Well, one good thing about this quarantine is I've finally had some time to write. I hope everybody is staying safe out there!
Nothing happens but I'd better say: small tw here for suicide mention.
You're angry.
You've had your little disagreements with Jane but in all this time, this is the first time you've actually been angry.
Today, the woman in whom your heart now lives walked right into a hostage situation, in front of... you don't know how many guns. Which is not her job. Negotiations were already in progress by the time she arrived on the scene, but she still pushed aside and went in anyway.
She didn't even text you. You had no idea until murmurings made you check the TV in the lobby turned to the local news, and you saw dozen police cars in front of the bank and a swarm of officers, all attention focused on a dreadfully familiar figure with a Kevlar vest and raised hands. It was difficult to tear yourself away from the screen and drive down there in person, terrified she would be dead by the time you got there.
For the whole drive, all you wanted was to throw your arms around her and squeeze and squeeze. When you finally arrived on the scene, the situation seemed to be diffused, and you saw her from behind... and your terror cooled into anger, and you found yourself stepping out of view.
You hid from her.
.
"If it makes you feel any better, I guarantee she didn't think about anybody before going in there." Barry pulls his door shut even though there's no one standing very near. "Not even herself. All she was thinking about were those hostages. It's instinct. It's just what she does."
The back seat of his parked car is the closest thing to a private place to talk nearby.
"I know that. I know that she can't not be a hero. That's her thing." Your voice is thick and strange. You look out the window, unable to even spot her in the crowd of cops and reporters outside the bank. "I don't want to stop her from being who she is. I just don't understand her taking risks as if she has nothing to lose."
"That's exactly it, she's used..." Barry pauses, brushing at his pant leg. "Look, I'm not taking her side, or telling you you're wrong to be upset or anything, because I get that being with a cop is scary. But as a friend to both of you, I was gonna say don't forget how far she's come, and I just realized you don't know. Work-wise, I mean."
"What do you mean? What was she like before?"
He re-situates himself in the seat, wetting his lips, so you know a story is coming.
"So. I'm brand new in homicide, and the buzz is Rizzoli, 24/7. She's this badass mythical figure almost, and I thought it'd be cool to meet her - then somehow I get partnered with her. Now the job I can handle, but the personal part, I'm thinking, how do I play this? Are we gonna be a buddy cop movie, am I gonna be trying to cheer her up, is she gonna confide in me about all this stuff I've heard on the news? What do I say? Should I not say anything? And all my worrying is for nothing, because the Detective Rizzoli I meet IS the job. Period."
"I've always known Jane to be very devoted to her work," you nod. It's not unusual for her to bring her work home, mentally if not physically, or get called in at odd hours. If your careers didn't have that in common, it would probably be a point of contention in your relationship.
"Not.. not like this," he shakes his head. "I don't mean it was the most important thing in her life. I mean it was the only thing keeping her alive. That's what made her the best cop in Boston - she worked this job every waking minute and didn't care too much if she got killed doing it."
"She..." you frown, deciding how literally he means that. "Do you mean that she was suicidal?"
"I wouldn't put it like that. But she had nothing to lose, as far as she was concerned. No life outside of work. Single, no kids, not even a goldfish waiting for her at home, and she didn't seem so tight with her family as she is now. She'd work 48 hours straight, nap in her car, work some more. She was the only one in the unit with no paperwork backlog, she'd sit here all night and fill everything out, sometimes she'd even do mine. Then she'd go in the basement and chew on other peoples' cold cases. Even when the lieutenant forced her to leave, she'd smuggle files home.
"We were fine partners but not really friends. You couldn't be. There was nothing about her to be friends with. She'd ask how my life was going, but when it came to herself, she was just a brick wall. I thought if we hung out eventually she'd open up a little, but we'd grab a beer and she'd just talk shop the whole time. I was way into the job, too, but you gotta have some downtime.
"And this Jane took risks. It wasn't even about being ballsy, it was that gambling her life didn't freak her out. While everybody else was standing around trying to figure out how to do something without getting killed, she'd just do it. I lost count of how many times I was positive I was about to watch her die.
"And then.." he raises a bewildered hand and slaps it back on his thigh. "Out of nowhere she started turning into a person."
"What happened?" you ask.
"You," he smiles. "I didn't put two and two together for a while." After a moment of quiet thought he laughs, shaking his head. "One day she asked me if I knew what kind of French food is good, and I had to ask her what case she was talking about. I think it was the first real non-work-related thing she ever said to me."
You smile faintly, trying to excavate a vague memory of the first time she suggested going to a French restaurant you liked.
"Anyway, my point is... that woman out there is not the same one I first got partnered with. Stuff like this is an exception now, not a regular thing. She doesn't go volunteering for stupid extra risks, and she cares whether she makes it out. I know she went in there today to help people even though it was dangerous - not because it was dangerous."
At home you pair nearly every departing kiss with a 'be careful' when she leaves for work, and you have wondered if there's any point.
