A/N: Wow, people. Dang! All I can say is that I'm glad we're basically on the same page with this whole Jane/Angela/Maura business. In response to some of your concerns: Yes, Jane is a coward regarding this issue. I tried to establish that earlier, perhaps not clearly enough. Well actually, that's the only concern I'm going to address, because a lot of the others will be addressed in this installment.
Oh, but one more thing. I watch too many soaps, tellanovellas, and Korean dramas. This is my version of those. Angsty melodrama. Please don't confuse this for actual, decent writing. I know that it's not. And yet another thing- reread the description of this story. Particularly the "romantic chaos ensues" part.

"Maura…"

She couldn't hear him. In addition to the fact that a loud jazz number had just started up, Maura was fixated on the sight of Jane and Angela walking away, leaving the party after one dance. It was hard to misconstrue their plans.

"Seeley," she said, turning back to look at him, her expression relaying nothing but the utmost pain. "I've… I've done something really foolish."

"Let's get out of here," he suggested quietly. "We need to go someplace we can talk." He stood up, not giving her a chance to try and talk him out of it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her get to her feet as well, as he scoped the room to try and find Bones and Frankie. They were standing by a refreshment table, where Frankie appeared to have just said something quite amusing and Brennan was doing that adorably awkward guffaw of hers. "Be right back," Booth said to Maura, cutting through a mob of dancing couples to reach Brennan and Frankie. "Hey, guys. I'm not sure if you noticed this or not, but Angela and Jane left."

"Already?" Frankie asked, his eyebrows raising. "Wow. That was fast."

"Maura and I are gonna duck out for a second," Booth said. "She's… uh, she needs some air." Nudging Brennan, he said, "You gonna be all right here, Bones?"

"Of course," she said blankly. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He looked at her for a moment, confused himself as to why the question had come out of him. "Um, good point. Have fun guys—we'll be back." As he returned to Maura, Booth couldn't help wishing that Sweets was here. He'd know what to do about this, and Maura would be able to talk to him without it being weird. She knows I'm one of Jane's best friends; she won't tell me anything …and if she does, it'll be really awkward. His train of thought stopped there, because he had reached Maura, and she was standing hunched over the table, breathing heavily. "Geez! Maura, are you all right?"

"Outside," she choked. "Let's go outside."

Taking her carefully by the arm, Booth led the way to the front door. Holding it open for Maura, he heard someone nearby mutter, "First Gabriel Dean, now this guy. Damn FBI, thinking they can just muscle in here and…" He didn't care enough to hear the end of that statement—it wasn't important.

Once they were outside, he stopped and said, "Maura? What's on your mind, here?"

"Seeley, I can't—I can't put all this on you, I've already said too much. You don't care."

"Don't be ridiculous, Maura. You're important to Jane, and therefore important to me. You have nothing to feel bad about, nothing to be sorry for. I only feel sorry that my secret was so lame in comparison—"

"It wasn't," Maura said, clutching her stomach as though she were about to be sick. "We all have our secret sorrows, our past traumas, Seeley. One isn't greater or less than the other."

"Okay, but you were going to say something else before Jane and Angela walked over, weren't you?" Booth pressed her. When the only response he got was more labored breathing, he said, "Maura, you're starting to freak me out, here."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine," Maura said in the most unconvincing tone ever.

"Maura—look." He tried to remember a concept Sweets had once explained to him, and hoped it might be applicable here. "You ever heard of a microwave relationship? It's true you and I don't know each other very well, and that pretty soon, I'll be back in D.C. That's why you felt you could tell me this secret, right? You—you, uh, you put it in this microwave, our brief time together, you get it out, and then I'm gone and there's no pressure!"

"No pressure? You are Jane's closest friend!" Maura cried.

Now they were getting somewhere. "What does this have to do with Jane?"

"It has everything to do with Jane!"

