Chapter 8

When she wanted to, Maura knew exactly how to play Jane.

A surprisingly firm hand pressed against Jane's stomach and everything tightened. The scars tickled Maura's fingertips like a secret language. She could feel the unevenness, the raised welts of her angry marks. Jane's skin used to be so perfect…

"It doesn't feel like you had any luck at all out there, Jane."

She moved her hand along the expanse of her abdominal muscles and felt them ripple to life under her touch.

Jane swallowed hard and felt unnaturally hot. She had gone months without even thinking about sex - too busy running and scraping and living like a god damn animal. Purposefully leading a solitary existence required discipline and control and Jane had made herself untouchable.

A prisoner in her own wretched body.

Now Maura was quietly obliterating all of Jane's defenses with a pair of soft hazel eyes and a warm hand that continued to go wherever it damn well pleased.

Boundaries were never their strong suit. If Jane had been on her game, she would have anticipated this. It was way too late for that now and despite her best efforts not to, she groaned.

"Am I hurting you?" Maura asked innocently.

"Ah, no. Just…just ticklish," Jane managed.

"I'm sorry," she said and Jane had some serious doubts about her sincerity. "I'll go slower."

Jesus Christ. "Do you, uh, do you do this a lot?"

"Not as often as I'd like," she said distracted, literally, by the task at hand.

Jane cocked an inquisitive eyebrow.

"What I mean is that we don't get many new intakes. Thirty-nine total so far, including you," she said smiling slightly. "You're the only one who has been brought in alone, which I find interesting." Her touch turned light and teasing. "You're dehydrated," she observed, pinching the skin gently in her fingers. "After this is over, we'll get you some water."

Jane mumbled incoherently in agreement.

"Unless you need something now. Are you thirsty?"

Parched. Jane reckoned it had less to do with her travels and more to do with an increasingly curious, blond haired doctor. Her throat bobbed and she shook her head without a word.

Maura took a step back and Jane could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped with it. Breathing normally suddenly wasn't so hard anymore and the thudding in her chest subsided. She blinked a few times, still quite hazy with arousal, then felt Maura's hands go under her elbows to lift her arms out. Jane complied like a ragdoll.

Maura had long been an admirer of the human form and Jane's was no exception. She could appreciate the sinewy cut of her muscle fibers just beneath the skin. They were wiry and tensile, the muscle groups differentiating themselves where they came together - the deltoid interlocking with the triceps and bicep, each taut bundle standing out in stark contrast to the other, and yet flowing together to form a nearly perfect specimen.

"Only you…" Maura said with a bit of wonder as she slid her hands over the strong shoulders in front of her. Her fingers rose and fell, guided by the defined musculature forming Jane's biceps.

"Huh?" she asked.

"While I expect a certain degree of weight loss with all our intakes, only you could actually manage to build lean muscle in an environment which offered you very little resources. You appear to be incredibly fit." Maura gently squeezed her arms and was met with a hard resistance that sent a thrill through her.

Jane cleared her throat. "Well, I've been going to the gym a lot," she said casually.

Maura let her laughter go and for a brief moment they were back in Boston. A whisper of nostalgia and then a flash of Jane, standing tall in her Tuesday shirt with that devilish smile, looking at her fondly…

Kind of the way she was looking at Maura now.

Her dark eyes squinted with her smile and Maura couldn't help but stare at Jane's face. It was striking, almost exotic, and so different from her own. She'd thought of it often, redrawing every angle and slope in her mind's eye distinctly, as if Jane had never been gone.

"You don't look so bad yourself." Jane said it sweetly, her voice hushed like it was some secret between the two them.

The compliment was unexpected. The words coming from anyone else would have gone ignored but coming from Jane, they coated Maura like honey and she found herself disarmed.

She felt a flutter in her chest and for a split-second, forgot what she was trying to do.

"Come here," she said.

Jane dropped her arms numbly and took a small step forward, eliminating most of the space between them again. Maura stared at her calmly, her unreadable expression making Jane nervous.

"You have new scars."

"So do you," Jane said, trying to put up a fight.

"Not like these." Her fingers were at Jane's skin again, travelling over her torso for emphasis. "You and I are going to have a talk about these."

Jane considered it and felt her insides recoil.

"And if I told you I didn't want to?" Her words faltered slightly in the face of Maura's obvious determination.

"Then I would ask you why."

"Just because…"

At that, Maura pursed her mouth into a thin, annoyed line. Jane's reason was unacceptable and she knew she would have been better off saying nothing at all.

This was ridiculous.

Twelve hours ago she'd taken out three rotters with nothing but a knife and had barely broken a sweat in the process. By Jane's estimations, that pretty much made her a badass.

