A/N-I'm still super busy with school and work, so I didn't get to do all of my review responses, though I did get around to about half of them...better than last week! Anyway, here goes that infamous game...
Even though I can't think of a witty way to say it, I still don't own or make any money off R&I...
After some debate and resistance from Maura, Jane had managed to get the woman to agree to her admittedly bizzare proposition. On one condition though: if Jane got to withhold dating preference, Maura would chose where they would start with the date hunt.
It felt like a fair trade at the time. After all, the whole point of the convoluted scheme was to stop them from considering each other as 'potential sexual partners' as Maura might put it. By dating other people and actively encouraging each other to date, Jane figured they'd have less time and be far less likely to find lingering eye contact and flirty banter acceptable behavior for coworkers and best friends.
Still, Jane didn't have to be thrilled about Maura's choice of venue.
"A dog park, Maura?" Jane whined. "Seriously?"
"But you always seem fond of the Detective Korsak's rescue dogs," Maura said.
"Yeah, I don't hate dogs. They're ok one at a time, but not a whole hoard of them just running all over the place," Jane said as she eyed a particularly menacing dog and its owner walk down the path that was in front of them. "Do we have to?"
"Yes," Maura said as she got out of the car, probably to keep Jane from driving off. "On a sunny, mild day like today it's filled with a wide variety of people, most of whom own a dog, which indicates a certain level of responsibility."
Jane sighed as she got slowly out of her side of the car and walked around the front of it to stand next to Maura.
"Might help if I had a dog," Jane said as she watched a skinny teenage boy playing fetch with what looked like a golden retriever. "You know, wouldn't want people thinking I'm irresponsible or anything."
Maura, who'd become marginally better at understanding at least Jane's brand of irony, narrowed her eyes and looked at Jane for a second, tilting her head as if she were making some complex calculation. She apparently decided to take Jane by the elbow as she walked towards the park.
"I can assure you that your good looks will make up for any perceived shortcomings stemming from your lack of animal ownership," Maura said, glancing over at Jane as they now walked side by side up a path towards a bunch of benches in small grove of trees nearby.
"Wait," Jane said, trying to suppress a smug grin. "Did you just call me good looking?"
Maura sighed and rolled her eyes.
"I'd like to think that I've made it clear that I find you extraordinarily attractive," Maura said, a soft smile playing at her lips as she slowed and turned so that she was standing facing Jane, forcing Jane to stop short. Very short. She'd very nearly walked into Maura and wondered how it had been humanly possible for Maura to maneuver so quickly in those heels.
Speaking of heels, Maura had picked the perfect heel so that she was just about eye level with Jane. Maura smirked, almost like a challenge, a suggestive, 'let's see how quickly I can get your clothes off' type of challenge. It was authoritative too, in control. Almost as though, if this were eye sex, Maura wanted to make clear that she would be topping this time. Despite her earlier resolution to think strictly platonic things about Maura for an entire day, Jane had only one thought at that moment. She's gorgeous.
"Yeah?" was the only thing that Jane could say with any kind of cool at all, because damn, the woman was hot and cute and gorgeous all the same time. A part of Jane began to seriously wonder why she'd been so desperate to get away from Maura. The other part was thrown off her game by the sudden proximity and the boldness of that look in Maura's eyes; there was absolutely nothing subtle about that look.
"Yes," Maura said. "If my telling you that I find you beautiful while you were giving me some of the most incredible sex of my life wasn't sufficient, then my telling you repeatedly in the course of our platonic relationship should be enough."
"Okay, um, thanks, I guess, so, um, I," Jane said, glancing around to buy herself a second or two. She sure as hell didn't want to move away, but they couldn't very well stand so close for any length of time before the touching started.
How had this conversation started anyway? What the hell where they doing in some random 'dog friendly' park without a dog anyway? Oh, yeah, the damn dating game. In theory the idea sounded good, and completely reasonable to Jane, but, in reality, it was sounding more and more like one of the stupidest sober ideas she'd had in awhile.
"Maybe we shouldn't be talking about our shared sex lives while we're trying to find dates," Maura said when Jane didn't add anything else after trailing off. Truth be told, Jane had been about two seconds away from ditching the game altogether and kissing Maura then and there; she'd even let her eyes drift back to Maura and her lips in preparation for that kiss. But she'd been too slow, and Maura mistook her hesitation for reluctance to say or do anything more than their usual flirty banter.
Maura remained smiling, but it felt different, a bit more forced as she took a small step back, allowing Jane to move towards the bench. Jane did just that, because she saw no other option once the moment passed. Maybe Jane would just have to let the day play out, wait for another opening.
