A/N: I feel like it's been forever even though it's only been six days. Thanks for all the kind reviews and comments. I will be continuing this story. I don't know how many chapters it will be but it will continue. Thanks for stickin' with me!

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, yo.

Jane and Maura sat across from each other at Jane's small kitchen table. Their silence was only interrupted by the sounds of forks against plates. Both were making a show of eating, taking slow deliberate bites. Their talk was good but it was only a step. There was so much more to say, so much more to think and rocks to overturn. A four month separation doesn't just evaporate over the course of a couple hours.

Jane ate half of her eggs before she started to get a cramp in her neck from tense muscles. Being a natural left hander was annoying sometimes. She could do things with her right hand but it was always a conscious effort that made her shoulders and neck tense at each task. Putting the fork down, she rolled her neck back and forth hearing a satisfying crack.

Maura stared at Jane from beneath heavy lashes. She wanted to say something but all the words in her extensive vocabulary didn't seem like they were enough to convey what she actually wanted to say. "How did you get injured?" She asked at Jane's movement.

The detective stopped immediately looking at the doctor. She cocked an eyebrow. "Frost didn't tell you? Or my mother?"

Maura squinted her eyes putting her own fork down. "He said it was not a 'biggie'. But your mother said you were reckless again." Her own body ached. "That's why I came over the other day." She wasn't going to tell Jane about how she had initially refused Angela's persisting. Not because she didn't care but because she was scared. She had seen Jane bleeding out on a sidewalk, seen her covered in mud, seen her bruised and shaky and she didn't like it. Ever. It made her feel like if the great Jane Rizzoli could be beaten down into submission then anyone could. The thought on its own unsettled her. She could go the rest of her life without seeing Jane bleed again.

Jane nodded her head. "Let's go sit." She helped Maura stand and together made their way to the couch. "You ever dream about it?" Jane was shocked by her own question. The question came completely out of left field, it was so off base and had nothing to do with anything. She wondered why she even asked, why it even mattered. But it did matter. Everything mattered. There were so many things they never talked about. They didn't talk about the siege on headquarters or when Doyle held Maura at gunpoint or Dean or Hoyt. Jane had killed her biggest nightmare, her personal boogieman, and ate cake afterward. The thought was laughable, it was a joke. Suddenly she needed to talk about it. She needed to talk about everything until the sun went down and came back up again. She needed to talk about the last four months and everything before and after Maura. She'd had this feeling deep inside her chest for months like she was drowning in her own personal sea of unsaid emotion from things that she shoved to the side. Jane didn't know if she could take the incident at the warehouse and just shove it under the rug like Maura had suggested. There was too much stuff there already.

Maura cocked her head to the side and stared at the other woman trying to read her. Jane was fidgeting with the scars on her hands. It was something she did a lot when she was thinking or nervous. She was confused. She didn't know if Jane was talking about Doyle or something much more sinister. The truth was she dreamed about many things, especially since the detective came into her life. She didn't know the exact type of dreams Jane was talking about and she most definitely did not know the 'it' either. She could guess but she never liked to guess. Guessing led to assumptions and assumptions often led to incorrectness. "You're going to have to be more specific."

Jane shook her head at herself. "You never wear headphones, Maura." Her voice came out flat and soft, she refused to meet the other woman's eyes.

Even without her vast knowledge of facial expressions and body language she would have been able to tell that Jane was nervous. She had never made Jane nervous before. They were always so comfortable with each other. It was a thing she prided their relationship on. But at the moment she didn't know where she stood in the other woman's life. On closer inspection she didn't know where Jane stood in hers either. "Jane, you're nervous. I'm making you nervous. I can leave if you would prefer."

Jane threw her head back onto the back of the couch. She was too tired for this. "Maura, if you want to leave then leave." She huffed. "If you don't want to then stop threatening it."

Maura glared at the brunette. "What do you want me to do, Jane?"