So why in the hell did she feel like she'd lost this battle before it even began? Physically, she had the advantage. Even barefoot, Jane was still taller than Maura and she peered down into her eyes, searching her face for some clue as to how far she was willing to take this. What she found there unnerved her and for the hundredth time since they'd begun this "routine examination" Jane told herself it was a terrible idea.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way." Maura said simply.

Jane straightened her back and narrowed her eyes with her chin up. The tendons in her neck twitched involuntarily.

The hard way then.

Maura's fingertips traced over Jane's skin, going from scar to scar, connecting the dots – a constellation of vicious marks that had not been given proper treatment. Maura had seen similar wounds on the bodies in her morgue. The damage ended somewhere beyond the waist of her underwear and faded into the smooth expanse of Jane's thigh.

"Maura…" Jane tried but couldn't quite tame the shakiness in her voice.

"Your wound pattern is evenly scattered but random…" Her hand glided over Jane's heaving ribcage, the fingers splayed out, and then headed south until she met the resistance of her underwear. She heard the other woman take in a sharp breath.

A fine sweat had broken out on Jane's face and her eyes widened as the tip of Maura's tongue moistened the corner of her perfect mouth. It just wasn't fair.

Last chance.

Sometimes Jane was too stubborn for her own good.

"Evenly scattered…" she repeated, then boldly pushed her hand past Jane's waist and over the jut of her hipbone, dragging the elastic of her shorts with her. A sharp jolt of arousal coursed through Maura, and she knew she'd made herself wet even as her heart ached. She could still feel the scars and finished with her voice noticeably weaker. "…a wide pattern, otherwise known as scattershot. Consistent with a high powered fire arm such as a shotgun."

"Maura stop." Jane grabbed her wrist, almost painfully, and pulled it away.

They were breathing hard, sucking in air that was charged with secrets and longing. Jane closed her eyes and swallowed a huge lump in her throat. Maura glared defiantly right through her.

"A shotgun, Jane?" She didn't want to believe it. The tingling pressure on her wrist vanished as Jane dropped her hand. She looked at Maura apologetically. "Why are you being this way?"

Jane thought about it and her shoulders slouched in real misery. She took in a few measured breaths. A dull pounding had returned to her temple and she rubbed at her forehead.

"Stop that," Maura sighed, batting at Jane's hand. "Your stitches."

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Needing a little distance to gather her thoughts, she backed up until her legs bumped into the hospital bed behind her, then scooted herself onto it. It was pointless as Maura was immediately in her face again.

"You're going to tell me." She wasn't asking anymore.

"Jesus Christ you fight dirty."

There was a glint in Jane's eye, and she made no attempt to hide what she was alluding to as she re-adjusted the waistband of her underwear.

"That was nothing." She sounded almost mean.

"Good to know," Jane mumbled, squirming slightly at the newfound throbbing between her legs. "Look, they're just scratches," she said lamely.

"Scratches?" Maura repeated, her eyebrows rising almost comically. "Is this a scratch too?" Below Jane's kneecap lay another mark, jagged like a lightning bolt. At least six inches long, the gash must have been deep, possibly to the bone. Maura touched it carefully as if it had been put there yesterday. "This had to have been excruciating, Jane."

It had been. All of it had been. It was hard to go back to that place when all she wanted was to be here now with Maura, who was standing so close that Jane could smell her shampoo.

"Let me guess – you fell?" Maura ventured.

Sarcasm. Nice. "Technically, I did fall." Her mouth quirked and she cocked her head. "Eh, more like a drop…" Jane's eyes went upwards in thought as she worked out the dynamics of her injury. She'd learned so much since making that particular choice.

"Jane, you are one of the most agile, physically gifted individuals I've ever known. I find it difficult to believe you spent over a year out there, fumbling your way to-"

"It's been a year?" Jane interrupted, genuinely surprised. She'd gotten so used to not knowing the exact day or time, letting the sun and clouds dictate her travel.

Maura blinked. "It's July 16th."

"July…" she mumbled, her brow creased.

Maura could see the wheels turning in her head. "Three hundred and eighty days," she said, doing the math for her. "You shot yourself three hundred and eighty days ago. The hospital would be destroyed approximately ninety days later. At some point between then and now you woke and made an interesting journey for yourself."

"Holy shit," she said.

"It's been a long time." She took Jane's hands into hers. "I mentioned before that you're the only one who has come to the base alone. It may not seem odd to you but it is highly atypical. Everything about your exam has been atypical."

"Unless you're this handsy with all your intakes, I can see why."

"Will you be serious for just one minute? I've documented all kinds of minor injuries, but everyone was largely unharmed. There is safety in numbers so people stay in groups for survival."

"I tried that," Jane sighed. "It's overrated."

