The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark - Michelangelo

Chapter Twenty One - Dates and Danger

After Christmas, the two settled back into their jobs and they had a relatively quiet couple of months. The biggest excitement was Maura's birthday in May. Jane had wanted to throw Maura a big party but Maura begged her not to and when Maura begged her she was helpless to do anything but what she asked her to do. Instead Mrs Rizzoli cooked a family dinner. Jane saved her gift until she took Maura home that night.

"I didn't know what to get you but I know that you miss me playing the piano ..." Maura went to interrupt Jane but she shook off her objections and sat down at the piano Maura had. She played one of Maura's favourite songs and despite the cramping in her hand, she played it perfectly. Maura sat down next to Jane and lay her head on her shoulder, watching her friends hands dance across the keys. At the end of the song, Jane flexed her hands to try and get some of the tension out of her hands.

"Do they hurt?" Maura asked, taking one of Jane's hands into her own and massaged the muscles.

Jane followed Maura's fingers as she did this. "Sometimes." She admitted.

"You don't have ..." Maura started.

"I wanted to Maur, that's my gift to you, anytime you want me to play, I will." Maura's eyes filled with tears. "Uh oh I activated that pesky connection between your amydala and lacrimal gland, didn't I?"

They both laughed. Maura loved that this is what Jane was giving her. She knew she would never ask Jane to play, she'd listen if she decided to play but how could she ask her friend to be in pain just so she could hear her play?

It was June and the BPD was having a game for their inter-department softball competition. Jane had managed to talk Maura out of just wearing the 'skin' she'd had specially made in BPD homicide colours and convinced her that she had to wear a t-shirt to be eligible to play because of the uniform 'rules'. Thankfully Maura always played by the rules. Jane knew what a great player Maura was so she was their secret weapon. After she was out, she called Maura over, ignoring Korsak's outraged look and then smirked at Joey Grant as his jaw dropped at her home run. Of course then a body was literally dropped in front of them and then Maura was flirting with a random guy.

"Oh my God, you're flirting over a dead body." Jane said. It wasn't really the flirting or even the dead body, it was the guy who she was flirting with.

"When else am I going to do it?" Maura asked innocently. Jane rolled her eyes. She watched as Maura set up a date with the guy and then they all got back to work.

Frankie came over to them looking all pleased with himself about finding the hubcap for the 'killer's' car and after she had sent him off to do more canvassing, she turned to Maura who, of course, had an opinion.

"He looks up to you." Maura told her.

"You're an only child, get yourself a brother and then we'll talk." Jane said and then she slapped her palm against her forehead. Maura had always wanted siblings. "I'm sorry Maur." Maura shrugged and looked at Vince who shrugged as well. Jane sighed and looked to another Detective. "Hey can I borrow your radio?" As she took the radio she knew she had to explain herself some more to Maura. "I mean yes! I would like to help him make homicide Detective but he's just ... he's not ready."

"You are deceptively complex, it took me a while to understand you." Maura smiled.

"Well it wouldn't have taken so long if I was a dead body." She smirked.

Maura hesitated, dropping her head to one side. "Do you think so?" She smirked back.

They all headed back to the precinct and when they got there she found out that Joey Grant had been promoted to lieutenant, this didn't improve her mood, especially when he decided to closely supervise her case so she headed to the morgue to see if Maura had anything. It was only after Korsak chased Frost out of the morgue that she wished she wasn't there.

"Do you want to know what I'm thinking?" Maura asked. Jane looked at her, she wished Maura was thinking what she was actually thinking right now.

"It's so weird, I do." She smirked.

"I'm thinking I know why you're making such a big deal out of the fact that Grant's your new boss." She grinned and Jane sighed.

"I don't want to know what you're thinking." Jane said, the way Maura's eyes were lighting up meant she had a pretty good idea where this was going.

"You two like each other."

"No!" Jane said, "Do you remember what that ass used to call me? Frog face." Maura laughed, she did remember that. "It's not funny Maura! No!"

Maura composed herself. "It's not funny."

"I'm not a frog face."

"No." She said with a soft smile. "You know I have an hour to finish this before my date with my hot new guy, can you tell your Ma that I'm stuck on this autopsy?" She smiled at Jane. Sometimes Maura had other things that she had to do than come to Rizzoli family dinners. It happened rarely but when it did Jane would make up an excuse for her.

