The ride back over to the precinct was quiet, but not tense. I spent most of it staring at my badge, back in my hands. I knew it was largely symbolic, that until I physically requalified for full duty, that badge held very little weight.
It was still my badge though, and I hadn't been replaced.
Cavanaugh had started telling me that I was still going to have to sign in whenever I went to the precinct, and anything beyond the precinct's public areas and BRIC were going to be off limits to me, unless I was brought there by someone else. My duty was so limited that I wasn't even allowed to watch autopsies. I started to protest, and he held a hand up.
"Let's not screw this up, Rizzoli. Your doctors have cleared you for four hours of paperwork, two days a week. Nothing else. You'll ride in with the Doc in the mornings and then if your partners are around, they'll bring you home at lunch. If not, I'll get a uniform to do it. Don't argue with me. I can't have you having some kind of setback that keeps you from your physical qualifications. There's only so long I can keep you on desk duty before I either have to put you on permanent disability or bring you back on full time."
I realized that there was a good chance that I could still be replaced. Cavanaugh was doing me a huge favor, but I still had a lot of therapy to get through.
"How long?" I asked him as we pulled into the precinct's parking garage.
"How long what?" he asked me, confused.
"How long do I have to requalify for duty before you put me out to pasture?" I asked quietly.
"I'd like to tell you as long as you need, Rizzoli. But we both know that's not possible," Cavanaugh said just as quietly.
"So, how long?" I repeated.
"Six months, more or less. Whenever the current academy class goes for their initial qualifications for duty, the department will probably ask you to requalify then."
"Oh," I whispered. I'd come so far, but I really didn't know if I'd be ready in six months.
"Don't worry about that now. Just come up to my office and fill out your paperwork."
I nodded, and followed him out of the car and into the elevator into the building. We bypassed the main entrance by taking the garage elevator, which was good because I didn't need to be walking around the main entrance braless and in my brother's too-short sweatpants.
Because it was so late in the day, the bullpen was pretty much empty except for a few uniforms coming and going to file reports. Frost and Korsak were not at their desks. Neither was Crowe or Klatsky. My desk remained empty. I went to go sit down at it, but Cavanaugh stopped me.
"No, in my office. You'll do your reactivation paperwork in there while I work on some things. Thursday you can have your desk back."
I shrugged and followed him in. I sat down across his desk from him and started the pile of paperwork that was waiting for me. At one point I had to call the rehab to get paperwork from Drs. Grossberg and Gilfried faxed over, and Cavanaugh got up to go collect it before prying eyes could have a look at it.
I had been in Cavanaugh's office for nearly an hour when the last of the paperwork was almost filled out.
"I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere," Cavanaugh said as he stood up.
"I will not pass go. I will not collect two hundred dollars," I sassed back as a response.
"Smartass," Cavanaugh laughed as he walked out.
I was just signing my name on what felt like my five hundredth form when the door to Cavanaugh's office opened. Cavanaugh was back, and Maura was behind him. He pulled the chair out next to me, and motioned for her to sit down.
"Make yourself at home, Doc. Jane, leave the paperwork on my desk when you're done. I'll see you at eight sharp on Thursday. Don't be late." He walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.
I hadn't even thought to acknowledge Cavanaugh because I was too busy looking over Maura. She looked as terrible as I did. She had circles under her eyes, her hair was flat and unstyled, and she wore no makeup. Her dress was even wrinkled. It was clear she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and her nose had a telltale redness on the tip too.
She sat down heavily in the chair across from me and looked me over too. I scrambled to think of something to say to her, but she opened her mouth first.
"What are you wearing?" she asked, horrified.
"Tommy's clothes," I responded, looking down at myself.
"Are you not wearing a bra? And those pants are too short. You look like you're expecting a flood." She actually laughed. It was one of those laughs people let out when they're so stressed they will laugh at anything just for a moment of relief.
I looked down and laughed with her for a split second, then sobered up quickly. I looked as absurd as I felt.
"I'm sorry, Maura."
She stopped laughing and looked at me, but didn't respond. She looked like she was ready to cry again.
"I'm sorry for the way I reacted to finding out about Klatsky, and for not giving you the benefit of the doubt. I'm sorry for not listening to you when you came over to explain."
She sighed. She looked every bit as miserable as I'd felt all weekend long.
"Let's go home, Jane."
"That's it?" I asked, shocked.
"No, I'm just too tired to cry anymore, and I don't want to cry here again," she said flatly, and stood up. "I'd rather work this out at home. Let's go."
