A/N: The first of two chapters today, so be on the lookout for chapter 11 in a few hours.
Jane, with her pant leg ripped from knee to ankle and gravel dust all over her blazer, wrestled with the lanky, unkempt man in her custody all the way to the interrogation room. Frost, whose shirt was untucked and his forehead bleeding, took over for Jane to haul him inside. Korsak opened the door for them, his suit still pristine.
Paul Williams, 42, unmarried, working in cable installation and living in the home he inherited from his mother, had killed eight sorority girls at BCU. Or at least, Jane was all but certain he did. They had a witness who placed his car driving away from the research station out by the dormitories, and they had fibers from the cloth-wrapped hilt of his knife that Maura's crime lab analyzed now. By the next morning, they would know if those fibers matched the ones that had been found in most of the victims' chest wounds.
The man himself inspired no real fear. He had semi-long brown hair, a patchy beard, and wrinkled, old clothes. His skin was oily and his head had clearly not seen a shower in a while, but his teeth and his nails were immaculate. He was tall, almost 6'3", but skinny. He fought Jane like hell on the way in, ran twice, and had to be tackled in the street just outside his home. Maura had sent techs out to accompany them, and those techs had recovered dozens of small items that Jane believed to be trophies: Maura herself might have offered more insight, but she was working on her third body of the day, the second of his, and she hadn't seen the outside of the morgue since morning.
Even now, with the sun starting to soften at six pm, they were all bone tired. They'd chased him like dogs for weeks, since before he'd escalated into torture killing, and this end had been long-awaited. Korsak had taken the last sleep shift since he was their most skilled interrogator, and they'd made the gamble that they would catch Williams while Korsak rested at home.
And they were right. So, Korsak appeared before them now in prime form, closing the door behind him on his way out of Interrogation Room 3. "Surefire way to make him stew would be to give you two some time off to shower and find new clothes. Interrogation can wait until then. It's the least he could do for dirtying you up," he said.
Frost smirked. "You know, I like your evil thoughts when they aren't directed at me, old man," he said. "I'll be back in twenty." Then, he was on his way to the elevators.
"Must be nice to have a place two minutes away, huh?" Jane said to Korsak. "I'm good. I wanna start this now."
Korsak looked her up and down. "You sure? You look like hell."
"Yeah, I'm sure. When I tell him that he's being charged with assaulting a police officer I want to be able to catalogue all the fucking ways," she said, turning around so that Korsak could see just how much of a beating she'd taken.
"Alright. I'll call Frost, tell 'em you kids are takin' shifts with me and you got first," said Korsak. "Hopefully that'll give the lab enough time to feed us somethin' else."
Jane, freshly showered, changed, and officially relinquished of her interrogation duties for the evening, stomped through the empty crime lab. She weaved past workstations and forensic equipment until she reached the boxy windows of the autopsy suite double doors, and spotted Maura inside.
Jane was tired, really tired. It had been the unending nights, the brutalized women, and the long bouts of frustration peppered with bursts of action. But, she at least had showered, and downed gallons of coffee to prop her eyes open. Maura didn't have time for any kind of relaxation, and didn't drink caffeine after two pm. Maura only had bodies this week - four of Williams' victims on top of the non-homicide suspicious deaths that came weekly in a large city like Boston.
And Maura leaned against the table of her latest close, a biology major at BCU who'd been cut down too soon by Paul Williams himself. Her eyes were shut behind her protective eyewear, and her arms were crossed over her chest, as if to prop herself up, lest she fall face first into the linoleum. Her clogs, as sensible as her scrubs, anchored her to waking as much as they anchored her to the floor.
"Hey," said Jane, quietly. Everything about her was quiet, because she altered herself when she saw Maura so… un-Maura-like. Her steps clicked when before they had thundered, and her voice whispered when she at first had meant it to boom.