"Oh God!" Jane exclaimed. "It's gnocchi night!" and she raced for the door as she called back over her shoulder. "No problem, I'll call you later ok?" She said and she was gone. She had barely entered the apartment before she was called to another victim. Maura met her there on her way to dinner and when Jane got the call that the first victim had been identified, Maura told her she would have both autopsies completed the next day and released the body to be transferred to the morgue.

Whilst Jane and Korsak were putting together the clues and linking the case to the Boston Strangler case and trying to get Grant on board, he didn't believe her and told her to ignore the links to the old strangler case. Korsak then took Jane to the old evidence files for the Boston Strangler. She smuggled out as much of the evidence as she could in Korsak's jacket.

They then went to see a retired detective called Lahey in an old cop bar, he didn't seem too pleased about the female detective asking questions about his old case, he didn't even take her card when she offered it in case he thought of something pertinent to the current investigation.

The next morning, Maura had completed her autopsies on the two victims and was online shoe shopping when Frost came down. They had a discussion on immersion therapy and Maura told him it had worked for her. This was true. If it wasn't for her friendship with Jane and going to a boarding school, she would probably still be wary of interacting with people. She was trying to help him with his fear when Jane came through the door. It was so funny to see Frost's reaction to Jane's teasing. He handed Maura the scalpel and thanked her before fleeing the room.

"What?" Jane asked at the slightly sulking look on Maura's face. Had she really interrupted something?

"You'd want to know if you had Marfin's syndrome, wouldn't you?" Maura asked

Jane did a little happy dance inside before schooling her face to look a little frustrated. "You did it again?" She asked, exasperated. Maura made a noise as if to say yes and went back to admiring a pair of slingbacks. Jane already knew she did this in the office anyway so it wasn't like she had to hide it like she had done with Frost. Jane grabbed the bat and they spent a few minutes taking a few swings with the bat before Jane mentioned the presents she had brought along.

"Ooh I like presents!" Maura smiled and opened up the jacket with evidence inside, "What do we have here? ... Oh."

"What?" Jane asked.

"Oh darn it." Maura said as she picked up the mini skirt.

"What!?" Jane repeated.

"I thought it was an original Mary Quont." Maura sighed.

"I thought you found something useful." Jane sighed.

"Well mini skirts freed women, they were practical and liberating." Maura said and Jane tried to stop imaging her friend in several of the mini skirts she knew Maura owned. She got frustrated when she realised that none of the 'borrowed' evidence was of any use.

Back in the bullpen, Jane and Frost were trying to figure out the best way to proceed when Joey Grant came in and blamed her for the leak to the press and then told her about the task force that was being set up. Her car being towed was the icing on the cake and she raced downstairs to try and stop it. Thankfully Lahey had stopped the tow guy from taking her car. He had turned up to see her after he had changed his mind about her. It was only when Lahey asked her why she wasn't married and the reason she gave him that she realised that the actual reason she wasn't married was because she couldn't picture being with anyone but Maura. As Lahey walked away, she thought seriously about telling Maura how she felt and then once again decided against it and buried these feelings deep inside herself to be examined at another time.

They got a break with Lahey's file on a guy called Redmond Jones. They went to visit him and got a barrage of abuse from not only Jones but his mother. They then went after a red herring, some guy who just liked death and then a third victim appeared. This time they found blood on the bow and it was matched to Redmond Jones, but before they could go to arrest him, Grant turned up with the 'task force' and he took her arrest. Jane was pissed, it was her case, she found the blood and her Maura matched it. She was sat stewing at her desk, half listening to Frankie and Korsak.

"We got one body dropped in our laps, two stranglings in one day, no forensic evidence and then bam! We find blood. Maura says forensic evidence doesn't lie, it doesn't change it's mind." She thought over this and then decided to check over Lahey's alibi. He would be the only one who would have motive to set up Jones. And his blood would have been on his fist after he had punched Jones at his house the other day. They saw him go in for treatment for his cancer on the cameras and then come out a few minutes later. He was lying.

She went down to the morgue to find Lahey with a gun to Maura. Her heart stopped, Maura shouldn't be the one who was in danger, ever!

"Hey you are a good cop." Lahey smirked, pointing his gun at Jane now, she felt a little better about this.

"For a girl." She said.

