A/N - First of all, I've been informed I've been nominated for a Rizzles Fanfiction award. I have no idea which of my stories has been nominated - nor who did nominate me - so I'd like to just say thank you here, in the hope whomever it was sees this message. I'll be honest, I know little about the awards - so I don't know categories or anything much, nor have I ever written except mainly for my own pleasure. Knowing others read this has always been enough reward for me - so this is a complete shock. So - thank you.
Also I am writing this as much as possible, but Honorcpt and I managed to get a lot going on the other story I'm co-writing (Damage Control), and since it's not always easy for us to meet up online at the same time - It's been the one I've mostly concentrated on. However, this is still being written in the downtime between Damage control - Part of chapter 14 is already written. However, at this time, I don't think there are going to be a massive number of chapters left for this story. It was always intended to be a slightly shorter one. Just a heads up warning this isn't a story that will be going on for too much longer. Although I have another story already outlined to start once this ends.
Finally, just a thank you for all the reviews and readers - silent or otherwise. Also, for those that have clicked to follow or favorite the story. It is appreciated. I hope this doesn't disappoint. I had tried to upload this a few times the last two days via my iPad - and had nothing but trouble with the site just crashing the browser before I could save then post. So I gave up and am posting via my computer.
Oh and I almost forgot - there is a little nudge towards an M rating here midway through the chapter - So the rating of the story will have to change to an M - so it won't show up automatically on the default search if you find the story normally that way - for now I'll keep it at T - to allow people to see this note - and perhaps click to follow or to know to look at all ratings for other updates.
Chapter thirteen
"Remind me why you talked me into this again?" Jane complained as she twitched in her chair.
Smiling, Maura put a hand out to stop Jane's jiggling leg, "Because we both know this has to be done. Even you admitted, the first sessions have been helpful."
"I know." Jane swallowed hard, "Still doesn't mean I have to like it."
"I doubt we're supposed to like it," Maura said with a smile, "Just focus on what you want. Sam's already made it perfectly clear, that while she'll push if she feels she has to, she'll also just back down if she feels it's becoming detrimental to either of us at the time."
"So, where are Fred and Mark today?" Jane then asked, desperate to try and think of something else.
"I believe Fred is clothes shopping with my mother, while Mark is looking at getting some electronics for the apartment they recently bought in New York."
"New York." Jane couldn't keep the disgust out of her voice, "I mean, they knew you lived in Boston, so why not here. Honestly..."
"Because Mark's parents charity interests are based primarily in New York," Maura explained patiently, "And while he doesn't have an awful lot to do with it - he does have his own foundation to help medical issues for the poor, and he likes to be involved if he isn't with MSF or back home in London. Besides, he has his own helicopter pilots licence, so it's easy for him and Fred to fly into Boston when they want to."
"Right, because we can all do that."
Lightly tapping Jane's arm, hearing the humor in her words, Maura looked as Sam opened her door, asking them inside.
"How did you cope seeing Maura in the morgue when you went back to work after the first incident with Hoyt?"
Maura looked slightly surprised by the wording of the question. She expected Sam to ask Jane about how did she cope going back to work, not how did she cope as she came back to see Maura in the morgue. She was still pondering the question, and suddenly she understood. More than understood, but more than that, felt mortified she had never given the implications of Jane's return to the morgue more than a coursey thought.
Maura felt slightly ill at it all. After all this time, and Jane had not once said anything. Jane's tease of her being the dumbest genius she knew never felt more apt. She waited for Jane's reply, even though she now understood - and frankly was finding it hard not to feel self reproach over not recognizing Jane's need at the time.
Jane ran a thumb across the still fading scars. They were no longer as raised, but the skin discoloration was still obvious.
"It was hell." Jane finally admitted. "I saw Maura picking up what is one of the most essential tools of her trade, I knew seeing a scalpel again was going to be hard. This was where a scalpel was for used for good. For helping us help the victims who don't otherwise have a voice. To help their family and close friends with some answers where possible. I didn't know how hard seeing it being picked up would be. How much it would terrify me as Maura made the first cut into the skin. I wanted to throw up. In fact I did."
Maura's head snapped up at that last confession, a frown appearing. She had expected the first part, but the last few words were a complete shock, "What? No, you didn't."
"Yeah, I did. Remember, I walked out. I barely made it to the nearest restroom."
