Hey folks! Just popping in to add a disclaimer that I don't own these characters etc etc - this is just a creative outlet where I'll borrow them to make my own timeline, that hopefully you'll all enjoy reading! New to the world of ff, excited for this journey with you.
Italics in this chap are associated with Jane and her thoughts. Happy reading y'all!
It's just a regular Tuesday when Maura Isles finally snaps.
She finishes her last report for the day and leans back in her chair, stretching her arms above her head to shift some of the dull aches that settle in her shoulders after hours spent hovering over the bodies that have arrived at her door today.
It's been a hard shift, even more so than usual. A shootout during the investigation between two rival Boston gangs has meant a lot of procedural slicing and dicing - mind-numbing to some, but Maura is happy with the distraction, even if it means going home well after her colleagues have left for the night.
Well, almost all of them.
Dropping her hands to her desk, she peers over the screen of her laptop at the curly-haired brunette sitting cross-legged on her office couch, tapping a pen to her lips impatiently as she scowls down at the open file in front of her. After a few seconds, her pen begins to scratch across the paper haphazardly and then stops again, and Jane pauses for a few seconds before closing the file with a sudden slap and dropping it onto the pile next to her with a long sigh.
She flexes her hands a few times and then reaches for the bottle of Sam Adams that she's been nursing for the past hour, screwing her face up at its warmth as she drains it.
Maura watches as Jane quietly places the now empty bottle into the trash can next to her and hauls herself to her feet, raking a hand through her messy hair and yawning. She too stretches and flexes her arms over her head, cracking her knuckles. The resulting pop causes a quiet groan of relief to fall from her lips, followed by another tired sigh.
The crumpled white shirt she wears is flecked with dried blood and grit after a hellish day and she groans in disgust, chiding herself for being too distracted to change after she crept down into Maura's office for some peace to debrief and continue with her seemingly endless paperwork. Jane deftly unbuttons the shirt before shrugging it off, balling it up, and tossing it in the general direction of the trash - nothing ruins white linen like blood. She takes another moment to flex her arms and aching wrists, muttering under her breath about the cold weather and her shitty hands and the constant destruction of her favorite shirts as she picks her way around piles of folders to the locker neatly stacked with a selection of Maura's spare clothes.
Unaware of her audience she quietly rifles through the pile and pulls out a navy roll-neck jumper, stroking her hands across what she's sure is the softest fabric she's ever felt in her life before slipping it over her head. She tucks it out of habit, and she's about to borrow a hairbrush when she hears Maura clear her throat across the room.
"Oh. Hey. I had ick on my shirt."
"Ick?" The blonde closes the screen of her laptop gently and turns her chair towards Jane, an expression that Jane cannot decrypt across her face.
"You know...the usual. Blood, guts, coffee. Are you okay?"
Maura considers lying - something she's been forced to become adept at over the past few months. She's aware of the consequences too, aware of the hives, nausea, and migraines but she's coped.
Until now.
She's not sure why she chooses now to implode, a dreary Tuesday in the second week of October. Maybe it's the result of a very trying day, or maybe it's the utter exhaustion that she feels in her bones from fighting to keep herself and her desires in line. Whatever it is, something in her chest finally gives and the curious expression on Jane's face tells her that there is no going back.
Maura shakes her head, her shoulders straightening in anticipation of the weight she's about to lift. She forces herself to stand and immediately regrets it, her breath catching in her throat as her heart pounds wildly against her ribcage. Her vision begins to swim as her brain screams at her to stop, but she knows she can't.
She can't live this lie any longer.
"What's wrong?" She hears the concern in Jane's voice accompanied by the squeak of her sneakers on the linoleum. Her skin feels like it's been set alight and she allows herself to brace against the polished wood of her desk, steadying herself against the onslaught of a wildfire that rips through her, destroying every single flimsy wall she's ever built to protect herself against this. Against the possibility of them.
"Maur. What is it?"
She absolutely, irrevocably can't stand this anymore. The need. The want. The strain of hiding what she so desperately needs has all but torn her sanity to shreds and whether she likes it or not she has no choice but to finally explode, freeing herself from her constraints.
"Maura. Tell me. Is it the cashmere? I promise I won't bobble it." Jane attempts a joke, the grin dropping from her face when Maura's expression doesn't change.
