1.
It doesn't happen the way Maura thinks it will, during a moment of intense emotional turmoil and vulnerability. It doesn't happen during an extremely difficult case where they sleep together in the guest room, because both are too afraid to be on their own.
No.
It happens on a regular night, during a regular movie. It happens when Maura least expects it.
...
Jane heals.
Little by little, Maura watches as the fractured pieces of Jane, the parts that had split apart at the death of her son, begin to come back together.
Maura is surprised, and altogether delighted to find that even as this happens, Jane continues to include her in her life. The second time Jane swings by to ask her to accompany her to the robber, Maura tests her motives, telling her it's not necessary.
Jane furrows her brow. "What's not necessary?"
Maura smiles in what she hopes is an understanding fashion. "To invite me. You're not obligated to-"
"Whoa. Whoa," Jane cuts her off mid sentence. "Obligated?"
Maura nods. "Yes. Just because," She pauses here, carefully sidestepping what she would like to say, and opts for something safer. "Just because we are colleagues, does not mean you should feel as though you have to ask me along to the Robber with you and the others."
Jane stares at her for a long moment before shrugging her shoulders, turning on her heel. "Okay." She says over her shoulder and disappears.
Maura stares at the empty doorway, and her shock has faded almost entirely to despair when Jane reappears.
"Hey Maura," she says nonchalantly, "Frost, Korsak, and me are going to the Robber tonight. I'd love you to join us."
Maura tries to look disgruntled, but it is hard when relief rushes back at her like that, almost buckling her knees.
"Frost, Korsak, and I," she corrects. "I'd be happy to join you."
Jane grins at her and is gone again and Maura crosses her arms and smiles to herself, elated that Jane is healing, she has come back to herself enough to joke with her. To play.
They go home together that night, and Jane falls asleep on Maura's couch, beer tipping dangerously towards the floor.
Maura pulls it out of her hand and Jane stirs enough for a sleepy smile reaching out a hand to keep the doctor on the couch.
Though she would welcome it, though she can practically feel it in the space around them, a palpable thing, they don't kiss that night.
They don't even kiss that week. Maura worries over it, wonders if she is wrong in waiting for Jane to make the first move, if she shouldn't be the first one to lean in. She worries maybe she is reading she situation wrong. Maybe all friends look at each other that way. Maybe all friends cook side by side three nights a week, and maybe all friend's knees touch during movie night. All best friends sleep next to each other at night as often as as they do apart.
Maybe, if she had other close friends, they would occupy as much of her mind as Jane does.
She spends hours at a time, dissecting their interactions, replaying even the briefest of conversations, the most mundane. She thinks that the tension will build and build, until they aren't able to stand it. But then they'll catch another case, and neither one will think about anything else until it is done.
...
But then morning of Connor's anniversary dawns bright and infuriatingly cheerful. The moment Maura opens her eyes, she knows that Jane is not in bed any longer. She might not even be in the house. She'd warned Maura that it might happen. I might not be able to stay, she'd said in that deep voice that was starting to give the doctor goosebumps.
I understand. Maura had moved as close to Jane as she dared. If you need me tomorrow, Jane, you must ask me, alright? I'll give you your space until you do. She'd taken a hand in hers in the dark. Ask, she'd whispered, almost pleading.
Jane hadn't answered.
The knock on her door early that afternoon does, in fact, bring a Rizzoli, though not the one she wants to see.
It is Angela, her eyes a little puffy and her make-up hastily done. Maura feels panic like a hook just underneath her navel.
"What's happened?" she asks, stepping aside to let Angela in. Why hadn't she insisted Jane stay with her.
"I need to speak to you," Angela says curtly.
Maura blinks, trying to recenter the world. She should have insisted.
"Is it Jane?" she asks, knowing she sounds just this side of frantic. "Angela-"
"Do you know that Jane is gay?" Angela blurts it out as though reciting a line she's been practicing but still hasn't gotten the hang of.
Maura stares at her. "Excuse me?"