"Oh Jane." Maura leaned in, her hands clasping Jane's feeling even more upset at this second revelation. She'd steeled herself for the hearing about seeing a scalpel again, but she had no idea just how badly it had affected Jane.
Sam could see if was upsetting for both women, and she settled down a little, giving them time to just assess what had been talked about. She did though allow herself a small internal smile - she felt even more confident that these two would be okay, and they were doing the exact right thing by seeing her, for a short while at least. But still, they had ground to cover.
"Looking on a positive - I have to say, this first encounter with Hoyt appears to be the first time you really deepened your friendship. Would you agree?"
"Yeah," Jane spoke up, "Heck, if it wasn't for Maura's work, it would have been far more difficult for us to get clues about Hoyt. It was the first time I really got to see her at work like that."
"The same could be said for me," Maura then replied, "Seeing Jane working with the clues, putting them together, was fascinating."
"Yet you still hid the issues you faced coming back to work and seeing Maura with a scalpel Jane. Why do you think that was?"
"I guess, I've never had someone to rely on like that. I work in such a male dominated field, I kinda got used to not showing weakness. Ma isn't the sort of person I can talk to - and Daddy, well, I don't have a relationship with him now, but he definitely wasn't someone I could turn to, not like that. Sure, baseball, softball, that sorta thing. But emotional stuff. Forget it. As for my brothers, I'm older than they are, so I've tended to be the one looking after them, ya know. I suppose Frankie is the one I'm closest to, but still... He's my brother, ya know, my little kid brother. So I've always been kinda good at not showing any weakness."
"It isn't weakness," Maura was the one who spoke, "Jane don't you understand? It's about trusting me to help you if I can. At the very least, it's about me understanding your reaction. Trust me to at least understand?"
Jane swallowed hard, "I'll try. I can give you that."
"And I think for a beginning that's a good starting point." Sam said, as she scribbled down a couple of notes.
Jane grimaced. This was the area she didn't want to cover. Hell, she'd tried to avoid talking about it at every turn. But Sam was like a starving dog with a bone - she was not going to let it go.
"You both agree that the changes that came about in your relationship can be traced back to a specific time." Sam watched as Jane shifted nervously in her seat, "Can you explain why the shooting at the precinct became the turning point for deterioration in your friendship with Maura."
"It was..." Jane faltered, as the memories surfaced, "It was the closest I've ever come to dying. Even Hoyt didn't hold that same horror. Did Hoyt scare me? I admitted to Maura the second time around that I had never been so scared. But this - this was a different kind of terror. I had to save Frankie, but also make sure Maura was safe." Jane then turned and glared at Maura, anger spilling over, "And what the fuck were you thinking?"
Maura balked, "I beg your pardon?"
Even Sam looked slightly shocked by the anger in Jane's voice and posture.
"You, running out through those doors without even looking first, right into the middle of a hostage situation, with guns everywhere! Were you looking to get shot? For fucks sake Maura, you just..." Jane stopped her tirade, although both Sam and Maura could see her hands were shaking ever so slightly.
"Maura, I think you need to respond to this." Sam said gently.
"I didn't even think of it like that." Maura admitted, as Jane glared at those words, "I didn't!" Maura insisted. "I just knew you'd need to know Frankie was on his way to hospital. That we were both safe."
"But you weren't' safe don't you understand," Jane practically growled, "You ran right into an active situation. If I hadn't already grabbed that gun, I know for a fact Bobby would have taken a shot at you! Then what? SWAT firing on him, so we could both get shot at, potentially killed. Jesus Maura, what the hell were you thinking?"
Maura sat back stunned before her own anger began to mount slightly, "I love you, don't you get it! I needed you to know what was happening. Yes, it was stupid in hindsight, but I needed to know you were okay, and then-" Maura's voice hitched in her throat as tears began to fall, "And then I had to watch you put a bullet through yourself anyway. Can you even imagine for one second what that felt like? It was if I'd been punched in the stomach. I wanted to be sick. I thought I'd lost you - for good. That the one truly great person in my life would be no more. Don't. You. Get. It! I. Love. YOU!"
Jane recoiled, as she shook her head, "I get that now Maura. Hell, I know we loved each other even then - but you can't be going into situations like that. You just can't..."
"Oh so it's okay for you to walk into a bank hostage situation with nothing more than your vest on for protection? That a shot to the head would have been all it took to likely kill you?" Maura was trembling now, a mixture of anger and pure adrenaline hitting her. "Or to shoot yourself, even when you were surrounded by SWAT and half of the BPD. Bobby was going nowhere, yet you put a bullet through your body."