"She's more careful now?"
"The whole department's noticed," he nods.
You sigh. This might not have made you less upset, but the perspective is valuable. Your smile is largely mechanical.
"Thanks, Barry."
He knocks his knee against yours. It's an affectionate little gesture, and leaves you a bit self-conscious of the way it makes you smile for real.
"I kind of feel bad for her, actually. She did just get a half a dozen hostages out of there and her reward is a line around the block of people waiting to chew her out. The Lieutenant, the commander, the FBI. Korsak. You. Her mom's going to kill her."
His own name rings loudly absent from the list.
"Not you?"
"Oh, I could strangle her, but I'll do it later. She needs somebody in her corner. I'm gonna ask her for a beer after this, unless you wanna kill her first?"
That twinge you just felt was jealousy. Which is stupid. You're her friend, too, plus so much more. And your refusal to talk to her right now is just that, your own. You are absolutely free to be the one on her team. The one she can always turn to without fear. That's supposed to be you.
Guilt pricks at your neck. Is being in a relationship with her getting in the way of your ability to be a good best friend? A best friend would've thought of that on their own. Barry did. You didn't. You came flying in as the angry girlfriend.
"I should be in her corner," you sigh.
"Wanna trade? You can be the good cop. I never get to kill her." He gets a reluctant almost-laugh out of you.
"There's no rule that we couldn't both be supportive..."
"Mmm, but I've got thirty other times to kill her about. I could do some catching up." He goes to pull the handle.
"Barry?" you ask, and he pauses. "How do you do it? All of you.."
"Do what?"
You wring your fingers.
"How do you care for the people you work with, without fear for their safety getting in the way? How do you protect each other when you are all protectors? I'm the only one of all of you who isn't, and... I don't.."
Smiling, he tugs the door shut again.
"Protecting protectors.." he begins, stroking down his chin where his facial hair used to be. He's been clean-shaven for nearly a year and he still does that. "You watch their back. It's true you never know what'll happen. But if you know them, and you know they're damn good at what they do, you trust them to do it. They can watch their own front. You watch their back. That's how you protect a protector."
You blink, working on how that applies to you. He smiles at you like there's something he's getting that you aren't.
"You are a protector, Maura."
You twist your mouth. "Not like all of you."
"No. But that's good. You protect her in ways none of the rest of us can. I don't have to see that happen to know it happens."
Following his eyes, you look out the window and your heart leaps at the sight of her. You want to hug her and slap her and you hate that she looks sexy in Kevlar.
"I think you already got that woman's back, like nobody ever has in her life."
..
She comes in the house quietly, tiredly. Her footsteps sound like she's resigned herself to the inevitable.
You meet her at the bottom of the stairs, but whatever greeting you've spent the last forty minutes preparing doesn't come out of your mouth. For a few moments you just look at each other.
"You can yell at me if you want. I get it."
You sigh. You still want very much to yell, maybe cry - to be the biggest telling-off on her list. But you you also want to be able to look back on your life and say that you were always a soft place for her to land.
"It was brave, what you did today," you offer. You aren't expecting an apology, because she won't be sorry. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah."
"I'm very relieved." You step forward and slide your arms around her. Not that frantic clutching you had in mind earlier, but a regrettably more mechanical embrace.
You can feel and see in her face after you part, that your reaction is confusing her.
"Are you mad?"
"I... am," you answer carefully. "But it's been a difficult day for you... and I'm your friend, and I won't let you go through it with nobody in your corner."
Evidently those words mean so much to her that they have a visible effect on her face; the tired and defensive look melts from it, and she seems truly touched. This is what causes guilt to overtake you.
"Oh... that wasn't insincere, but..." you clap your hands over your face, your charade crumbling. "I stole that from Barry. He's such a good friend. I wanted to kill you."
Jane laughs, pulling you into a hug, a real and tight one this time.
"You're both good friends."
You squeeze her, inhaling her scent.
"I do want to talk about it," you exhale from her shoulder. "Not yell, just talk. I'll donate my yelling time to your mother."
"Oh, she's on the unlimited plan already." She rests her head against yours, and you feel the weight of it, and know that it's been a long day and she really does appreciate not coming home to a fight.
.
She double-takes when she passes your closet.
You expect a joke about whether there was an earthquake. Instead she sees it for what it really is, and looks a little sad and says nothing.
While waiting for her to come home, you weeded out some shoes and clothes to donate, switched to new hangers, and cleaned out your dresser drawers. You also reorganized your blouses alphabetically by designer instead of by color, but then when you stood back and looked, you didn't like it that way, and you were in the middle of switching them back. The inconsistent pattern now bothers you even more, drawing you forward compulsively.
"I was doing some reorganizing," you explain, brushing past her and stepping through the small pile on the floor.
Assembling a section of violet hues immediately begins to calm you.
A little later, after she has showered and changed, you hear her behind you again.
"Thought you might want a box." The tone of her voice makes it sound like a peace offering, even though you aren't fighting.