Maura sat next to Jane at a comfortable distance, a little bit closer than strangers, but reasonable for friends. Jane felt inappropriately disappointed that Maura hadn't continued with her mini-seduction attempt at least a few seconds longer, though she suspected it had something to do with the thought of dating other people. That was a little bit of a mood killer, and, Jane realized, her own fault for suggesting this game in the first place.
"So, what are you thinking? How might we go about doing this?" Maura asked with the same scientific curiosity that she approached anything new and different. It was one of those things about Maura that Jane found endlessly amusing and adorable. Jane fought the impulse to call it adorable, but couldn't think of any other way to describe it.
"Let's say you pick out a date for me, and I can try to get their number if I want to, or I can pass," Jane said. "Then vice versa. We'll start with that."
Maura appeared to contemplate the stipulations for a few second before suddenly pointing to a man walking some kind of brown and white terrier looking thing.
"Him," she said decisively.
"Him?" Jane repeated incredulously. "Seriously? Maura, he's older than my father, even looks like him. Just hairier."
Maura shrugged. "Well, I've yet to meet your father, and you refused to tell me about your dating preference. You may very well have had a fetish for hairy older men that I was unaware of."
"In the months that you've know me, Maura, have I ever given you any reason to believe that I might be interested in having sex with a man that looks like my father?" Jane asked.
"To be fair, before today we hadn't talked about dating preference," Maura said.
Yeah, Jane thought, because we're too busy actively trying not to sleep together while flirting shamelessly.
"Fine, but, for the record, I do not have a thing for men that look like dear old dad," Jane said. "And I prefer dating someone who isn't almost forty years older than me."
Maura shrugged.
"Can I pick another then?" she asked.
Jane had intended to take her turn next, but decided to let Maura go ahead since she didn't see anyone in particular to point out to Maura. When Jane nodded, Maura quickly pointed out a young redheaded man sitting by himself, stretched out on a blanket, apparently trying to get a tan.
"Well, Maura, I'd prefer knowing for sure that my date is actually, you know, legal," Jane said.
"You think he's under 18? Perhaps a bit younger than you, but I'd say early twenties," Maura said. "Although he does have a young face...
Maura trailed off, apparently unwilling to completely disagree with Jane. So that was a definitely no then. Maura clearly wasn't that great at finding appropriate dates for Jane, so Jane was going to have to take over for a little while.
"''Kay, so my turn now," Jane said, leaning forward on the bench so that she could scan the park for someone. Maura had been right about one thing; there were a lot of people out, and all types.
"Her," Jane said, pointing to a woman who had just entered the park with a yippy looking little dog.
The woman's blonde hair was pulled back, and she wore yoga pants, a t-shirt and minimal makeup. Other than that, Jane couldn't really make out any distinctive features, but it seemed like at least an age appropriate choice. A small part of Jane also picked the woman over several men in the area because there was a much better chance that the woman would not want to sleep with Maura. Even then, Jane realized that she was taking a risk, because Maura was the level of hot that can turn a normally straight girl gay for a night or two of sexy fun. Still, it was the best Jane could do given the options.
Maura watched the woman for a second. She nodded and got to her feet.
"I'll be right back," Maura said as she smoothed over her pants. Then she winked, Maura actually winked at Jane before walking off to attempt to hit on another person. "With a date and a number."
Besides the huge mixed signals that particular quip sent, Jane began to feel vaguely annoyed by Maura's confidence. For all Maura knew, there was an excellent chance the woman was either taken or completely heterosexual. And she still went and said it, and that un-Mauralike behavior annoyed Jane more than it should have.
Now that Maura was walking up to the woman, ready to direct her best flirty behavior in that direction, Jane started to second guess the wisdom of her plan, and then the wisdom of her decision to let it play out for a day. It didn't feel particularly good sitting alone on a park bench while watching other people flirt, particularly a sexy ex-lover turned BFF.
Jane sighed and crossed her arms. She watched Maura slip into her flirty persona, marveling in spite of herself at the way that Maura appeared to consciously shift her body language, her stride, her smile. It all changed, and all that effort was for that woman, that other woman.
Yeah, Jane thought, this is going to be such a fun day.
As Maura approached the woman, she tried to do all of the things that she usually did to prepare herself for a flirty situation: project confidence without cockiness, keep a perpetual half smile on the lips, and focus attention exclusively on the one person that she was about to speak to. Scattered thoughts would quickly lead a breakdown in Maura's carefully researched courting techniques.