Booth bit back the question "Why, because she's gay? Because you like her?", eager as he was to get them off his tongue. But the sight of how clearly distressed Maura was sent a wave of sympathy crashing over him, and he couldn't bring himself to be as upset or exaggerated as he felt the justification to be. Maura was leaning against the outer wall of the building, weeping softly; Booth tried to comfort her by putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I feel sick," she said.

"Tell me what's going on, Maura."

"It started out fine," she gasped, reaching up with one hand to wipe away at her tears while the other still exerted pressure on her stomach. "Vivian and I. This cop in New York."

"Had you ever…uh, been with a woman before?"

"No, I'd hardly thought about it. I'd been in only two real, serious relationships at that point, and they were both with men. I'd dated plenty of men, too." And all that implies. "But Vivian was different, she—she got under my skin somehow, I mean in the best way. She intrigued me like no other woman had before, she… she was so very… different. There was an androgyny there… no, it was more like a hard masculinity. She had several traits which are all societally expected to be male, and she didn't hide them, she didn't try to compensate for it with anything overtly feminine. Not the way she dressed, the food she ate, the films she enjoyed, anything. And she was quiet. Most women like to talk, they like to gossip, they like to…" She laughed humorlessly, waving her hands to gesture at herself. "Share their feelings. Vivian was a closed book, one I was determined to open."

"What'd you find once you did?" Booth asked, knowing that Maura must have succeeded in this vein at least somewhat.

Maura shrugged with a rueful smile. "That she loved me. I spoke with her enough to find out what she did in her spare time, and sort of invited myself along. Once she started opening up, I learned more, and it… it just happened. We just happened." She exhaled deeply, her tears having ceased. It felt good to get this off her chest, at least so far. "I feel no shame in telling you, Seeley, I had never reached such heights in terms of pure sexual gratification. She was dominant, possessive, even less interested in foreplay than my male lovers. She just got right to it, because that's the kind of person she was. It was strangely exhilarating." A gulp interrupted her as memories flashed into her mind of Vivian's roughness, her strength, which had so awed and aroused Maura's every faculty. "On the rare occasions where she allowed me to be in control, we would go more slowly, and she… I thought she trusted me."

After a long silence, Booth whispered, "What happened?"

"Oh, it was thrilling. It was thrilling for a while, Seeley. But it didn't go anywhere, because she wouldn't go anywhere. There was no tenderness, and even when she told me she loved me, I couldn't feel it." She chuckled again, offering empty hands up to Booth. "You see? I don't normally speak that way. There is not a scientific way to feel words that somebody tells you. I let myself get swept up before, with Garrett and with Ian, and then with Vivian, when she didn't say mushy things or enforce her words with anything but, well, force, I couldn't buy into it. Furthermore, I think she had put me on a pedestal. I was this brilliant, beautiful doctor with degrees in things she couldn't even name, and it turned into this sort of… idol worship, if I may say that without sounding too full of myself." She sighed heavily. "You see, that's why sometimes I think Dr. Brennan has the right idea. It may feel like it hurts, Seeley, but it's all for the best."

"No," Booth said flatly. "I refuse to believe that, and I refuse to believe that you believe it, either. If you felt like Vivian didn't love you, you were right to break things off. Simple as that."

Maura shook her head. "Nothing is that simple, Seeley. I would give her so much, and she gave back so little. I had thought that by making the tremendous breakthrough we had—just by getting her to talk to me, to tell me things—more would come. I thought it would set a trend, a precedent, that she would get more open as time went by. But she didn't. She got more closed, more guarded than before. It took me far too long to realize it, I was so enamored by her. I felt so protected by her. She was very protective of me, I'll say that. But it's as if there was this expectation that because I was with her, that should've been enough. Just being with her, I mean. Nobody could understand why I was unhappy …Vivian was strong, she was gorgeous, she was extremely intelligent. But that wasn't enough for me," Maura whispered, looking at Booth with pleading eyes, as if hoping he would jump in and tell her it was all right to feel that way.

Which he obligingly did. "Of course, Maura."

