CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
"I love you," she murmurs into the dark.
It's just above a whisper. Loud enough for the gravelly words to reach her own ears, pricking her eardrums like needles. Painful proof that she's said them, sharp evidence of exactly what they mean.
Feelings freely given voice, perhaps for the last time.
As Jane sits up, Maura rolls toward her, an arm flopping down onto the empty mattress below her pillow. Her absence alone seems to make the blonde stir and that fact produces an ache below her left breast as she rises.
"Hnnnhh. Wha's wrong?" Maura croaks, barely awake, "Did we get a call?"
She leans back over the side of the bed, plants a gentle kiss into Maura's messy hair, tries to swallow down the lump of emotion in her throat but her voice breaks anyway. "No. But I have to go."
Whatever invisible thread exists between their hearts threatens to snap as she moves away again.
Maura rolls further, burrows her face into Jane's empty covers and inhales deeply. "How long will you be gone?" the doctor asks, voice faraway as if in a dream, pitiful and needy like Jane has never heard before.
She doesn't have an answer, just bites the inside of her cheek as her eyes fill with tears, removes clean underwear from a drawer and quickly pulls them on.
"Jane?" comes Maura's voice again, more awake now.
Shit.
"Jane," the blonde repeats in a whisper so broken she thinks it must surely have fractured her heart inside her chest. "What's going on?"
The covers pool around Maura's waist as she sits up. Moonbeams that break through the gap in the curtains highlight every luscious curve of her naked form in stark contrast to the shadows in which Jane hides.
She keeps her head down, primarily to avoid distraction from her goal, but it's also hung in shame. Doing this doesn't feel remotely good. "I can't stay here. I'm sorry," she mumbles, picks up and throws on the rest of her clothes.
"Where are you going?!" Maura asks, layers of outrage, disbelief, and heartbreak barely covered by sniffles as Jane collects the last of her things.
She needs to respond, has to think of something - anything- to say to end the awkward silence. But she can't bring herself to slink out under a blanket of lies. Even white ones with good intentions. Untruths designed to save Maura from this pain, to drag both their souls into the light from the darkened pit of despair that she's currently creating.
It reminds her of a time before all this started, of the simplicity of her original life. Reminds her of how good and innocent Maura is and always has been. Reminds her of how, even back then, she was brave in many ways except when it came to speaking her truth.
.
.
"Do you love her?" Paddy asked, peering intently at the cuffs and chains that anchored him to the floor beneath his metal chair.
"She's my friend," she snarled, leaving the room without a second glance, without giving an answer.
.
.
"Just tell her how you feel," Angela pushed, testing her resolve from the other side of the breakfast bar.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she grumbled, shoving away half-eaten pancakes and disappearing into the bathroom.
.
.
"Come home with me," Maura purred, cheeks pink with warmth and alcohol. A sensual sounding offer that was no doubt just the booze talking.
"I want to be alone," she lied, felt her heart implode as she slammed closed the door of the taxicab and sent her friend off into the night.
.
.
So many lies.
And she can't do it anymore. Not this time. This time Maura gets the truth, deserves it after everything she's done for her, after everything Maura's been for her.
So, she looks over and offers simply, "I'm going home."
Maura's gasp physically hurts. "B-but, this -"she stammers, eyes wide with a hurt so fierce Jane has to look away. "This is your home – Don't do this, Jane. Please. Whatever it is… we can work it out -"
"God, I love you," she blurts with a sigh, unable to stop herself. How could she not adore this woman? A woman who still tries, who wants to fix things, who clings to their relationship even as it's being callously ripped from her in the middle of the night.
"I love you so much, Maura. You know that, right?" She frowns hard into the darkness, brow deeply furrowed.
She sees her words hit their desired mark. Watches Maura press hands over her heart and tilt her head as she hiccups a single word through her tears. "Jane…"
"I will always love you," she insists, silent tears tracking down her own face, knowing how crazy it makes her sound and how it can only further compound Maura's confusion. "Even if you don't ever love me back." It is the only absolute in her entire existence, and it was true in her other life, long before today.