I felt encouraged that she at least wanted to try and work it out. I still had no idea how I was going to make things right again though.
I stood up and followed her out, back into the parking garage and into her Mercedes. She drove us home, and a stony silence loomed between us. I could feel a multitude of emotions coming off of Maura. She was angry. She was upset. And she was relieved that I'd come back. She didn't have to open her mouth to tell me any of those things. Her body language spoke volumes for her.
I figured the best thing for me to do would just start out by apologizing to her. Repeatedly, if necessary, the way Tommy had suggested. I wasn't above groveling, if it came down to that.
Everytime I tried to apologize to her though, she held up a hand and said, "Let's just get home." I gave up trying after the third attempt, and figured it would be better to let Maura take the lead.
We pulled into the garage and Maura shut off the car, stepping out and walking into the house silently, her head hung low and her shoulders tensed. I followed a few steps behind her. Ma was in the kitchen, feeding the dog and the tortoises. She looked up and saw I was home and narrowed her eyes. She didn't greet either one of us, though the daggers she was shooting were aimed firmly at me. I took a deep breath.
"Ma, could Maura and I have a little privacy please? We need to talk," I said gently.
"You rode home with her and didn't talk?" Ma snapped.
"We need to talk more," I snapped back, not bothering to tell my mother that Maura had rebuffed my every effort to speak to her in the car.
Ma just looked to Maura, who nodded, and then left quietly out the back door. Maura waited until she was gone to turn to me and address me.
"I need to change out of these clothes," Maura said as she headed for the stairs. She looked back over her shoulder at me and said "And maybe you could put on something a little less ridiculous too."
I followed her up the stairs to the bedroom, and took a pair of pajamas and some underclothes out of the bureau. I turned and headed toward the door, figuring it would be best if I left Maura to get changed without me.
"Where are you going now?" she snapped as I headed toward the guestroom.
"I was going to the guestroom. I didn't think you'd want me in here," I said simply.
"This is where you belong, Jane. Here. With me. This is our bedroom, we sleep in here together." She looked furious.
"Okay," I said quietly, afraid of further setting her off. "I'm sorry."
Maura huffed and then turned to start fishing through her drawers for something to wear. I turned my back to her, taking off the shirt Tommy had lent to me and pulling the pajama shirt over my head. I'd gotten my arms and head through the holes and was just pulling the shirt down over my torso when I heard Maura gasp behind me.
"What happened to you?"
I covered up and turned toward her, confused. "I thought I'd been replaced at work and I got upset and-"
"No, Jane, your back!"
I turned my back toward the mirror and looked over my shoulder, lifting the back of the shirt up as much as I could. Sure enough, there was a massive black and blue on my lower back, and it looked like it was spreading toward my hip. Everywhere my body had come into contact with the bathtub when I'd been dropped into it was bruised. No wonder it all hurt so badly.
"What did you do? Did you fall?" Maura had stepped toward me and gingerly placed a hand on my bruise. I gasped more from the contact than from the pain her touch caused. In that moment most of her anger had dissipated into concern, and it made me feel even guiltier for the way I'd treated her than I already felt before.
"No, I didn't fall," I replied.
"Well, what happened? You need x-rays," Maura decided.
"I don't need x-rays. It's just a bruise. I can ask Dr. Grossberg to look at it when I go back to therapy tomorrow."
Maura apparently decided it wasn't worth arguing over. Not when we had an even bigger issue to get through.
I finished letting the shirt drop over my torso and reached over to get my pajama bottoms. I peeled off the pants I was wearing and blushed when Maura realized I wasn't wearing any underwear.
"Where are your underwear?"
"In Tommy's dryer. He picked me up off the couch this morning and dropped me fully clothed into the bathtub. I was struggling with him and hit my back and hip on the tub when I landed. My clothes were wet and I'd been wearing them for three days, so I tossed them into his washer when I got out of the bath." I put on a pair of panties and my pajama bottoms as I was explaining, avoiding looking at Maura, not so much out of shame for my lack of undergarments, but more out of shame from the way I'd treated her. I didn't feel like I could look her in the eye, even though I knew I should.
"He dropped you into the tub?" My gaze shot back up to Maura's face at her tone. I'd never seen Maura so livid. "Does he have any idea the damage he could have done to you? Does he understand the types of injuries you're recovering from? How fragile you are?"
"I don't think he realized, Maura. And I had it coming. I deserved to be dropped into the tub. I treated everyone like shit. I deserve to hurt," I said, looking away from her again.
