Author Notes: Thank you for all of the lovely comments, such a mixed bag of opinions on Silver and the current baby situation. I hope you'll all continue to read and comment (because it's so much fun reading about what you think). There will be twists and turns along the way, and I know I can't always guarantee Jane/Maura endings, but I do love them together as much as everyone else.
A droplet of sweat trickled down lightly tanned skin, glistening in the morning sunlight. Jane followed it down nicely toned abs until it disappeared into the waistband of Silver Heyes' running shorts. She lifted her gaze. Silver let her shirt drop back over her stomach, damp with sweat wiped from her neck.
"I was born in Connecticut," she said, lifting a knee up to a small wall and retying her shoe.
Jane's eyes lacked focus. She stared into the deep purple of Silver's sports bra, peering out above her shirt. They agreed to a brief rest, then they would continue running. Jane's heart raced, failing to slow during their much needed break.
No.
"Did you grow up there?" she asked. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry. The light coating of sweat cooled her skin.
The sun shone down upon them, already too hot for an average May morning. Jane reached for her water bottle and squirted it into her mouth, swallowing mouthful after mouthful until she felt relief. She closed her mouth and lifted the bottle higher. She pressed down on the plastic edges once more, pouring water across her face.
Silver tilted her head to one side, her lip tucked under her upper teeth. "We moved to Massachusetts when I was seven. I came to Boston for school."
Can't look.
She stretched her leg out in front of her, staring down at the grass. Her hands pressed against her knee. "BCU?"
"Yeah."
"Did you know Maura?"
"No. I mostly took humanities classes. I recognise her name from the alumni register. It's entirely possible that our paths have crossed. When did she graduate?"
"No idea," Jane said. "She just turned forty."
"She was probably already in medical school when I started as an undergrad."
Twirling her hair up from her shoulders and tying it behind her head, Silver motioned to the path in front of them. "Shall we?"
Jane's eyes trailed down the side of her neck, following a stray strand of hair that had escaped the prison of her hair tie. Silver set off running. Jane placed one foot down on the concrete, then another, keeping her stride momentarily behind Silver.
It wasn't right.
She hummed a Christmas tune; anything to push the unwanted thoughts from her brain. Over and over and over again. Dashing through the snow, in a one horse open slay, o'er the fields we go, laughing all the way.
She longed for an icy blast of rainfall to break up the already burning heat. Summer had barely started.
"You grew up in Boston?"
Jane kept up her pace, gaining a little to meet Silver's stride. "Born and raised."
"Have you every thought about leaving?"
"Nah." She focused ahead. Her eyes fixed on the end of the footpath a few hundred yards in the distance.
"I guess your whole family's here."
"Race ya to the sidewalk," Jane shouted. "Loser buys the coffee."
She didn't want to answer anymore questions. She didn't want to see Silver at her side, or in front of her. She couldn't handle the unwelcomed, and downright inappropriate, thoughts going through her mind. She sped onward, forcing her body to work hard to push out everything but the thumping of her pulse in her ear.
Approaching the end of the footpath, Silver gained on her. Her feet pounded the pavement quicker than Jane. She tried to focus on the end goal, until Silver's hand hit the trash can by the sidewalk sooner.
"You win," Jane said, slowing to a walk. She didn't hesitate to make sure that Silver was following. "I've gotta get to work."
"Don't you want that coffee?"
She barely turned. "Raincheck?"
"Wait, Jane." Silver placed a hand on her shoulder. Her damp fingers hit her skin. A shiver travelled down her spine. She twisted round, a little too close. "Is everything okay?"
"Tired," she said.
The fingers on her skin didn't move. Jane glanced up into Silver's blue-grey eyes. She froze, trapped in a comfortable stare. She searched her mind for words that didn't form. The longer she stared, the harder it became to look away. Silver leaned in, her eyelids fluttered closed. Her breath tickled Jane's lips. She was so close she could almost taste her.
She closed her eyes and lowered her face. "I should go."