Maura opened her eyes gracefully, but she still looked wiped. "Hi," she said anyway, her smile soft for Jane. She had sensed Jane looking at her, studying her, because she had heard those heavy footfalls as soon as Jane departed the elevator. But, in the past few days Maura had noticed something else about Jane: she stared for longer, she blushed more. She lingered when they hugged now, and she hovered around Maura's office even more than she did before. Maura had once thought that impossible. So, Maura let Jane look for a moment before she acknowledged her, because even though Jane was tossing every red flag that could exist in a friends-with-benefits situation, Maura found herself drawn to it. She liked the way Jane's eyes lit up for her during the most mundane of activities. She liked how Jane talked to her when they had sex: as if she were the only person alive, or at least the only person worth bedding. She liked, she admitted to herself, the feeling of Jane falling for her.
She allowed it, both the attraction and the theory, because nothing else could explain why she hadn't seen Tommy since the night before the Rizzoli siblings started the Alberti project a week ago.
"Done?" asked Jane, backing up and leaning on the table, right next to her.
"Finally, yes," Maura replied. In a space that she would usually fill with elaboration, silence reigned instead. She let Jane's heat do the talking, let herself be wooed just a little bit.
"Let me get you home then, take care of you. You look like death," Jane said, knocking Maura's shoulder with her own. Of course she would never disappoint.
"Thank you. You're so kind, supportive," Maura snarked, making her voice syrupy sweet and bobbing her shoulders in a mockery of deference.
Jane liked it, laughed. "We can make a late dinner. C'mon," she goaded, tugging Maura's hand. They entered Maura's office, and Jane waited dutifully while Maura used the changing room.
"I resent your surprise at my buying of vegetables, Maura," Jane complained as they walked through Maura's front door, her arms full of bags. "And how I ended up carrying all the bags is beyond me."
"You took pity on my fourteen hour day, remember?" Maura teased, grabbing Jane's chin between her fingers as the taller woman hopped out of her boots. "And I didn't expect eggplant because it's late and the only time I've seen you eat it is when your mother makes it."
"Yeah well, that could be said about most of my meals," Jane said, and Maura laughed. "But there's pasta involved, too. Which could also be said about most of my meals."
"True. What do you need me to do?" Maura asked, unloading some of the bags from Jane. She walked them to the kitchen counter, removing and sorting items by type.
"First thing you could do is take out a container of Ma's sauce," Jane threw her head back towards the freezer as she danced around the kitchen for the vegetable peeler and the cutting board. "Start thawing it in whatever way'll work fastest."
"Of course," Maura answered easily. She took a small pot and filled it with cold water, and placed the tupperware inside. When she turned, Jane was peeling the eggplant with care. The peeler started at the top, and Jane's fisted grip slid it down the body of the vegetable, stripping it of its purple skin and leaving it bare, green underneath. Jane's cephalic vein popped as she traveled the eggplant in its entirety, remained prominent when she set it down to grab her knife instead. The vein entranced Maura, and she kissed the bicep where it culminated in a wide, thumping highway to the heart.
Jane looked up from her chopping to smile, closed-lipped and handsome. When Maura didn't break her gaze, or move away from her arm, she put the knife down. "What?"
But Maura said nothing. She had a hypothesis to test. Because, if she were as true to herself here as she was in the morgue, she would admit that she, too, may be… feeling things. More than just physical urges. She took advantage of Jane's confusion, and kissed her lips. It was chaste, but it devolved into something lustful, something wet and wanting, when Jane pressed fully into her and kneaded at her hips. There were physical urges, too, clearly, and then, when Jane broke them apart to sigh and return to the eggplant, there were feelings of loss. Of a surging need touch - not for a means to an end, for climax, but for comfort. For connectedness.
It was why she placed her hands on Jane's back, kept them flat and warm, and then kissed the dip between her shoulder blades. "You're being very disciplined," Maura said, and Jane's laughter buzzed against her lips in reply.
"That is on a second-by-second basis," said Jane. "At any moment I could choose the dark side."
"Hmm. I'll have to devise a way to expedite that, then," Maura teased. However, she walked over to the cabinets behind them to take out a baking sheet, intent on honoring Jane's wishes of the moment.
"Please do," Jane cut the eggplant into rounds, but stopped to lean her head backwards.