"I couldn't handle it anymore. When I told her I wanted to break up, she thought it was because of her job, and if I'm honest with myself, that was part of the reason. It was terrifying not knowing whether she would come home safe or not, and I made more than one hospital visit to see her. I hated that she was always putting her life on the line; it was hard to stay sane, sometimes. Seeley, you're in that line of work. You must understand how it could terrify people who are close to you."

With a solemn nod, he said, "Yeah, I do."

"She was furious with me. I knew there'd be no going back, not even to the light friendship we had established before dating. It became just too much to bear. It wasn't just awkward and uncomfortable, it was… physically painful. I couldn't focus on my work when she was around, which was most of the time. I know I said she wasn't tender, but I had seen her smile at me, I had seen a brightness in her eyes, and—and it was all gone. She closed up again, hard, uncaring, and apparently unruffled by my presence. And it sounds masochistic, I know, but I missed being with her. I missed sharing my bed with her, having her be there in the morning, even if we hardly ever talked through breakfast. We'd read the paper, but it was still nice somehow. I knew I couldn't take it anymore, being at work and having her be there. Three months, Booth. I waited that long, and it still didn't go away. So I resigned."

"And you came here."

"No, I went to Philadelphia for a year and a half. Then a position opened up in Boston, which is where I'm from, where I went to college, and I—I wanted to be back here."

"So you came to BPD," Booth said. "And you met Jane."

"I met Jane," Maura said with a nod.

"And why didn't you tell her any of this?" Booth asked.

"Seeley, I'm talking too much, I…"

"No. No you're not."

His voice was so tender, so full of patience, that Maura could only close her eyes, swallow again, and continue: "When I first met her, she reminded me a little of Vivian, and that intimidated me. And our first case was awful, Seeley, it was terrible. The most gruesome murders you can imagine, all done to children. Jane was never at rest, she was never happy, she had to find the person responsible. I admired her tenacity, but I thought she was just like Vivian: closed, hard, mean in her everyday life, just as she was at work—because at that point, I only ever saw her at work. It was over a month later when we finally solved the case…"

Jane was ecstatic. Maura had never seen her like this, not even remotely like this. It was almost as if she had been possessed by another being (were such a thing physically possible, of course). But she came practically bounding into the morgue just after 4:00, flushed and beaming, though she looked a little worse for wear.

Without so much as a preliminary hello, Jane strolled right up to Maura and proudly said, "We did it, Dr. Isles! Frost and I got him!"

Maura's face split into a wide grin, and it felt like the first time she had smiled in weeks. "You did? That's—that's incredible!"

"I know, I can't believe it," Jane said, looking almost ready to cry with relief, putting a hand to her heart. "It was so scary, Dr. Isles. We were afraid we wouldn't make it in time, but we—I don't know, through the grace of God or something, we got him before he kidnapped Joey Richards."

"That's wonderful, Detective Rizzoli." Maura was smiling because of how great it really was to finally know this criminal had been caught, but also because Jane's attitude was so infectious. She had such a beautiful smile… this was nothing like Vivian. Even after solving the toughest of cases, Vivian would just shrug and smirk—"all in a day's work," she say. It was charming enough in its own way, indicative of humility and quiet unassuming bravery. But it took Maura only a few moments to decide she much preferred Jane Rizzoli's manner after catching a killer. Her exuberance was truly a gorgeous thing to behold.

Jane furrowed her brow. "Dr. Isles, how long you been working here?"

"Six weeks and two days."

Jane's eyebrows rose comically. "What! And you're still calling me Detective Rizzoli? That should've stopped six weeks and a day ago." She laughed ruefully, allowing Maura to feel it was safe to laugh as well. "I'm so sorry for the way I've been acting. You probably think I'm a real psycho!"

"Oh, no. You don't exhibit mannerisms typical of psychosis," Maura said seriously. She bit her lip when Jane cocked an eyebrow, giving her a crooked smile. "You were being figurative."