Maura ignored her commentary. "People group up, find some type of safe harbor, and then they stay there. Yes, the landscape is overrun with outlaws and the undead, but the population is spread out. Finding a suitable shelter and fortifying it can greatly increase the chances that you survive until you are found."

"So what? What I did it wrong?" Jane sputtered out defensively.

"Jane no. No." She said frustrated. "I'm saying you did it differently and you still survived. If you have truly been alone this entire time, believe me when I tell you that your methods were unique."

"Yea well unique doesn't always mean good," she sighed.

"Explain that to me."

Jane fell silent again and went still as a stone save for her shallow, even breaths. Maura sighed. Jane's hands rested limply in hers. Dirt was trapped under every nail and Maura could feel out the hard calluses and the thick knot of scar tissue that stamped the center of her palms. Jane didn't even bat an eye when she got near them.

Maura leaned in close and felt Jane gravitate towards her.

"You hesitate because you're afraid of what I'll think," she whispered. "I'm no fool, Jane. I understand the threats that lie outside these walls. I know what it takes to overcome them."

Jane felt the tip of Maura's nose graze against her forehead and closed her eyes tightly. A soft kiss was pressed over her hairline.

"Do you remember the last time we did this?" Maura continued, her voice thick with emotion. "It didn't turn out so badly, did it?" Her thumbs stroked the center of Jane's palms.

"This is different, Maur."

"Try me."

Jane glanced down at the pristine white lab coat that Maura wore. It was a half size too big for her and bunched slightly around her shoulders and arms. She brought her hand up to one of the lapels and pinched the fabric between her fingers and thumb. The threading was stiff and uniform. Clean.

"I bet…" She began and then paused as her chest closed up on her. "I bet you're a really good doctor."

Maura's heart dropped a little. "I try to be."

Jane smiled internally at her modesty. The truth was most people could spend their entire lives working to achieve goals that Maura could accomplish in her sleep. "Trying" for Maura was astonishingly close to perfection.

"You ever save anyone's life?"

"On a few occasions, yes."

"You saved Frankie's life. I never thanked you for that."

"To be fair, you never had the opportunity," she smiled.

A knowing expression flickered across Jane's face and she squeezed Maura's hand. "Thank you. I'll never be able to repay you for what you did."

"Jane…" She was serious now and exhaled a ragged sigh. "Can you imagine for one moment how it felt for someone like me to lose someone like you? Do you have any idea?"

Jane had missed her something awful. She'd left hundreds of miles behind her and with every step she'd missed this woman. She told herself she'd go as many miles as it would take to find her because dammit, Maura was out there somewhere. As focused as she was, she never considered what she would do if the light at the end of her tunnel were to be extinguished.

Now, Maura looked absolutely haunted, like she'd closed so much pain inside herself she couldn't hold anymore and it seeped out everywhere.

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks and Jane felt like a complete asshole.

"Maura, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She felt worthless saying it.

"I don't want your apologies and I don't need your gratitude." She took Jane's face gently into her hands and met her eyes. "I just want you back."

Jane couldn't help leaning into the touch. "You might not if you knew the things I've done. You're a doctor now, an honest to goodness damn doctor. You help people, make them better. God, for every person you've saved I've probably…"

Her words ended abruptly and Jane nearly flinched at her thoughts.

"Is that what you think?" Maura slid one hand down her cheek, the edge of her thumb grazing the side of her mouth. It settled on her neck, almost possessively, and she brushed over the matching scar there. "How can you be so sure? We're not so different, you and I." Maura fought the bitter smile on her face. "I think you'd be surprised."

It was obviously bait but Jane couldn't resist taking it.

"So….what… You tell me yours, I tell you mine?"

"Nice try. You show me yours first, then I show you mine."

They both grinned like idiots at the Freudian slip.

Maura took in a shaky breath and exhaled sharply. "You know what I meant."

Jane opened her mouth, ready to fire off a smartass remark, but lost her voice when Maura's fingers pressed into the tense muscles of her neck, gently kneading them. It felt so good.

An appreciative sigh fell from her lips and Maura knew she'd won.

"You're never gonna let his go, are you?" Jane breathed.

"I won't. I'm very persistent," she said. "And very skilled. Challenging me would be unwise."

Jane's lips were slightly parted as her jaw went slack in relaxation. Maura dug almost uncomfortably into her flesh as she worked away the knots.

"You tryin' to bribe me with your magical fingers?"

"Jane, if I wanted to bribe you I'd use a very different incentive. One that I dare say you would find much much more enjoyable."

Jane visibly stiffened. That got her attention.

Maura's gaze lingered on Jane's mouth before she looked her in the eyes and tilted her head.

"When was the last time you had coffee?"

Jane's eyes lit up. "Are you shittin' me?"

Maura just smirked and took her hand.

"Come on."

·························································