Opening her eyes again, disappointment flashed over Silver's face. Jane chided herself. It was not okay.
"If I come by the police department this week, can I get you a coffee?"
"I lost," Jane said. She nodded her head before she spoke again. Her body betrayed her. She silently cursed herself for building up Silver's hopes. A glint in her eyes shone brighter than she'd looked throughout their run. Jane had specifically chosen a neutral activity. She didn't anticipate just how lacking in neutrality it would be. Or how much it would physically affect her. She held a hand up and walking off down the sidewalk. "Laters."
x
"We almost kissed," Jane said, marching into Maura's office.
Maura cleared her throat and held a hand out to a middle-aged man wearing Calvin Klein sat on the couch. "Jane, this is Doctor Harper from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Connecticut. He's here to discuss a case he's working on that bares striking similarities with one of our own."
She coughed to disguise the smirk spreading across her face as Jane waved her hand and marched right back out of the office again.
"Apologies, Doctor Harper," Maura said, seating herself opposite him. "Detective Rizzoli's personal life is neither important, nor appropriate, under the circumstances."
Finishing up her conversation, Maura saw Doctor Harper out of the building and returned to her office. She opened up her email account and clicked refresh. Her ears pricked up. A tapping sound came from her right. She turned to the door to the autopsy room. Jane peered at her over the edge of the doorframe, her finger tapped against the glass window again.
"Yes?" Maura asked, standing up to open the door.
"Is he gone?"
Maura raised her eyebrows. "This is why people knock when they enter an office…he's gone."
"Thank God for that," Jane said, entering the office and taking a seat on the other side of Maura's desk.
"Why were you in the autopsy room?"
"Where else could I go?"
"Back to your office."
"My office is full of people and I can't handle people right now," she said. "Did you hear what I said?"
"You almost kissed. I assume you mean you and Silver."
"Yes."
Maura took a seat beside her. "Did you want to?"
Jane narrowed her eyes. "We've been through this."
"I understand it must have been very nerve wracking for you," Maura said. "Sharing a first kiss with anybody can be awkward, but your first kiss with a woman."
Jane sighed. She covered her face with her hands, her elbow perched against her knee. "It's not the first time."
"Pardon?" Maura asked. "I didn't quite catch that."
"It's not my first rodeo."
"You and Silver went to the rodeo?"
Jane groaned. She sat upright. "No, Maura. It wouldn't have been the first time I've kissed a woman."
"You've…kissed a woman before?" She paused. After the initial shock, her lips curved at the edges. "Tell me everything. Does this mean you're more open to a relationship with Silver? How was it?"
"This is why I didn't want to tell you," Jane said.
"Why?"
"Because I knew you'd make a big deal about it. It's not a big deal. I was young, I was stupid. It doesn't matter."
"It obviously has some semblance of importance given what has been happening with Silver."
"Nothing is happening with Silver."
Maura folded her arms across her chest and waited. Jane was flustered. Her cheeks had taken on a decidedly bright shade of pink. Her revelation was not something Maura felt able to just brush aside, despite Jane's desire for her to do just that. The longer she waited, the more anxious Jane became. Her foot tapped the floor. Maura checked the clock, forcing herself to wait just a little while longer.
"I had a girlfriend when I was twenty," Jane said, clasping her hands together on her lap.
Opening her mouth to speak, Maura closed it again. She neatly placed her hands together on her knee and crossed her legs. The only thing Jane needed now was time. So she listened, and waited.
"Let's just say that Ma and Pop didn't approve."
"At all?" Maura leaned forward, and placed her hand over Jane's.
"Nah," she said, reclaiming her hand. She folded her arms tightly across her chest and slouched further in her seat. Her eyes were full of a vulnerability she rarely got to see. Maura leaned back. She knew enough about body language to know that Jane wasn't entirely comfortable.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She shrugged.
"I pushed you, I made jokes about you and Silver. They were ill timed and inappropriate. I can only say that I am sorry."
Jane pushed her shoulder against Maura's. "Thanks, Maur."
