A/N: Thank you for your kind reviews and as always for your patience. -DKC

What I Should Have Said (Chapter 3)

The hurt in Maura's eyes was breaking my heart. When I told her I didn't know why I'd gone out with Gabriel Dean, I truly didn't imagine it would hurt her. I certainly never thought that telling her I didn't know why I'd gone out with him would begin a standoff.

"Maura, it isn't Joey Grant again," I started, but Maura turned her back on me so I wouldn't see her tears.

Just moments before the tears that were welling up in Maura's eyes had been those of genuine happiness. When I began telling her what I should have said that moment in the precinct, she was happily surprised by the emotion I was showing towards her. I hadn't simply imagined the desire in her eyes. But I'd blown it. Instead of telling her why I went out with Gabriel Dean, I shrugged her question off. I didn't give it the consideration Maura so greatly deserved.

"Please look at me," I pleaded as I placed my right hand on Maura's right shoulder. I felt Maura stiffen at my touch.

"I turned up in your lab that night after my mom set me up with Grant, but it was nothing like tonight," I said softly, hoping Maura wouldn't ask me to elaborate.

"You're right, it isn't like Grant. But you have feelings for me now. At least that's how I interpreted what you were saying to me earlier and that's certainly how my body interpreted what we were doing a few minutes ago. Am I wrong?" Maura asked as she turned around to face me.

"You're not at all wrong," I said, dropping my eyes from Maura's and looking at my fidgeting hands.

"I don't understand, Jane."

"You don't understand how I can have feelings for you?" I asked, honestly unsure of what Maura was hung up on.

"No, I understand that. I've felt the same. What I don't understand is how if you have feelings for me, feelings that didn't just manifest themselves after you walked through my door, you could go out with him," Maura said in a tone laced with anger.

"Are you kidding me?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"I assure you, Jane, I was being completely serious," she responded.

"You've been going out with every dick with a pulse for months and you're angry at me because I went to dinner with Agent Dean?" Unfortunately, my incredulousness was winning out.

"That's not fair!" Maura practically shouted. She again turned her back on me and began walking toward the kitchen.

Something about Maura and I that is rather unique to our friendship is that we never fight. If kissing her changed all that, I wish I could take it all back. I didn't like the anger I saw in her, directed at me or otherwise.

"I'm sorry, Maur," I said as I approached her in the kitchen.

Her back still to me, I got within a foot of her and reached out to grab her hand. Surprisingly, she didn't flinch or shake me off. Almost immediately when I took her hand I felt her squeeze mine in return. She slowly turned around and I saw the tears falling down her cheeks once again. I hated knowing that I was the cause of those tears.

"I'm so sorry," I said as I turned Maura toward me and embraced her.

"I'm sorry, too," Maura mumbled into my shirt, her face pressed to my chest.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Maura," I whispered as I kissed the top of her head.

"I didn't know I was hurting you with my social life, Jane," she said as she leaned back and looked up at me. "I've known my feelings for you, my attraction, but I never thought you'd feel the same and I didn't want to ruin our friendship by approaching you. I've felt this way for longer than I can quantify. The dates, well, they're just about sex. It's a biological need. The dates never meant anything to me. And they never could be you."

I'd never considered why Maura went out with as many men as she did. Everything she was saying to me mirrored what I'd realized as I sat with Gabriel Dean at dinner. I leaned in a briefly touched my lips to Maura's forehead, tilting my own head down afterward to rest my forehead against hers.

"God, when you asked me why I went out with Agent Dean, I didn't know what to say. What I should have said was that it was nice to have someone interested in me. Not just some guy that Ma fixed me up with, you know?" Maura chuckled at the mention of my mother.

"What I should have said was that the entire time I was sitting there with him I was thinking about you. I was telling him how I wasn't ready for someone to worry about me. But you worry about me, Maura. Every single day. No matter how goddamn stubborn I am, you worry about me. When you interrogated Hoyt so I wouldn't, you were doing it because you worry about me," tears were beginning to well in Maura's eyes now.

"Dean and I agreed to go our separate ways. I told him I wasn't ready. What I should have said when you asked why I went out with Agent Dean is that there is nothing between he and I. What I should have said was that I needed an outlet for all the emotions I'd been harboring since I held your hands in mine as you told me the similarities you saw, however misguided, between you and Hoyt. I realized that as I was kissing him," I said.

No sooner had 'kissing' left my mouth, Maura stiffened. Her eyes met mine, the anger and hurt had returned to them.

"You kissed him?" she cried as the tears began falling down her cheeks again.