She managed the first two tasks with relative ease, but focusing her attention was proving quite a bit more challenging. Maura knew that Jane was probably watching intensely, and she'd never had an audience for this particular situation. Then she felt this odd resistance to this whole endeavor. Since arriving at the park, Maura couldn't shake the feeling that she didn't really want a date, that she just wanted to be here with Jane. She'd have been perfectly content to sit on that bench and talk and laugh with Jane, would have preferred it to this dating ritual that she actually found particularly tiring, especially she had no idea regarding the woman's sexuality.
Well, the woman was now close enough to speak to. Partial attention was going to have to do, because she would not return to the bench without speaking to the woman, not after all but guaranteeing success. Jane would never let her hear the end of it, and Maura was nothing if not stubbornly competitive in everything she did. It was what drove her to be top of her class out of med school, and now it was driving her to keep walking towards the woman.
So, there she was. Maura was going for it.
Jane watched the conversation way more closely than she should have. She'd almost convinced herself that she just wanted to pick up some flirting ideas. Almost. Except when she felt a little pang of something resembling jealousy as Maura smiled a genuine, 100 watt smile at something that woman said. Then she had to admit that she was downright jealous of the woman, jealous to the point of resentment. But Jane didn't want to be jealous, didn't want to have to admit that there was something more than memories of hot sex in the intense attraction between herself and the woman she now called her best friend.
So Jane watched intently as Maura and blondie spoke. For five minutes, then ten. Then fifteen. At sixteen and a half minutes, the woman took out her phone and appeared to program a number in, showing it to Maura for approval before slipping it back into her pocket.
Well damn it. Maura had closed the deal with the first person in their little game. At least it seemed that way from the way that Maura sat next to Jane all smiles. She sat so that her knees faced Jane and rested her elbow on the bench back.
"Got it?" Jane asked, trying not to sound pissed off.
"She was more than happy to exchange numbers so that we can arrange to meet up," Maura said, all adorably proud of herself.
"Cool," Jane said. She watched a kid sitting on a picnic blanket with his mom to keep from making eye contact that might reveal to Maura the particularly shitty, confusing feeling building in her chest. "Sounds promising."
"Yes. We've actually spoken before, but didn't realize it until I told her that I was a medical examiner," Maura said.
"You told her that?" Jane responded. She wasn't sure why, but it pissed her off that Maura had revealed that bit of information in a fifteen minute conversation when Maura managed to omit it for the entire first week that she knew the woman.
"She asked. I couldn't very well lie to her, you know that," Maura said. "Besides, she found it fasincating, my line of work."
"In a creepy homicidal way or just kind of curious way?" Jane asked, doing her best to put on the playfully sarcastic tone that she usually took with Maura.
"In a professional way," Maura said simply. "She's a crime reporter. That's why I'd spoken to her before. It was an interview request about the Clemson murder-suicide that I denied."
That caught Jane's attention. She knew almost every crime reporter in the city and liked less than half of of them. A number of them were obnoxiously persistent and, on a few occasions, had made her life difficult by leaking information that the media had no right broadcasting. This was going to be good.
"How romantic," Jane said. "What's this charming young woman's name?"
Maura either missed the biting sarcasm entirely or chose to ignore it. For most people it would have been clear, but Maura wasn't most people, so it was a tossup.
"Kitty. Kitty Vansen," Maura said. "Why? Do you know her?"
Know her? Was that even a question? Christ, this day was getting even better and better. It had started with a shitty idea that had, unsurprisingly, led to a shitty situation. Kitty Vansen was one of the most obnoxiously persistent of all the obnoxiously persistent reporters. She also had a way of showing up at crime scenes before they were made public knowledge that drove Jane absolutely crazy.
"Yeah, you could say that. Just be careful with her, ok?" Jane said. For fear of sounding jealous or bitter about the impending date, Jane had decided not to vent all of her frustrations with the woman to Maura.
"I always engage in safe, responsible sex, if that's what you mean," Maura said, tilting her head to the side a little bit the way that she had when something didn't quite make sense.
Jane sighed and balled her fists. She couldn't help it. The thought of Maura and that woman having sex, however 'safe and responsible,' created in Jane an actual negative physical reaction, one that Maura would definitely notice. Even if she sometimes sucked at picking up social cues, Maura was remarkably attuned to a person's physical reaction, particularly Jane's physical reactions.
"Not what you meant?" Maura asked.
"Not what I meant," Jane said. "Just, she's all about the job. Don't want her using you just to get the scoop. 'Cuz she's ruthless about that stuff, Maura. Trust me."
"I'll trust you if you trust me. I can handle myself," Maura said, not exactly angry, but without her usual warmth. It was a warning, a gentle warning, but a warning nonetheless.
"Fine, deal," Jane said, unwilling to make this into the stupid fight it was bound to become of she said anything else.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Jane shifted frequently, trying to get comfortable on the hard, wooden bench. After tackling a perp to the ground the previous week, her back occasionally tightened up, and this was proving to be one of those occasions.
