A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed, followed, or even just read the last chapter! I hope you guys enjoy this one.
"Are we almost finished here?"
Jane sat impatiently on the back end of an ambulance, her feet dangling over the edge. Her hearing had mostly returned, though there was still an incessant ringing in the background of her thoughts, dulling the outside world around her.
"You really should stay seated, ma'am," the young EMT tending to her wounds stated. "You suffered a very traumatic fall in the explosion. Your body needs to rest."
He finished his current task at hand, securing a bandage he'd been wrapping around a large skid mark on Jane's forearm.
"I just need to get from here," Jane pointed to where she was seated, "to there," she motioned toward another ambulance 10 yards away where she'd spotted the honey blonde locks of her friend being escorted into the back of the vehicle earlier. "I think I can handle that."
She hopped to her feet.
"Ma'am, that patient is still being treated right now," the young man tried to protest, but was helpless to stop the detective from seeing her friend.
Jane stopped just short of jumping into the open ambulance. Maura was sitting on the edge of a gurney, staring somberly around the confined vehicle. Her right index fingertip was hooked up to a pulse oximeter, and both elbows were wrapped in thick, white bandages. Although Jane had shielded her head in the fall, Maura's body had still taken the brunt of the impact when they hit the concrete. Streaks of debris stained her cheeks and arms, and her baby blue dress – no doubt from a designer line like Prada or Chanel or Oscar De La What's-His-Face – had certainly seen better days. Threads of the dress were visibly frayed down her sides and back, and small blood stains from the wounds on her arms contrasted harshly against the blue garb. Jane was sure she looked just as battered as the medical examiner.
Seeing her friend now, damaged and beaten from the earlier events, made Jane want to scoop her up in her arms once again, rock her back and forth, and ensure her that everything would be okay. She wanted to shower her in reassuring kisses and hold her until that uneasy expression plastered to her face faded into one of serenity. The practical side of her brain reminded her how much worse it could have been. Some bandages and a few days of discomfort should be the least of her worries.
Thank God she's okay.
Jane was unable to process how close she'd come to losing her best friend. She couldn't imagine how different things would be if she hadn't been close enough to reach her, or if the bomb hadn't been on a delay. Maura meant the world to her. Enough so that she was willing to risk her entire world to save her. Losing Maura would be worse than losing her own life. The mental torment she'd suffer, wondering what could have been, would eat her alive. Wondering every day what it would have been like to hold her, to kiss her. If only she wasn't such a coward, she might already know.
The gravelly voice of the grey haired EMT occupying the ambulance pulled Jane from her dark reverie.
"Well, doctor, all your vitals are looking good... and it looks like you have a visitor," he commented, nodding toward the ambulance door.
Maura's head turned toward the open backend of the ambulance.
"Jane," she whispered as the detective offered an affectionate smile.
"How are you feeling?" Jane asked softly.
Maura shrugged. "I could be worse."
"Well, if it's any consolation, you still look more chic than most women will in their entire lives," Jane chuckled, raising her eyebrows humorously.
Her comment elicited a small smile from the medical examiner.
"Thank you, Jane. How do you feel?"
"Like I just got blown up. Fucking bastard... I can't wait to find this guy and personally escort his ass to prison."
"That might not be as soon as you'd like. I lost my briefcase in the explosion..." The same troubled expression washed over Maura's features again as she hung her head in disappointment.
"Hey, hey..." Jane began, hopping into the back of the vehicle without permission. She kneeled in front of the doctor, taking both small hands in her own. "Don't worry about that. We're going to catch this guy. All you need to worry about right now is healing up. Are you in pain?"
"There's a dull pounding in my occipital region. I don't remember the fall; I fainted due to syncope some time before that. The last thing I remember is you picking me up, and then we were on the concrete."
"Good. I don't want you to have to remember that. That shit hurt."