Maura shakes her head. "I don't understand what's happening. Please, darling," she pleads, "Just talk to me. Tell me what's going on. If you tell me, maybe -"
"I wish I could explain everything," Jane sighs again, moving into the open doorway.
Maura shuffles across the bed, tries to get closer whilst keeping her modesty by clutching a handful of sheets. "You can! Of course you can."
"I can't, Maura," she chokes as she retreats, becomes nothing more than a dark, weeping hulk hidden in the shadows.
"Why not?"
Jane snorts humorlessly as she turns to leave. Takes one last look back at the speck of happiness she's choosing to sacrifice as Maura scrambles to her feet and snatches up her discarded robe. "Because you would never believe me," she says.
As she runs out of the house in tears, Maura's desperate calls float behind her. "Wait, Jane. Don't go!"
And as the door closes, she feels the thread break.
The darkness of the alley weighs on her like a shroud. The atmosphere dangerous, ominous. It makes her nerve endings tingle, but she's been here often enough to not let that stop her.
The light of the doorway flickers out and she chews at her thumbnail as she shuffles her feet. Thinks she should have worn a tread pattern in front of this doorway by now, the amount of times she's paced back and forth over the past few months.
She could change her mind, turn around and head back to Maura, could make a go of it here despite the drawbacks. Thinks she could do it easily, just climb in her car and drive away. Knows she would never forgive herself for stealing a future and a relationship that belongs to someone else.
This Maura shares her life with another Jane and, as the light flickers back into dim life, she knows she has to trust in her alternate self to do the right thing, to make Maura happy. Because she is doing the right thing. She's going home, while she still has chance.
But the first push of her hand finds a very solid piece of metal that doesn't give at all. Her chest tightens as she tries again, but several more pushes achieve nothing and suddenly she's desperate, breaths short and eyes watery.
No, no, no. It needs to work. She needs it to work!
But the light gives out again and she kicks the door as hard as she can manage, sends a deep clang echoing out into the night. "NO! No!"
She pounds her fists against the door as her forehead comes to rest against it, her heart weary as the fight seeps out of her.
"Please," she pleads, the word broken into pieces by a tremulous exhale. "I have to go back. I have to – please…"
But it seems she's too late.
She stomps across the cobblestone toward the brick wall opposite, grumbles under her breath at her own stupidity. Kicks the corner of an overflowing industrial trashcan and watches as an open bag spills some of its contents. Hears several rats scurry away somewhere out of sight as a bunch of empty soda cans hit the floor.
There was a time the sound of scurrying rats would have made her skin crawl, but not now. A true mark of how ridiculous her existence has become.
Turning back around, she kicks a soda can across the alley. She stares at her feet and rubs at her forehead, lets out a humorless chuckle because she knows being stranded here wouldn't really be the end of the world. But it's not her choice to stay, and that thought just reinforces her earlier decision.
She raises her eyes back to the doorway with a resigned huff, finds her next breath strangled, and the expected darkness replaced by light.
"Oh," she breathes out. Maybe, just maybe…
With long determined strides she marches back to the doorway, finds herself able to push beyond the surface on the first try and cannot stop the giddy laugh that erupts from her throat. She can feel it resisting, gets pushed back a couple of times but persists, edges through with her shoulder and one final shove using all her strength…
It takes her all at once, spits her out on the other side like a bad penny in a slot machine. She falls flat on her face in the dark, lands with a thud onto wet cobblestones for the first time in forever, wrong-footed by the surge.
"Oof!"
As she rolls onto her back, raising her head to view the door, the light that carried her sparks, once, twice, then dies with a bang.
Relieved and a little shaken, she lets her head fall back down. This will hurt tomorrow, but for now she's home. And she wasn't too late after all.