Jane can't ever remember a time when she's witnessed Maura like this and she casts a glance up and down the length of the blonde, rewinding the day in her head to see if she can remember anything that would have triggered this kind of reaction.
Maura stands so silent and so tense that her muscles twinge with effort, and when she suddenly gasps for a breath Jane is sure that she's about to hit the floor.
"Maura!"
She yelps and brings her hands to either side of Maura's face and tilts it towards her, forcing their eyes to meet. The piercing look that she is met with stops her in her tracks and she gulps loudly, her brow narrowing in a growing concern.
"Hey. It's only me. You can talk to me."
Jane's fingers brushing against her neck is all that Maura needs to step over the edge, the white noise whistling in her ears halting with a start and one final surge of resolve rushing through her entire body.
"It is you."
"What?"
"It's you."
In a moment of utter confusion and certainty that Maura is legitimately having some sort of breakdown, Jane slides her hands down to hold Maura by her shoulders, leaving an arm's length between them so she can try and assess what the actual fuck is wrong.
"I really need you to make sense right now, Maura. Have you lost your mind? Do you need a doctor? Do you need me to call som-"
"No."
"Do you want m-"
"No."
"C'mon Maur, you're actually starting to scare me a little here." Jane begins to chuckle nervously but she's cut off sharply.
"It's you. You. I can't live like this anymore Jane. I have to do something. I can't fucking stand it."
Jane doesn't think she's ever heard Maura swear, not once in the entire time that they've known each other. She's choosing to focus on the shock of this rather than Maura's proximity, or the way that her black bra peeks from underneath her scrub shirt, or the way Maura's teeth graze her bottom lip shyly. She's still focusing on this when Maura's voice quietens to a whisper, so low that Jane has to strain to hear her.
"I want you."
Oh god.
"I've wanted you for so long."
Oh my god.
"I can't control it anymore. It's breaking me apart Jane. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can barely keep myself together when you're near."
Jane blinks rapidly, staring at Maura's face. She is so fucking confused right now. She drops her arms from Maura's shoulders, and Maura takes a determined breath before continuing.
"It tortures me that I don't know how you feel about me. You're so hard to read. You send out so many signals that I'm driving myself to insanity trying to pick them apart. I've hinted and pushed and come so close to crossing the line of our friendship so many times that I've lost count. I've fought and fought and I've concluded that I can't live myself if I don't do this."
The silence when Maura stops is deafening and then something happens that leaves Jane unable to think straight. Literally.
Soft lips graze her own - tenderly at first and then harder and then Jane loses all control as Maura's hand creeps under her jumper, manicured fingernails whispering across her stomach. She kisses Maura back with a hunger she didn't know she had, frantic and desperate and it's only when the moan that vibrates from Maura's throat causes a flood between her thighs that she's whipped back into reality.
She springs backward, panting hard as she stumbles blindly backwards and eventually thumps against the glass wall that separates the office from the pitch-black morgue beyond. Her senses are in overdrive - the ice-cold glass against her back, Maura's perfume saturating her nose and dizzying her, the dim light from the singular desk lamp somehow blinding Jane as she rapidly tries to get a hold on what the fuck just happened.
"Jane."
Maura's graveled voice again stirs something inside of Jane so unexpectedly that she smacks an open palm against the glass to try and regain some control.
"Stop! What are you doing? My god Maur, wha-"
"Jane."
There it is again. The drawl of her name in a tone she never imagined she'd hear from her best fucking friend is so seductively inviting that she quivers, her knees threatening to betray her.
"Stop it."
"No." A simple answer, but one that is openly defiant and surprises Jane nevertheless.
"Do you even know what you're saying? Do you have any idea what you're doing right now?" Jane's tone is sharper than she intends, but she has to put a stop to this.
"Yes."
"Maura, I can't do this with you."
"Why?" The question takes Jane by surprise and she fumbles for an answer, looking for anything to say but the one thing that is blinking like a giant neon sign in her head.
"I...I don't" Jane splutters hopelessly, gesturing first in her direction and then Maura's, "I'm not-"
"Gay?"
"No. Yes! I don't know." She sighs exasperatedly, rubbing her eyes with the palms and holding them there, not trusting herself to look at Maura without losing her damn mind.
Maura - Maura, with her warm skin and soft golden curls and that goddamn figure-hugging skirt that makes Jane's mouth dry every time she accidentally runs her eyes down the curve of Maura's hips.