"It could have hurt a lot worse," a new voice joined the conversation. Both women glanced over to find Lieutenant Cavanaugh coming to a stop outside of the ambulance. Neither women had noticed him arrive at the scene. Korsak and Frankie appeared behind him a moment later. "Bomb squad just confirmed it was a standard, homemade pipe bomb. They think the timer was set to give the victim time to enter the house, where they wouldn't be able to escape the explosion. They assumed the bomb would be triggered upon entering the home, and apparently never considered the inverse. Luckily, or you two wouldn't be sitting here right now."
"Jane would have been far enough away to survive the impact," Maura corrected. "I'm the fortunate one."
Jane stared gravely into Maura's eyes.
"We're both lucky," she stated, and the solemnity in her tone sent a shiver up the doctor's spine.
"Okay, ladies," Cavanaugh interrupted, "the bomb squad will be over in a few minutes to debrief you. Assuming you're cleared by the EMTs, I'll see you both in the morning." He turned his attention to Jane, who was now sitting on the edge on the ambulance, facing her colleagues. "Try not to throw yourself into any more near-death situations between now and then, would you? You did a foolish thing back there, Rizzoli."
"Yeah," Frankie added, "you look like shit. Ma's going to lose it when she hears what happened."
Jane sneered. "I think she'll forgive me when she finds out I was saving her second daughter. She's always liked Maura better anyway."
Frankie guffawed. "Well, that's true. Get ready for some waterworks, ladies," he said to Jane and Maura, smirking.
"Oh, no. I will be avoiding Ma like the plague until she has time to calm down. This is not my first rodeo."
"Good luck with that," Frankie chuckled. "You'll be seeing a lot of her at dinner tonight."
Dinner. She had completely forgotten about their plans for the evening prior to the chaos.
"You really think Maura's still thinking about hosting dinner tonight for a bunch of us slobs? She almost got blown up an hour ago!"
"Actually," Maura chimed in, "dinner might serve as a nice distraction from the day. Plus, Jack was so looking forward to meeting the rest of your family."
Frankie shot his sister his best I-told-you-so glance. She glared at him.
"Fine. Dinner at seven then. But you are not cooking or cleaning, Maura! I'll text Ma and have her whip something up."
Maura sat pensively at her kitchen counter, gaze fixed on the backyard window that had quickly faded to darkness in the last hour. After dinner, Maura had attempted to tidy up and wash the dishes, but she had been promptly shooed out of the kitchen by Jane.
"Maura, I specifically told you no cleaning if we kept our dinner plans tonight," she hissed at the smaller woman, physically removing her from the kitchen.
Now she sat alone at the marble island counter with nothing to distract her from her own musings. The Rizzoli clan had gathered in the living room to catch the last few innings of the Red Sox game, and Jack, ever the gentleman, had nobly stepped in to clean up the kitchen after Maura had been banished. Her gaze drifted to the burly man whose back was facing her.
Jack.
He was always the first to step in and help a person in need. Always doing whatever he could to make Maura feel happy and comfortable, whether that meant cleaning up after a group of her dearest, sloppiest friends he had just met, or driving halfway across town in the middle of the night because her hot water wasn't working. He was everything she had hoped to find in a man. Kind, sweet, funny, intelligent, strong. She had finally found a man who would move mountains for her, rather than bringing his own climbing gear and leaving her in the dust to find her own way across.
Why, then, did the thought of him illicit a visceral, lurching dread in the pit of her stomach? It felt like someone was boiling a dark, viscous brew of guilt and fear and anxiety deep in her esophagus. If she had finally met the man of her dreams, why wasn't she happy?
Because something was missing.
When he touched her with his large, calloused fingers, she imagined how they would feel if they were thin and narrow. When she ran her fingers through his short, choppy hair, she wished it was thick and long and curly. She wanted to trade his rough lips for a certain pair of soft ones. She wanted to know what it would feel like, just once, to run her tongue across that long, taut neck. To take that supple bottom lip between her teeth and suck... She wanted Jane.