"Yeah…"

"Oh. Sorry. I only interpreted your actions and demeanor as fierce dedication to your job, which I admire, Detective."

"It's Jane. Please, just call me Jane."

"Then you must drop the formalities, as well. I'm Maura."

"Right," Jane chuckled. "Well, now that we're properly introduced, I just want to apologize again. I usually don't let cases get to me as much as this last one has. I'm afraid I wasn't as welcoming as I could have been; I just—I could not seem to focus on anything unrelated to this case, to these kids, you know? I mean we always had to be on our guard, against the clock, in case he struck again."

"Of course. I understand."

"Still…it doesn't excuse my behavior."

"Unnecessary, detect—er, Jane, but appreciated," Maura said with a warm smile that was wholeheartedly reflected. Then, with no transition whatsoever, she said, "It looks as if you were wounded in this great capture of yours."

"Oh, yeah," Jane chuckled. "That's actually kind of why I came down here." She pointed to her nose. "I was wondering if you could pop this out for me."

Maura had to admit she was a little disappointed that this was Jane's reason for coming to see her; she had hoped it had just been to share good news with Maura, perhaps to establish some sort of friendship. She tried to hide her disappointment with a joke: "Can't you detectives do something safe, like yoga?"

"Okay," Jane said. "Next time a perp's about to bash my head into a wall, I'll go into downward dog and really kick his ass."

That got Maura to laugh again. "This might hurt a little," she said, before pushing Jane's nose back into place.

The cracking sound it made was just as disturbing as the actual pain. "BAH! A little?"

"You'll want to put some ice on that for the next twenty-four hours, or you'll wind up looking like Mike Tyson."

"Well, I guess they'll have ice at the Dirty Robber."

"You're not going home?"

"What? Of course not! Korsak, Frost and I are going out to celebrate! You don't just go home after solving a case like this!"

"My mistake," Maura sighed, Jane's tone making her feel a tad stupid.

Recognizing she had said something to inadvertently hurt Maura's feelings, Jane said, "Hey, I was just teasing you, Dr. Isles. Maura. You doing anything? You should come with us!"

"Oh—well, I don't want to intrude…"

"Don't be ridiculous, you wouldn't be intruding. You're part of the team, and I'm really sorry I've been too distracted to make sure you know that. You comin' or what?"

The memory of that night still warmed Maura's heart. Jane's transformation had been incredible, and Maura was surprised at her own outgoing nature. Ever since Vivian, she had become more closed up than ever before, making social situations even more difficult than they had been before. But Jane put her at ease, always made her feel like part of the group. The next few days, the friendship between the two of them grew stronger and faster than any either of them had ever experienced. New cases arrived and were all trying and upsetting in their own ways, but now Maura and Jane had each other to lean on, to complain to, and relax with.

After Maura had been at BPD for about half a year, she was driving a slightly-intoxicated Jane home from the Dirty Robber. When they reached Jane's apartment complex, Jane asked, "So how attached are you to your job, anyway?"

"I love it."

"Right. Would you be up to adding another duty on top of it?"

"What did you have in mind, Jane?"

After a brief struggle with her seatbelt, Jane replied, "I only ask because I have an opening for a best friend. And I was wondering if you'd be interested in filling it."

It was ridiculous and cheesy, but Maura couldn't help feeling buoyant at Jane's words. "Only if you'll return the favor."

"Great!" Jane shouted, stepping out of Maura's car. " I'll have my people talk to your people, and I'll have the paperwork for your application on your desk tomorrow." She was about to close the door, then leaned down and said, "That was a joke, Maura."

"Oh."

"The part about the application, I mean. Let's be best friends."

She smiled. "Let's."

Maura pulled herself out of her reverie, having been calmed by the mere remembrance of Jane's kindness during that period of her life. "I didn't realize until actually later that week that Jane was even a lesbian," she told Booth. "I'm afraid I was a bit rude—I would talk about dates I went on, and she would ask about the men, but I usually failed to do the tactful thing, which would have been to ask for details about Jane's love life. Anything I asked could be answered without gender specific pronouns. For example, she told me she dated 'two kinds:' those who feared the badge, and those who wanted her to use the handcuffs. She never elaborated."