She smacks the heels of her hands against her closed eyes, grunting quietly.
Janes likes boys. Men. Muscles and stubble and...Maura. No. Yes. No! She's too tired for this. That's all it is. She's tired and confused and horny an-. No. She halts her train of thought again with a smack to her forehead, hoping that if she hits herself hard enough she'll be able to reset this. Whatever this is.
"Please don't do that." Maura's voice is low and pleading but it does the opposite of calming Jane, triggering a small burst of anger inside of her.
"Don't do that? How about you don't fucking come at me with your hands and your secret confessions and your mouth?" Jane whines the last few words without intending to, smashing her palms into her eyes one last time before heels click across the room and Maura peels her hands away from her face.
"I'm sorry. I realize how sudden this must be. I was sure that you..." she pauses, holding Jane's hands in her own as she gently massages the scar tissues of her palms.
"That you knew. Or had some idea, at least."
Maura is being unfair. How is she supposed to concentrate with strong fingers instantly relieving the pain in her palms in a way that only Maura can? How is she supposed to explain herself when all she can think about is how right Maura feels, how she wants nothing more than to risk everything they have but for what? Sex? A relationship? Love?
She scoffs aloud and Maura takes this as her answer, nodding silently.
"It was highly probable that you'd take it this way. I'm not asking you to make a decision right now, Jane, but-"
"A decision?!" Jane interrupts her with a squeak before wringing her hands free of Maura's, crossing them over her chest before she puts them somewhere - or on someone - that they shouldn't be.
"I'm willing to wait until you've thought it through. I'm asking nothing more than for you to consider what could be. I've never felt this way about anyone before Jane, not even Derek."
Derek. Her last boyfriend, partner of two whole years. They'd split without warning weeks ago but even with Jane's prying Maura had never revealed why, somehow managing to shrug off Jane's questions and steer away from the subject every single time. Jane would be lying to herself if she didn't admit her happiness at the breakup. She'd known from that the second that they started seeing each other that Maura was too good for him, that he could never treat her with the attention and care and love that she deserves.
Has she always felt this way? Sure, there were girls when she was young and stupid and reckless, but she'd forced herself to grow past that, grown to like men. She hadn't even considered the possibility that she might still like women. Or, at least, a woman.
No. She can't do that again. Women are complicated and hurtful and deceitful and she won't open herself up to that world of pain ever again.
Jane was 17 when she made the mistake of falling for someone whose very purpose would be to humiliate her. Her childhood friend, of all people, would lead Jane down a tempting path filled with promises and excitement and nervousness for the future, only to turn around at the very last second and very publicly reveal that their relationship had been a lie. Jane still blames the friends - popular, preppy friends that Jane despised, friends that mocked Jane and her 'manly' image, friends that pulled them apart and filled Grace's head with homophobia and venom until she'd been left with nothing else to do but out and shame Jane in front of the entire school.
She still feels the raw hatred to this day, gripping her just as strong as it did as she helplessly ran through the school corridors, tearing down tacked-up copies of her diary and explicit messages and poorly edited photos of Jane with the word 'Dyke' scrawled across them in red.
The fear that she spent so long avoiding is what now makes her stomach churn - fearful of what might be if she let it. She knows, deep down, that Maura would never hurt her like that, but the unrelenting terror poisons her rational thoughts and it is so fucking much that she just can't.
She can't.
"I have to go".
Jane ekes out the words, regretting them even as she slips past Maura, grabbing whatever things are closest to her and shoving them hastily into her backpack. Tears sting her eyes and she resists the urge to slap herself, bending to shove her hands between couch cushions until her fingers finally close around her keys.
"Jane."
"Nope."
"Please." Maura doesn't move, but Jane hears the sadness in her tone. She knows that she's hurting Maura, but she's not ready. Not yet.
"I have to go."
She straightens, tugging at the jumper that she's convinced is starting to tighten around her neck and then stalks over to the door, refusing to meet Maura's eyes. She has to get out of this stifling room before she suffocates.
Her hand trembles on the handle and she waits, waits for Maura to come to her and laugh and mock that she fell for her little joke, but she doesn't. Of course, she doesn't.
Maura wants this.
And if Jane is honest - really, truly deeply honest...so does she.