"I'm scared."
Maura kisses Jane's throat, straddling her. They are in Maura's bed on a bright weekend morning. It's the day after Jane's sixteenth birthday party, and Maura has yet to give Jane a present.
Maura looks into Jane's face. "Of what?" she asks quietly, "That I'm going to hurt you?" Maura lets her fingers play over Jane's stomach, smiling when the body underneath her squirms a little.
"No," Jane says. "What if I'm bad at it?"
Maura smiles, "we can practice until you get better." She slips her knee in between Jane's legs, watching the face below her for signs of hesitation.
"Maura," Jane whispers, and Maura leans into her, placing a kiss on her cheek, on her jaw, on her lips.
"You can't say my name like that if you want me to stop," Maura smiles, pressing a little harder. Jane's hips spasm.
"That feels really…" Jane opens her eyes as looks at Maura, who nods.
"Your hypothalamus sends a message to-"
"Jesus, Maur, don't explain it to me, just do it again," Jane whines, her frown melting away as Maura sets a gentle rhythm.
"Am I just for experimentation?"
Maura's eyes fly open and she looks down at the body beneath her. Jane's hair is splayed out across her pillow, and her face is flushed with exertion and pleasure. But beneath it, there's a layer of fear.
Maura stops moving, "what?"
"Like that guy in Italy? Are you just curious?" The look on Jane's face could melt anyone's heart, and Maura feels a tug at hers. "Because this is my…it would be the first time I ever…" Jane blushes furiously, rolling her shoulders uncomfortably. "And I don't wanna…if you don't…like if you just want to…" But Maura leans down, slipping her hands up Jane's t-shirt, along her sides, and then down her back to her hips.
"What do I have to do to convince you?" she asks in Jane's ear. "I want to do this with you. Not to you."
Jane pulls Maura down onto her pushing and pulling at the same time. "I love you."
Maura thinks that she's going to come apart before this is over, Jane's fingers on her skin, rubbing up and down her back. Jane's mouth on her mouth.
She tightens her grip on Jane's hips, keeping them locked together. Going faster.
"Maura," Jane's body starts to go rigid underneath her.
"It's okay, I'm here."
"Maura,"
"I promise. God, Jane. I promise you."
"Mau-Oh, Oh my God, M-" But Jane's words get lost as she buries her face in Maura's shoulder. Her fingernails digging into the soft skin near Maura's shoulder blades. Someone's pounding on the door, Maura's head shoots up and she feels her neck crack horribly. The blanket that Jane lent her for her night on the couch slips to the floor. Maura sits up, trying to stop the arousal coursing through her body. It's been years since she's had that dream, although she can't say she doesn't know why it's back. The pounding on the door grows more insistent, and Maura wonders if she should open it. But before she can act one way or the other, Jane stumbles out of her bedroom, gun in one hand, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with the other.
"The hell?" she mutters, staggering to the door and in her tank top and leggings, she looks even taller and skinnier than Maura remembers. She looks away, as Jane leans forward to look out the peep hole.
"Nooo, Mom!" Jane groans, putting the gun on the table by the door and pulling the door open. "It's too early," she says, and Maura watches Angela Rizzoli burst into the living room.
"Oh, it's too early is it? It's too early for your mother to come over and make sure you're okay? I suppose last night it was too late for you to call me and tell me that you ALMOST DIED. I have to hear it from Frankie this morning, like he's a newspaper or something."
Angela heads directly to the kitchen, but Jane holds the door wider, and after a second, Frankie slinks through looking guilty.
"Seriously Frankie?" Jane says, trying to stifle a yawn, "You couldn't have kept it in just a couple more hours?"
"She dragged it out of me," Frankie mutters, as Jane punches him on the shoulder.
"Mama's boy," she says, but she smiles.
Frankie looks up and notices Maura. His mouth falls open. Maura watches Jane's eyes follow his and when she looks at Maura, she looks just as surprised to see her there, although after a second her face changes as she remembers that she'd let Maura stay.
"-and of course Frankie wants to do everything Jane wants to do, so I have two children running around the worst neighborhoods in Boston, looking for people with guns, and-" Angela stops her rant dead, as she looks up and sees Maura too.
"You!" she says, her eyes narrowing immediately.
Maura sees Jane's mouth move silently of several swearwords, as well as several compound swear words she's sure Jane has just made up.
"Ma," she says looking over her shoulder at the older woman by the sink. "C'mon."
"What are you doing here?" Maura stands quickly, glad that she is still wearing her day clothes, even if they are a little wrinkled.
"I helped Jane clean…" she starts, but trails off as Jane and Frankie send her warning signals with their faces.
"You're not welcome here!" Angela says incredulously. Jane spins on the spot to face her mother.
"Ma, Jesus! It's not your house," She screeches. "Maura's fine," She adds, almost as an afterthought.
