A/N-Here we go now...
Maura knew where her GPS was sending her about a minute and a half into what ended up a fourteen minute drive. It only took two turns, one out of the parking lot and the other towards Storrow Drive for Maura to realize why the address was so familiar, why the dispatch felt off.
She was driving towards Jane's apartment.
Maura wondered how she hadn't recognized the address immediately, having been there so frequently. To her credit, Maura had never needed or asked for Jane's precise address, and, for the few times that Jane wasn't driving them to her place, Jane had used landmarks rather than street signs to give directions. Yes, that had to have been it. That, and the fact that Maura had been expecting the address would be the scene of a violent crime.
The thought startled Maura. What if Jane's apartment was the crime scene? What if...
Maura swallowed hard and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. A spike in her adrenaline production made Maura want to press down on the accelerator, but she was sitting at a red light, so that certainly would not do.
Maura had to remind herself that what if's were essentially useless and generally only produce undue regret and anxiety. As she usually did, Maura replaced the 'what if' with a recital of the facts.
Jane had called her work cell. She had asked about Maura's date and used a rudimentary code to obtain information about the date. After finding out that the date was a failure, Jane had mentioned a dispatch. And texted her own address to Maura.
The circumstances were bizarre, but not nearly as ominous as they'd seemed at first. To begin with, Maura hadn't been dispatched to the scene of Jane's murder, because Jane had called. Maura was also able to dismiss the idea that Jane was being held hostage in her own home because she hadn't been in any particular rush to request Maura's visit. And Maura sincerely doubted whether Jane would take the time to stall, ask about her date, deliver a dispatch, then take the few extra minutes to type out her address instead of simply telling Maura to meet at Jane's place.
The thought that Jane had killed someone in self-defense at her own apartment flitted across Maura's mind and subjected her to another brief burst of anxiety. But many of the arguments against the hostage scenario applied to that situation. Nothing about Jane's casual approach to the phone call or her cheerful tone as they ended the call suggested that Jane had a dead body lying somewhere in her apartment.
Maura loosened her grip on the steering wheel as she realized that, in all likelihood, Jane was not in any immediate danger. Jane's demeanor hadn't been what Maura knew the detective's demeanor would be in the situation. Normally, making such judgments gave Maura pause, but this was not a guess as much as a well-informed opinion based on intimate, personal knowledge of Jane's shifts in vocal inflect during times of crisis.
The fact still remained, as Maura inched forward in traffic towards the turn down Jane's street, that Jane had called, asked about the date, and dispatched Maura to her own apartment using a strangely familiar code name.
The code name. Now that was another oddly familiar bit of information. What could Jane have meant by it? Juanita Clementine, it felt so familiar...Then it hit her. Juanita, it had been the pseudonym that Maura had given Jane's mother on the cruise. There was no dispatch.
The whole conversation had been a ruse, a way to first determine if Maura needed rescuing, then give her an out. And Jane had accomplished it all without putting Maura into a position where she would be forced to lie. Maura believed what she said to Kitty when she said it, so there was no danger of an adverse physical reaction.
Of course, it would have been ideal had she not been lied to. But Maura also preferred being temporarily misled to spending another thirty minutes in Kitty's company. And she appreciated that Jane had managed to find a way to give her that opportunity without the risk of triggering a vasovagal episode.
No, Maura couldn't feel put out by Jane's misdirect, not for any length of time. The lie had not been a hurtful one, and Jane had even included Maura in it, given her enough clues to the point that Maura felt a part of the ruse. For once in her life, Maura wasn't left out of the loop.
On top of that, Jane had given Maura the way out that Maura had been hoping to get earlier in the day. She was late, but Jane finally did pull through like Jane always managed to when it came to Maura.
Maura finally got to Jane's apartment building and, after taking a few minutes to carefully parallel park her car, she pulled the keys out of the ignition and sat with her hands resting lightly on the steering wheel.
She took a deep breath, letting a small grin ghost across her lips as she flicked the car mirror down and ran a hand through her hair while doing a quick check of her makeup. Maura quickly finished the ritual when she happened to see Melissa, Jane's neighbor, approach the door to the building. The ME stepped out of the car, locked the doors, and followed Melissa into the building.
It only took a few seconds for Jane to open the door after Maura knocked. Jane realized a second too late that it was probably pretty clear that she'd been waiting by the door, or really just pacing in the vicinity. Maura didn't say anything to indicate that she had any suspicions though. Instead, she looked Jane up and down, as if she hadn't quite expected to find Jane dressed as she was.
Jane was not by any means dressed up, but she wasn't dressed down in the sweats and baggy tshirt that Jane usually favored for her nights in and had in fact worn during her TV watching time with Frost. The detective wore a fitted green tshirt and the only pair of jeans in Jane's closet that Maura had deemed fashionable. That detail hadn't been an accident; if she was going to do this thing right, then Jane thought she should at least look presentable by Maura's standards.
If Maura made any judgment on the acceptability of Jane's clothing, she didn't let on as much. The woman smiled at Jane, but Jane could not for the life of her read the smile. It was soft and friendly and welcoming, sure, but that was the standard issue, everyday Maura smile.