"Jane, listen to yourself. Do you even hear what you're saying?" Maura shook her head in disbelief. "Take that shirt off and go lie down. I'll go get some ice."
"I-, I could do it," I said hesitantly. I didn't want to put her out. I didn't want her doing anything for me because I didn't feel like I deserved it. I looked at the bed and then looked at her. "Would you rather me in the guestroom? Or the couch?" I asked as I got ready to head for the door.
"What? Goddamn it Jane, no! I want you here, with me, in our bed, wrapped in my arms! I want you to stop running away from me! I'm so tired of you running, and I'm so tired of missing you when you're gone. Do you have any idea what you put me through this weekend? Do you have any idea how afraid I was of losing you, over something I had no control over - again? And now you want to go sleep on the couch?"
"I'm sorry," I said again. "I honestly don't know what to do in this situation. I've never been in a situation like this. I don't know what the protocol is. What I do know is that I completely overreacted and acted like a giant idiot. I'm sorry."
Maura gave me a hard look. "If we're going to be together, in a relationship, you have to behave more maturely than you did on Friday. You have to learn to trust me. I really can't believe, after everything I've done for you, and everything we've been through together, that you don't trust me at this point. Don't you know by now that I'd never purposely hurt you?"
Her words were like a slap in the face, and I actually flinched. What had William been, then? She watched my reaction and understanding flashed across her face. It was like she read my thoughts.
"I did not purposely hurt you when I started going out with William," she said, her voice flat. "You encouraged it. I thought you were giving me your blessing."
I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts. "It hurts, when people think they can't tell me about what's going on. Like I can't handle it."
"Based on your reaction on Friday, I'm not sure that you could handle it. Ever since your accident, you've been hyper-defensive and completely lacking in confidence. Some of that is expected after injuries like yours. But your behavior this weekend was a giant step backward in your recovery."
She paused, frustratedly running a hand through her hair. "I wasn't keeping anything from you. I had just met Detective Klatsky at the crime scene on Friday for the first time. Even Detectives Frost and Korsak hadn't met him yet. He'd been out with Detective Crowe all week, following leads. No one aside from Cavanaugh knew he was part of the unit yet, and like Cavanaugh told you, Klatsky wasn't brought in to replace you. I was going to tell you about him as soon as I was finished working and we drove home, but you took off. If you had given me the chance, I would have let you know that he was not a replacement for you."
She stopped again, gathering her thoughts. She gave me a hard look. "But you bolted. Again. Instead of just talking to me, you ran away. And… I'm insulted. I'm insulted and hurt and angry that you would think I would keep something like that from you. That I would go so far out of my way to hurt the person I love the most in this world."
I looked down and nodded.
"More than that, I'm angry with you because you ran away, again. And I'm angry that you didn't trust me not to hurt you, and that you didn't even give me a chance to talk to you when you were so upset. I don't deserve that, Jane. I don't understand why you think it's okay to do that to me." Her voice started to break and I looked up at her. She was crying softly.
"I don't," I rasped, trying to keep my own tears in check. "I don't think it's okay to do that. I really don't. But my problem is I don't think, I just act in situations like that. So I don't think it's okay to hurt you. I still do it though, and I'm sorry. I know it's something I really have to work on. I'm really sorry, Maura. And if you let me, I'll show you that I've learned from what I did, and I can see how much I hurt you, and I won't do it again. I'll work on it. I'll talk to Dr. Gilfried about it, and I'll do something about it so that it never happens again. I'm so sorry."
I reached up to wipe away her tears, and thought better of it. That seemed to upset her more, and she grabbed my hand and put it on her cheek.
"Don't you get it, Jane? I need you. I want you here. I want you to comfort me. I want to be with you. You run away sometimes without even leaving the room. I just told you to stop running away, and look at what you just did with your hand. That's not okay. I'm not okay."
She stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath. I kept my hand cupped on her cheek, and wrapped my other arm around her waist. I hugged her to me gently. "I'm sorry, for everything." I leaned back just far enough so I could kiss away her tears, then I leaned down and kissed her lips. "I'm sorry, Maura."
"I need you," she whimpered against my lips. "I need you, Jane." I realized that in that moment, she needed me more than just emotionally. I pushed her down gently, and she laid back on the bed. I got up on the bed above her, and she did not push me away.
"I need you, Jane," she repeated again, more urgently.
I had never heard such need in Maura's voice before that time. In the months since we had gotten together she had often unabashedly expressed her needs and wants, but never like that.