Jane rolled her eyes at the ceiling but answered nonetheless. "I want you to stay."

Silence fell over the two. It was strange. Silence between them had never been this loud before. It was the kind of silence that made a person deaf, the kind that demanded attention soon otherwise it was going to explode and they were both to close to the blast point for there to be any survivors. Maura was the first to break it. "I dream about a lot of things, so if you want the answer to your question you're going to have to be specific. I was wearing headphones because I wanted to be distracted from my thoughts." Maura paused. "Ian is not my boyfriend. As it stands, I am currently unattached."

Jane sat up quickly grunting at the move. "What?"

"The other day you said I was gallivanting around Africa with my boyfriend. I deducted based on known facts that you were talking about Ian. While I did see him in Africa and we did work together we mostly talked. We didn't have – "

"Okay!" Jane practically shouted. "That's enough Maura." Then there was the deafening silence again. Jane bit her lip resting her head back on the couch. There was so much she wanted to say, things that had been repressed for months, years even, but she couldn't put all the words together. It was like she was learning English for the first time. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Maura."

It was a loaded apology, Maura could tell that much. "Me too."

A minute later Maura tried to stand up but promptly sat back down. Jane's couch was much softer and more worn than her own. It made it difficult to stand up from on a normal day. No matter how hard she tried she just couldn't get up from the couch.

"What's wrong?" Worry was evident in Jane's voice.

"I need to use the restroom but my ankle…" She stopped talking when Jane stood from the couch and left the room. She didn't have to wait long. When Jane came back into the living room she was holding a long cylindrical black object. "Jane why do you have a cane?"

Jane looked at her like she had grown a tail in her absence. "For you." She said slowly.

Maura laughed slightly. "No. I mean why do you personally have a cane?"

"Oh." Jane said. "I was a patrol cop once upon a time. On a call as I was chasing someone I got hit by car. It wasn't hard, the guy was nice enough to slam on his brakes before he hit me. But it dislocated my hip and I had broken bones and stuff. So cane." Jane said with half a grin handing the object over to the doctor. "I know it's not crutches. If I had a rolly chair I'd push you around but canes best I got."

Maura nodded her head holding out her right hand for Jane to take. Jane put the cane in Maura's uninjured hand then grabbed her under the left arm to heave her up from the couch. Both women stood patiently as they each regained their bearings. "Blind leading the blind here." Jane commented with a small chuckle. Maura nodded her head in agreement before she hooked her left arm through Jane's right. It was a slow, delicate process but finally Maura got to the bathroom.

After five minutes of Maura alone in the bathroom Jane wasn't sure she should say something or not. Another minute passed. She didn't care if it was awkward she brought her right hand to the door about to knock when she heard Maura's voice. "Jane?" The sound was slightly muffled and tense. Jane opened the door quickly. Maura was bent in front of the sink with one wet hand while the other was pressed against her side. The cane lay on the ground forgotten. She was clearly in pain. Jane didn't like seeing Maura in pain. Ever. When Maura was in pain an animal in her chest seemed to become uncaged. She wanted to do everything in her power to make the hurt go away. "Maybe we should call your mother."

Well, anything but that Jane thought. "No." The word was a tug on reflexes. Jane Rizzoli didn't need anyone's help, especially not her mother's. They would figure this out. "Absolutely not." Jane took off her sling putting it on the counter. She moved in front of Maura and squatted to the ground. "Hop up."

"Excuse me?"

Jane turned on her head to look at the other woman. "Hop on."

"Hop on what, Jane?" Maura asked again just as incredulously as before.

"My back." Jane answered. "You act like I just told you to contaminate a DNA sample or to wear black and brown together or white after Labor Day."

"This is insane. I'm not doing it." Maura turned around gently sitting on the counter. She leaned back against the wall next to the mirror. "I'll stay here."

"Maura." Jane stood up. "You're not staying in my bathroom."

"Well, I'm not hopping on your back." Maura closed her eyes trying to bring her heart rate back down.