"Alright, the gun, put it down, kick it over there." He told her before pointing the gun back at Maura. Her heart was beating in her chest so loudly, she wouldn't have been surprised that they could hear it.

"Don't do it Jane." Maura said.

"Shut the hell up!" Lahey spat, frightening Maura into silence. Jane pulled her gun out and made eye contact with Maura and flicked her eyes towards the tray of instruments, Maura's eyes followed and she got the idea. "Put the gun down." Lahey repeated. "Put it down slow." He told her. As she did Jane caught sight of the baseball bat behind her. "Alright now kick it over there." He said. She did as he asked.

"You planted Redmond Jones' blood didn't you?" Jane asked.

"I still got some." He repeated, showing her the rag he had clearly used to wipe off his blood, just as Maura grabbed the scalpel off the tray and stabbed him in his leg. He dropped the gun and Maura pushed him towards Jane whilst kicking his gun backwards. Jane grabbed the bat and swung it high and hit Lahey hard with it twice.

He collapsed to the floor and Maura gasped. "Home run." To Jane who grinned at Maura.

"It was just a base it." Jane cuffed Lahey as she asked Maura if she was ok.

"Yeah ... yeah." Maura replied. Jane finished handcuffing him and got to her feet. She reached for Maura and crushed her into a tight hug.

"Don't do that to me again Princess ok?" She whispered, her voice tight with emotion. Maura just laughed, relieved and hugged her back, just as tightly.

They made it to the Dirty Robber that night and as they sat in the booth, Jane started a discussion.

"Hey did you ever talk to Marfin Man?" She asked, curiously.

"Hm mmm. He called to thank me." Maura smiled, taking a sip of her wine. Jane's eyebrows shot. This must be the first time one of her dates called her to thank her for being diagnosed with some disease. "He found a specialist, an international expert actually."

"Really? Are you going to see him again?" Jane asked. That didn't sound good, what if he realised how great Maura was.

"I don't date patients."

Jane laughed and almost spit her beer back into the bottle. "You just don't wanna go out with him because he's got some weird ass disease." She smirked.

Maura gasped in self defence at this and said. "His limbs are a little spidery ..."

"Come on." Jane interrupted but Maura forged ahead.

"... But that's not the only reason."

"Come on." Jane repeated and then decided that she had to do the good best friend bit and give Maura some advice as much as it killed her to have Maura date people. "You gotta stop that Princess, you gotta stop diagnosing people."

Maura looked across at Jane, she knew she was right but she really didn't want to get into this discussion since she had no idea why she constantly did it. "Can we just talk about your love life ... I ..." She shrugged and gave a nervous laugh.

"Ok ... well you've seen the guys I date and my theory is that they're split into two kinds, the kind that hate that I'm a cop and the kind that wants me to use the handcuffs ..." She spotted a guy who was standing up to come over to her. "Ok watch this, are you ready? 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..." Jane showed him her badge with a smile and the smile on his face dropped as he quickly walked back to his friend. "Shebow! Se ya!" Jane laughed.

"He's fast." Maura laughed with her and Jane noticed his friend was smiling at her.

"Hi." She waved and then rolled her eyes, threw her badge onto the desk and had another drink of beer. "I like handcuffs." She mocked him, "See?" She asked Maura, who shook her head in amusement. There was a slight lull in the conversation.

"So who do you think the original Boston Strangler was?" Maura asked.

"I don't think we'll ever know." Jane sighed and then caught sight of Joey Grant on his way over to them. "Oh yay!" She said, sarcastically.

"Good job Rizzoli." Grant said.

"Yeah well, while Kenny was trying to kill Dr Isles over here, I was looking for you so you could have that arrest too." She said. She saw Maura frown at her but couldn't bring herself to care that she was acting childishly.

"Yeah, I owe you an apology ... I'm sorry."" He grimaced as he turned away.

"Yeah I can tell by the nasty face you're making." Jane frowned.

Maura looked between the two of them and decided to step in before there was a miscommunication between the two of them. "Oh that's not because of you Jane, he has bullous lesions." She explained.

"I have what?" he asked, confused. Jane smirked internally as she looked over Grant like he had some horrible infectious disease, just to make him uncomfortable. She loved it when Maura went all google mouth, especially when she was confusing someone like Grant. It was amazing to watch.

"Blisters." Maura clarified and Jane snorted.