Angela reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out several glossy photos. She thrusts them out at Maura as though they hold the black and white proof of her daughter's sexuality.
"She's gay. She was only with Connor's father because she thought it was what I wanted."
Maura takes a step back, like she can distance herself from the conversation as well. "Why don't you come in," she says, to give herself time to think.
Mercifully, Angela agrees.
They settle on the couch several minutes later, each with a mug of tea, and this time when Angela tries to hand over the pictures, Maura takes them carefully and examines each one at length.
Here are Jane and Connor at the beach, too wrapped up in their ice cream to bother looking at the camera. Here is Connor, in a baby blue t-ball jersey, holding a bat that's too heavy for him, and smiling full force at the camera.
Maura smiles through tears in her eyes. "He looks like her."
Angela smiles too. "He looked like his father," she corrects. "He acted like his mother. That's what you're seeing. They were two of a kind." She pulls the top photo gently out of Maura's hands to reveal the one underneath. It is Jane, Connor, slightly older, and a pretty woman with tan skin and sandy brown hair. They are smiling at the camera, their faces all pushed together in what Maura recognizes as a 'selfie.' "When Chloe came, it was like everything just slid into place." She taps the photo. "She was a social worker Jane met through one of her cases. They were inseparable for almost three years. Connor treated her like a second mother."
Maura swallows past jealousy she has no right to feel and looks up into Angela's face.
"Why are you telling me this?" She can imagine Jane's horror if she knew that her mother was revealing so much about her past. She feels as though she is betraying Jane's trust, though she hasn't invited Angela over for this purpose. "Angela, if Jane knew that you were sharing all of this about-"
"Jane doesn't know I know about her and Chloe," Angela says quickly.
"W-what?" She stutters "How is that possible?"
"I never talked to her about it," she says wistfully. "I pushed so hard, with Casey. And I wouldn't change the outcome for the entire world, mind you. I loved Connor. And Jane loved him." she pauses, and then shakes her head. "But she was miserable with him. She was trying to make me happy. Angela smiles sadly. "She's always trying to make someone else happy. And then with Chloe, it was like she finally got to be the happy one."
Maura swallows. "What happened?"
"I only have theories," Angela sighs. "Jane was frightened of what I'd think... Chloe was frightened of her feelings for Jane and Connor."
Maura looks up sharply. "Frightened?"
"I think so," Angela says with a shrug. "She ended up leaving. Just after Connor turned seven. It was very abrupt. Vince told me later that she didn't say good-bye. Just vanished."
Maura has a flash of memory at these words. Jane, sitting bolt upright on the couch in the dark, her hand shooting out to Maura's wrist, jolting her awake.
"Jane?" she'd said, rubbing her eyes with her free hand, glancing at the clock next to the muted television. 2:34am.
"You're here," Jane had said. "I thought you vanished."
She'd been asleep again before Maura could answer.
"Oh," Maura says softly, and Angela looks at her shrewdly.
"So you understand now?" she asks. "Why I'm telling you this?" Maura doesn't answer at once, and Angela takes the silence to flip to the next picture, Chloe making a funny face at Connor, Jane watching them both. Enraptured.
"She looks at you like that," Angela says, tapping the photo. "She has for a while now. And I want to know if you feel the same."
Maura blinks, too shocked to formulate an answer.
Angela looks back at her, eyebrows raised. "She's lost enough loved ones to last her a lifetime," she continues. "And if you don't feel the same way she does, or if you're going to run the way Chloe did, I would just like to know. I'm not going to let her get hurt again."
Maura opens her mouth to answer, but at that moment, her phone buzzes. She looks down to see a text from Jane, just two words.
I'm asking.
Maura stands up, the last couple of photos sliding to the floor. "I have to go," she says quickly. "It's Jane."
She texts back that she is coming. Ten minutes. I'm on my way, and as she reaches for her keys and purse, looking back to make sure Angela is coming along, she smiles.
