A/N: I present...winter. And a cameo from another one of my faves (not the Patriots, lol). And my profession is more apparent in this work than any of the others I've written so THAT was fun to explore (work...I cannot escape it even in fic). Two to go, folks, with possibly one more over this holiday weekend. I'm strongly considering a oneshot sequel to Growth Chart for my next R&I project, but I might take a break and work on some BtVS in the interim. I've been marathoning and it's unleashed my sometimes-dormant but still present desire to right the wrongs that Joss Whedon did to Jenny Calendar, my spirit animal. Thanks for the love!

Winter

Jane stared down at the football field before her, focusing on all of the familiar sights that she'd come to know over her many years of football Sundays. She looked it all over carefully before shifting her eyes up to the stands, the lights, the crowds, the huge lit scoreboards and screens all over the stadium, and then focused on the sounds. The roar of the fans, the calls of the referees, the chatter and bustle of countless people united somehow in this commonality.

Maura had taught her this trick years ago when she was still struggling with the aftermath of the shooting and Hoyt's final attack and the whole disaster with Doyle. Focus on your senses, Maura had urged her at the time. Five things you can see. Four things you can hear. Three things you can touch. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste. And repeat. And Jane had found over the years that the numbers varied and her focus into one sense or another often depended on the situation, but it worked. It worked on the days that she felt like she was living on the very edge of her skin but also on the days that she wanted to remember every single moment. Like when Maura had been returned to them, to her, after her terrifying but mercifully short stint in jail. Or when Lydia had left TJ on their doorstep and they'd all pulled it together to somehow make his first night out of the hospital not a complete disaster. Countless nights and mornings and seemingly meaningless moments with Maura that Jane was starting to realize actually meant a lot after all. And, most recently, their first two seasonal adventures. She'd cataloged her senses as she and Maura danced above the water that past summer, exuberant and joyful, and then again that fall as they'd strolled around Salem nearly hand-in-hand. And now here she was today, at Gillette Stadium, knocking off what was probably the easiest and most obvious item on her "Get Out of My Rut" list, watching the Patriots with Maura sitting companionably beside her and committing every sense to memory.

Which also meant acknowledging that it was fucking cold, Jane realized as she inhaled deeply through her nose, intent on focusing on the pleasant smell of beer and popcorn, but nearly asphyxiating herself due to the icy air. Her mindfulness exercise shifted more toward "Gee, I hope we're not dying of hypothermia" exercise as she wiggled her toes, clad in multiple pairs of socks deep within her boots, and swallowed a few times, intent on keeping her essential functions intact. She startled slightly when Maura pressed lightly on her leg, jarring her out of her thoughts and cold-induced paranoia.

"So," Maura began, and Jane leaned close to hear her over the roar. Or was it to get warm? Or was it for something else? Jane was having trouble telling these days. "Are you having fun?"

"With you? Always." Jane buried her truth in another, hoping Maura wouldn't pick up on it and knowing that of course she would. She was Maura, after all.

"So that's a no?"

"I'm having fun with you," Jane insisted. "Really. I always wanted to go to a Patriots game and here we are. It was worth doing."

Maura raised an eyebrow, which Jane was amazed that she could even see underneath the thick hat and scarf. They had at least been prepared for this level of insanity. "So what I think you're really saying is...you're glad we came but you wouldn't do it again?"

"Something like that," Jane admitted. "And you know what's weird?"

"What?"

"I didn't feel this way with anything else we've done," Jane continued thoughtfully. "This was the easiest one out of all of them for me to come up with and look forward to. And it's the activity that was most...me on the list. And we got here and, yes, it's fun and I'm glad we did it because I would have always wondered, you know? But now I know."

"It is better to know," Maura agreed seriously. "It means fewer regrets. You won't get to a point in the future when you'll say 'I wish I went to a Patriots game. Why didn't I? I could have but I never even tried.' But it's interesting that sometimes the things we think we want aren't what we actually enjoy at all."

There it was again. The double-meaning comments that Jane herself had started in Salem that seemed to be occurring with more and more frequency since then. But the bitch of it was that Jane genuinely didn't know what to make of them. Was she reading too much into something that wasn't there? Or was she - and Maura, too, apparently - trying to get at something deeper? Something that came with much deeper implications and had much more emotion and potential heartache attached to it. Jane didn't know, and it scared her. These activities had been meant to put her back on solid ground, drag her away from what had been likely to morph into a sort of midlife crisis (best case example) or full-blown depression (worst case example), maybe even with a little PTSD for good measure. But while those activities were quite effective in meeting their original goals, Jane also couldn't help but think that they were binding her even more irrevocably to Maura and that this was just as dangerous as it was healing. Especially if this little dance turned out to be a one-woman show rather than a partner exercise.

Jane tried for a careful but truthful response. "That's what I mean," she said thoughtfully. "I'm glad that we did this. But I'm in no hurry to do it again, if I'm being honest. Even though there's nothing wrong with it or nothing I could complain about. Except maybe the cold, but we knew that going in."

