**DISCLAIMER – I do not own the characters, they belong to TNT and associated bodies. **
A/N: First off, thank-you for your kind reviews and messages. If you've read any of my other stories, you will know I am a die-hard romantic. Just enjoy the story and don't worry :-)
FLIGHTLESS ANGEL.
Chapter 4 – Say Something.
Jane had battled with her conscience, and her 'phone; the next morning.
She eyed it on the bedside cabinet.
She eyed it in the traffic.
She eyed it walking through the Department.
She eyed it on her desk.
"Jane, seriously;" Crowe snapped. "What's goin' with you today, huh? Tommy's cool, he's getting out tomorrow."
Jane eyed the veteran Detective. Never in all their years of working together, had he ever said something that could be tantamount to, well . . . nice.
"I know man, I know," Jane sighed and stretched.
12.35pm
Had she missed lunch with Maura already, or was there time to whisk the M.E out for the closest she could get to an apology date?
"I'm gunna take lunch," she looked kindly at Crowe who was filling in for Frost until his return. "You want anything?"
"I'd like that hot doc in my lap covered in honey, but nah I'm good for food," he replied, not looking at the frown and slight grimace of disgust etched on Jane's face.
"K . . . I'll be back in a bit," Jane walked out of the bull-pen slowly, sticking her hands in her pockets and trying desperately not to over-think things. Just be nice, Rizzoli.
Maura Isles sat at her desk, with her feet uncharacteristically on the furniture; eyes gently closed and her arms resting on the supports of her chair.
She finally opened her eyes to look at the door-way, where a lanky and forlorn looking Jane Rizzoli had leant against the door-frame.
Maura raised her finger, demanding silence from her intruder, as music flowed across the room.
"Not a word until the end of the duet." Maura closed her eyes again, absorbed in the skill of the sopranos. She was fascinated by opera. The balance of sheer power and effortless grace astounded her, how such emotion could be awoken in such a simple song.
After a few minutes, when silence finally enveloped the room; Maura opened her eyes and was surprised to find Jane's closed, with a gentle smile playing across the clearly tired Detective's lips.
"Sous le dôme épais," Maura whispered.
"The Flower Duet," Jane smiled as she sauntered, not arrogantly as normal; but lazily, appreciately. "My mom used to play it around the house in the summer, it was her cleaning song."
She smiled shyly down at Maura.
"I play it for similar reasons," Maura looked deliberately at the brunette. "When I need a cleanse, of my thoughts generally." She looked towards her hands, playing; tellingly, with her ring.
Jane sighed, defeated.
"You have nothing to cleanse," she hushed the thoughts of the M.E. "You're the purest person I know. You were on the receiving end of a very cranky, and very bratty Jane Rizzoli. It's me that needs cleansing, not you. I'm sorry."
Brown eyes met green. Anger. Lust. Upset. Fear. Need. Want. Fear again. Contemplation. Admiration. Sheer want.
"I've had a lot of rejection in my life Jane," Maura looked at the hand now covering her own, attached to the woman now kneeling before her. "You told me to promise you, that I would never leave," her voice hitched as a vagabond tear made it's way down her cheek. "But you didn't promise me back. You opened me up to the possibility of knowing that, what I have been dreaming of, what I have been needing, all these years; was possible. And then you took it away. You left."
"Maur," Jane gently motioned with her eyes. "Look at me. I got scared. Okay? I have all this . . . stuff . . . flying around inside of me," she motioned to her heart with her free hand.
"And I, Maur I just don't know how to process any of it. I sound like you," she giggled. "When it's me and you," one eyebrow from the good Doctor was enough to admonish her.
"When it's you and I . . . It's perfect. It's all I've ever wanted. I'm just . . . Maur, I'm scared I'm gunna mess this up. I'm so scared of having this one chance to have it all, and wrecking it. The fear is just . . . Maura, you and me; it's the most scared I've ever been. 'Cos I know that as soon as something happens, and as soon as we tell people, everyone would be waiting on me to fuck it up." Jane looked at the floor as if in a daze, shaking her head slowly.
"But I can't fuck it up Maur, you're all I've got; you're everything to me, my Ma, the guys. You, this, us; Maur it's terrifying."
Maura rubbed the scarred hands still holding her own, using a few seconds to think.
"Je tremble, je tremble d'effroi. Nous appellent ensemble; viens, descendons ensemble. Ah! glissons en suivant, doucement glissons," Maura looked pointedly at a perplexed Jane.
"I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded hot," Jane whispered with a raised eyebrow.
Maura picked up a little remote, hitting a button to bring the familiar sopranos back into the room again.
Maura whispered over the song.
"I said that 'I tremble with fright.' But 'call us together'",she linked her fingers fully with Jane's. "'Call us together and let us drift down together, and let us glide gently along.' I am just as afraid as you Jane. But I have nothing to fear as long as you don't make me go through this alone. If we do this, we do it together."
"How about I take you out on a real date then?" Jane smiled. "We gotta start somewhere. Would you like to have lunch with me, Maura?"
Maura's smile reflected that of the brown eyes staring at her.
"I thought you'd never ask," she smiled; standing up.