"And the only place I'd run, Angela," she says, ushering the older Rizzoli out the door, "is to wherever she is."
…
She arrives at Jane's apartment to find the detective sitting cross legged in the middle of the floor, staring at nothing. Maura hangs her coat and steps out of her heels, and then moves to sit next to Jane on the floor.
"I'm here," she says quietly, and Jane tilts her head to the left, just an inch.
"I need something," she says.
"What do you need?" Maura asks, meaning anything.
"Something so I don't think about it," is the response, and Maura stares around the apartment, looking for the answer, terrified that Jane's trust in her is misplaced.
But it isn't.
They play scrabble. Four full games and one half one, until Jane spells the word sanguine (fifty points for using all of her letters), and bursts into tears.
Maura sits back on the couch as the tears give way immediately to rage and Jane swipes the board from the coffee table, the little game pieces flying in every direction.
Maura doesn't flinch. She doesn't even move.
It takes seventeen minutes for the tornado inside of Jane to blow itself out, and Maura sits quietly through all of it, waiting.
When Finally, finally, Jane collapses onto the couch beside her, dropping her head into the doctor's lap, Maura does not hesitate to slide her hands into the hair at her temple.
"I'm here," she says quietly.
"I need something," Jane says, voice hoarse from yelling.
"Anything," Maura answers.
"I want to meet the girl who has my son's heart."
Maura bends to nod, so that Jane can feel the affirmation.
"Consider it done."
2.
Addison Bartlett is seven years old with brown wavy hair, bright blue eyes, and skin the color of the Sahara desert. She is sitting on the front steps of the home when Jane and Maura pull up, and when they step out of the car she jumps to her feet looking excited.
"Ready?" Maura asks quietly.
Addison hops from one foot to the other. "Mommy!" She cries. "Daddy! They're here!"
"Doesn't look like I have a choice," Jane says, smiling as a man and woman appear at the door behind Addison, waving.
And it's true. There is no turning back as Addison sprints down the walk and launches herself into Jane's arms with a squeal. Jane catches her lightly, throwing a worried look at Maura over the top of her head.
"It's fine" Maura mouths with a nod, and Jane gives herself over entirely to the hug.
"Addi!" Her father calls as he and his wife make their way towards them. "Honey, what did we say about being careful with people?"
Addi cranes her neck to look back at her parents from Jane's arms. "People are not jungle gyms." She says with a giggle. "But, Daddy, Detective Jane doesn't mind."
Maura thinks she's never seen Jane look so emotional. "I don't," She says thickly. "She's right."
Having reached them, Addison's father, a tall, pale man with ginger stubble and deep lines on his forehead, leans forward to shake their hands.
"Tim," He says, and then gestures as his wife steps up. "And this is Nina."
She is small, dimpled woman with beautiful sienna skin. She laughs as Jane tries to put Addi down and is met with a grunt of protest. "Well, it seems you have a new attachment!" Nina says. "She knew you right off the bat, huh?"
Jane seems too overwhelmed to speak but Addi nods against her shoulder, sighing as though it is always her duty to explain everything.
"Of course," she says. "My heart would know it's Mommy anywhere at all."
The sound Jane makes at this little declaration pulls at Maura's heartstrings. As they make their way up to walk towards the house, she puts her hand on Jane's arm hoping it is right move. Jane smiles at her, eyes wide and awed and completely enamored, and Maura knows she's done the right thing.
The Bartletts have two children in addition to Addison, two older boys ten and fourteen, named Wylie and Charlie. They are there too, and when Addison can finally be persuaded to let go of Jane, the boys each take a turn hugging her. When they sit down in the living room, Addi scrambles into Jane's lap, still grinning from ear to ear.
"We are so happy you decided to come visit us, Detective." Nina says. Her husband takes her hand, nodding
Jane looks between them, still a little shell-shocked.