"Knowing and experiencing are two different things," Maura agreed. She burrowed deeper into herself. "I know I pride myself on being prepared but this is well beyond me. It is just so damn cold."

Jane grinned outright at that. "We could leave," she offered. "It's already the third quarter. And we're going to sit in traffic for ages."

Maura shook her head. "How about the middle of the fourth," she suggested. "I can't see coming all the way here and not sticking it mostly out."

"Okay. Last quarter it is." Jane looked over at Maura a bit concernedly now. "We could walk around if that would warm you up at all. Get another drink or something."

"I'd have to take my gloves off to hold it. And I know logically that I'd feel warmer if we walked, but the thought of untangling myself right now to be able to do that seems…"

"Impossible?" Jane eyed Maura's fetal-like position as she sat in the stadium seat next to her and the empty seats around them. "I get it. But you should come here."

"What?" Maura tore her gaze from the field to look fully over at Jane. "But I just said…"

"I know," Jane said hurriedly. "I know you don't want to move. But I was thinking body heat. If you move real quick and we like...I don't know, huddle together, you can fold yourself back up before your body registers that you're unwound and freezing." It sounded flimsy even to Jane's ears, but worth a try. Jane was cold, too.

Maura let her eyes travel up and down Jane for a second before meeting Jane's gaze once more. "Why am I moving," she grumbled goodnaturedly. "You could come over here instead."

"You're smaller," Jane pointed out.

Maura rolled her eyes. "Not really. I'm not short by anyone's standards, but I'm just shorter when the other person happens to be 5'10. And besides, if you're not talking height, you're definitely lighter and narrower."

Hm. This was interesting. Jane narrowed her eyes a little at Maura, not that either of them could tell given the blindingly cold breeze. "You're pretty little," she shot back gently. "And you're just...pretty in general. We have different shapes, yeah, but you're...I mean, you'd…" She took a breath, trying to get her thoughts out in a way that was endearing and convincing without being creepy and crossing the invisible line she feared. "Just come here," she finished. "You'd...we'd fit together and then we'd both be warm." Suddenly Jane became aware that while she hadn't necessarily crossed the invisible line, she had just drawn her own instead. She wished she could see Maura's face.

But she needn't have worried. Maura stood up quickly, maybe to limit her exposure to the cold but maybe also to quell her nerves, and eased herself into Jane's space before Jane could even register what was happening. But suddenly, she had a lapful of Maura - light, soft, blissfully warm Maura, and then they were adjusting and fidgeting so that Maura was somehow draped across her enough that they could still manage to have a conversation without awkward positioning but also so that the unforgiving armrests weren't pressing into either of them uncomfortably. But then Maura was curled sideways on her lap and both of them were entwined rather snugly, and Jane realized that she hadn't felt warm like this in ages...not since, in fact, their little sleepover in Salem a few months back.

"Comfy," she asked, trying to keep her voice casual. She felt rather than saw Maura's nod against her. "Warm?"

"Very." Maura held Jane's gloved hand in both of hers against her chest. "Thank you. We might even make the whole game at this rate."

"Whatever you want," Jane agreed easily. She could, in this moment, see herself sitting through the whole game, frigid temperatures and all, without any issue if Maura would just stay curled up against her.

"It's not what I want," Maura said softly, cutting through her thoughts and carrying low under the cheers of the crowd. Something momentous must have happened on the field but at this moment Jane couldn't have cared less. "This is your thing, remember? We do what you want."

Jane intentionally positioned her lips close to Maura's cheek as she mentally braced herself. "This is what I want," she replied evenly. "This right here."

She worried that Maura would ease off her lap and take her own seat back, or at least swivel to face Jane and begin to unpack the meaning behind the simple words Jane had just confessed, but Maura did none of that. Maura shifted ever so slightly so that she too could whisper back to Jane, although her angle was more at Jane's neck than cheek, and Jane had to listen close for the tentative reply.

"Me too," Maura's voice trembled slightly, and whether it was the cold or something deeper, Jane couldn't say. "Jane, me too."

-R-I-

As predicted, traffic was a bitch. Jane had predicted so as they trekked down the escalators inside the stadium with what seemed like a million other exuberant, raucous fans, but Maura had just squeezed her hand without comment. Jane told herself that Maura had reached for her out of precaution, out of the likely and reasonable fear of being separated in the sea of people, but given the events of the last quarter and a half, that was starting to seem like only half the story. And Maura had hung on even as they'd gotten out on the street and made their way to their spot in the expansive lot.

"I guess there aren't any more games in our future," Maura commented wryly from the passenger's seat as traffic crawled before them.

"Like I said," Jane recapped smoothly as she eased her car forward. "It was fun. It was worth it. We came, we saw, we footballed. But yeah this is a one and done for me."

"Footballed is not a verb."

"Maura." Jane reached teasingly toward Maura, nipping lightly at her waist with her fingertips even as her eyes stayed on the road. "It really is like you said. Or like you've said a few times now. I tried things that I didn't expect to like and I liked them. A lot. And other things that I assumed I'd like or like the most were just okay."

"And what do you suppose that means?" Maura's tone was casual despite the subtle shift to the serious.