A silence fell between them. Maura could sense a tension that hadn't been there before. She wondered what else Jane might be hiding from her.
"Tell me about Doctor Harper," Jane said. "He's cute."
Maura rolled her eyes. "He's at least fifty-five."
"So?"
"He's deputy chief medical examiner in Connecticut."
"That matters because?"
"He's deputy. I'm chief. It will never work."
"Does it really matter if he's below you in the ranks?" Jane asked. "You're a beautiful, smart, funny woman and he looks like he's a catch. Did you spot a wedding band?"
"I wasn't looking that hard."
Jane rolled her eyes. "I thought you were good at picking up people to have sex with."
"I don't want to pick him up to have sex with," Maura said.
"Hey, maybe he can be our baby daddy."
"No."
"But he's got amazing cheekbones."
"So has the man we've chosen. Besides, you said it yourself, you didn't want our child to have a father who has had sex with me."
"You should still ask him out on a date."
Maura shook her head. She didn't want to date anybody right now. Her priority was only to herself. Maintaining her healthy lifestyle, cutting down on her intake of wine, and exercising regularly. If they were going to attempt to become pregnant in the next month or two, she needed to be at peak physical fitness.
"Maybe after we've had the baby."
x
The smell penetrated every inch of the apartment. Jane snapped on a pair of gloves, her booties already covered her shoes. She turned back to the corridor and breathed in a long, deep breath. Even that knocked her sick. She marched into the apartment.
"Alan McGee, forty-seven," Korsak said, holding a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. "He's been here for some time."
Maura knelt down beside the bed. She pulled and tugged at the decomposing body. The bright lights the forensics team brought lit up the dark apartment. She winced, but maintained her composure. Jane's chest ached. She didn't know how Maura could do it. She couldn't hold her breath any longer. Finally, she let out a gasp and breathed in the worst of it. She gagged and coughed, covering her mouth to assist in pulling herself back together.
"You losing your stomach Rizzoli?" Korsak asked.
"I'm fine," she whispered. It didn't help that it was four in the morning and she'd not eaten or drunk anything but water since ten the night before.
Maura stood up and drew back her gloves. "There's massive decomposition of the organs. His face is severely bloated. He's already reached fluidity. I'd estimate, from the level of decomposition, that this man has been here for at least a couple of months."
"Any next of kin?" Jane asked, breathing into her hand.
Korsak checked back through his notes. "The apartment's registered in his name. Records show his wife and daughter died eight years ago. No other family. He's been registered disabled for the last seven years after he suffered a breakdown. The neighbours who called it in haven't heard from him much recently."
Jane rolled her eyes. "I wonder why."
"They work from home, so they rarely go out. They just got back from a vacation in Cancun, said they hadn't noticed a smell before."
"How do you not notice this?" Jane asked.
"Actually," Maura said. "Olfactory fatigue, or odor fatigue, as it's also known, is quite common. The longer you're exposed to an odor, the more likely it is that you will become desensitised to it."
"How?" Jane asked. "I smell Frankie's stinking shoes every time he walks into the office."
"That's because your exposure to the odor is not consistent. On the occasion that you're sat together for several hours, eventually you would forget about it. This man's neighbours may have picked up on the odor early on, but it would have been lacking in potency. The stronger it became, the stronger their desensitisation. Taking a vacation gave them a long enough space between exposure that when they returned their nose had forgotten."
"What's your verdict, Doctor Google?"
Maura tossed her gloves into a biohazard sack. "I have a degree of certainty that this man died of natural causes. I'll take him back to the lab to do a full autopsy first thing."
"We're done?" Jane asked.
"We're done."
Jane turned tail and marched out of the apartment, tugging off her gloves and booties before she reached the door. She placed them into another biohazard sack and continued on down the corridor until she reached the exit. She stood on the sidewalk, breathing in slowly, filling her lungs with uncontaminated air. The moon shone high in the sky. There was barely a breeze in the air, the heat had dissipated somewhat.
x
"Your mother offered to cook dinner tonight," Maura said, carrying her bag out of the apartment building. "Would you like to join us?"