"I…" she breaks off for a moment as Addi leans back against her. Her eyes close for a second. "Jane. Just call me Jane. And I didn't want to impose." She says after a moment. "I didn't want you to think I felt entitled to-"
"You are notan imposition," Nina breaks in, her brow furrowing. "Everything we have is yours. Anything we can give you, you can have."
Jane nods, her smile looking a little stretched. "There was never a question," she says lowly. "I- there was no hesitation about giving his..."
Addi turns to look at her, eyes bright. "Do you want to see my scar?" She asks brightly.
Maura sees Jane's face fall.
Addi turns to study Maura for the first time. "You're a doctor aren't you?" She asks, and when Maura nods, she looks satisfied. "Get out your stethoscope," she says authoritatively before turning back to Jane. "You wanna hear me and Connor's heart, right?"
But Jane has gone pale. She shakes her head back and forth, as if the moment has come too soon. "No," she says, voice breaking. "No, I- I can't. I'm not… I'm-"
Nina understands immediately, she taps Tim and gives him a meaningful look. He stands, striding forward to pluck Addison off of Jane's lap, blowing a raspberry on her cheek to distract her.
"Munchkin," He says lightly, "why don't we go outside? Let Momma talk to Detective Rizzoli and Dr. Isles for a bit?"
Maura scoots a little closer to Jane, who has begun to cry.
"Jane," Maura says softly. "You have a present for Addison, right? That might be fun to play with outside?"
Jane glances at the little package sitting next to her on the couch. "You," she says lowly, and Maura nods, reaching to lift the gift off the couch and hold it out.
"Here, honey," she says. "Take this with you outside."
It is Charlie who steps forward and takes it, grinning back at Maura. "Thanks," he says in his deep, teenager voice. He turns to his dad. "We'll take her outside, Dad. If you want to stay."
Addison looks almost as excited by this prospect as she had at Jane's arrival.
"Yay!" She says, squirming down from her father's arms. "C'mon Wylie! See you soon, Jane!"
The adults watch as the boys lead their sister out into the back hall, and as the door to the back yard closes, silence falls.
Maura sits close to Jane, her hand on her knee.
"I'm sorry," Jane says heavily, pressing her long fingers to her eyes. "I'm sorry. I just, it's been a long time since anyone said his name."
"No," Nina says quickly. "Not at all. It's us who should be apologizing to you! We told Addi that it might be hard for you." she pauses, looking at her husband, but he seems to be at a loss just like her.
"Addi's like a new person," Nina says, changing the subject abruptly. "She was so sick for so long, it's like we're getting to know her all over again. And that's because of you, Detective. But we don't ever forget for a moment that you had to lose your son in order for us to meet our daughter."
Jane is still crying. She makes an attempt at a nod, but is only half way successful.
Maura thinks of the questions Jane had talked about asking.
"Were there any complications?" she asks, not moving her hand off of Jane's knee.
Nina shakes her head.
"No," Tim says, smiling at Jane. "She sailed through it. The doctor said she was one of the best patients she'd ever had. He said that it was like-" but Nina elbows Tim and shakes her head quickly, discreetly.
Jane doesn't miss it. "What?" she asks, clearing her throat. "What did he say?"
Nina gives Tim a look that clearly says, well you've done it now.
Tim swallows hard, clearly wondering if his chances are better against his wife or the detective.
"He said it was like they were meant for each other...Addison and...um…" he trails off as Nina glares daggers at him. "I'm sorry," he mumbles. "That was insensitive of me."
Jane shakes her head. "No," she says, though the timber of her voice indicates that she's close to tears again. "No, it-it's good to hear."
"My daughter and my husband share the same social graces I'm afraid," Nina says quietly. "Forgive them. They mean well."
Jane smiles. "C-Connor," she only falters the tiniest bit on his name, "was a stickler for the truth, for the whole story."
The Bartlett's nod as one.
"She knew it was a little boy the moment she woke up," Nina says tentatively, ignoring her husband's scandalized look at her audacity to do what she'd just chided him for.