"That's Jane for you," Booth snorted. "Although knowing her, she probably wasn't doing consciously. I mean, I'm guessing she assumed you'd heard from someone else, or maybe even that she'd already told you. Besides, I get the impression she doesn't date much…"

"She doesn't."

There was silence again, as Maura's breathing finally got back to its regular rhythm. Booth knew there was more to this story, but he didn't want to force anything out of Maura until she was ready. Although she was no longer gasping for breath or choking on her own tears, Maura was still weeping, still not ready to go back inside.

"I love her."

She had said it so quietly and so out of the blue that Booth had missed it. "What?"

"I'm in love with her," Maura squeaked, her voice higher in pitch than usual. A small sob escaped her, feeling free for the moment that she had finally spoken. "Something Jane has always envied of me is my ability to compartmentalize …a while ago I wondered if I might feel an attraction towards Jane, but I forced myself to disregard it because of what I'd already been through. Not just because she reminded me of Vivian …Viv was the second person I seriously dated who I also worked with. Break-ups were nearly impossible to deal with, or I should say work was nearly impossible to deal with because of that… and perhaps irrationally, I felt no desire to ever date a cop again. It was too much stress, too much to worry about. But Seeley—I know it's such a terrible cliché, but Jane's friendship means everything to me. Everything. If we broke up and I couldn't have her in my life anymore, I don't know what I'd do!"

Her tears were back with a vengeance, and she no longer tried to stem the flow. She just allowed herself to be pulled into Booth's strong, comforting embrace, sobbing unabashedly onto his shoulder. Maura's intestines felt as if they had twisted themselves into irreversible knots, some form of punishment for lying to Angela, but also to Jane, because keeping her feelings a secret was its own kind of lie, wasn't it? Even if it was for their good? Compartmentalizing had become too difficult, something Maura didn't think she'd ever say to herself.

"I never had a best friend before I met her," she garbled out. "Honestly, Seeley, I've never had a friend like Jane. I admit, sometimes I wondered if she might have been attracted to me, but I was afraid she would assume I was being presumptuous, or that—I don't know; I had to be just imagining it, because Jane takes initiative, doesn't she? If she had feelings for me, wouldn't she say something?"

Maura had pulled back to look Booth in the eye, and he wished she hadn't. Stuck for an answer, he somewhat bleakly replied, "Well, I—I guess you'd think so…"

Suddenly Booth felt himself being yanked back by the shoulder, and could not have been more surprised to see that his attacker was Frankie. Brennan was looking on surprise, the two of them having just come outside.

"What the hell'd you do to Maura?" Frankie nearly shouted.

"What?"

"Why's she crying? What did you do?"

"Frankie! What the hell, I didn't—"

"If Jane was here, she'd kick your ass for making her cry! But she's not, so now I'm gonna have to, and I don't—"

Maura finally butted in, stepping between Frankie and Booth. "Frankie! Calm down! Seeley has been out here comforting me, I'm—I'm not feeling well." She clutched at her stomach again, and waved vaguely towards the venue. "I shouldn't have come tonight, it was too much."

Booth raised an eyebrow at Brennan. "What're you two doing out here anyway?"

Not caring to admit it was because she had wanted to see whether Booth and Maura had left, and what exactly they were doing if they hadn't, Brennan said, "We were just curious where you two had gone. We were worried something might be the matter."

"Sorry, man," Frankie sighed, clapping a hand on Booth's shoulder. "Guess I kinda freaked out. Maura, you want me to take you home?"

"I'll take her," Booth said. "You two stay. Have fun."

"Well, Frankie was just about to explain to me the logistics of hanging a spoon off the top epidermis layer of my nasal septum…"

"It's harder than most people think," Frankie explained.