She wanted Jane Rizzoli in all her intractable glory. From the day she'd met the detective, she had been tortured by the fluid sway of her hips when she left a room. She was perpetually teased by the confident gait with which the woman carried herself. Her throaty laugh sent shivers down the doctor's spine, and one flash of her authentic Rizzoli grin was enough to make her swoon. Yet the detective carried on day after day, completely unaware of the affect she had on her best friend.
Jane had come into her life like a bulldozer and made her question everything she wanted in a life partner. She thought, perhaps, once she found someone who filled the criteria she searched for in a man, her constant desire for her wild-haired friend would subside. On the contrary, it only made her yearning worsen, and that terrified her. What if no other person could ever hold a candle to her affections for Jane?
Jane Rizzoli. Her beautiful, bullheaded, snarky, loyal, passionate Italian. The only person she was one hundred percent confident would put their own life at risk for her, because she had already done so multiple times. Maura's heart skipped a beat as she was reminded of earlier that day. Everything had happened so quickly. One moment she was on her way to grab another fingerprint collection kit out of her trunk, and the next moment she was being roughly swooped off the ground and blown into the concrete by a blinding, forceful blast of energy.
She could have died. So easily, she could have been blown into pieces of skin and organs and bone fragment. This was not her first brush with death, but the aftermath never became less eerie. Instead of spending the evening having dinner with the people closest to her, the remainder of her body could be on its way to the morgue to be cremated. But it wasn't. She was safe because Jane had risked her own demise to save her.
Normally, Maura would scold such a perilous act from Jane, but tonight it was difficult to feel anything other than tenderness and gratitude towards her foolish savior. She knew Jane would make the same decision ten more times if she had to. Jane would do anything for her, and Maura wouldn't think twice about doing the same for her. Her Jane...
The weight of the day and her concealed affections for the detective crashed down on her abruptly. Her heart beat quickened at an alarming rate and she felt a sting of tears forming in her eyes. She had to get out of the room immediately or risk causing a scene. She peered around the room for an exit strategy, her eyes settling quickly on the back door. Fresh air, that's what she needed.
She hurriedly hopped off the bar stool and soundlessly trekked her way to the back door. She hoped no one heard as she quietly opened the door and departed to her backyard.
The minute creak of a door swinging open caught the attention of the ever-alert detective on the living room couch. She averted her gaze from the television to glance around the room and caught the tail end of wavy blonde locks retreating through the back door.
Maura? It was unlike her to leave in the middle of her own function.
Jane rose from the couch without hesitation. Her family, whose eyes were glued to the last inning of the Red Sox game, didn't seem to notice as she made her way across the room to follow her petite friend outside.
The brisk night air swept across her face, a stark contrast to the warm, comfortable temperature she had been accustomed to inside. At first glance, the yard looked empty. Then, she heard a soft yelp to her left. Her head darted in the direction of the cry to find a small figure huddled on a wooden bench to the far left of the patio, barely visible in the drab moonlight. She watched her friend's shoulders heave up and down erratically. She was crying.
Jane rushed to her side, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Maura's body jerked in surprise. She lifted her head and met Jane's gaze with her puffy, red eyes.
"I'm sorry, Maur, I didn't mean to scare you."
Maura only sniffled in response as another wave of tears rolled down her rosy cheeks.
"Oh, sweetie," Jane soothed, taking a seat next to her friend on the bench. "What's wrong?"
Maura buried her face in her palms as she let out another stifled sob. Her body was trembling and Jane was growing concerned. She had never seen her react this way to anything, even after their previous brushes with death. She drew small circles on the doctor's back.
"Breathe, Maur, okay? Just breathe. Everything's going to be okay. I'm here for you."
Jane's heart shattered into tiny, sharp fragments at the sight of her dearest friend in so much pain. She was behaving eerily similar to Jane when she'd awaken in the middle of the night with a sudden bout of panic. If anyone knew hysteria, it was Jane Rizzoli, Queen of PTSD. She would never wish that terror on anyone, let alone the woman she held closest to her heart. She wished she could swoop her up and carry her far away from her distress. Unfortunately, she couldn't. But she could sit with her until it was over.
