"So calling in Dr. Martin worked, huh?" Frost swiveled toward Jane in his seat at one of the computers in BRIC. He reserved a dazzling smile for her, until he saw the mixture of exhaustion and worry on her face.
"Uh, for us, yeah," she replied, finding a perch on the desk just across from him. "Maura's a wreck, though."
"Did they not get along?" Frost asked. He was a good man, his concern earnest.
Jane appreciated this in him. "No they did. Hope loved her. But now Maura's convinced she can never spill the beans because she likes Hope too much to hurt her feelings."
"Well shit," said Frost. "And how is that workin' out for you?"
"You're lookin' at the world's best piece picker-upper," Jane snarked. "Seein' her like that makes me sad, Frost. I dunno."
Frost acknowledged her statement, but also her desire to move on as she looked only to the wall of screens in front of them. "So, the print was good. Came up for an Emma Spencer, 27, just like Celia Jaffe. She works at the DA's office and she was supposed to take this year's bar."
"That's why we got her prints," Jane reasoned. Frankie approached from the bullpen with a sour look on his face, with Sister Winifred Callahan mumbling something behind him. "How's Sister Callahan been?"
"Fuckin' crazy," Frost said in a rare moment of ire. "She's drivin' us nuts. Nothing pleases her."
"Get used to that," Jane chuckled.
Frankie yanked the door to BRIC open with a whoosh. "I'm quittin'," he announced, hat in his hand and scowl on his face. "I can't take it. I almost ran away in second grade when I got stuck with that bitch."
"Yeah yeah," Jane replied, "just ignore her. She hates that. Listen, why don't you and Frost go to the DA's office and try to get more information on Emma Spencer? Tell me what you find. I gotta stay local in case there's another Dr. Martin crisis."
"Ma said she looked just like Maura," Frankie said as he waited for Frost to gather his things.
"Spittin' image," Jane affirmed. She clapped his back as he left.
Frost and Frankie had found out from the ADA that Emma Spencer had an office in the courthouse basement, and when they looked at her email, they were able to trace the IP address to the office itself. Jane and Frost explored it, and found out exactly why Emma Spencer needed a fake ID: she was investigating a murder.
Specifically, she was investigating the murder of her childhood best friend, who had been found in someone's basement. The killer had never been located, and apparently, based on all the photographs and notes in Emma's workspace, she was working on doing just that. Jane had had the bright idea of getting Maura to look at the body of the best friend, Isabelle DuBois, and that's where she stood now, back in the morgue while Maura studied the mummified corpse.
"She was asphyxiated," said Maura as she examined the trachea, "and has quite a bit of adipocere tissue."
Jane gagged. "I hate soap mummies." She pulled out the report of Isabelle's first autopsy, ten years prior. "Ok, it says here that there's an abnormality to Isabelle's left cheekbone."
"It's an injury, not an abnormality," Maura corrected. She sighed heavily. "That's why Pike is still in Worcester."
Jane laughed. "Yeah I guess so."
"You see those tool marks on her zygomatic bone?"
"What, on her cheek?"
"Yeah. There's three round indentations with scalloped edges."
"What is that from?"
"It's a strange pattern. Isabelle was struck with something hard enough to break the skin and pierce the bone."
"Well, Korsak's looking at what's left of Isabelle's clothing from that night," said Jane. "The body was found in an old lady's basement."
"Did the old lady kill her?" Maura asked.
"It's doubtful," Jane shrugged.
"Doubtful? So she might have?"
"Nah," Jane gruffed.
"Then why did you say doubtful?" Maura was annoyed and unsure.
"I just wanted you to know what uncertainty felt like since you make me feel it so often," Jane smirked, attempting to lighten their mood. When Maura's bottom lip began to tremble and she started to cry, Jane hopped around the table with a now half empty box of tissue. "Oh my god, Maura, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
Maura took one of the tissues and dabbed at her eyes. She snatched Jane close to her and squeezed her tight. "Everything makes me cry. Adipocere tissue never makes me cry."
