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Chapter Text

Saturday

Doctor Isles awoke to a strange sound, to an unfamiliar room, a strange body next to hers but no longer wrapped around her. The sound came again, and Doctor Isles fumbled for the lamp she'd turned off when Jane had fallen asleep. She must have fallen asleep as well; strange, since these surroundings were foreign and she had meant to monitor Jane to ensure she was in no danger of respiratory distress.

She found the switch and the light came on suddenly, revealing that Jane was curled away from her, whimpering.

Doctor Isles found the concept of compassion familiar in the context of the dead, but for the living it was foreign. But the noises coming from Jane were devastating, and out of an instinct Doctor Isles didn't know she had she reached out a hand to Jane's shoulder.

"Detective Rizzoli," Doctor Isles tried. "Detective Rizzoli." There was no response. "Jane," Maura said finally, rubbing her hand on Jane's bicep. "Jane, are you having a nightmare?" There was another whimper, and Maura withdrew her hand. She thought back to her training, to the trauma Jane had suffered. She shoved Jane roughly, and drew back quickly, hoping she'd jostled Jane awake. Jane shot upright, reaching over Maura for the gun that wasn't on the nightstand, pinning Maura beneath her warm body, Maura too startled to react.

"You're ok. You may have been having a nightmare," Maura said as Jane hovered over her, propped on one arm, the other still running over the nightstand surface. Jane looked down briefly, finally realising someone else was there, trapped beneath her, looking worried. Worried about Jane, or worried about Jane physically surrounding her - deprivation of liberty - unlawful detainment. Jane looked away just as quickly with a set jaw, rolling away from Maura as she sat up, rubbing her face. Jane sucked in air, huge sobbing gasps, eyes darting around the room, not landing on anything for more than a moment. Maura got up and turned on the overhead light so Jane could see better, assure herself that they were alone with no visible threats and sat next to her, reaching out a tentative hand to rub over Jane's back, the way she ran her hand over Bass' shell when he was sick.

"Now you know why I don't take my medication as prescribed," Jane said, swiping ineffectively at her face, Maura noticing that her hands had unfurled a little, that the palms were moist from rubbing her face, indicating that she'd been crying. "Geez, that was rough," she rasped out. "Hey, what are you doing here?" Jane asked, appearing finally to realise the situation was unusual.

"I drove you home. You asked me to stay, then... You were very - medicated. And insistent. Should I not be here? I couldn't - disentangle myself." Maura didn't want to say Jane had grabbed her and held tight when Maura briefly struggled, she didn't want to make Jane feel as though she'd taken Maura captive when she could have easily shrugged her off. She also didn't want Jane to think that Maura had taken advantage of the situation to insinuate herself into Jane's bed, that Maura had been waiting for an opportunity for Jane's defenses to be worn down with medication to get her to do something she otherwise wouldn't have agreed to.

"Nah, I didn't mean that, I just... I wasn't expecting... Thanks for the lift. And feeding me dinner. Sorry. I didn't mean for you to see any of this," Jane's head was tilted to the side, away from Maura, as if she was ashamed or upset. Maura was glad she hadn't mentioned anything to make her feel worse.

"You need home help," Maura said finally. "At least for the next few weeks."

"Nah, Ma comes around on Saturday and helps me clean up, and I get enough meals for the week from Ma after Sunday dinner. You're just seeing me at my absolute worst. Again. I'm sorry."

Maura wanted to say that no apologies were necessary, that she hadn't really minded the unexpected change to her plans for the night, but she didn't know how to say it without making Jane feel worse than she apparently already did. She just let her hand continue to smooth its way across Jane's back, the action unfamiliar to her but she felt Jane relax against her wordless reassurance. Maura never touched people - live people - if she couldn't help it, but she couldn't help this, the overwhelming urge to comfort the broken huddle of humanity in her hockey-stick strewn house. Maura was used to touching bodies that were cold and didn't move, and she could feel each of Jane's breaths pushing her ribcage back against Maura's hand, could feel the warmth of her through her cotton shirt, could feel the muscles in her back flex as Jane rubbed stressfully at her own hands. It was like being a tourist in her hometown; Maura was intimately familiar with the human body - everything was still in the same place, exactly where she'd expect it, but the human body was somehow better when it belonged to Jane, full of life and warmth. Doctor Isles worked with the dead because people who were alive confused her too much. There were too many variables and no set rules. But sitting next to a shaking Detective Jane Rizzoli in the middle of the night on her bed, her hands balled, her back hunched, Maura understood enough to know that here and now her simple touch was not only allowed but welcome as well. She understood this woman clinically, understood that she hadn't enjoyed being vulnerable in front of Maura but had asked her anyway - had asked her to open the pills, had asked her inside, had asked her to bed. She could feel Jane relax as her hand worked over that strangely familiar landscape of her back - she was naming all the muscles she could feel relax beneath the soft skin to comfort herself, still a little wary and afraid that the contact might be inappropriate. That Jane might interpret the contact as something different than Maura intended to express.