"I'm here," I said as I lay on top of her and kissed her. "I'm here and I'm sorry, and I love you, Maura. I love you so much."
I kissed down her jaw to the nape of her neck and reached behind her to unzip her dress. She sat up slightly to let me pull down her zipper and push her dress off of her shoulders. I kissed my way down her body, sliding the dress down and off. I pushed it aside and the kissed my way back up her legs, to her thighs, where I began removing her panties.
Once her panties were off I settled between her thighs, kissing and licking her center.
"Please, Jane," she moaned as I made long strokes through her folds. She wasn't all that wet at first, but the longer I teased her, the wetter she became.
Maura and I had been together for six months at that point, and I had learned quickly that there was nothing better, nothing more erotic than going down on her. Maura was her most expressive and came hardest when it was my tongue on her center. There had been times in the past when feeling her shuddering climax had nearly sent me over the edge without even being touched.
That night though, I was more concerned with Maura. As my tongue lapped at her, Maura began moaning. Once I knew I had her worked up and close to orgasm, I took my time, making sure that I dragged out her pleasure for as long as I could.
"Jane, oh Jane," she moaned as I made lazy figure eights with my tongue. I glanced up and watched her throw her head back on the pillow, eyes closed in complete ecstasy.
"Oh please, oh, right there," she cried and tangled her fingers into my short hair.
Over and over I brought her to the edge and then gently brought her back down right before she tipped over. The longer I pleasured her, the wetter she became. I was so turned on by the sight and the smell and the taste of her. I desperately wanted my own release, but instead finally brought Maura to hers. She yanked my head tightly as she came, my name on her lips as the waves of pleasure crashed over her.
She lay there limply afterward, eventually letting go of the vice grip she'd had on my hair. I kissed my way back up her body, making my way to her lips, where she tasted herself on my tongue and she moaned in delight. I could tell just by her reaction to that kiss that she was still turned on, still ready for more.
I reached down between her legs as I kissed her. She was still slick, and my fingers slipped inside of her with little resistance. She gasped at the intrusion, and slid a hand inside the waistband of my pajama bottoms to reciprocate.
"Nnhnn," I mumbled as I pushed against her. "This is all for you."
I kissed her neck again as I established a hard, slow rhythm against her. "I'm here, Maura. I'm sorry. I love you."
She wrapped one arm around my neck and the other around my waist, pulling me harder inside of her with each thrust. I buried my face in her neck and whispered to her. My arm started to burn from the effort it took to continue pushing inside of her, but she was so close again, there was no way I would stop.
I felt her walls start to constrict around my fingers and bent them slightly, thrusting harder and faster against her.
"You are so beautiful, Maura." I whispered to her. "You are so beautiful and I love you so much. Do you know how much I love you? What I would do for you, just to keep you safe or make you happy?"
"Oh Jane," she whispered, and started to shudder.
"I love you, Maura. I'm so sorry for what I thought and what I did. Forgive me, please. Please forgive me."
She opened her eyes and kissed me hard, and in that kiss I knew I'd been forgiven. There was still plenty for us to work out and talk about, but she'd accepted my apologies.
I felt her orgasm start the second before she did, and as she broke our kiss, I whispered to her, "Come for me."
I muffled her cries by kissing her, and for the second time that night she came hard. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight as she slowly regained the ability to think, speak and move.
"I love you," she whispered to me finally. "I love you, and I know that you love me too. I hope you know that I would do anything to keep you safe and happy too, Jane."
"You prove that every day, Maura. And I'm going to do a better job of proving the same thing to you," I promised her as I rested on top of her. She pulled me closer to her and just hugged me. I knew everything was going to be all right.
We lay there a a few more minutes before Maura closed her eyes and fell asleep. I curled up around her and held her closely, but didn't sleep. There was too much on my mind. The way I'd treated Maura weighed heaviest on my mind, but going back to work, and my six month deadline for physical requalification also vied for my attention.
A/N: Next week I am going to be away on business. I leave on Sunday and come back on Thursday. Unlike the last time I was away on business, I know I will be out to dinner most nights I'm at this conference, which means I won't be near a computer to post during regular posting times. I also won't have time to work on edits with Charlie that week. Because of that, I will only update once that week, on Saturday, September 14. I know most of you enjoy the twice a week updates, but this is the one week in the year when I simply can't be at a computer. I hope you'll understand. Your upcoming Wednesday update should not be affected, and I'll remind you all again on Wednesday. Thank you to all of you who read this, and thank you for understanding about next week's updates. ~ Penguin