"Makes me cry sometimes," Jane joked, "because it's so gross." Maura pinched some of the skin over her shoulder blade. "Ouch, a'right. I'm sorry. I'm listenin'," her arms weren't around Maura, somehow she knew that Maura wouldn't want that. But, she rested her chin on the top of Maura's head to let her know she was there.
"My mother said it was better that I didn't live," Maura cried again.
"Ok, now you're being ridiculous," Jane said. "She did not say that. She said it was traumatic, right?" Maura nodded slowly and she continued. "That means it makes her sad and she doesn't wanna dwell on it."
"I just don't ever want her to know that I'm that evil child," Maura whispered into Jane's clavicle.
Jane grabbed another tissue and held it up to Maura's face. "Here. Blow." When she took it, she had the saddest look on her face that Jane had ever seen. Something had to be done. "Think a kiss might help?" Jane asked, looking around to make sure they were sufficiently alone.
"We're at work," Maura said without conviction.
"So? It'd help me. I been a ball of nerves all day," Jane said as she raised her eyebrows.
"All week," Maura revised for her. She leaned back enough to show Jane that she was ready, and then Jane leaned in to close the gap. It was soft and it was salty from the way Maura had wept, but it charged Jane up nonetheless. She deepened it, made herself vulnerable in the way she opened her mouth to take more of Maura in, because if somebody came into the room, there would be no denying what they were doing. Her hands slipped past Maura's white lab coat to her sides, thumbing and kneading soft skin under the scratch of designer clothes.
Maura whimpered, a hiccup escaping due to her recent tears, and she started to tug Jane towards her office. "We can be careful," she whispered desperately. "I know you can be careful."
Jane wanted to scream when she saw Hope walking through the crime lab, talking to one of the techs, presumably wanting to know where Maura would be. "We can't," she croaked. She cursed when they broke apart, but Maura was curious enough, deflated enough, to look for the cause of Jane's rejection. Jane just pointed to Hope as she entered the double doors of the morgue, and they separated.
"I was just picking up my residential parking permit upstairs," Hope said, "I hope it's ok."
Jane wanted to shake her. "Yes. Yes. It's fine, yeah. We were just breaking another case," she said, handing Maura the tissue box as pretense for their proximity.
"Terrific," Hope declared, seemingly none the wiser. "I stopped in because I… well I wanted to know if you were able to identify her."
"We were," said Maura.
"Soap mummy?" Hope asked, attention now on the body on the table, "looks to be about ten years old."
"Yes," Maura responded, "You're amazing."
Jane, even though she felt like she should probably just ask Sister Callahan how to become a nun at this point, was glad to see Maura get a second chance with Hope so soon. And, for Hope to seek her out instead of the other way around had to mean something. Maura struggled to see the irresistibility of her earnestness oftentimes, and though Jane tried to remind her, witnessing it firsthand from the person she most wanted to please in the world was miles better.
Frost, eyes drawn to Hope for the first time, looked at Jane in contrition before he spoke. He was out of breath from having run down the stairs to get there. "Got somethin' big, Jane. Emma was applying to be a nanny with a bougie company called No Cares Au Pair."
Jane was already walking toward him when she replied. "For what?"
"I don't know, but get this. It was for Tom MacGregor's Independent opponent."
"Shit," said Jane. She whipped around to Maura and Hope. "I'll call you later, a'right? I gotta see what I can squeeze out of these nannies."
Maura looked at her with gratitude and more than a passing instance of buried lust. Her eyes held promise.
Jane had just walked away from what seemed to be a very tense conversation with her former teacher when Maura surprised her, file folder first.
"So she likes Montepulciano, Lebanese zucchini, and science fiction," Maura said as she smiled brightly.
"She's a soap mummy," Jane teased to hide her confusion.
"No, Hope," Maura corrected, as if it were obvious, "My… my new friend."
"Well, that's wonderful, Maura," said Jane sincerely.
"And she said she'd call me when she's settled into her new home. I guess her move-in should be complete this afternoon," Maura elaborated. She watched Jane try so valiantly to keep her eyes locked on her own, but they travelled down, down, down, until they reached her chest. She held the folder up in front of her breasts to subtly bring Jane back to reality.
"Ooh. I was hoping those are the DNA results," Jane said, suddenly all bulldog again.