Jane smiled back, hoping it wouldn't look like the nervous smile that it most definitely was.
"Please tell me you did not kill somebody and call me to cover it up," Maura said, the traces of that smile still on her lips. So she'd clearly caught on to the ruse. This was Maura using some of the humor she'd picked up from Jane to alleviate the tension that built with each passing moment.
Sincerely relieved, Jane smiled and rolled her eyes as she moved aside to let Maura in.
"No, and if I did, I wouldn't call the only person that I know who cannot lie," Jane said, sitting on the couch and tucking her legs underneath her. "Even if she is my best friend."
Maura beamed at the last part, and Jane knew that she'd just paid Maura compliment that no one had ever thought to pay her. That part of Maura history always mystified Jane, because the woman was so warm and caring that it was hard to understand why she wouldn't have a ton of friends. Jane at least took some comfort in the fact that she seemed to make up for it now.
"C'mon, sit down," Jane continued, the hint of a smile still on her lips.
Maura sat where Jane had gestured for her to sit, a spot next to Jane on a sofa that could hold four people comfortably. Maura tucked her small purse off to her side so that her conversation with Jane would be completely unobstructed.
"You look good," Jane said.
"Thank you," Maura said. She felt a blush begin to rise in her cheeks and noticed a faint blush creep up Jane's cheeks as well. Jane looked away for a second, then back at Maura as she rested her elbow on the back of the couch and propped her head on her hand.
"Want some wine?" Jane asked after a few seconds, leaning towards the table to retrieve a glass of red wine that Maura hadn't seen when she first sat down. Probably something to do with the fact that she'd been preoccupied admiring the fit of Jane's jeans as she followed her friend to the sofa. "It's the stuff you like, but a little less obscenely expensive."
Maura took the glass and nodded, the hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
"Very thoughtful of you, detective," Maura said. "This is just what I needed."
"Glad I could be of service then," Jane said. Maura took another sip while simply looking at Jane. Actually, Maura thought, gazing might have been a more accurate verb for what she found herself doing without having made a conscious decision to do so.
There was just something different about Jane tonight, something softer, less guarded in the way she spoke to and looked at Maura, but, now that they were settled in, Maura could tell in her mannerisms that she had something to say, something apparently very important.
"So no second date with Kitty?"
"Not a chance," Maura said, tucking her own legs under her and facing Jane so that their knees were almost touching. "She's very...
"Bitchy?"
"I was going to say unpleasant, but that will do as well, I guess," Maura said. "I won't be losing any sleep over it though. What have you been doing?"
"Frost," Jane said. Maura raised her eyebrows and Jane quickly realized her mistake. "Not doing him. I mean, obviously not. No. Like, just hanging out with him. Watching basketball and talking. Bonding."
There was a brief pause during which Maura normally would have taken the opportunity to respond, but she sensed Jane wasn't finished with her thought, so Maura waited an extra few seconds, letting a silence settle over the room.
"But mostly," Jane said slowly, deliberately even, "I've been sitting here watching a basketball game and yelling at shitty free throw shooters and even worse refs because I got all of this unresolved tension tonight from, you know, all kinds of stuff."
"That is a very common practice among avid sports fans. There is a tendency to project hopes, frustrations and fear of failure onto the team of choice. Many fans even begin to integrate the team as a crucial part of their identity, so feeling tension during a close game is not uncommon," Maura said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."
Jane leaned back into the cushions of the sofa and sighed. So, apparently Maura had missed something, because Jane only sighed like that when she realized that she needed to change her approach to the conversation.
"You know what, I'm just going to spit it out," Jane said finally. "He knows. Frost knows."
"Knows what?"
"About us," Jane said. "Frost knows about us."
Maura took a long drink from her glass and placed it back on the table. Maura was usually pretty expressive with Jane, which, as a rule, made her easy to read. But the M.E. could also shut down and make it very difficult to get a good read, and this was one of those times.
"You told him?" Maura asked, a calm, polite question with a hint of surprise laced in there.
"He guessed, mostly," Jane said.
To Jane's surprise, Maura looked even more shocked at that information.
"He guessed that we had a week-long sexual relationship a month before working together and have spent the entirety of our work relationship actively attempt to maintain a strictly platonic relationship?" Maura asked.
Well it was no wonder Maura seemed so surprised. Even if Jane and Maura were pretty obvious around Frost, that level of detail in Frost's knowledge would have involved some very impressive detective work.
"Not exactly," Jane said, shifting her legs to find a more comfortable position. She hadn't intended to tell Maura about the conversation, but it became her backup plan when Jane realized that her story about the basketball game, meant to be a set up for her confession of jealousy, wasn't having the intended effect. So Jane was a little antsy, both about going off script and in admitting to the conversation.
"He just knows that we've got a thing for each other. Well, he knows that you think I'm hot, but I'm pretty sure he can tell the feeling's mutual," Jane finished.