"Half an hour after she woke up she said, 'mommy, there's a little boy in my heart." Jane keeps her composure at this fact, but Maura can't stop herself from tearing up.
"Maybe they were then," Jane says quietly. "Meant to be together." She leans towards Maura and wipes one of her tears away with a finger. She seems to be studying Maura's face in that moment, analyzing her emotions.
She looks back at the Bartletts. "None of his other," a breath, "organs were usable. It was just his heart."
Silence for a moment, and then Tim speaks, his voice deliberately soft. "You don't have to listen today, Detective. We...we're hoping you want to visit again." He glances at his wife. "We explained to Addi that there are a lot of emotions that go with-"
"I want to," Jane says quickly, before she realizes she's cut him off. "I'm sorry...I-I want to. Please."
Nina nods, standing. "I'll just go grab them," she says. "If you're ready?"
She passes Wylie as he appears in the doorway. "Dad?" he calls, and Tim gets up with an apologetic smile towards Jane and Maura. Whatever Wylie says in a hushed tone to his father makes Tim turn back to look at them sharply, and then respond sternly to his son, who nods vigorously until Tim looks satisfied. He straightens, and with one last look towards the couch, heads after his wife towards the back of the house.
Wylie approaches them nervously. "Um, I - uh - I just wanted to tell you something," he says, and he is looking down at his shoes, so he doesn't see the way Jane stares at him. Longing.
"What is it, Wylie?" Maura asks, smiling when he looks up at her.
"I just, uh, wanted to say that I know you were a really good mom to Connor." He glances at Jane and then away. "At my friend Max's house? We watched this old movie, and at the end there's a woman and she's holding on to two little boys over a cliff but she only has strength for one." Wylie pauses until Jane nods, her brow furrowed in curiosity.
"Well," Wylie continues, "I just want you to know that if that were my mom, she would choose Connor every time, instead of Addi. Just like you would choose Addi."
Jane makes a noise at this, and when Maura looks at her, she sees that she's smiling, nodding for Wylie to keep going.
"We didn't pray for another kid to die just for her. Mom said that it was a sin, and that we'd manage if she passed. She said we couldn't bargain that whoever lost their baby wouldn't be worse off. She said she knew us. And so she would count on us."
Wylie looks between them, he bites his lip. "I didn't really understand until I saw the movie," he finishes. "I just...wanted you to know."
Jane holds out her arms for him, without saying anything.
They are still hugging when Nina, Tim, Charlie and Addison return, and the little girl gives a squawk of dismay when she sees her older brother in Jane's arms.
"No!" she says, like she reprimanding a puppy. "No! Wylie! That is my heart mommy. You get off!"
Wylie pulls away as Addison runs across the room to claim her place on Jane's lap. She has shed her t-shirt for a tank top, and the top of her scar peeks over the neck. Maura turns away to get her stethoscope, and when she looks back, Addi has put her small hands on either side of Jane's face.
"two thing you have to know, so it will be okay," she says matter of factly.
Jane nods, holding her breath.
"One," Addi says, "After this we will go out and play in the backyard, okay? Fun after hard. Daddy says."
"Okay," Jane whispers.
"And twwoo," Addi says, drawing out the number, "when I was sleeping, Connor told me to tell you that he really loves you."
A tear falls down Jane's cheek, but Addison shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. "No," she says, "I got it wrong, sorry. He said to tell you that he really, really loves you. He said there had to be two reallys."
And Maura presses the stethoscope to Addison's chest and hands it to Jane who fits it in her ears.
She closes her eyes.
"Hi Zo-zo," she whispers. She presses her head to to Addi's shoulder. She whispers,
"It counts."
…
…
They decompress that night, by ordering more Chinese food than is advisable, and watching a romantic comedy with a plot so thin it is laughable.
Maura keeps asking the names of the same, interchangeable characters, and by the time it is halfway over, Jane is laughing hard enough that there are tears shining in her eyes.
"They all look the same," the doctor says. "They all speak the same, have you noticed? They use the same verbs and adjectives. Whoever wrote this needs a thesaurus."