"Thanks."
She steps in and settles on her knees in a bare spot with her cardboard box, glancing tentatively at you as if you might tell her to get out. The sight of her inside your closet is an unusual one. Her presence here is nothing but an opportunity to talk.
Even though you could put them directly in the box yourself, you hand her a pair of shoes to show your acceptance.
"These? I thought you wore these all the time."
"I do. That's why it's time to give them away."
"Oh."
"Do you have any old clothes you'd like to get rid of?" you ask, adding a slight smile and a nod toward the worn-out red and gray raglan shirt she's changed into. "For instance."
You're sure it's among her favorites because it's vaguely like a Red Sox jersey - not that she doesn't also wear an actual Red Sox jersey around the house.
"This? Are you kidding, this is practically new."
You smirk, "That may be the first shirt I ever saw you in, apart from your work clothes."
"Well, not new-new. But it's like new. Except for this hole, and.. whatever happened over here," she says, pulling at the bottom hem to examine a spot where it's fraying.
She finds a pair of capris off the floor to busy herself with folding. You drop some more things into the box.
"Sorry I freaked you out today."
Whatever is the right way to receive that, the words won't come to you.
"Were you scared?" is what you end up saying.
"Not really."
"Come on."
"It was pretty damn tense. But not scary-scary."
"It was scary-scary for me," you say quietly. "I guess that's always going to be part of loving a great cop."
She sighs. Not at you. Just sighs.
"Why'd you go in there?" You ask it softly, so she knows this isn't meant to be a fight.
"Those people needed protection and it wasn't getting done fast enough."
"I wish..." you shake away the rest of that thought. It's true, but also something you shouldn't say.
But she urges, "What?" until you'll finish. You can only get it to come out really quietly.
"Sometimes I wish you wanted to protect me that much."
She sits up straighter, looking at you with total focus and a slight frown. "I would do anything to protect you."
You probably should not have opened this topic, but now it's too late.
"Danger directly to me, yes. You've already all but died protecting me-"
"I would," she says, unblinking.
Even though that's not news to you, not really, you take a moment to appreciate the gravity. It puts both a warmth in your chest and a chill down your spine.
"I believe you would. But that's not something I want. Losing you would hurt me worse than anything you'd be protecting me from." Your eyes well with some of the same hot tears from earlier this afternoon. "One of the reasons I got so upset today is that it made me realize... I don't know what I'd do anymore without you."
"Maura.."
"If you went to work and never came back... what would I do? When I first found out - what room of our house would I go to first and what would I do there? What food would I buy to prepare my first dinner for one? How would I ever go to sleep in our bed, alone? What would it be like the first time I wake up from a nightmare reaching for you and - how would I survive that moment when I realize you're not there?"
The last one is the one that makes her blink a tear out of her own eye.
"It doesn't have to be something like Hoyt for it to be scary-scary for me. The number one thing I wish I could be protected from is you, not coming home. Just.. please, next time something dangerous is going on.. please remember me, too."
She reaches for your hand, and for a long silence, just sits with it held tightly in her lap. It's impossible for you to guess her next words when you can't even tell quite what her face is doing. She looks pained and pensive, but you won't rule out the possibility of her being irritated. After all, you're basically asking her to change the way she works, which is a tall order. Maybe too tall.
Finally she breathes and speaks. "I protected those people because it's my job to protect people."
You nod, vaguely regretting bringing any of this up. "I know."
She pulls her fingers along her chin. It occurs to you that she spends enough time with Barry to have developed a mimic of his habit. Staring straight ahead and shaking her head, she lets out a sniff of derisive laughter.
"I've always meant to protect you from anything. I never thought of having to protect you from me."
You squeeze her hand.
"Make it my job," she says.
"What?"
"Ask me to protect you."
"Why?" you blink. "You're already aware th-"
"Because you promised you'd ask for things you need. You said you wish. I'm not a genie. Plus.. you've never asked me that and I'd kinda love to hear it."
The little smile that sneaks out of the last part is what clarifies that this isn't about making you beg - it's about how much she enjoys protecting you. Hearing you ask that would probably be catnip for her.
You look up at her. "Protect me?" you try. Like a suggestion you don't expect to work.
"Like you mean it."
So you sigh and look into her eyes until you can try it seriously. "Protect me," you repeat. "Please. Protect me from losing you."
By the way her eyes close, you know these words are doing something for her. They are for you too; the more earnestly you ask, the more you feel entitled to ask, and the better it feels to say it again.
Reaching up to cradle your face, she presses a purposeful kiss to your forehead, then hugs you tight, nodding.
"Protect me," you ask again, tucking your head into the crook of her neck, curling your fingers into her shirt.
"I will."
Her lips meet yours.
And then you're murmuring protect me in between long and deep and soulful kisses, topless on your closet floor (when did that happen?) and reaching up to pull that ratty shirt off. With any luck, your blind toss will land it in the donation box.
