**DISCLAIMER – I do not own the characters, they belong to TNT and associated bodies. **
A/N: Hello again everyone, I've taken a prompt from tumblr [you can find me as 'patiencefirmnessperseverance ']. I think the prompt was 'Going back to where your OTP first met'and I've set this one after the end scene of 's pretend Casey doesn't exist in R&I. I've also used a self-prompt, which is the Emeli Sande song – 'My Kind of Love'. I hope you like it :-) If people like, I might extend beyond a one-shot.
FLIGHTLESS ANGEL.
"Come on," Maura nudged Jane gently with her shoulder.
"Where we going?" Jane husked, whilst already falling into step with the M.E, scuffing her shoes as the weight of the day's events had drained all care for straight shoulders out of her.
"Somewhere," the blonde smiled, taking Jane's hand in her own, before placing her other in the blue scrub trousers. "Somewhere where we can process all of this, before your Mother notices we're gone." She winked and looked behind quickly, to see a bundle of bodies hugging; before turning to Jane and revelling in the content smile playing across the Detective's lips.
‑
Around fifteen minutes of comfortable silence, Maura stopped walking and Jane turned to the blonde, feeling the pull of her hand.
"We're here," Maura looked timidly. "Do you remember this place, Jane?"
Jane's eyes narrowed as she took in the surroundings.
They were standing on a pavement, adjacent to the turnoff for Maura's road. Jane pivoted a few times on her heels.
"We're . . . on the street where you liveeeee...?" Jane smiled as she tried to husk the statement into a song.
"Yes, yes we are. But, if you will," Maura sat down on the pavement, patting the spot beside her. "Imagine that it is raining. Imagine that I am wearing the shortest of shorts."
Jane slowly sat on the ground, her eyes long gone back in time tracing the memory of the surroundings.
"That you're holding your left ankle. That you're desperately trying not to cry, but that your lips are pursed together and your feet are pointed upwards in pain."
"That . . ." Maura placed her hand over Jane's and brought it to her ear, placing a curl behind it. "That a tall, and lanky, and out of breath, and sweaty brunette; comes running across the road. And without one word, she brushed the hair out of my eyes. That she sits, right here beside me. That she smiles, and tells me she's not here to pick up a trick. That she looks at me with those big brown eyes, and she tells me I'm going to..."
"That I'm going to pick you up now," Jane interrupted as she turned to repeat the gentle movement of that day, almost 6 years ago. "And you're going to tell me somewhere safe that I can carry you to, because I don't know this area too well," she smiled, whispering the last few words.
Maura motioned for Jane to put her down.
"You told me I looked just like a flightless angel. You carried me the whole way home," Maura barely managed to say, placing her hand over Jane's heart.
"You carried me home, that day and every day since. You were my home, I didn't even realize I was looking for one," she finally found the courage to look in Jane's eyes, as Jane wrapped her arms around Maura's waist.
The Detective smiled, placing a feather kiss on Maura's hair and sighing.
"I know I don't show it enough. I know that I brush things that you say, off; with sarcasm and jokes and every method of deflection there is going;" she began swaying them gently, as she pulled her head back slightly and used her hand to raise Maura's chin.
"But I want you to know. Scratch that. I need you to know, Maura," looking the ME straight in the eyes. "I need you to know that I thank God every single day, that I was on-call that day, that I had my cell out running," she swayed them again, giggling and looking right at Maura.
"Thattttt . . . that I had actually bothered to keep running to the scene without just calling for a pick-up, and that crucially for you; I had taken a wrong turn two blocks back and found myself here in the Hamptons," she laughed out the last word, getting a swat on the arm from Maura as her thanks.
Maura ghosted her fingertips over the strong jaw by her eyeline.
"I never questioned, that day or since; why you did that. Why you do any of the things that you do for me. I just know that you do, and that they tell me more about in here," she touched Jane's heart again before touching her lips; " . . . than here could ever express. You never have to try and explain, I don't need you to. I know you care Jane, you carrying me in your arms tells me so much more than you writing 'BFFs Forever' in the sky on Valentine's Day," Maura giggled.
"Oh my Lord, Maura did you just make a funny?! Did you just make a funny?" Jane squealed with child-like glee, picking up the Doctor and swinging her in a circle before breathing deeply and looking at the smaller woman with serious eyes.
"Never leave me, Maur. Promise me. Promise you'll never leave."
Maura Isles has only ever had the instinctive inclination of 'fightorflight' twice in her life. Once with Hoyt as he cut her neck. The other, as Dennis Rockmond held her over a lift shaft. Both times, Jane's bravery beat her own natural human instinct into motion to protect her.
"I can't fight this anymore," she spoke quietly as she began to cry. "I can't fight you anymore."
Maura reached up and tilted Jane's head down to her, kissing her slowly and softly, life-changingly.
"I promise you, I will never leave you," she mirrored Jane's beaming smile, jumping onto the taller woman and wrapping her legs around a thin waist.
"But I do expect you to carry me home, Detective!"