A/N: Hey guys! It's been a long time since I updated any of my stories, but I'm working on them now! I hope y'all are still interested in finding out what happens :) Please let me know what you think!
Jane woke up to the sound of a baby crying.
"What the hell?" She sat up quickly and looked around the dark bedroom. It wasn't her room; it was Maura's. "How much did I drink last night?" she mumbled.
Maura shifted in the bed beside her. Jane put her hand on her best friend's shoulder and shook gently.
"Maur, what is that? Why is there a baby crying?"
Jane shook her a little harder and spoke a little louder, but Maura didn't wake up and the sound didn't stop. She felt on the bedside table for her gun and ended up knocking over a glass of water. It was cold when she got out of the bed and she was only wearing a tank top and really short shorts. It was always cold at Maura's and she was missing her usual sweats and T-shirt. She felt for the back of the vanity chair where Maura always kept her soft white bathrobe. That, at least, had not changed. She slid it on over her bare shoulders and felt instantly warm.
The whole house was really dark, but Jane knew the layout well enough to not turn on any lights. She followed the cries to the guest room, where the door was open a crack. It made absolutely no sense that there would be a baby in Maura's guest room, but stranger things could have happened. Maybe Maura had friends in town or something and Jane drank so much that she forgot. She flipped on the light and was shocked to see the old white and beige guest room that had been mostly untouched for years was no more. The walls were painted lavender and there were soft gray curtains and elephants stenciled on the walls and a giant white crib in the middle. Jane suddenly felt like she was in the Twilight Zone. She leaned over the crib and picked up the crying baby, a little girl a few months old, with fuzzy blonde hair and Maura's eyes. For some reason, holding the baby felt natural. She settled into one of the rocking chairs across the room and the baby stopped crying.
Jane rocked until the little girl fell asleep and was surprised to look up and see Maura standing in front of her. She had to catch her breath upon seeing her beautiful best friend in front of her, wearing nothing but a short black nightgown made of silk and lace, wavy hair tangled and messy from sleep.
"Maura, what..." Jane started.
"Thanks for getting up with her, love," Maura interrupted. "I was so tired."
Maura offered her a cup of coffee and then leaned over and kissed her.
Jane jumped. Her cell phone was ringing. She was home, in her own bed, with a killer headache.
"What the hell was that?" she thought. It was only a dream, but it had felt so real and so normal. She needed to talk to Maura.
Jane grabbed her phone and saw it wasn't ringing, but her alarm was going off. It was 3:00 a.m. There was absolutely no reason her alarm should be going off, except to interrupt her dream, which had just started to get pretty good. She didn't care about the time; she dialed Maura's number. Of course, considering it was the middle of the night and she was sure to be exhausted, the medical examiner didn't answer.
Jane changed into a pair of jeans and threw on a sweatshirt, determined to make things right with her best friend as soon as possible. She didn't care what time it was or what mistakes Maura had made or how betrayed she felt by them; the important thing was making sure Maura was okay and knew Jane would always be there for her.
Jane didn't bother doing anything with her hair or even looking in the mirror. She knew her blood-alcohol level was most likely still too high to drive, so she called a cab. She considered cancelling it at least fifty times before it arrived at her apartment, wondering if she should wait for morning, or maybe not do this at all. There was a pretty good chance Maura would not react well to Jane showing up unannounced in the middle of the night, especially with all the terrible things she'd said. She felt really ashamed at how mean she'd been to the person she cared about the most at the time when she needed her the most. Maura would have every right to just send her away and Jane didn't think she could handle that. Either way, it was a chance she had to take.
Jane's heart raced as she headed down to the waiting cab and the whole ride over to Maura's. She had no idea what she would say or do when she saw her friend. She took her time paying the cab fare, walked slowly to the front door, let herself in using her own key, and disarmed the alarm. The house was dark, but she could navigate it well enough not to run into anything.
"Janie?"
Jane almost jumped out of her skin upon hearing her mother's voice coming from the couch.
"Ma?" she whispered loudly. "What are you doing in here?"
"I live here. What are you doing?"
"I got into a dumb fight with Maura and I wanted to make sure she's okay. Why are you sleeping on the couch?"
"Maura's not feeling well, so I wanted to be close in case she needed anything," Angela replied. "You came over in the middle of the night to make up after a 'dumb' fight?"
"Like you said, she's not feeling well. I thought she might need me here. Go to bed, Ma. I'll take care of Maura."
"I'm staying on the couch. She's pretty mad at you, Jane. You'd better make it up to her."
"Yeah. I hope I can."