"Not yet. It's Isabelle's tox screen," said Maura. "There were traces of Rohypnol in her system."
"Roofies? Maybe Isabelle was raped and that's why she was murdered. I think you just got us what we need, Maura."
Jane weaved through Boston city streets at nearly eight pm. She hadn't brought out the bubble light yet, no, she had some integrity, but she layed on the horn practically the whole drive from Downtown to Beacon Hill.
Emma Spencer had covered for Isabelle DuBois one night ten years ago - she had told their parents that Isabelle was sleeping over when really, she was going out to meet a boy. A boy named Jim Shannon, who would end up running for the same congressional seat as Tom MacGregor. It had taken hours of piecing together Emma's personal, sometimes coded, files in her office, and calling in her brother and former employer as witnesses in order to figure it out.
Maura had come up to the bullpen right at five o'clock, looked directly, only, at Jane, and said, "I have an appointment. See you at home?"
Jane had then spilled her afternoon coffee all over her notes when she remembered exactly what Maura's appointment was for. She had glanced at the clock and groaned, knowing there was no way they were even close to done. It took almost three more hours to bring the candidate in for an interview and then place him under arrest.
So, now anything on the road other than a green traffic signal irked her. She had called when they were finished to say that she was on the way, to ask how the removal of Maura's stitches had gone, because she knew as soon as she stepped foot in the house she'd find speaking difficult and she didn't want to be rude. She finally approached the brownstone as she thought of Maura's positive response, threw the car into park right on the street, and juggled her keyring until she found the one she needed.
Her hands shook as she unlocked the front door, and when she pushed it open, the smell of a cooking meal deflated her. "Hi," Maura said as she saw her enter, smile wide and loving. Whatever was cooking had just gone into the oven, because she was in the process of removing oven mitts when she greeted Jane.
"Uh uh," Jane said, shaking her head. "No. Turn that off."
Maura masked hurt with confusion. "Aren't you hungry? You haven't eaten since breakfast."
As soon as Jane slammed the drawer to the writing desk, now full of her gun and badge, however, Maura realized her mistake. "I'm three hours late and you want to make me even later with dinner? Nah. You and me have a date." Jane entered the kitchen with a predatory aura, using the entire front of her body to back Maura up into the wall. She kissed her with her hands still at her sides, let Maura do all the touching as they breathed heavily into one another.
"I thought that this could be part of the date. I'm trying to take care of you," Maura panted as she wound her fingers in Jane's hair. "Put your hands on me."
Jane did as she was told and untucked the black and pink blouse Maura had worn for the day. Her hands slid shamelessly up and down the silken skin of Maura's sides before she slipped her thumbs just under the waistline of Maura's slacks in the back. "Take care of me this way first," she whispered, eyes black now. "Turn dinner off and let's go upstairs."
Maura looked over to the oven and smirked in between kisses. "You're closer."
Jane broke their bond instantly, and Maura regretted her teasing, until she saw long fingers twist the oven dial off and point to the staircase. "Now, Maura," Jane commanded.
Maura complied with enthusiasm, practically jogging up the steps. Jane was stomping behind her, and somehow they made it to the bedroom door at the same time. Maura turned so her back was against it, and held the knob shut while she put her fingertips against Jane's lips. "Listen to me," she said quietly, waiting for Jane to really pay attention before she continued. "This is going to be different than it's been before."
"Yes, ma'am," said Jane, smiling.
Maura stifled a chuckle. "I want to do what you asked. I want to take care of you. First."
Jane nodded. "I don't have a problem with that."
"You deserve it," Maura said, moving her hands from Jane's shoulders to the tuck of her shirt.
"I'll take it," said Jane, in her typically self-deprecating way. She rested her forearms against the threshold and moaned when Maura slowly dragged her belt loose and stuck a hand down her pants. Fingers began to explore her, finding her already ready, and she bucked forward and thumped her head against the door when circles became more concentrated and consistent.
"But then I want you to take over," Maura told her through the fog of kisses on Jane's neck, under her jaw. "You are so good at taking over. And I need you to be that for me after today."
"Don't make me come standin' up, please," Jane choked out, forehead still on the door, eyes still closed. "And I'll do whatever you want."