Jane chuckles. "Leave it to the human thesaurus to point out the lack of someone else's vocabulary."
Maura grins at this gentle barb, and Jane takes a sip of her beer without breaking eye contact.
"God," she says when she's set it down, "you are beautiful."
This makes Maura laugh, and so her eyes are closed when Jane leans forward to kiss her. She is surprised, because the movie is still playing in the background, and because Mushu pork is a decidedly non-romantic meal, and because she had begun to think it wouldn't ever happen.
And then she is simply happy.
Then she is just happier than she's ever been in her entire life.
3.
I should have killed you when I had the chance.
Yeah. You should have
…
She shows up without calling. Maura opens the door to find her there, the wind whipping her hair out behind her like some black and white movie cliche.
She smiles sheepishly at Maura, and her eyes drop to the doctor's mouth for a moment, and then to her neck.
Jane's smile vanishes.
"I should have called," she says, not looking away from Maura's neck, and the little scar that rests there.
"I'm glad you're here," Maura answers.
Jane uses a hand to brush her hair out of her face. "I-" she starts and then breaks off with a breath that sounds frustrated.
"Come inside" Maura says softly. "Come inside. It's very good to see you."
Jane does as she is asked, stepping into the front hall as though she has never been there before. Her hand goes unconsciously to her own neck as she passes, to her own scar, fading like Maura's.
She follows Jane down the hall to the living room, relieved when she flops down in her usual place the couch.
"Beer?" she asks when she catches up.
Jane rakes a hand through her hair again. "Just water," she says, and her voice does sound rough and scratchy.
Maura obliges, pouring two glasses of water and hurrying back to the couch before Jane can change her mind.
She sets the water down on the table. "Would you like to watch something?"
Jane shakes her head. "Didn't want to be alone anymore," she says after a moment.
Maura allows herself to take Jane's hand, bolstered by this confession. "I find it hard to believe that Angela has left you on your own for very long," she says lightly.
This earns her the ghost of a smile. Her heart swells.
"Didn't want to keep pretending, then," she amends quietly. And when Maura squeezes her hand, she looks up. "I am having nightmares," she says, as though to correct a previous misunderstanding.
Maura blinks, and Hoyt flashes across the backs of her eyelids.
Hoyt! Don't you touch her!
"Me too," Maura says, and then realizes that it is not the right thing to say. Jane's shoulders droop like this is the confirmation of her worst fear.
"I know," she says. "I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."
"That is not what I meant," Maura says, more forcefully than she'd planned. "My nightmares are not your doing or your fault."
Jane doesn't answer, but she also doesn't leave. Maura decides to call that a draw.
They sit together in silence, not moving, and Maura can't help but wonder for the thousandth time what Jane gets out of her presence. She has never known anyone, romantic partner or not, to just want to sit with her the way Jane does.
Once, just before the routine of the morning run began, Jane appeared in the morgue during one of Maura's autopsies, just stepped into the room and then directly to the left, wedging herself tightly into the corner.
Maura was about to ask what was going on, when Angela appeared at her door, looking harried. "Maura, did Jane pass here?" her tone was part demanding, part pleading, and it took extreme focus for the doctor not too look to the corner where Jane stood, not breathing.
"She did not pass by," Maura had said, and Angela had huffed in a way identical to Jane, and turned back the way she'd come.
For a moment, Maura and Jane had just looked at each other. Then Maura went back to her autopsy and Jane hopped up onto the little ledge by the sink.
They'd stayed that way for three quarters of an hour, until Jane's phone pinged with Frost's ringtone, and she hopped down to head towards the door.
"Do you wonder about him?"
Jane's question pulls Maura from her thoughts, and for a second she thinks they are talking about Hoyt.
Then she sees Jane's face, and knows she means Connor.
"Yes," she answers honestly. "Sometimes."
"You don't ask," Jane says flatly.