"Do you want to lie down?" Maura asked suddenly without taking her eyes off the bustling park. "It might help with that muscle strain."
"Maybe, but no way I'm lying in the grass at a dog park, no idea what kind of treats I might find," Jane said.
Maura grinned and turned to face Jane for the first time since the abrupt end to their previous, Kitty-centric conversation.
"I know. You can lay on my lap," Maura said, in that very reasonable tone that she could use to make even the craziest things seem totally logical. And this idea, if not crazy, was, at best, counterproductive. But that voice made it seem like a good, totally natural thing to do.
There was also the fact that Jane didn't exactly hate the idea. So she shrugged and stretched out on her back, resting her head on Maura's lap as she looked up at the branches of the trees above them. Jane had to bend her knees and rest her feet on the bench, but the position was fairly comfortable otherwise.
Strike that, this was perfectly comfortable. Heavenly even, because now Maura was stroking Jane's hair from root to tip in the most calming, methodical way possible. It felt so normal and right and comfortable that Jane could have fallen asleep right then and there.
She almost did until Maura stopped. Jane wondered vaguely if Maura suddenly realized what she had been doing. Maura said her name, soft and gentle like a mom waking a baby or something. It took a few times before Jane actually opened her eyes and looked up at Maura.
"Yeah," Jane said, sounding way groggier than she'd intended to. "I'm awake."
Maura looked down and smiled at Jane in a way that Jane could only describe as adoring.
"I know," Maura said, fidgeting nervously, twisting a ring around her finger. She looked from Jane up at the park then back down at Jane like she was struggling between two contrary impulses. It seemed like this would be the time to get up and sit like two normal BFFs, but Jane couldn't bring herself to move.
"Do you want me to choose another date option for you?" Maura asked hesitantly.
Well, that was enough to bring Jane to move. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"Not really in the mood anymore," Jane said. "Wanna grab a bite instead? I'm kinda hungry."
"But you haven't fulfilled the terms of our agreement," Maura said. "You've yet to make any attempt to get a phone number."
"So? It's just a game, Maura," Jane said.
"But you made the game up. What's the point of making up rules that you're not going to follow?" Maura asked.
"I changed my mind," Jane said. And nearly became violently ill at the thought of you having sex with that woman. "That's the beauty of makin' my own rules. I can change 'em and break 'em if I want."
Maura sighed and rolled her eyes.
"Your logic never fails to confuse me," Maura said. "So you want to abandon the endeavor altogether."
"Yeah, I mean, it was kind of a crappy idea anyway," Jane said. "So, yeah, I declare the game closed."
"I will accept that under one condition," Maura said. Jane saw the trace of a smile on the woman's lips and couldn't help but smile. "I win."
"Win what?"
"The game," Maura replied as she stood from the bench. "I got a phone number and you forfeited. That sounds like a resounding victory."
"Maura, this game is not a thing you can win," Jane said. "It's like, I dunno, dating or Monopoly, I guess. No one ever wins. You just play until someone gets bored and gives up."
"Well, that's an awfully depressing way to approach it," Maura said. "Besides, I always win at Monopoly. My terms remain the same. I win."
Maura's voice was stern, but her eyes sparkled with barely suppressed glee at beating Jane at her own rule changing game. No way Jane was going to say no to Maura, but the woman didn't need to enjoy her victory quite so much. Even if it was a fake game, Jane still hated losing.
"I guess that's ok," Jane said as she rose to stand next to Maura. "But only 'cuz I'm hungry and tired."
"Whatever you say, Jane," Maura said. "I still win."
With that, Maura had set off at a brisk walk in the direction of Jane's car. Jane had to use the full length of her stride to catch up enough to save her ego.
"Fine," Jane muttered. "But I get to pick the food."
It was a silly request to make, since it was Jane's day of the week to pick the food. Still, she need something.
Maura grinned at Jane, and Jane noted with some satisfaction that this was at least a 200 watt smile, brilliant and sincere and so adoring that Jane couldn't managed to see Maura's date with Kitty as much of a threat. Jane also began to wonder when Maura had started with that adoring smile, because she felt suddenly that it had always been there and she was really noticing it for the first time.
"Amendment accepted," Maura said as she opened the passenger door, that grin still on her lips. "And Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"Winner buys."
A/N-As another proof that reviews make a difference, I did in fact shift the tone of this chapter based on the reviews and responses that I got last chapter :) Also, for bonus points, in which episode of R&I does Kitty Vansen actually show up?
If reviews are payment for a fanfic writer, then ya'll have been very generous. Might I trouble you for even more 'payment'?