She continued to draw circles on her back and whisper soothing hushes in her ear. Her other hand stroked gentle paths up and down the smaller woman's arm, careful to avoid her thick bandages. They sat for several minutes, Maura's breathing becoming steadier and her sobs less frequent as time rolled on.
"I'm sorry..." Maura finally whispered under her breath, barely audible.
"Please don't apologize. There's nothing to be sorry about, Maur," Jane replied.
"I suddenly became very overwhelmed."
"It happens to the best of us. Do you want to talk about it?"
Maura paused, thinking.
"I was so scared... When I stepped off that mat, I felt the click under my heel. And then I saw the expressions on all your faces… I thought I was about to die."
"But you didn't."
"Because of you," Maura said, meeting the taller woman's gaze. "It's astounding that we both walked away from that blast unscathed. What would I do without you, Jane?"
Another tear streaked a path down her soft cheeks, but Jane's thumb was quick to capture it.
"You don't have to worry about that, ever. We're both here, and we're both very much alive. I'm not going anywhere, Maura."
"I've been trying so hard to be strong, for you and for everyone else. But whenever I think about this afternoon, I find it impossible to maintain a steady heart rhythm."
Jane's eyes softened. She reached out and grabbed Maura's hands in her own, stroking the back of her hands with her thumbs.
"Hey, listen, you don't have to be strong for anyone, okay? Especially not me. You don't ever have to pretend to be anything for me."
Jane admired the small smile that graced Maura's lips in the dim moonlight.
"How do you always know exactly what to say?" Maura whispered.
"It's a natural born skill that's been passed down for generations in my family. Unfortunately, it skipped a generation with my Ma." The blonde at her side let out a soft chuckle. "When I was a little girl, I was afraid to stay the night away from home. When we'd stay at our grandma's house, I would cry and cry in the middle of the night, because I thought there were monsters in the closet. And every time, my grandma would come into my room and sit next to me on the bed, and she'd wrap my little body up in her arms," Jane simulated the action, wrapping one long arm around Maura's shoulder, while the other found its place around her petite stomach, "and she'd say, 'Janie, I have never met a girl as brave as you, but even the bravest people get scared sometimes. Those monsters, they can't hurt you, because you won't let them. And as scared as you are of them, they're even more afraid of you, because they know how strong and brave you truly are. They know they can't beat you. And even if they could, I'd be right behind you, ready to take them all on.'"
Maura leaned in to Jane's warm embrace, her head resting under the other woman's chin.
"That is very sweet of her."
"Well, Maura, you're the bravest, strongest woman I've ever met, but it's okay not to feel so strong sometimes. And when those times come, I'll be here to save you."
Maura sniffled as she clung tightly to the lean arm wrapped around her core.
"You've already saved me so many times. From Marino, Hoyt, Moore, Dennis… and now today. You could have been killed, Jane."
"Has that ever stopped me before?" Jane chuckled softly. "You're right. I may have made a rash decision, but if you were in danger, I'd make the same choice again and again. But I can save you in more ways than just physically, Maur. I can save you here, too," she retracted her arm from around the smaller woman's shoulder to gently tap the top of Maura's head, resting her hand in the silky, blonde locks afterward, "if you'll let me."
"You do, Jane, all the time. I promise."
"Well, good. I owe it to you, because you save me, too, every day. In more ways than you know."
The women's invigorating intimacy was beginning to shroud the M.E.'s common sense. Jane's scent was intoxicating, making Maura nearly dizzy with desire. The detective's hand in her hair and her arm around her stomach was enveloping the usually logical doctor and rendering her incapable of any pragmatism.
Maura lifted her head slowly, lips brushing past Jane's collarbone slightly as they came to hover centimeters from her neck. The words came tumbling out before she could stop them.
"Jane," she whispered, trailing goosebumps across Jane's skin with her gentle breath, "I love you."
Jane's breath hitched as Maura placed a soft yet deliberate kiss on the brunette's taut neck, then another on her mandible. Her lips remained in place on Jane's jaw.