"It's my job Maura, it's what I'm trained to do - you of all people..."
"I never once said it's about your job Jane. I get that your job is going to potentially put you in dangerous situations every single day you walk out of the door. I get you are trained for potentially life threatening situations; I get all of that, and believe me, as hard as it is to watch the person I love walk out the door knowing all this, I accept that every single day I'm with you. That it's who you are! What I don't get is why you have to be the hero all the damn time? You can, at times, simply be reckless - beyond reckless - and it's that recklessness that scares the crap out of me."
Jane looked shocked. Partly from Maura's overall words, but also the swearing, knowing she only ever swore when she was the most stressed, and even then, it was often mild in comparison to what Jane could spout, particularly when around some of the other detectives.
"I'm not reckless." Was all Jane could think as a come back. She watched as Maura simply shook her head, a look of defeat there, and a couple of tears fell freely down her cheeks.
"Yes, you can be Jane. Not all the time, but you honestly can sit there and deny it? Then I don't know what I can do."
"Whoa, Maura," Jane looked shocked, as she then looked across to Sam, a plea to help obviously showing.
Sam leaned forward ever so slightly, handing a tissue to Maura, who took it, before turning her head away slightly.
"Jane, did these incidents happen as Maura described?"
"What?" Jane had been fixed on Maura, still reeling from the last few minutes, and it took all her self control to look back at Sam, "Yeah I guess."
"It would appear there is no guess about it Jane. And while I know you find it hard to accept, Maura's worries are valid and you should consider the implications. So, for now, I think we'll take a break, to give you both a chance to regroup. However, what I don't want is for you both to go from here, and then ignore each other, or simply refuse to talk. I'm not saying you have to tackle this, but you do have to move past it until you can settle down more.
"If you feel you can talk once you leave here about this specifically, then please do. But - and I say this as a warning - only if you both feel you can do it without throwing accusations at each other. I would recommend you take a day or so as well, unless you specifically feel you need to talk about it tonight. Do you understand?"
"Yeah." Jane mumbled.
Maura meanwhile nodded, before she looked back at Jane, and she put her hand out, grasping Jane's. Jane looked up, and squeezed their fingers ever so slightly, and gave a slight nod of her own.
Jane stumbled into her apartment at around 1 a.m. or thereabouts. Hell, all she knew was it was late. Her head was ringing, and she was trying desperately to get some sense of hearing back. Why did she agree to a club again? Oh yeah, Maura looking at her all doe eyed. Well that and Fred who looked like someone had kicked his puppy and then his kitten for good measure when Jane first said no.
Grabbing a couple of bottles of water out of her fridge, she began to strip off as she headed towards her bed not caring where her clothes fell, knowing she was going to pay for this by morning. Or rather, by later this morning Jane reminded herself as she literally face planted herself down on the bed, barely getting the water bottles onto the nightstand as she fell. Nightclothes be damned.
At least a night out in some club with Fred and Mark had kept her mind off what had happened with her and Maura at the last appointment. But she hated that she and Maura had already decided to spend the night apart, long before the incident at counseling - and while Maura had told Jane she would have preferred coming back with her, she also knew they needed to just decompress and spend time apart. It truly had been a great night, but still, Jane couldn't help but feel lonely and needing Maura to be there.
God I'm so whipped. Was Jane's last waking thought as she finally fell asleep.
Jane woke, and for a split second, she reached out to grab her gun, before her hand was grasped, and a whispering breath hit her ear.
"Don't. Just... don't."
Maura's hands then moved, and Jane was suddenly violently and shockingly aroused. So far, they had done little more than kiss and make out. Now though, Jane felt as if her blood was pounding in her ears. Her heart thudded in her chest, as she swallowed hard, trying to get moisture into her dry mouth. Then a mouth covered hers, and she simply surrendered and let out the moan she'd been trying to hold back.
Maura's lips were greedy, hot. They gave Jane little choice but to capitulate, even as Jane moved and tried to respond in kind, but all she could sense were lithe fingers, as they moved across scorched skin, before finding the fiery heat, the mouth moving, releasing her own, before possessing a nipple, sucking as teeth then scraped, before it was laved with the tongue, and Jane could only give out incoherent whimpers, nothing intelligible was possible. Her hands grappled with the sheet beneath her, seeking any kind of purchase, and yet it felt as if nothing was able to anchor her.