"Right…like I said, have a good time," Booth said, not feeling particularly threatened by Frankie spending time with Brennan. "I might come back …if I don't, check in at the hotel when you get back, Bones, all right?"

"All right, Booth. Good night. Good night, Dr. Isles—take care."

Maura pulled herself together enough to manage, "Good night."

Once Frankie and Brennan had stepped back inside, Booth said, "You sure you want to go home? We could stay, if you feel up to it."

Maura shook her head. "Just take me anywhere there's alcohol."

Booth nodded, and as they walked to his car, instinctively pulled out his phone. Maura hadn't explicitly forbidden him from contacting Jane, and while he wasn't tactless enough to send her a text saying "omg Maura loves you! :) :) :)," he couldn't help feeling wary of the fact that she was off in places unknown with Angela. So staying a step behind Maura, he simply sent a text to Jane which read, "please make sure you know what you're doing."

Anxious to cover up when Maura glanced over her shoulder, Booth said, "Hey, maybe we'll run into Hodgins. I know he said he was going to hit a few bars tonight."

(Being the only member of the D.C. group without a date to the policeman's ball, Hodgins had indeed been left alone for the night. In a slightly embarrassing fit of drunkenness he had called Billy to explain his sad situation, and was too drunk to be surprised when the old man showed up a few minutes later at the bar Hodgins had called from. "You wanna know why my daughter's on a date with Jane Rizzoli right now? Because Jane Rizzoli is a badass. You want Angela, Jack, you gotta be a badass." Which is how he got Hodgins to nearly succeed in helping him steal a car a few hours later.)

Booth wasn't necessarily expecting a quick reply from Jane, if at all. She was off-duty and with a woman, so there was a chance she might not even have her phone on her at all. His text could be interpreted in more than one way—if you had asked Angela a few minutes prior, she'd say Jane knew exactly what she was doing.

"Oh God," Angela breathed, pressed against Jane's door with the detective right on top of her, kissing the pulse point on her neck. "Oh God, oh God, oh God—!"

Jane grabbed the woman's thigh, pulling a slender leg up and around her waist as the other hand traversed the skin that Angela's backless dress offered. Not in her recent memory could Jane remember feeling this aroused, this excited by a woman's interest in her, possibly because she hadn't let anyone get that close. What was it about Angela that intrigued her so much? Aside from the fact that she was utterly gorgeous, hilarious, smart, un-intimidated by Jane's job, and into her…

"Not fair," Angela managed to choke out.

"What's not fair?" Jane husked.

Angela pulled Jane's hair out of its ponytail, letting the tiny tie fall to the floor, and she threaded her fingers through smooth, dark curls. "You're wearing too many clothes and I can't catch my breath."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Jane whispered. "First date, right?"

"Right…so couch, instead of bedroom?"

"That works."

Giving Jane a playful shove back, Angela guided her to the couch . "You are unbelievable," she said, sitting down and pulling Jane next to her. "You are so sexy…"

Maybe it was her misery, maybe it was her desperate need for some kind of romantic contact, maybe it was the buzz from the beer she and Angela had indulged in before returning to Jane's apartment—but Jane needed her ego stoked more. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Angela murmured with one of her catlike grins. "Especially in your uniform. Like this tie," she said, pulling at it to bring Jane down into a kiss. "And that badge clipped onto your belt, with the gun on your hip—so sexy."

"Mm, but potentially dangerous," Jane chuckled, pulling back enough to undo the strap of the holster.

"Wait, let me do it," Angela whispered, and Jane froze. The artist's deft fingers tugged at the buckle of the belt, grazing the bottom of Jane's stomach and the tops of her thighs before Angela pushed them out of the straps. When this was accomplished, she moved her hands up to Jane's collar, and began undoing the buttons. If she pressed a hand to Jane's chest, she would've felt how hard the detective's heart was beating, throbbing in correlation to another part of her body, coursing with desire but uneasiness as well. Angela couldn't wait long enough to finish what she'd started, and with Jane's shirt only half-unbuttoned, she positioned herself on top of Jane, a knee thrust between her legs. "Now where were we?" she asked needlessly, before leaning in for another kiss.