"It's late," Jane said, rubbing at her face again, still carefully tilted away from Maura. "Thanks for waking me up." If this were a movie, Jane would curl up in Maura's arms - if Maura were a man, or if it were a specific type of movie. But it wasn't, so Maura withdrew her hand.

"Are you going to be able to get back to sleep?" Maura asked.

"Yeah, I can feel the drugs still, and the storm has passed. I'll drop back out again soon." Maura stood. "Hey, you're welcome to stay." Jane sighed when Maura didn't pause, gathering her earrings from the side table. "Please stay. I can't take another nightmare." Maura paused then, looked over at Jane, who was finally looking back at her, huge brown eyes still moist with tears. Maura had wanted to leave; Jane seemed fine now, and it would feel odd, deliberately crawling back into bed with the other woman. But Jane was so raw tonight, and Maura wondered who else had seen her like this, who else got to see her like this. She was attractive, Maura had already taken note of that, yet she didn't seem to date. She'd overheard conversations about her lack of lovelife in the lobby and the lifts at work. The conclusion tended to be that she must be gay if she'd turned down so many men in the precinct, but Maura knew those men, and that was hardly the case. And even if she was, she'd not expressed an explicit interest in Maura, other than the higher than usual amount of cursory checks Maura was used to from men and women - eyes glancing down to her mouth and breasts during conversations, something everyone did, if not in the same volume as Jane. And even if Jane did find Maura attractive, even if she was attracted to Maura, this hardly seemed like a come-on. It seemed like desperation and grief. And since Jane didn't date - at least not anyone in the precinct - then staying would be fine, since Maura also worked at the precinct.

"Do you have anything I can sleep in?" Maura asked finally, fussing at her dress. Jane pointed at a drawer.

"Where's my gun?" Jane asked, slapping at her hip.

"In the gun safe." Maura said, pulling out some sportswear. "Would you like a shower, and would you like assistance to shower?" Maura asked, looking over at Jane, still in her work clothes. She was offering for Jane's comfort, not for any other reason, she told herself. She was a doctor, she was used to nudity - less so in live human specimens, but enough to be able to assist someone in medical distress to shower.

Jane clenched her hands a few times, testing them. "It was hard enough asking you to open my pills," Jane said sadly. "I can't..."

"I understand." Maura disappeared into the bathroom, and Jane fell asleep to the sound of the shower running.

Jane woke up, her face cushioned on something impossibly soft, her hands wrapped around an unfamiliar torso. There was a familiar vanilla smell in the room, probably from one of the soaps Angela kept buying her, as though someone else had used her shower and hadn't wanted to use Jane's soap. That's right. Doctor Isles had taken her home last night. And Jane had had a nightmare after dragging the other woman into bed with her, a sinking feeling hitting her as she noticed her soft pillow had a pulse running through it, that it rose and fell along with the steady breathing of the room's other occupant. She did a quick recon, the night before replaying through her mind. She'd just wanted a professional working relationship with this woman and now here she was, basically groping her in a bed she'd lured her into. Jane had tried very hard not to notice Doctor Isles' breasts, and here one was under her head, as soft as a cloud. Jane had eaten from her hand, Jane had pulled her into bed, and now Jane was happily sleeping on her well-endowed chest - she was going to be fired if Doctor Isles went to HR about this.

"Jane?" Jane heard as Doctor Isles shook her shoulder. "I think someone's in the house." Jane lifted her face from the soft breast she'd been using as a pillow to look at the bedroom door, still open, then dropped it back down gently as she recognised the sounds from the kitchen, digging her face in a little deeper to block the overhead light. Her hands released their grip on Doctor Isles' ribs.

"It's probably my Ma. Oh god, did she come in here? Did she see you?"

"No," Doctor Isles said. "Would it be a problem if she had?"

"A little, yeah," Jane grumbled. "You're smart enough to know there's a conclusion she might jump to if she walked in on this."

"You did invite me to stay," Doctor Isles reminded her. "Even though you don't have a spare bedroom."

"Janie? Who are you talking to?" Angela appeared in the doorway. "Oh. Hello. I'm Angela Rizzoli."

"Ma, this is the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was concerned about my absorption rate of the OxyContin and offered to keep an eye on me out of duty to the Hippocampus oath." Jane could feel the indignant huff from the doctor beneath her at her deliberate misuse of the word.