The only response that Jane got from Maura was a murmured "oh." Jane suddenly saw what Maura was doing. She was trying to follow Jane's lead; Maura didn't know how to treat the news, so she was waiting for a cue, a hint on how she ought to react to the information, and Jane hadn't been giving Maura the same cues she usually gave the doctor with her naturally expressive personality. That had been muted by Jane's nervousness, her sense of the importance of the moment and of every little thing she did.
"And I was think that I really don't mind. Him knowing. People knowing," Jane said.
"Really?" Maura replied.
Although Maura response was almost as brief as her previous one, this one wasn't nearly as difficult for Jane to decipher. Her eyes brightened and Jane could tell that she was trying not to smile. Also, the fact that Maura rested her hand on Jane's knee as she said it was kind of a dead giveaway.
"Yep," Jane said. She shifted the arm that she'd left resting on the back of the couch so that her hand rested right by Maura's elbow and her thumb brushed against Maura's arm. "And it got me thinking about something else."
"What might that be?" Maura asked, tracing an abstract pattern with her forefinger on Jane's knee. A gesture as tender and soft as it was suggestive, the same intriguing blend of qualities that Maura herself seemed to possess from the first time they met.
It was encouraging to say the least.
"Well," Jane said. "Put it this way. It got me thinking about something, about the time we went shopping at that super expensive clothes store with your buddy Millie."
Maura scrunched her eyebrows together in that adorably confused face that she made when Jane's train of thought jumped the tracks. The confusion didn't stop Maura from edging closer to Jane so that their legs touched and, by default, Jane's hand rested further up Maura's arm than before.
"I'm not sure if I follow," Maura said. "Are you referring to my insinuation that we were a couple?"
"No, not that," Jane said patiently. She looked directly at Maura and, for the first time in their Boston relationship, gave Maura her best flirty smile. "I'm talking about that favor you still owe me."
"Quite the memory, you have," Maura said. "How can I be of service to you, detective?"
God, that woman really had such a sexy way of talking. People had told Jane that she had a naturally sexy voice, but Jane had never done anything special with it. Maura, on the other hand, she spoke with such precision and knew just how to emphasize certain words. Maura had the sexiest voice Jane had ever heard when the doctor aimed to turn the sexy on high. And boy, was she turning it on high.
Jane swallowed to regain her composure when memories of Maura's sexy voice in bed came flooding back without warning.
"I was thinking a kiss," Jane said, breaking the intense eye contact to look at Maura's lips. "I think then we'd be even."
"You think so?" Maura repiled, moving closer.
Jane could only nod.
"I can only foresee one problem," Maura said, removing her hand from Jane's knee only to maneuver so that she could straddle Jane's lap as effectively as the couch allowed.
"What might that be?" Jane asked, resting her hands on Maura's hips.
She had an excellent view of Maura's cleave down her fancy vneck shirt. But the detective didn't spend too much time looking at that, because Maura was there, on top of Jane, and Jane had somehow managed to forget how sexy Maura was from that angle. Now that Jane remembered, it was impossible to forget.
"The only problem would be," Maura said. "That I don't think I could stop at just kissing."
Jane had every intention of responding with actual words, a coherent sentence even, but something else happened, and Jane hadn't a clue how they started kissing, but they were, without a doubt, kissing. Maura kissed Jane, Jane kissed Maura, they kissed each other, all three seemed to happen all at once in a kiss that was so hard and fast and overwhelming that Jane didn't know what to think, or even how to think of anything but Maura and her tongue and her body and just...her.
What Jane had with Maura was electricity, shocking, white-hot electricity, and Jane knew Maura was right. There was no possible way this would ever stop with one kiss.
And that was one thing that didn't bother Jane one bit. Jane smiled into the kiss.
"What?" Maura asked. She was out of breath and had only pulled away enough to speak that one word before returning briefly to the kissing. "You happy?"
"Mmm," Jane murmured. "Happy."
Maura pulled away a little further enough so that she could look down at Jane, who was now lying on the couch as Maura straddled her. Maura laughed.
"We're turned each other into cavewomen, Jane," Maura said. "Incapable of uttering a complete, grammatically correct sentence."
"Well," Jane said as she raised an eyebrow. "It's kind of hard with someone else's tongue in your mouth."
Maura rested a hand on Jane's cheek and smiled that sexy, adoring smile that Frost had been talking about. Then she kissed Jane again, just as hard and passionate as before. The mix of soft tenderness and hard kisses was enough to make Jane moan into Maura's mouth.
"Maura?" Jane said, staying close enough so that their foreheads touched.
"Yes?" Maura replied, her breath coming quick against Jane's cheek.
"Jane want less clothes," Jane said.
Maura smirked and sat up. She pulled her shirt off and let it drop to the floor.
"Better?"
"Good start," Jane said, sitting up so that she could get Maura on her back for the first time that night. She leaned down next to Maura's ear and kissed the most sensitive spot on Maura's neck just below the ear. "A very good start."
A/N-It's not the end, but this is obviously a scene that I've been moving towards for some time. I hope it was worth the wait!
Reviews motivate me like nothing else, and I need some motivation in my life :) Thank you to all the reviewers, anon and signed, for keeping me motivated thus far!