Jane responded in kind, wincing at the arousing pain every time Angela's knee shifted into her crotch, rubbing against her. One of Jane's hands ghosted across the artist's chest, pausing briefly at the sensation of feeling a protruding nipple under the fabric of her dress. At this contact, Angela moaned into their kiss, redoubling her efforts and kissing Jane harder, really tasting her.

It was at this moment that Booth's text arrived, and before she'd even read it, Jane knew she had to stop.

Her phone was in her pocket and she felt it vibrate three times, signaling a text message and not a phone call. Straddling Jane as she was, Angela had felt the incoming text as well, against her leg. With the second vibration, Jane started to slow her efforts, and with the third, had stopped completely. Angela pulled back to look at her, trying in vain to read her expression.

"Jane," she whispered, all but gulping for air.

"Angela, I…"

The problem was that Jane didn't even need to look at her phone to know she couldn't take this woman any farther. She had already been surprised with herself for letting things go this far on a first date, but now she was too disgusted to allow herself to continue. Because even with this beautiful woman basically dry humping her, Jane's first thought when her phone had gone off had been: Maura.

With a shaky breath, Jane took both of Angela's hands in her own and said, "God, Angela, I'm sorry. I can't do this."

"Jane, I don't… we're not doing anything wrong," Angela said weakly.

"I don't hook-up," Jane said, the words coming out of her automatically, her go-to excuse when women approached her outside of work. Hell, she had even told it to Angela already, when they had been at Hodgins' house that night which seemed eons ago.

"This isn't a hook-up," Angela said, starting to feel a little offended and a bit sad. "We know each other, we're on a date…"

Jane shook her head. "God, you're right. Sorry. I'm so sorry, I just… I just can't. I don't wanna use you."

Under lighter circumstances, Angela might have encouraged Jane to do just that. But sensing that something was obviously wrong, she merely shifted so that she was sitting next to Jane, not on top of her. "Jane, you're not using me."

"Not—but I am, though," Jane groaned, putting her face in her hands.

"So then…you're not attracted to me?"

"No, that's not it. I just…" Jane groaned and sighed again, hating herself and what she was doing, what she was saying. "I am attracted to you. But I think I'm only attracted to your attraction to me, if that makes sense, I dunno. I'm sick, Ange. I'm screwed up."

"Don't say that…"

"It's true. I brought you back here, I let all this go on when I'm not… when I'm…"

"Jane, I'm not, like, asking you to tell me you're in love with me or anything. We barely met, and we felt something might be there—"

"I know," Jane said quickly, cutting her off and still feeling ready to throw up. "I'm… I'm…"

Another few silent moments passed, punctuated only by the deep, shaky breaths Jane was inhaling to keep herself from totally freaking out. Angela sat there in sexually frustrated confusion, having no idea how they'd gone from so hot and heavy to near-meltdown on the turn of a dime. She didn't feel cheated or angry; more than anything, she just wanted to understand Jane so she could help.

And then it struck her: when she'd asked Maura whether she was romantically interested in Jane, she had been asking the wrong person. It was justified, seeing as how Jane had gone along with Angela's flirting. But considering that Jane had stopped herself from going any further tonight, that she had tried and failed to let herself go, gave Angela the impression that Jane had been struggling in vain to fight feelings she didn't think were reciprocated.

"Oh," Angela said softly, more to herself than to Jane. Another long silence passed before she continued: "You can't do this, because …you're interested in somebody else."

Eyes and teeth clenched shut, Jane leaned forward with her hands clasped together, as if about to start a very emotional prayer. Instead, all she could manage to do was choke back a dry sob as she nodded once.

A/N: Hm...and now I think I'm going to turn back to my noncontroversial AU, where nothing hurts!