"Good morning," Doctor Isles said brightly, as though she normally woke up in sweatpants in her colleagues' beds.

"The photos do not do you justice," Angela said. "There's breakfast out here when you're ready." Jane exhaled as she left.

"She seems fine with... this," Doctor Isles commented, sitting up. Jane's torso slid down into Maura's lap and she groaned and sat up reluctantly.

"I'll get an earful later. Will you stay for breakfast to delay the lecture?"

"I suppose so," Doctor Isles said. "We could go jogging together. It is Saturday."

"And you're already in my jogging clothes," Jane noticed as Maura stood.

"You said it was ok last night. I hung up my dress in the bathroom." Doctor Isles looked anxious. "Last night you said you were glad we were friends. Have we interacted in a way that made you draw that conclusion definitively?"

Jane froze, and Maura could almost see her misinterpreting what she'd said.

"I meant - I meant I don't usually - I don't have a lot of friends. Not ones I sleep with, at least."

"Who do you normally sleep wi- wait, I don't want to know."

"I wanted to know why you'd consider us friends. I haven't exactly been - welcoming. If you'd share any evidence you have of a mutual affection between us." Jane watched Doctor Isles put her earrings back in and slip into her heels, looking as composed in Jane's workout outfit as she did in a dress.

"Well, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking last night, but I feel friendly towards you. You're pretty cold, but even so. You let me coach you at boxing. We have coffee together. We go jogging together. You offered to bring me home, and you stayed when I asked. If you didn't like me, you wouldn't be here. I know I'm a lot, I'm irritable and grumpy. I don't sleep well and my hands hurt. But if you needed anything, any little thing from me, I'd make it happen." Jane paused, not ready to mention that she knew that Doctor Isles was making accommodations for Jane's fear of scalpels, that she knew and appreciated the kindness in the gesture of not making Jane talk about it or admit that she had an issue with scalpels. Not ready to mention that she remembered last night and the tenderness there had been, how Doctor Isles had fed her carefully, rubbed Jane's sore hands, had helped Jane to bed, had slept in Jane's bed, hadn't asked about the nightmare but instead provided a steady hand of comfort across the plane of her back. Not ready to address that one moment where Jane had suspended herself above Doctor Isles, looking down on a woman who should feel vulnerable and frightened by Jane's sudden aggressive movements but instead looked comfortable, secure in the knowledge that Jane's brain wouldn't parse Doctor Isles as a threat. Those were friendly things friends did, weren't they? But to bring them up would make Jane feel surprisingly raw and intimate right now.

"I'm cold?" Doctor Isles asked. And Jane groaned.

"Is that all you heard?"

"Janie, be nice to your friend," Angela called from the kitchen.

"I'm trying," Jane called back, flopping her hands on the sheets in exasperation and Doctor Isles laughed, a light, bright noise that Jane hadn't heard before. She looked at Maura in wonder, smile spreading across her face, and Maura realised she hadn't laughed in what felt like an eternity, that Jane had never heard her laugh and was looking up at Maura the way she looked at the final clue that tied together a case. The way Maura had seen tourists look up at the Sistine chapel ceiling.

"You make a compelling case," Maura considered. "Friends. I suppose we are."

"Girls, the pancakes are getting cold," Angela called from the next room.

"I dunno what she thinks we are, considering she just found us in bed together, but yeah. Friends. I like you."

"I - I hadn't thought about it. But I find you surprisingly pleasant company."

"Good, now let's go eat some breakfast, huh?"

"It's so nice to finally meet you. I've read all the articles about you, and Jane is always talking about you." Angela smiled, and Maura felt frumpy without her makeup she wore like armour. She hadn't felt like that with Jane, she noted.

"It's lovely to meet you, Mrs. Rizzoli," Maura said, holding out her hand to shake, a small squeak of surprise escaping her when Angela enveloped her in a hug. She caught Jane's smirk when the hug lasted for more than three seconds, fidgeting but not squirming. Angela didn't let her go until she relaxed finally into the hug.

"Angela, please. Thank you for helping my baby. She's so stubborn."

"I suspect that's what makes her an excellent detective," Maura said. "Did she have an aide when the hospital released her?"

"She did, but she chased her away. I wanted her to move back home, but," Angela pinched Jane's cheek, who swatted Angela's hands away with a glare, "stubborn," Angela repeated, eyes squinted at Jane. "It's nice she has someone watching out for her, I was so worried when she went back to work. Korsak is nice enough, but he was almost too late. And I haven't met her new partner yet - she won't bring him home to meet us, can you believe it? Here, it won't eat itself," Angela pushed a plate towards a bemused Maura, who took a fork and started eating, overwhelmed by the combination of scolding and pride and love wafting from Jane's mother. "She wouldn't bring you home either," Angela said, accusing Jane.