Maura shrugs slightly. "Would asking work?" she wonders aloud. This makes the corner of Jane's mouth tug upwards, just a little. She leans back into the couch, and Maura slides closer to her.
"I'm not trying to keep all of that separate from…" she pauses, gesturing between them, "this," she says at last.
"I know."
"I knew that eventually it would all have to...be the same. I just…"
Maura lifts Jane's hand to her lips, and the detective lets out a long sigh. "I have all the time in the world," Maura says. "You don't have to rush anything."
"He rushed it," Jane says, voice low. Now they are talking about Hoyt. How amazing, the reasons a body rejects the vocalizing of a name.
"He didn't," Maura replies. "Nothing has to change, if you don't want it to."
Jane blinks, considering this. She glances at Maura, and then away. "I remember you at the funeral, you know," she says finally.
Maura feels her eyebrows rise. "Oh?"
"Yeah. I remember what you said," Jane looks down at their hands. "How you wouldn't shake my hand."
"I was worried you'd think I did that out of pity," Maura confesses. "I was terrified."
Jane nods. "Me too," she says, almost easily. "I thought when I got back you'd treat me like an invalid."
"I'd never," Maura begins, and Jane smiles, nodding.
"I know. But you didn't know me," she holds out her hands, "before."
And all of the focus in the world couldn't help Maura now. She leans forward and kisses Jane, and to her surprise, the other woman pulls her forward onto her lap, kissing back like she's hungry.
"I love you, Maura," Jane whispers. "You know that, right?"
The words cause a flurry of snowflakes to burst in Maura's chest. They turn white hot as they settle, making her shiver.
"I love you too," she says. "Very, very much." She pulls back so that she can look at Jane's face. "Do you want to know what I think of the person you were before? Do you want to know what I think?"
Jane seems to physically brace herself before nodding.
NO.
"I think that you were, and are, nothing less than the most dedicated, fiercest detective I know. If you fought for me with one fraction of the intensity with which you fought for him, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was absolutely nothing you could have done to save him."
A tear slips from Jane's eye, and she dips her head to hide it, but Maura catches her face in her hands, tipping it back up. "Jane."
Jane squeezes her eyes shut. "I fought as hard as I could."
"Yes," Maura nods, "and if the situations had been reversed, if Hoyt had been forced to rely on an apprentice then and not now, I would be the one dead."
Jane leans forward to put her head against Maura's chest. She blinks her tears into the hollow of Maura's throat.
NO. I WIN.
"When he had you. When I saw that taser, all I could think was that we'd never hang out again. That we'd never go running again. I wouldn't see you laugh anymore."
Maura puts her hands in Jane's hair, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. Jane sighs and wraps her arms around her, pulling herself closer.
And you're going to hell alone.
"Can I stay the night?" She asks, her voice muffled by Maura's clavicle.
Maura grins. "You never have to ask," she says.
She wonders if it will be this night that they have sex, or if, like many of the other nights, Jane will fall into sleep mid-sentence, her body going heavy, finally losing the battle. One way or the other, Maura finds she doesn't really care.
"I bought the book," she says quietly, and when Jane pulls away, brow wrinkled in confusion, she speaks again. "After the funeral. I went to the store and I bought the book. I'd never read it before and...I wanted to."
Jane smiles the way she had watching Addison flex her muscles in the backyard, all pain and pleasure; too close to call a winner.
"Can I date you?" She asks, pulling Maura to her again. "Will you date me?"
Maura laughs.
.
It doesn't happen that night, though they get closer than ever before, legs intertwined, half dressed, Maura's heart beating as though it is going to break free of her chest.
Jane rolls to slide her arm around Maura's middle, pulling the doctor backwards against her chest, mumbling in her sleep. And Maura wants the moment to go on and on and on.
"Please," she whispers into her pillow. "Please, oh please, don't go."
Jane stirs just the tiniest bit. She presses her lips to Maura's in just the breath of a kiss. She murmurs.
"I'll eat you up, I love you so."