"Why not?" Jane asked as if it were the simplest solution to their problem.

Maura sat up staring wide eyed at the detective. "Why not, Jane? Are you serious right now?" Maura sighed at Jane's grin. "Jane dislocated shoulders cause muscle tears, tissue damage, joint strain. It makes the shoulder unstable. I don't know how you got injured in the first place because you won't talk about it. You might have other injuries that I could aggravate by sitting on you. Therefore I'm not –"

"I fell down a flight of stairs."

"Fell?" Maura asked disbelievingly.

"Fine!" Jane grumbled. "I was pushed. Got a couple bruises. I'm. Fine."

"Clearly." Maura replied dryly.

"Oh, is that sarcasm, Doctor?" Jane was in full 'detective' stance. Her shoulders were squared off with her right arm on her hip. The move, Maura knew, was to show a perp or person of interest that she meant business. In her suits the arm on her hip would make her blazer hang back showing off the shiny detective badge on her hip. It was an intimidation tactic that never worked on Maura. And it certainly wasn't going to work with Jane standing in her bathroom barefoot in a white tank and running shorts.

"I'm not going to get on your back, Jane." Maura narrowed her eyes at the taller woman.

"Why not?" Jane was getting fed up with this.

"Because it will hurt you." She glared.

"I can take it." The detective said decisively clenching her jaw.

Maura exhaled slowly. "You don't have to." She said just as fiercely.

"Fine." Jane raised her eyebrows taking a step forward. Maura wanted to do this the hard way, she could do it the hard way. Before Maura could react Jane grabbed her around the waist pulling her forward. With a grunt she put Maura's weight on her good shoulder wrapping her good arm around the back of the Medical Examiner's legs. Her body protested but she had learned long ago how to drown out the voices.

"Jane! What are you doing?" Maura squealed now upside down. Her head in a very peculiar spot near the detective's rear end. If the situation were any different she would have laughed. Maura felt every step Jane took until finally the steps stopped coming. Jane gently placed Maura on her bed and flopped down next to her. Jane's chest was heaving as she tried to catch her breath. Maura stared at her friend with narrowed eyes as she adjusted herself on the bed. Jane was only half on the mattress. Maura could see the muscles in Jane's legs contract as they held most of the taller woman's weight. As her eyes made their way up to the detective's face she could clearly make out a grimace and a clenched jaw. She had worked out with Jane numerous times, enough to know she was in much better shape than to be breathing heavy from a small load and few steps. There was clearly more to Jane's injuries than a dislocated shoulder and she was determined to find out what. "Why do you insist on doing things that are going to hurt you?"

Jane shrugged her right shoulder. "Masochist. Martyr. Protective. You pick."

"Do you enjoy pain? Do you get sexual gratific –"

"Maura!" Jane snapped.

"It's an honest question Jane." Maura moved so she was leaning against Jane's headboard. She took a look around while Jane was still trying to get her bearings straight. The room was very dark to be only close to seven in the morning. The dark curtains Jane normally left open were decisively shut blocking out almost all of the sun. "Do you?"

"Can we not talk about this?" Jane said standing from the bed. She moved so she was lying right next to Maura with her head resting on her pillow.

"Are you going to tell me how you got hurt?" Maura asked looking at Jane.

"Told you," Jane started fidgeting with the pillow under her head. "Got shoved down the stairs by a perp trying to get away from us."

"What else did you hurt?" Maura pressed.

"Nothing." Maura looked at Jane with an eye brow raised. "Couple of bruises, Maura. I'll be good as gold in a few days. It's nothing."

"Let me see."