Maura saw it for the danger that it was, but she gave in anyway, and they kissed awkwardly. It was intoxicating, the way Jane sought after her through the crane of her neck and the front to back position they found themselves in. But, rather than accommodate and accept, Jane adjusted and aligned them. She spun around to fall into Maura's embrace, to kiss with more passion.
Maura was unsure how, but she had jumped up into Jane's arms much the same way she often jumped into Tommy's, and was being carried up the stairs. Jane's face felt so much smoother in her hands, but it was Jane's heart, reluctant though Jane was to share it, oblivious though Jane was to its desires, that felt the most satisfying in them. Maura had made up her mind when Jane laid her gently on the bed. She knew what Jane's heart wanted when Jane undressed them both with care and settled on top of her. She resolved to draw it out, make the both of them name it, eventually, when Jane dropped her tongue inside of her mouth.
She wanted to hear it, when Jane was ready, even if she didn't know what she would say back. She knew whatever her response was, it would be positive for the both of them, so she kept quiet, content to just enjoy Jane now. Jane crawled down beneath the covers, trailing kisses as she went, until she kissed the place Maura needed her most. She kissed it for minutes, used only her lips to light a bonfire between Maura's hips, until Maura whimpered in decadent frustration. "Stop teasing," she said, near tears, to the bump under the bedsheet. Jane looked so good as simply a head between her knees, combined with the sound of what she was doing. But it wasn't enough.
Though Jane sometimes liked to tease, she was merciful this time. As soon as Maura asked for more, Jane gave it to her: broad tongue-strokes that split, covered, moistened and pleased.
They were steady and unyielding and Maura wanted to cry. "Oh…" she moaned into the cool air, not caring that they left the door open, not caring that her thighs held Jane in place like a vice. She bucked up and thrust back, meeting Jane blow for blow, hands rubbing over that mane of black hair under Egyptian cotton. She groaned low and loud when she orgasmed.
After minutes, hours, days - any would have been plausible - Jane climbed back up. She felt heavy on Maura's already slack body. Her breath was unusually labored. When she made her way to Maura and rested her chin on her chest, Maura noticed, really noticed, the redness in her eyes, the hollow and dark tissue around them.
Jane was exhausted. As Maura thought about it, stanca morta came to mind, the old Italian phrase literally translating to dead tired. Jane was exactly that: Italian and dead tired. "Sleep," said Maura, just before she kissed Jane's sweaty forehead. Just before she ran her palm over the crown of Jane's head, delighting in the soft, long hair there.
"Yeah?" Jane asked, halfway between a croak and a plea, a mixture of elated, relieved, and about to pass out.
"Yeah," said Maura, still in a haze.
Jane turned her head to the side so that her ear was right on Maura's beating heart. "I don't want to make things complicated. Or impose."
Maura laughed again and held Jane to her chest against her better judgment, fingers stroking her warm cheek. "After that performance, you deserve your own room in this house. Maybe your own wing." Jane laughed, too, and the deep sound of it felt good on Maura's ribcage. "You could never impose on me. Ever. After all you've done for me, the least I could do for you is let you sleep in my bed. You're my best friend."
Jane paused. "Do you let Tommy sleep here?"
"No. You know that," Maura said resolutely. "We have an agreement and he's honored it. So have I."
"But we had an agreement, too," Jane said. Already drifting.
"It was a guideline, Jane. And guidelines change all the time, as new information and circumstances become available," Maura reasoned. "Sleep here, please?"
"Yeah," Jane agreed. She kissed Maura one last time and then heaved herself onto the side of the bed she usually landed on, belly down and instantly asleep.
Tommy hadn't planned to see Maura that evening - he'd actually intended on hanging out with some friends at a wings place on Van Ness to catch the Sox game. But he'd got an SOS text about Ricky getting shit-faced, and decided that maybe a night in with one of the women he'd been seeing was better than putting his sobriety on the line. Strike that, it was definitely better with Maura.