Jane was tempted to throw it all back at Maura; ask her what she thought it meant or what she wanted or how all of this was going for her. But she bit the response back. This was about her, not Maura. It had always been, and Maura had come along for the ride with no complaints. Jane owed her some honestly in return.

"I think it means more than just yes to parasailing and Salem and no to football," Jane offered. "I think that, in terms of the original point of all of this, if I do what I've always done, I'll feel like I've always felt. And lately, or well, lately as in the summer when this all started, I felt pretty shitty. And now I don't. And I'd like to think that it was because I was brave enough to try different things, to be uncomfortable for once and not immediately run screaming in the other direction."

"That's...that's great, Jane. I mean, that was what we were hoping for, right? That you would feel better and get out of the rut you were in." Jane could hear the sincerity in Maura's words competing with the disappointment that she wouldn't admit to and realized that this right here was the crossroad.

"It's not just that," Jane admitted. "That's all true and great and yeah, I feel better. But it's because of you. Because you pushed me, in a good way, and made me face it and actually change things for once instead of just complaining and avoiding. And I think that what I said applies to that, too. To us."

"How?" Maura's tone had dropped to barely a whisper.

"My mom used to watch this show," Jane answered, an answer wrapped in a riddle all at once. She could only pray that Maura could untangle it. "It was...well, you wouldn't have liked it. Not very scientific, but the one character was a doctor so who knows, maybe you would have liked it. I used to watch it with her sometimes when I was off shift. I was a rookie back then."

"Jane?" Maura fidgeted, clearly with confusion but if Jane was also correct, maybe with some anticipation as well. "Where are you going with this?"

"Patience, woman," Jane teased, poking again before sobering once more. "In all seriousness though. This character, the doctor, said this line once that always stuck with me and it went something like...ugh, I don't remember it exactly but it was good. It was how the best relationships usually start in friendship…"

"And how a switch has been flicked," Maura continued, so seamlessly that Jane had to work hard not to stare and crash into the car ahead of her. "Like how one day you see something more than you did before. And those are the relationships that last."

Jane thought that she would need to physically pick her jaw up off the floor. "Maura Isles, you amaze me everyday," she managed to eek out. "Seriously, I don't even know where to start. But, uh, yes that's...that's it." She managed a shy glance in Maura's direction only to find Maura looking softly, knowingly back at her.

"So that's what you've learned through this foray," Maura asked, almost as if to summarize, to be sure.

"Yes," Jane said simply. "To...all of it. Different isn't always bad, familiar isn't always good. You have to try something different to get somewhere different or to feel something different. And…" Her throat tightened but she pressed onward bravely. "If you do what you've always done and try to feel how you've always felt and...love how you've always loved, you'll never know what it could be like to...live differently or feel differently. Or love differently, even." Jane looked at Maura more fully then, grateful for the stalls in traffic, and noted the brightness of her eyes and the happiness in her smile. "Did I get it right?"

"Yes. In every way, you got it right. And not just about you either, but about me too."

"I love you." Jane didn't even comprehend the words leaving her lips until they had, but once they were out there, loose in the air around them, she wanted nothing more than to be warmed by them and have them light the air between them both.

"And I love you." Maura's breathing hitched and at that moment Jane wished more than anything that they weren't stalled in insane traffic outside of one of the largest stadiums in the country. "If we weren't in bumper to bumper traffic, I'd...um, have more options in terms of showing that, I suppose."

Jane laughed with a mixture of both disbelief and utter joy. "I second that. And to be clear, I mean...not in the, I love you because I'm glad you're not kissing my brother."

"Good. Because I mean I love you and not I love you because you're my best friend. I mean, you are my best friend and I love you for that too, but I also...I love you, like, love you, love you."

"I got it," Jane assured Maura gently. "And...I think you do, too. Right?"

"Right." Maura reached for Jane's hand, a consolation prize of sorts for their lack of other options at the moment. "So...what do we do now?"

"Now we go home," Jane said, leaning on her horn as an irate driver cut in front of her. "If we ever get out of this traffic, that is. And celebrate the end of what was apparently a years-long rut. And the beginning of...this. You and me."

"I agree. Except for one part."

"Which one?"

"We still have spring. You haven't picked anything for us yet." Maura played with Jane's fingers gently and Jane stroked back in a wordless response.

"Looks like I might not need to. I...we...got what we came for."

"Think of it as your grand finale then," Maura offered. "It's rather fitting, isn't it? Spring being a time for growth and rebirth and all of that."

It was sappy and cliche, all things that Jane would have fought at some point in her past life, but Jane was too beyond her past hang-ups to even care. "Boston is pretty nice in the spring," she agreed easily. "We'll come up with something good."

"You'll come up with something good. This is still your show, remember? I'm just along for the ride." At that, Jane raised her eyebrows at Maura across the car and Maura had the grace to both blush and hide a smile all at once.

"Guess I'd better start thinking of something then." Jane squeezed Maura's hand. "It hasn't been so bad so far, has it?"

"Not so bad at all," Maura agreed, the tenderness apparent in her voice. "Not in the least."