After only briefly – and with a bad conscience – walking Jo Friday, Jane sighed audibly as she kicked off her shoes and finally fell onto the couch with her beer. Happy because of her company and anxious to get as much belly rubbing as humanly (or caninely) possible, her dog joined her on the couch and placed her head in her lap. With a weak smile, Jane gave in to her dog's belly rubbing demands and stroked her wild, white fur: "You're my baby and it's sooooo easy to love you, litte lady. I wish I were as lovable as you, Jo." As if on cue, the dog lifted her head and licked her hand, while simultaneously trying to roll on her back to score more belly rubs. "Thanks, baby. I know that you love me and always will as long as I provide you with food and clean up after your number twos outside. I wish it were this easy with humans, too." Taking a sip from her beer, Jane sighed again, as Maura had found her way into her thoughts yet again. She had no idea how this more or less routine day of police work could have ended up draining her of all her energy; she had merely conducted two interviews and done a lot of driving around, or rather, had been driven around by Judith. Jane rested her head on the back of the couch, massaging that damned spot between her eyes. If only everything were as easy as loving a dog…
When Jane awoke with a start, both the bottle of warm beer in her hands and her sleeping dog almost fell off the couch. "Jeez", she mumbled as she put the bottle safely on her coffee table and asked for Jo Friday's forgiveness by kissing her on the head. Before the dream could disappear back into the depths of her subconscious, Jane got up and slowly walked over to the living room window overlooking a nice little park. As she sat down on the window sill and watched the moon dance on the surface of the park's small pond, she tried to recall every detail of the dream, which ultimately seemed rather like a fragment than one coherent story. She had been at work with Judith but couldn't remember any details or even the case they were working on. And then suddenly, there she was, walking up the driveway to a very familiar front door only for it to open before she could knock. She could still see Maura's face before her, her hazel eyes sparkling and wide open in surprise, her mouth slowly turning into a smile unlike any she had ever seen when she, Jane, had said only four words to her former best friend: 'I get it now'. Just when Maura stepped aside to let her in, Jane had woken up, frustrated. Not even in her dreams was she allowed to talk to Maura and clear things up, apparently. Shivering, she looked down and realized that she was having a major case of the goosebumps; that had to have been one hell of a dream. She quickly grabbed a blanket from the couch and returned to the window sill, leaning her head against the cool glass of the window. Much like a snake slithering in the dusty sand of a desert, a thought was slowly working its way upward from her subconscious and when she finally, and very tentatively, connected the dots she almost hit her head on the window. Her hands shaking, she barely managed to pull her phone out of her pocket and after a quick look at the time – it wasn't even 10 pm yet, so she hadn't slept for more than an hour –, she called the last number she had saved to her phone.
"Judith? It's me, Jane. I'm so sorry to bother you this late, especially after we worked all day. Did I wake you up?" Words seemed to flow from her mouth faster than she could even conceptualize them.
"Jane! Are you alright? Don't worry, my Chinese takeout and I just got home. What's up?" Judith replied and Jane could hear keys being tossed onto what she presumed was a kitchen counter.
"I have a question, a question that connects kind of everything we have talked about today. Do you have a moment for me?" Jane was suddenly afraid to keep talking and felt absolutely stupid for what she wanted to ask with such a sudden urge.
"Absolutely. That is, as long as you have no issue with listening to me chewing my dinner", Judith laughed warmly before turning serious again, "Ask away. I will try not to turn my answer into yet another monologue."
"This morning after you came back from the morgue, you told me that there are different kinds of love and earlier in the car, we talked about different sexual orientations and how people may fall in love with someone completely unexpected, someone of their own gender. I just... I can't imagine that this was the kind of love you had in mind this morning, but I won't be able to sleep tonight unless I ask you. So here's me asking: do you seriously believe that the love Maura was referring to is of a romantic nature?" Jane explained quickly and momentarily forgot how to breathe when the answer was a light chuckle on the other end.