"She's busy, Ma," Jane mumbled into her coffee. Her hands had unwound in the night, but Maura could see they still hurt her, despite her tough façade. "She's a socialite, not a slob like us."

"It's just Sunday dinner Jane, not a wedding," Angela said. "You're welcome, any week," Angela reiterated. "There's always room for you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Rizzoli. I have a speech at the museum tomorrow, but I might be able to move it up a little if this is a true representation of your culinary prowess," Maura said and Angela looked stunned.

"She'll come if she can, and she likes your cooking," Jane mumbled around a mouthful of food. "She talks big when she's nervous," Jane added, and Maura's head tilted to look at Jane, who shrugged, hunched over her food to make the distance between her plate and her mouth smaller more manageable. "What? You do," Jane insisted, and Maura wondered how Jane knew that, how long Jane had been observing her, learning her habits.

Angela barked out a laugh of surprise. "Nervous? Why would I make anyone nervous?" She asked Jane. Jane just quirked her eyebrows at Maura and kept eating.

Doctor Isles was quiet on their jog, and Jane wondered if she'd offended her somehow. Maybe it was that she'd revealed to Ma how Doctor Isles had a tell when she was nervous? Jane never really knew, from one day to the next, where she stood with Doctor Isles.

"Oh, hey, I read some of those things you sent through," Jane said, looking for a conversation starter. "Makes sense. I mean, I'm still a woman, but I'm not, like, a girly girl."

"I think I understand," Doctor Isles said. "Was it helpful at all?"

"I guess." Jane slowed as they approached Boston Joe's. "Gave me something other than abused kids to think about, anyway."

Doctor Isles stepped down to a walk as well, easily keeping pace with Jane. "It wasn't really any of my business, was it?" Doctor Isles said ruefully. "It's personal, and I assume you wouldn't be telling your mother?"

"Ma? Oh hell no," Jane said, paying for both coffees that had been started as soon as they came in. Maura smiled at the barista and shoved a hefty tip into the jar. "She's old school. She wouldn't get it. She already calls me a tomboy."

"I guess that makes sense."

"And you? You always been this into the fashion and makeup?"

"If I'd been born male, I believe I'd be what's commonly known as a 'drag queen', so yes. And I am envious of many of their outfits and their exaggerated makeup." Jane handed of her coffee and Maura took it out of habit as Jane rubbed her hands on her pants. "Your hands look a lot more functional today."

"Yeah, it happens like that sometimes when it's stormy." Jane took her coffee back and they headed back towards Jane's place.

"Your mother seems nice," Maura said.

"Yeah, well, be careful or she'll adopt you too," Jane said. "She always wanted a daughter. One like you, I mean, and you clearly had her starstruck."

"I love my mother, but she lives elsewhere, and I certainly wouldn't mind a substitute," Maura said, regretting it almost instantly, how she'd exposed another sore spot that Jane, should she wish to, could dig into, could use to hurt her. And if Jane's mother took her into the family, that would make them sisters, and Jane's frequent glances at her chest - exaggerated on Thursday with her rash - made that feel awkward. Maura herself hadn't been immune to whatever Jane had been experiencing. Maura wasn't used to being held, and Jane's arms around her last night hadn't been forceful enough to prevent Maura from leaving. They had been comforting enough that Maura had been unable to leave, Jane's gentle breath ruffling Maura's hair. Maura had expected Jane to release her as she fell into a deeper sleep, but Jane only snuggled closer, obviously trusting Maura. Maura wasn't used to easy affection, let alone in bed, not even with any of her former partners. Even if Jane and Maura never slept in the same bed again, Maura knew she'd remember last night as something that had opened her eyes to what had been missing from her relationships.

Maybe it was because Doctor Isles herself was reserved, that people saw all the invisible barriers she built around herself. Yet Jane never seemed to think they applied to her, always had a hand slipping past them - hands that Maura knew hurt when they contacted a surface, no matter if it was a coffee cup or Maura's shoulder. She was more willing to offer Maura comfort than to consider her own. And Maura had become used to that easy affection far too quickly. She looked forward to Jane's visits to the basement, even if they interrupted her work.

It felt very fast, but also too slow somehow. As though they were heading towards something Maura couldn't quite see yet.

"Would you mind? If I did go to dinner with your family?" Maura asked, handing Jane back her coffee.

"I asked you, didn't I?" Jane asked, mouth quirking into a grin. "Wouldna if I didn't wantcha there."

Everything I wrote for this one, up until here, I wrote in one day three months ago - heavily edited and added to, obviously, and waiting three months was the hardest part.