"God!" The single word flew out of her mouth, as Maura plunged harder, deeper. Her body bucked, frantic with need, as Maura rocked her own body in time, thigh meeting thigh, and Jane feeling as if her body was going into shock, could little more than cry softly, seconds before she fell headlong into the orgasm that had been building.
As Maura collapsed on top of her, Jane finally let out a long satisfied sigh.
"Sorry to wake you." Maura finally said, as her breathing evened out, her voice slightly hoarse.
Jane snorted back a laugh, as she focused on the woman still lying across her. "I can tell you're really, really sorry."
Maura could only sigh, her breath meeting Jane's skin, and Jane felt it prickle as if she'd been hit by tiny jolts of electricity. Taking a deep breath, she tried to center her thoughts.
"I thought we'd agreed to stay apart tonight?"
"Mmm."
Jane pushed some hair away from Maura's face, as she then put the fingers to Maura's chin, moving them so Maura would have to look at her.
Maura sighed, "We did. But then I had to just come over... and I saw the trail of clothes across the floor... and, well this certainly wasn't planned."
"I'm not complaining," Jane replied, as her hands began to absently stroke up and down Maura's back, before she frowned, "I don't have to get up yet do I?"
"No. It was just after two when I arrived." Maura shifted slightly, so she was now mainly lying alongside Jane, her head tucked into Jane's one shoulder.
"Thank god for small mercies," Having heard the weariness in Maura's voice, Jane gathered her up as much as she could, kissing her temple, "Go to sleep."
"Okay." Came the almost inaudible reply, as Jane felt Maura's body go slack. Seconds later, she was following her into her own welcome slumber.
"I'm pleased that you have both said you have come to agreement about what was talked about last time."
"We did." Maura spoke up, "Jane understands my concerns, and we've gone through incidents where I felt she was rash, and we've worked out when I had genuine cause to worry. Equally, we've agreed that Jane wasn't trying to upset anyone - it's just she always feels such a need to help, even when it's to the detriment to her own health or safety."
"I've agreed to just try and curb that side of me a little. To pause for a little longer, really look at the situation and if I need to go in." Jane added, a small smile in Maura's direction. "I know I had family waiting for me - but now, I've got more than that. I honestly didn't realize how much I'd put myself into unnecessary dangerous situations until Maura said something."
"It's good to know you've talked, and are recognizing the situation. If you're okay with that then, if I can bring it back to something you said last time, Jane, about the shooting at the station," Sam looked down at her notes, " you said, and I quote, 'this was a different kind of terror.' Can you try and explain that to me?"
"I don't know if this is about to make any kind of sense, but it wasn't lying there, as Maura fought to keep me alive that scared me so much. I'll be honest, I don't remember a lot, its very broken and jumbled up, but I can recall enough to know it was serious. Potentially fatally serious. It was afterwards that scared the crap outta me."
"Afterwards?" Sam queried as Jane faltered.
"I came too at the hospital, having been kept in a medically induced coma for five days. I'd had some infection, that delayed the decision to reduce the sedation, and the first time I woke I don't remember much, but I freaked out."
Maura looked upset, understanding flooding through her. She had been witness to the events Jane was trying to talk about, but she had no real understanding what had subsequently transpired between her and Jane. She needed to know. She needed Jane to explain.
"Jane." Sam leaned forward slightly, concern showing.
"I freaked because I was in restraints. I immediately thought I was back in the basement being pinned down by Hoyt. I had absolutely no understanding I was restrained to stop me disturbing any one of the tubes or wires that were in or attached to me. That wasn't even in my thoughts as I came too. I just needed to get out of there. I was fighting everyone then. Nurses, the doctors, interns, even Maura. I didn't even recognize any of them for who they are. I could only see Hoyt."
"It sounds under the circumstances a perfectly natural reaction to have." Sam said. "But why did this change things between you and Maura?"
"Because Maura saw me freak out. She saw me weak, helpless but more, she saw me freaking out over something that was there to help me! I was stupid. She saw me being stupid! There I've said it! She was there when she shouldn't have to see me like that. It was bad enough she saw me so badly injured. That she had to sit there, taking turns with my family at my bedside, as my parents split their time between my room and Frankie. To then see me lose it like that? I can't bear the thought she saw me so weak..." Jane shook her head, her words drifting off.
A/N - Next chapter, a little more Fred and Mark to just lighten things up between the sessions with Sam. Although I hope the midway point here also made up for it.