Jane's head was spinning. She had heard those words from Maura more times than she could count, only this was different. The intimacy of the situation, the unadulterated fervor in the woman's tone, made it feel like she was hearing those words for the very first time. Their meaning was different than any time before. She'd spent years wondering what they would sound like coming from her best friend's mouth, yet now that they were laid out, lingering in front of her, she found herself afraid to grasp onto them. Like if she did, they'd vanish in her grip.
"Maur... You went through a lot today. I know you're feeling overwhelmed -"
"No, Jane. You're correct, we both had an overwhelming day, but that does not affect my feelings for you." Maura lifted her head to meet Jane's gaze. "I've felt this way for a very long time. I'm lying to myself, to you, and to the rest of the world every day when I say that you're only my friend. You're so much more than that to me."
"Maura..."
Jane was unable to produce any sensible response. Her mind had turned to overdrive, generating so many rapid thoughts she was unable to grasp onto a single notion. Her thoughts were racing, yet her mind was blank. She stared darkly at the vulnerable pair of hazel eyes in front of her. Her gaze darted down toward the soft, pink lips that had seared her neck only seconds before. Her own lips screamed at her to kiss them. Kiss them quickly, before her brain could catch up and ruin her chance. She licked her lips hungrily.
"Maura? Honey, are you out here?"
Jane jerked back abruptly as though she'd been burned. Reality came barreling down on top of her and made her feel like she was sinking. She was about to kiss another man's woman. Her best friend. Her best friend who, just moments before, had confessed she was in love with her. A day ago, she would have sworn on her life that her visceral attraction to the doctor was completely one-sided. How had everything changed so dramatically in only a few minutes?
She glanced at Maura, whose gaze remained fixed on her own, and was unable to read her expression. Apprehension? Disappointment? Hunger?
Maura took a quick moment to compose herself before calling out, "Over here."
Both women watched as a broad-shouldered figure made its way across the dark patio.
"There you are! We thought you ran out on your own dinner!" Jack exclaimed. "What are you doing out here?"
"I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the events that transpired this afternoon. Jane was helping me process some things."
Jane's head was cast downward. She was sure that if she looked at Jack, he'd see the feral look in her eyes and know exactly what had happened. He'd know that if he had walked out five seconds later, he would have found his girlfriend underneath her on the lounge chair with her tongue jammed down the smaller woman's throat.
"Well, I think they're about to call it a night inside. Maybe we can get you in a bath and help you relax." Jack reached out an arm to help Maura stand. The same arm came to wrap around her waist. Maura tensed under his touch as she tried to will Jane to look at her, say something, do anything.
"Thanks for taking care of her, Jane," Jack continued. "She's very lucky to have you."
Jane finally lifted her head, still refusing to make eye contact with either half of the couple standing in front of her. She stared out at the long expanse of green grass beyond them, feigning her best grin, which was tight-lipped at best.
"Anytime." She quickly rose from her spot on the bench. "I'm feeling pretty beat as well; I think I'll probably head out too."
Jane turned to leave without giving either party a chance to respond. She made her way to the back door as quickly as possible, relieved to put a physical barrier between her and the last fifteen minutes of her life.
"There you are, Janie! We thought you ran out without saying goodbye!" Jane's mother was on her immediately, showering her face in unwanted kisses. "Oh, my baby girl. I'm so happy you're okay."
Jane had already endured the deep-seated frustration her mother expressed every time she had a close call on the job. Stage two was relief. As irritating as it became, she'd be lying if she said she didn't understand. Earlier that day, Jane had been half-tempted to swing Maura up into her arms and shower her from head to toe in kisses, she had been so relieved. But Jane could not stay any longer. If she was still there when Jack and Maura came inside, she was sure she would combust on the spot.
She quickly said her goodbyes to her family and made her abrupt departure. Maura returned to her living room only seconds after Jane's car drove off into the moonlight. She scanned the room for the woman who was no longer there, and her heart fell when Angela informed her she had gone home.
I ruined everything, Maura thought dejectedly.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are appreciated! There will be one more chapter posted tomorrow. :)