Maura accepted him for who he was. She liked that he was good at chess, and that he had a nice face, and she didn't care that he had dyslexia or barely graduated high school. And she told him exactly what to do in bed - that was a huge plus. He didn't have to guess, or try to romance it out of her, she just told him. And she called him out on his shit. He had to admit that was hot.
So, the more he thought about her, the easier it became to convince himself that even at almost eleven at night, he should go to her. He hopped in his truck, circled the block a few times until a spot close by opened up, and then let himself in with his key. Maura would still be up, especially on a Friday night, and eleven was a good time for him to convince her to leave her computer and the research interns at BCU for a couple hours of fun.
The lights on in the kitchen and at the end of the hall upstairs bolstered him, so much so that he completely ignored the half-prepared vegetables on the counter. He took the stairs two at a time, smirking broadly when he saw the open door of Maura's bedroom, lit up by lamplight. He took a sobering breath and readied his knuckles to knock when he saw the body in the bed. Not Maura.
There, in the tousled bedclothes, naked from the waist up - and presumably from the waist down, though that was covered by a white sheet - was Jane. Thankfully, he only saw her back and unruly mane of hair, but still he froze in place. She, meanwhile, snored into the pillow below, none-the-wiser.
Maura exited the bathroom, running a towel through her still damp hair, when she saw him.
"Oh, s… sorry," he said, too surprised to whisper, and she put her finger to her lips and waved him into the hallway.
"Don't be sorry, Tommy," Maura said back to him when she felt they were out of earshot enough to speak. "You didn't do anything wrong. I'm sorry, actually. That I didn't tell you."
"That you were sleepin' with Janie, too?" Tommy said with a hint of a smile.
"Yes, and that you had to find out like… that," Maura tossed her head in the direction of the bedroom.
"It's ok, Maura. We never said we were exclusive, or that our rules applied to everyone else we're sleepin' with," he said, stuffing his hands in his zip-up hoodie pockets. He looked shocked, definitely, but not angry. Not quite yet.
"You're not… I don't know, mad?" Maura asked. She folded her arms over her chest, covered only by a black silk robe, regarding him with equal parts trepidation and curiosity.
"No," he said honestly. "I'm… surprised. Well, that ain't it, either. I was just… caught off guard, is all. I didn't know you were into girls. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. I just didn't know. But, like I said, we didn't say anything about bein' exclusive."
"You're a much more mature man than your siblings give you credit for," Maura said. She rubbed his arm through his sweater quickly.
"So, does this mean… you and me are done? Is this why I haven't seen you in awhile?" Tommy asked the question that he'd finally been able to verbalize since he walked in on what he saw: his sister, with the distinct privilege of sleeping in Maura's bed. A privilege he didn't have. He decided to unpack that later. The simmer of an old jealousy started to heat back up in him, but that wasn't Maura's burden to bear.
Maura shrugged her shoulders. "I'm not sure what it means. Jane and I aren't dating, Tommy. We have an arrangement similar to the one between you and me."
Tommy nodded. "Except for one tiny difference, right?" He'd meant it as a joke, nodded in the direction of the room where his sister slumbered, but it came out a little stilted, hurt, and Maura raised her eyebrow. He put his hands up lest he break their own rule of butting out of each other's business. "Listen, it's good to know. I'm gonna go now, ok? Let you get some sleep."
"Ok," Maura agreed, thankful for his easy departure but saddled with guilt nonetheless. "Where are you going to go? I feel bad."
Tommy chuckled. "I'm not homeless, babe. I'll figure somethin' out, or I'll go home. Talk to you later?"
"Yeah, talk to you later," said Maura. She kissed his cheek. "Drive carefully."
"Will do," he replied, waving as he walked back down the stairs. When he heard her bedroom door click shut, the gravity of the circumstance, that Maura retired to a bed that had Jane in it, that she was about to sleep next to Jane, struck him. Impulsively, he pulled his phone out and dialed a number that was quickly becoming familiar. "Hey, Lydia?" he said when the other line picked up and he walked out into the courtyard, "yeah no. I'm good, just hangin' out. What're you up to tonight?"