"How did you know that?" He asked, Jane rolled her eyes, Maura knew everything that's how.

"You were limping." Maura explained simply. Jane had been telling her for years that it makes her more approachable to people if she explained her google speak. In actual fact, Jane had told her that as she knew Maura had to speak the facts all the time that maybe she could at least explain her thinking for those whose minds did not travel at warp speed.

"Right I was limping, can I sit down?" he asked. Jane and Maura both replied at the same time and then looked at each other, Jane in exasperation and Maura in apology.

"No!"

"Yes!" They said.

Joey Grant sat next to Maura and started rubbing near the top of his foot. "I didn't have to wear big boys shoes in the drugs unit." He sighed and went to take his shoe off.

Jane looked over and quickly said. "You're not gonna take those off in here?" She snapped.

"No?" He asked, "I'm not." He put his foot back down.

After an awkward pause Maura spoke. "I can take a look at your bullous lesions if you ..."

"Maura!" She exclaimed. She didn't want Maura getting any closer than necessary to Grant, she especially didn't want her to touch him. "Come on!"

"I'm just saying." Maura replied.

"Thank you." Grant said to Maura, actually quite politely. There was a shorter pause. "Anyway I just wanted to say I'm sorry we got off to such a bad start on our first case. And I wasn't cheating off you in our cateism test." He defended once again.

"I saw you look at it." Jane argued.

"You saw me looking but it wasn't looking at your paper." He said, looking at her softly. As this sank in, she groaned internally, the last thing she needed right now was Joey Grant with a huge crush on her. "See you soon." He said and left. After he was gone, she looked at Maura who was smirking at her with her best I told you so smirk.

"Oh shut up!" She said and they both laughed. Jane looked over at Maura as she looked around the bar. What if she hadn't gone to see Maura that afternoon? What if she had been shot and she had died? Jane shuddered. She couldn't imagine losing her best friend. Her life wouldn't be the same without her. Maura looked up and noticed the serious look Jane was giving her. She reached over the table and put her hand over Jane's that was resting there.

"What's going on Janey?" Maura asked concerned. Jane shook her head and glanced around the bar where there were several detectives and other officers around.

"Not here Maur. Do you wanna head out?" Maura's face dropped and Jane quickly said, "So we can have a movie night." Maura's smiled retuned in an instant. "Ok but can we have the movie night at my house? I have a nice wine I've been dying to try." She said as she grabbed her bag and they both headed for the door, Jane holding it open for her.

"Yeah no problem but I need to get Jo from my apartment first."

They made the journey in a comfortable silence and Maura waited in the car whilst Jane ran into her apartment. She returned a few minutes later with an overnight bag and squirming Jo. When they arrived at Maura's house they both got changed and settled down to watch a movie, Maura with her wine and Jane with a beer. Maura glanced at Jane.

"Will you tell me what was wrong now?" she asked as she looked at her friend. Jane sighed, she wasn't sure she could explain this without revealing how she truly felt but she knew Maura wouldn't let it go until she knew so she looked at Maura and smiled crookedly.

"I just realised how close you came to being hurt and it was because of someone we trusted. What would have happened if I hadn't come to see you then? I don't know what I'd do if you ... " Jane cringed at the thought of Maura being hurt or worse. Maura lay her head on Jane's shoulder and took Jane's hand in hers.

"I'm not hurt Jane." She said softly.

"Not this time!" Jane exclaimed, "But what happens next time?"

"Janey, please calm down," Maura said, lifting her head and turning her body to face Jane, "You know I can take care of myself, you made me take those kick boxing classes remember?" She asked smiling.

"I believe you wanted to go to those classes." Jane replied.

"I did so just remember that ok? You don't always have to be there to save me from everything as much as I do appreciate that you are." She told her.

"Just promise me that you'll try and stay away from mad people?" Jane begged.

"As long as you promise the same."

They both laughed at their behaviour and Jane stood up, tugging Maura with her. "How about we both promise?" she replied and at Maura's nod she pulled Maura by her hand. "Come on, let's head to bed. I'm beat." Maura agreed and followed Jane as they walked into her room. They changed quickly and Maura edged closer to Jane until she wrapped her arms around her.

"I'm so sleepy." Jane murmured against Maura's hair.

"Me too." Maura sighed. Neither woman said anything else as they slipped into their dreams.