"Jane, I don't know what answer to this question you're hoping for, so I don't know whether I am about to make you very happy or very upset. But yes, Jane, that is exactly the kind of love I was referring to. Sorry, or not sorry, depending on what you wanted to hear from me."
Jane almost dropped her phone on the floor but caught it at the last moment and struggled to remember what English was: "So, what you're saying is that… Maura is in love with me?"
"What I'm saying is that I am about 99 % sure that this is the case, yes. As you know because you overheard our conversation, Maura didn't elaborate on the subject or specifically told me that she is absolutely and madly in love with you but I don't think she had to. It was written all over her face when she saw you at that hipster restaurant and it was so clearly visible in her dreamily sparkling eyes when she told me about her love for you and your family."
"But… how do you know? People look at other people all the time and yes, I know that she loves me and my family as if we were members of hers, but that doesn't turn her love into something romantic and sexual." Jane couldn't believe what she was hearing; something within her was refusing to accept Judith's words.
"Again, I don't know anything. But I am so sure of my suspicions because I recognize the look of a woman in love with another woman. I recognize it because I have looked at women this way before, and, luckily, a few of them have looked this way at me, too. I saw Maura's desperation, her passion, her longing for you. That's why, at the restaurant, I assumed that the two of you had recently been through a break-up. When you told me that this wasn't the case and when I talked to Maura at her office the next morning, I realized that, at least on her end of this story, I hadn't been wrong. I'm sorry if this is upsetting to you; but you asked."
Jane wasn't sure that upset was the right word to describe her current state of mind and heart. She felt completely dumbfounded and still rather unwilling to accept Judith's opinion as a possible truth. "It would explain most of the cryptic things that Maura has said to me – and to you – since I jumped off that goddamn bridge, yes. But how could she suddenly fall in love with me? We have been friends for years, and now this friendship is forever gone. Even if we eventually start talking again, I don't think our relationship can ever go back to the way it was before."
"Jane, she might be the Gregory Johnson in this situation, without the being murdered, of course. She might have been living her life happily, not even aware of her attraction to you for a long time. Maybe she knew for a while before she almost lost you to the floods of the Charles River. Maybe it hit her when she thought you were gone forever. In any case, I believe it was when she realized that friendship was no longer an option for her, no longer enough. The question here, Jane, is whether or not you even want to the friendship to go back to the way it was. Maura seems to be certain of her feelings for you, so she clearly doesn't want to go back. Forgive me for my blunt words, but I think you need to figure out what you feel before your issue with Maura can be resolved, one way or the other."
"I absolutely know what I feel, Judith. I already told you that I want to be Maura's friend because I love her", suddenly Jane felt angry at Judith even though she rationally knew that she hadn't done anything wrong. She pulled herself together and tried to sound as friendly as possible: "Thank you for telling me what you have observed, though. I have only known you for two days yet you just came out to me and we have talked about some very private things. I'm not usually like this at all, but I am very thankful that we have been so open with each other right from the start. You have helped me to make a little bit of sense of everything that has been happening, so thank you."
"Jane, I'm a lesbian; processing is what we do best", and with that and a chuckle on both ends of the conversation, Jane ended the phone call and stared into the darkness of her living room.
The truth was that she still had a lot of processing to do. Maura's supposed feelings for her were surprising and unexpected but they didn't necessarily scare her; she just didn't know what to do with them yet. The longer she thought about what Judith suspected, the more certain she was: her colleague was most probably right. On the phone she had said she wanted a friendship with Maura because she loved her as a friend; but the truth was that she didn't know anything anymore. Two hours ago she would have laughed at anyone who told her that Maura was in love with her, now she was fairly convinced that this was the case. Just when she thought her head was going to explode, she ran over to the kitchen counter and scribbled down a few words. Car keys in hand, she signaled an already very excited Jo Friday to come with her and ran down the stairs only a few seconds later.
It was close to midnight when she parked her car and walked up the driveway to a very familiar front door. Jane bent down and used the mail slot to deliver her little message before running back to her car and disappear into the night: "I get it now."