Maura extricated herself slowly. She fisted Jane's t-shirt and undershirt with her left hand, pulling it away from her abdomen, exposing it to the open air, and then she dragged her two glistening fingertips from just under Jane's beltline to her ribs. Jane hissed when Maura knelt down, using her tongue to lick away the moisture trail she had just left. She clenched her belly in desire and at the way the air felt cool on her skin.
"Open the door, Jane," Maura said, coming back up after several long, worshipful moments on her knees.
Jane dropped her left hand from the threshold and pawed the door open, hands even more unsteady than before. She stood in the doorway for long seconds, watching Maura walk in and methodically remove her jewelry, then her blouse, then her slacks. Maura stood there, in only her underwear, hoping to communicate wordlessly what she wanted Jane to do, where she wanted her to go, but Jane only walked over to her, kicked off her boots, and wrapped her arms around her.
She kissed her again, tongue bold in the way that it moved around Maura's mouth, seeking out something hotter and tighter that she knew she wouldn't find here, this way. But she needed to be patient. She had something coming to her first. "You uh… you look fucking good," she breathed out when they had parted, and Maura laughed.
"So do you," she replied.
"I'm fully dressed," Jane stated.
"And still, you look good. Remedy that for me, though?" Maura asked, her voice deep and wanting when she helped to pull Jane's shirt over her head. Next she worked on her slacks, loving the way they thudded to the floor with the weight of Jane's keys and wallet in them. Jane dealt with the rest, now completely naked, and the both of them looked down before their eyes and their lips met again.
This time they united hungrily, Jane pulled forward by Maura until they reached the bed. She climbed on top of Maura, nestled between her legs, whined in disappointment when she saw barely there fabric still covering where she wanted to see her most. Patience, she said to herself again. She let herself be coaxed into lying on her back, watching Maura's spine curve like a serpent as she trailed hot little islands of moisture down her body. "Fuck," she said sharply when a tongue split her down the middle. It met her, wetness on wetness, broad and flat against everything, and the sound of it as Maura increased speed set Jane on fire. Then with no warning it was inside of her, and Jane cried out, a sharp rise in pitch that crescendoed into silence, until she felt the distinct devastation of emptiness.
Maura was crawling back up again, until their eyes met, and Jane grabbed her by the bottom lip with her teeth. Maura went in for the kiss she thought that Jane was requesting, only to have Jane's tongue swipe over her lips, and then her chin to take herself in.
Then, satisfied that she had cleaned Maura up enough, Jane did kiss her, leaving what she had found back where she had found it. Maura moaned into it, and Jane swallowed that moan up. "You liked that, huh?" Maura nodded weakly. "Well, you said you wanted lessons, so let's get to learnin'," said Jane.
Maura put her hand between them, sliding inside of Jane, as much to ground herself as to give pleasure. They moved together, writhed together, for what felt like hours but passed in minutes. Jane's vocalizations were increasingly staccato, until Maura's arm began to burn. She shifted, and Jane released a breathless chuckle. "Not so easy is it?" she asked gamely, making Maura look at her while she clenched her teeth, so close to orgasm.
Maura used her other hand to cover Jane's smart mouth. "I told you I'd take care of you," she said, using her lower palm as leverage to send Jane reeling, "so let me do it."
Jane moaned against the closure of her fingers, louder and longer, until she was spent and boneless and sweating against Maura's priceless bedclothes. "Gimme a minute," she mumbled, swiping blindly at Maura, who had slid off and into the spot beside her.
"Take as long as you need. I know I can be quite a lot to recover from," Maura teased, but with more than a little confidence.
"I am gonna need you naked, though. For this next part."
Maura blushed furiously, hating and loving that the way Jane talked disoriented her so. She moved to undo the clasp of her bra when a strong hand shot out to stop her. "You said-"
"I got it," interrupted Jane. Maura bit her lower lip at how Jane hovered over her, eyes wide with intent, when just before she had been nearly lifeless on her back. She let Jane drop the bra to the floor next to her bed, let her drink in the sight of her breasts now exposed to the light before latching onto a nipple with her mouth.