Jane rolled her eyes and set off walking. "Not really."
"Is this because of Silver?" Maura fell into step beside her. She hated asking questions, given how sensitive Jane was about the matter, but she also wanted to show an interest. When Jane was with Casey, they talked a lot.
Jane span around, her voice hushed. "No, it's not because of Silver."
The street was empty, excepting the officer guarding the apartment building. Given how warm it had been over the last few days, Maura enjoyed the stroll.
"Sometimes I just don't wanna spend time with my mother," Jane said.
"Have you spoken to her about what happened when you were in your twenties?"
"No."
"Would you consider it?"
Jane's shoulders dropped. "I don't want to talk about it, Maura. With her, with you, with anybody. What I do want to talk about is our living arrangements when the baby comes."
"What do you mean?"
"Are we gonna carry on living in separate houses?"
Maura pulled out her keys out of her bag. "Would you like to live in the same house?"
"I think it'd be nice for us both to be able to spend as much time with our kid as possible," she said. "If we're gonna bring a kid up together, we should do it together."
"Then let's do it together," Maura said.
"How soon should we ask Ma to find her own place?"
Maura stopped walking. A crease formed between her eyebrows. She enjoyed Angela's company. Inviting her to stay had been an impromptu decision a few years ago, but it had been one of the best decisions she had ever made. Living with Angela gave her a ticket to the Rizzoli family, and she loved every one of them like they were her own.
"When you said you want us to live together, you mean you want us to live together without your mother?"
"Exactly."
She didn't know how she felt about that. On the one hand, living with Jane, and Angela's future grandchild, she would still be involved in her pseudo-family. On the other, she would dearly miss Angela's company.
"You know, there are some advantages of having your mother continue to live in the guest house," Maura said.
Jane gritted her teeth. "Like her interfering with how we raise the kid."
"Jane."
"Don't Jane me," she said. "You didn't have to live with her for twenty-two years. I only got out because I met people at the academy who I could rent a place with."
"It's currently four in the morning. How do you propose we find someone to care for our child when we get called out to unexplained deaths at four in the morning?"
"Bring her with us?"
"Be serious, Jane."
"You're the Chief Medical Examiner," she said, stopping by the side of her car and taking her own keys from her jacket pocket. "Can't you make sure you don't have to work the same nights as me?"
"What about the cases where I'm requested?" Maura asked. "If it involves a person of importance, I cannot say no."
"We'll deal with those situations as and when they happen."
"I'd want to deal with them now," Maura said."
Jane rolled her eyes, her shoulders slouched. "At four in the morning?"
"You brought this up," Maura said. "Besides, I find my brain works best at four."
"Your place or mine?"
"Let's go to your place, then your mother won't disturb us when she comes in for her morning coffee."
x
They sat in silence for longer than Jane deemed necessary. Maura wanted to talk about how they would deal with their unsociable work hours, and yet hadn't said a word since they sat down. She cupped a mug of hot coffee between her hands, breathing in the hypnotic scent of her caffeine infused drink. Jane sunk down onto the couch.
"I think I loved her," Jane said, filling the silence with the first words to come to mind.
Maura turned and lifted a leg under her. "Who? Your ex-girlfriend?"
Jane nodded. She ran a hand through her hair and rested her elbow against the back of the couch. "I don't know. I never really got to find out. Everything happened so quickly."
"With your parents?"
"Anytime I felt anything like that afterwards, I pushed it down. I've been pushing it down for twenty years. I guess it didn't fit into the good Catholic lifestyle Ma and Pop saw for me."
"Angela's changed a lot, Jane," Maura said, running her hand up and down her shoulder. "I think she'd be more open to it now."
"It's too late."
"Do you have any feelings for Silver?"
Jane stared down at her coffee mug. She lifted it to her mouth, biding her time. She spoke into the coffee before she swallowed. "Yeah."
Tightening her grip around her arm, Jane felt comfort under Maura's touch. "Then maybe it's not too late."