so accommodating and tell me what you want, for once?"
"You. I want you and everything that comes with you." You smile, running a finger lightly over one worried brow, relaxing it. "Let's just give it time, Jane. I want to just.. be us. Be real, and just... see what comes naturally."
"I can do that."
She leans in and kisses you, breaking it only when the audio from the TV cuts off and you realize you're leaning on the fast-forward button.
"Oops, I lost our place," you feign regret.
"Ugh, I don't care, this one sucks. I was gonna ask if you wanted to make out for the rest of it."
"Oooooooops," you say, holding down the rewind button.