"No it's not fine, Janie," Angela comes around the counter, glaring at Maura, "Do you have any idea what you did to this girl? To my baby? And now you want to come back like nothing's changed, like-"
"Ma," Jane is starting to sound panicky.
"Crying every night when she thought no one could hear her, walking around like a zombie, working herself to the bone to be good enough for you if you ever did come back-"
"MA!" Jane yells now, though she looks a little bit stunned. "It's not Maura's fault, okay?"
Both Frankie and Maura look at Jane with wide eyes. Maura feels her heart lift a little, despite the insults that Angela is hurling at her. Did she just say that?
Angela turns to her daughter, reaching out for her, "I don't want to see you get hurt again Janie," she says, "Remember that woman you dated while you were at the Academy? The one who had an affair in your bed?"
Jane blushes the deepest shade of red that Maura has ever seen, covering her face with her hands.
"I know you picked her because she reminded you of Maura, but honey…This isn't going to solve anything either."
"Frankie…" Jane moans from between her hands, and as if waiting for his cue, Frankie steps forward, taking his mom by the arm.
"Okay, Ma, I think Jane's had about enough torment for this morning, okay? Let's let her compose herself. He leads his reluctant mother firmly to the door. As he pulls it behind him he makes his free hand into a phone and mimes holding it to his ear. Call me.
Jane nods, and the door slams behind them leaving Maura and Jane in the new, deafening silence.
"My mother," Jane says shortly, and Maura looks up at her. Her voice is heavy with pain.
She's rubbing the outsides of her hands, her brow creased with her discomfort.
"They hurt this morning," Maura says softly, taking a step towards Jane.
Jane jerks her hands apart, balling them into fists. She winces and Maura takes another step, shaking her head.
"Don't do that," she says "It's damp out, that's why they hurt so much. It rained last night. If you ball them up, they're going to hurt more."
Jane drops her hands to her sides, but the crease in her forehead doesn't go away. She turns to the kitchen. "Do you want some coffee?"
"Yes," Maura says instantly, following Jane around the corner, "Thank you."
The preparation is done in silence, but as Jane reaches for the coffee cups, she hisses in pain, and Maura decides that she can't stand it anymore.
"Jane," she says, extending her hands, palms up. "Put your hand here."
Jane stares at her.
"Please," Maura says, "If you want, I won't even look." She shuts her eyes firmly, and waits. She feels a flurry of air as though someone has turned on a fan, and tries to hide her smile, knowing that Jane is checking to make sure her eyes are really closed by waving her hand in front of Maura's face.
And then, very slowly, Maura feels Jane's hand slip into hers. For a second she just holds it, marveling at how long and thing the fingers are, and how rough her fingertips are and how smooth her palms. Then, with a little mental shake, she starts to rub. Starting at the outside and working her own fingers back in. "You have to work out and move in," she says softly, keeping her eyes closed. "The scalpels," she continues, feeling Jane flinch at the word, "Sliced through several arteries, and your body went into survival mode, trying to clot the blood and save your life. That's normally a very good thing, but in this case, when your hands got sewn up, your body had trouble understanding what to do. So your fingers are going to ache because there's not enough blood to sustain what you're doing sometimes. The morning s and the late-" but she breaks off, because the hand in hers is shaking.
She snaps her eyes open, and looks up to see Jane crying silently. Big tears rolling down her pale cheeks.
"Oh, No," Maura says, startled. "I'm so sorry, Jane. I didn't mean to make you…you should have told me it hurt," she drops Jane's hand but the taller woman puts it out again, trying to reinsert it into Maura's. "No, no, don't stop," she says, and her voice is hoarse with desperation, "It feels so good. This is the first time since…just. Please," Jane looks into Maura's eyes, begging.
Maura takes Jane's hand and begins rubbing again, "Of course," she says, shaken.
Jane leans back against the counter and sighs, another tear slips out from under her eyelid.
"I'm sorry about my mom, Maura," Jane says into the silence.
Maura doesn't look up, "It's fine."
"No, it isn't," Jane says earnestly. She pauses, Maura glances at her, "it's not your fault."
Maura feels her own tears, but wills them away. "I should have come back."
"You're here now."
Maura stops rubbing Jane's hands. For a moment they just stand there, Maura looking at the floor, aware of Jane's eyes on her.
"You were always good enough for me, Jane," Maura says quietly. "You are one of the best, bravest-" her voice cracks, but it doesn't matter, because Jane reaches out and pulls them together, bending to rest her head in the crook of Maura's neck. Maura can't stop the tears anymore. They break through and fall freely now, stored up from the moment she saw Jane at the crime scene. Stored from years before that, really.
Through the haze of her tears, and the feeling Jane's arms around her, holding her, not letting her go, Maura feels something better. Something that makes her cry harder, though these new tears are not from sadness.
She squeezes Jane tighter, silently willing her to continue. To never let her go.
To keep pressing her lips to Maura's neck.