"Will you drop this conversation?" At Maura's nod Jane stood from the bed again. She flipped the bedside lamp on with a flick. She raised the top of her tank top a couple inches and lowered her shorts the same length. Underneath the top of Jane's boy shorts Maura could see a deep purple-blue bruise on her pelvic bone. Jane put her shorts back but pulled her tank up more to reveal another bruise. This one was lighter but didn't look any less painful. It covered a small area on her defined abdominal muscles. Jane pulled her shirt back down. "I was at the top of the stairs and he came barreling out of nowhere. I tried to catch myself but that didn't really work out." Jane continued at Maura's horrified stare. "I'm tall and lanky. Long limbs don't make graceful falls down stairs." She lay back down on the bed turning off the lamp. Maura didn't say anything for a while. "Did I blind you with my abs of steel?"

Maura grinned. "While I'm sure parts of you are held together with steel plates and screws I'm sure you were talking about the more colloquial use of the term meaning that you have very well developed musculature in your abdomen. But no, I was not blinded, although, you do have impressive oblique's. I was simply thinking of something to say."

Jane's eyebrows shot up. "You think I have impressive abs?" She asked laughing.

"Yes." Maura answered simply.

"Good to know." Jane nodded her head.

There was a slight pause before Maura spoke. "When you asked if I dreamt about it earlier to what were you referring?"

Jane sighed heavily. "I don't know where that came from. It doesn't even matter."

"Yes, it does Jane. It matters to you. I can hear it in the inflection of your voice. It matters to you, it matters to me. That's how friendship works if I'm not mistaken." Jane didn't say anything so she kept going. "Do you mean Hoyt?" She felt Jane stiffen beside her. "Are you having nightmares?"

"Maura," Jane sounded tired. It wasn't just tired it was that exhaustion that seeped into bones when no one was looking zapping all the energy from the body all at once. She was exhausted. She closed her eyes exhaling loudly. "We don't talk about this stuff."

"We don't talk about a lot of stuff we should talk about." Maura's voice was equally as soft and low as Jane's.

"I don't know. I just…" Jane started. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I want to acknowledge the fact that things happened. I want to say that these things happened out loud." She groaned dropping her hand to her side. "Like I shot myself and you were held at gunpoint and we almost died together." She sighed again. "Sometimes I think about my birthday. How it was a normal day and then suddenly it wasn't. I killed a man and then ate cake afterwards. Who does that?" Her voice rose to a higher lever at the question and her body tensed. "I'm cracked in the head." She plopped her right arm over her head covering her eyes.

"Those things did happen." Maura contemplated Jane's words. "I dream about it sometimes." She admitted. "You may have taken a few too many knocks to the head, but you're not mentally ill. Taking someone else's life is a traumatic experience. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I'm sorry you had to go through it."

Jane didn't want to talk about this anymore. All the bravado she felt earlier evaporated the second Maura opened her mouth. Having someone reaffirm her thoughts was surreal. She wasn't a talker. She talked to the department shrink out of necessity but she never talked about anything. She could handle it though. She could always handle it. It was just the type of person she was. She was damaged goods, a good cop who had taken one too many in the chest. She needed to get her head screwed back on straight before going back into the heat. She needed to sleep and eat and stop thinking. Bringing up scarred up old wounds wasn't going to help her. "How have you been?" She asked changing the topic. The fact of the matter was that Maura was sitting in her bed talking to her for the first time in four months and she genuinely wanted to catch up.

Maura looked at Jane slightly shell-shocked. The detective practically insisted on talking about things and then dropped the subject like it was on fire. She rubbed her forehead with her hand. Jane was a deceptively complex human being. She doubted she would ever understand her best friend. She started talking about her mother's recovery, her trip to her parent's house, and her trip to Africa. At some point or other they had both fallen asleep on top of the blanket.

A/N: So now I'm stuck. ha. It's actually kind of infuriating because I know how I want the story to end, I know the big plot point and I know how I want to write it. But the segue into this has me stuck. I'll figure it out. It's finals week in two weeks so it'll probably be at least that long before I write chapter 6. I know sorry but I've got like 6 tests and a paper due between now and then. But hopefully it'll give me time to figure it all out.

Thanks again for reading! If you have any suggestions or whathaveyou feel free to leave them!