It was the thought as much as the sensation that made her wet, and that, Maura recognized in the moment, was what made Jane so dastardly in bed. The forethought, the naughty intent of every touch seemed designed just for her. Lovers before Jane had used formulas, things that had worked for them in the past and worked pretty well on her, too. But Jane was building an in-depth, in very deep, case study. Jane was a lover in the present tense, using her truly unique fluid intelligence to map out the effects of each kiss, each thrust, each word, and create a custom-built sexual euphoria for Maura every time. "You scare me," she whispered in between sighs, and she had meant it only as a thought, not as an utterance, when Jane looked back up at her.
"What?" Jane asked, unsure if she heard what she heard, lower lip still drooping against the swell of Maura's right breast.
"There are no secrets with you," Maura said, figuring the cat was out of the bag now. "You see me. Here. When we're together."
Jane nodded in understanding. "I see you out there, too. Let it be a good thing. You don't ever have to tell me what to do."
"It's a good thing," Maura said, arching her back with the slide of Jane's palm on her stomach. She covered the scarred hand with her own, rubbing her thumb lovingly over the calloused surface. "Sorry I interrupted."
Jane chuckled and the hot air against Maura's nipple brought it to attention, made her shiver. "Make it up to me?"
"How?" Maura asked, desperate to give Jane whatever she wanted.
"Let me see it," Jane stopped smiling. She raised her left eyebrow and waited. Maura hurried out of her underwear and opened her legs wide, no patience for decorum or any more foreplay.
It was wet enough to glisten when it caught light, and Jane wasted no time. She kissed it, her first time tasting it, greeted it hello with a salacious combination of sucking lips and travelling tongue.
Maura returned Jane's "fuck," from before, one hand in her black hair and the other palm against her ear and thumb against her scalp. Soon, however, Jane was back, hips between Maura's bent legs, torso propped up by one arm while the other reached for the night stand on Maura's side of the bed. Maura would have been lying if she said she didn't want this, hadn't expected it. Oral sex was good, but she and Jane hadn't done this since they were angry at each other enough to burn down every bridge between them. Maura yearned to know what it felt like when Jane didn't hate her, when she didn't despise Jane with every fiber of her being. What would it feel like to be this close?
For the first time, she helped Jane prepare, clasped the buckles of the leather at each hip, shifted to accommodate while Jane adjusted inside herself and then let the toy rest between them - a heavy prologue. The anticipation pricked at the back of Maura's eyelids and she rubbed the skin over Jane's cheekbones as she tried not to come undone.
Jane grinned wickedly.
"What are you going to teach me now?" Maura asked, voice hoarse and tremulous, knowing Jane meant to change the game somehow.
"How good it feels when you love me," Jane said simply, slipping in so effortlessly that Maura could only kiss her softly in response. The gentle drag in and out, the way each departure and subsequent reunion pushed Maura higher on the ascent, would have taken hours. And oh, what a way to pass the time - she was content to let Jane slow grind her into oblivion. But this, apparently, was not the plan. No. Apparently, Jane knew things about anatomy, how to work it, how to please it. She reared back, her palms on the mattress again, knees bent for control, suddenly moving very quick and very shallow.
"C'mere," Maura grasped at Jane, near hysterics, when she felt it. When Jane fell forward, just a little deeper, but somehow still able to manage, Maura kissed her for some fortitude. "I-I'm gonna be loud, ok? I can already tell," she said, adopting some of Jane's lazy consonants and Bostonian elisions as her voice bounced with their movements. "I love you. I want you to stay here with me. Jesus, Jane, I-" she sobbed the last part, unable to finish.
"Good," said Jane, peppering kisses across Maura's damp face. "Less talkin', more screamin'." She continued and Maura could only hope that her windows were soundproof enough to keep their love private as she took Jane's imperative to heart and let herself scream.
When she finished, and had recovered enough to open her eyes, Maura dared a glance at Jane: flat on her back, covered only marginally at the pelvis by a twisted sheet, belly growing and retracting in the search for much needed air. "What did I tell you?" Jane wheezed, half laughing and half groaning, with a tired smile.
"I don't remember," Maura replied honestly, taking her chance to lay in the crook of Jane's arm. She put her hand against Jane's ribcage and recited every expiratory muscle in her head as it rose and fell.
"Well, is it as good when you love me as it was when you hated me?" Jane reframed her question, arm too tired to wrap around Maura's waist, settling for bumping up against her.
Maura, never to be denied what she wanted, however, pulled Jane's hand up for her and laced their fingers together, draping her arm over her shoulders like a cloak. "I don't know," she teased, "the hate sex was quite nice."
Jane exhaled noisily. "Ha ha."
"Of course it was as good," Maura said. "Of course it was better. My feelings for you are… big and complicated, even when we're not falling into bed together. That makes for very messy, involved intercourse."
"You told me you loved me," Jane said into the crown of Maura's hair. "Although I don't know how much that counts if you say it while we're fucking." Maura bit her just above her right breast and she yelped. "Ow!"
"I've always loved you. You've been my best friend since we met," Maura made her profession sound like a chastisement.
"Even when I was tellin' you to buzz off in that line at the cafe, huh?" asked Jane.
"Even then. Remember when you came down to the morgue and apologized? You offered to buy me a beer to repay me. That's when I knew I loved you."
"If you knew you loved me, why'd you turn me down? I distinctly remember sharing that beer with my brother and not you."
"Because I hated beer. But you looked so put out to be without my company. I had never seen that before. You were so disappointed that I didn't go."
"Well, at least you brought me coffee the next morning. Because a beer turned into ten that night."
Maura laughed. "You were so hungover."
"Yeah, so hungover that they wouldn't let me do buy busts that day. I was stuck with paperwork," Jane griped.
"You ended up coming to the morgue six times. The last time I told you to just bring your files downstairs and we could work together," Maura said, and Jane felt the smile against her chest.
"We haven't stopped since," said Jane. She waited a few seconds, waved her feet absentmindedly at the end of the bed to steady herself for what she was about to say. "You're in love with me. You didn't mean you loved me as your friend, or that you loved me in some passionate, platonic way. I think you do those things too, but you meant that you're in love with me. I know how that sounds. And it sounds different. That sounded different."
Maura froze. Their relationship was all of a week old. She wanted to take it slow, but she also was the one who had let it slip. "I'm so in love with you," she whispered, afraid but grateful to be given the grace to say it out loud. "I'm in love with everything about you. Today, I couldn't help thinking that out of all the people I've been with, I was so proud that Hope, my mother, was meeting you."
Jane smiled, closed mouth and eyes screwed shut, as she squeezed Maura tight. "That's good. By the way, I love you, too. I think she could tell."
Maura's heart ballooned. This was bad. Well, it was good, but it was fast. "I couldn't have gotten through today without you," she said. What she had meant to say was We should really slow down, but more vulnerability poured out instead.
"In all fairness, I'm the reason today even happened the way it did, so it was the least I could do to be there for ya."
"Even so. I don't think I would have survived if you weren't there to pick me up. It ended well, but it was all so fraught."
"You know… you gotta tell her sooner or later, Maura. Especially if you plan on bein' friends. Keepin' a secret that big is gonna eat you up inside," Jane said hesitantly, not wanting to burst the bubble, but needing to level with Maura.
Maura stiffened, but Jane shifted to her side and shuffled downwards so that they could be face to face. "It would devastate her, Jane. It would ruin her life," Maura said.
"No. That's not true. Didn't you see her today? Around you? She's a little bit in love with you, too. She likes you. Now imagine how she's gonna feel when she finds out that this amazing, smart person is actually her kid," Jane reasoned.
Maura admitted to herself that it sounded good, especially coming out of Jane's tired, New England mouth, combined with the visual of Jane's mussed, sexy hair against her own fancy white pillows. "You flatter me. Specifically to get in my pants."
"I'm already there," Jane quipped. "Plus, it's all the truth. You gotta tell her, babe. You know you can't just keep it from her. Because if she finds out that you have, it's gonna be ten times worse than if you just got it over with now."
Maura weighed the logic, eventually yielding to it. "I will. You're right. I have to. Just let me figure out how."
"Ok," Jane sighed into a contented hum. "It's sleepy time anyway." She reached back and turned off the lamp on her nightstand.
