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Chapter Forty: From Anger to Fear

A hand on her hip, Jane winced in pain and took a deep breath before stretching briefly. In vain. She sighed – loudly – and grabbed back her cup of coffee.

"What's happening?" Beverage in hand as well, Frost raised a questioning eyebrow to his colleague and resumed his walking towards their car.

"I hurt my back last night. I'm all sore." And why had they parked so far? Her bones were getting way too old for this kind of stroll.

The young man chuckled and – in a good mood – raised his hands in the air to ask her to stop. "Okay... I don't need any oversharing right now, thanks."

Jane stopped – turned around – and stared at her colleague as if he had lost his mind. "What? I was not talking about anything like that, you idiot! Actually, it's pretty much the exact opposite." Sensing that she had either said too much or not enough, the brunette shrugged before looking down at her coffee in the hope her blushing would pass unnoticed. "I slept on the couch."

Frost chuckled again then shook his head. "What did you do again?" The two of them hadn't shared any breakfast for a long while and he was glad to renew with their old tradition on Thursday mornings now.

"What is it that people always assume it's my fault?" But before her colleague's gaze, Jane had no other choice but to recognize the truth. Nervous, she cleared her voice and took a sip of coffee. "I might have put nail varnish on Bass."

This time, Frost burst out laughing to the point tears began to well up in his eyes. Sweeping them away with his sleeve, he shook his head at the Italian; nonetheless eager to hear the whole story. "Wait. Since when do you use nail varnish?"

Jane stopped. Really? That was what people thought about in the first place when she told them about such misfortune?

Shrugging – uncertain of the way she was supposed to take such question – she took her time to find a proper reply without it sounding desperate either. "Well... I don't say no to some pedi from time to time... And I was bored. It was raining, there was nothing on television... Bass was there – sleeping by me – so I used him as a mini-table but then I sneezed and next thing I knew, the shell had a huge red mark. I tried to take it off but it wouldn't work so I grabbed a green nail varnish to cover it but it didn't really cover anything. Needless to say Maura went crazy when she found out about it."

Frost couldn't stop laughing, so loud that half of the passers-by were now staring at him with curiosity. Grand. Awesome, Riz'. Way to humiliate yourself in public.

"When are you allowed to go back to your bedroom? Or just invest in a new couch..." But by the glare Jane threw him, the young detective focused back to find diplomacy in his speech. "You should go and talk to Maura... And apologize if you haven't done it yet."

This time, Jane turned out to be the one who chuckled. A smirk played on her lips as she unlocked the car and they stepped into it. It was a sunny day but awfully cold. She quickly turned the heater on and put her hands close to it to warm up a little. "Since when you're a love expert?"

"Do I have to remind you that my mother is happily married to another woman? I know about lesbian arguments, not that they are any different from straight people's ones."

Jane scoffed and started the engine. "I am not a lesbian." The words had come up all by themselves – without her thinking about it – but as they hit the air, she began to ponder them.

Just like her colleague.

"I don't care about labels, Jane, neither should you but you're still married to a woman. That's what... I meant."

An awkward silence began to weigh above their heads. They had never really alluded to her relation to Maura. It had been implicit, a word here and there but nothing else. Nothing more. Yet they were not mere colleagues. Jane considered Frost as a friend, one of the best ones she had ever had. She could confide in him and had already done. Was her marriage taboo that they didn't dare to bring it up?

"I dated men too, you know. Not that it was very successful but still... If I had to fit in a category then I suppose I'd be bi or something. I don't gaze at women in the street. I mean, not really! And there are a few guys I find hot. I'm not... I'm not a lesbian."

What was it that everyone thought she was? First that ex-classmate she had crossed at the Division One Cafe then her colleague and friend. It wasn't that she took it bad – there was nothing wrong about it at all – but why had people come to such conclusions even before she had herself been aware of her own feelings for Maura?

"You didn't date women before?"

Frost seemed genuinely surprised, his tone of voice echoing his incomprehension as his question hit the air and they approached the BPD headquarters. Slightly embarrassed – she had never liked alluding to her private life – Jane cleared her voice and looked in the rearview mirror to escape from her friend's gaze on her.

"I don't know if we can really call that dating. No need to give you all the details but I can definitely – and without any problem – tell you that it was rather disastrous. It's just different with Maura. I don't care that she's a woman. She's... I don't know. She's Maura."

Jane blinked, shrugged. That was it. Maura. It was Maura. The honey blonde could have had two heads and five feet that it wouldn't have changed anything. She was Maura, the medical dork whose brain was as big as her kindness. The rest didn't matter in the end.

And she's kind of hot, let's face it, Rizzoli.

"You're a cute couple." Frost nodded to nobody but himself and stepped out of the car as Jane parked in front of the BPD headquarters. A full day of work was waiting for them. A long, stressful one.

Although not as stressful as the person who was now standing on top of the stairs waiting for them, her arms crossed on her chest. Features deepened by the anger.

"Good morning, Detective Frost..." Maura's polite smile quickly faded away as she focused back on her wife.

"Dr. Isles..." But knowing better than to stay there considering how palpable the tension was, the young man rushed inside leaving Jane alone with her wife. Besides, he would have a better view of the scene from the first floor; windows overlooking the street.

"What are you doing outside? You're going to be cold, Maura." Jane approached a hand from her wife but the scientist made a step backwards. Lips pursed. Obviously, she was still mad.

But all of a sudden and against the Italian's expectations, Maura's features melted into a curtain of pain as she uncontrollably burst into tears. She looked panicked, on the verge to pass out.

This time, Jane didn't hesitate and took her in her arms. Confused and disarmed. What was going on? "You're shaking like a leaf... Honey..."

She was about to plant a comforting kiss on top of Maura's head when the medical examiner spoke out. "I am bleeding."

The world stopped or at least Jane got the feeling it did. For long seconds, she got lost in a dizzy whirl that made it all blurry; stealing her voice – her brain capacities – to reduce her to a statue of pain and panic.

React, for Christ's sake! Maura needs you! And the twins as well.

"What? But... What are you doing here? You should be at the hospital instead of standing out in the cold on top of these stairs... Maura!"

Sobbing, the blonde shook her head vehemently. "I am too scared to move."

If she had been able to focus on the reactions of her own body, Jane would have realized that her heart was beating fast – too fast – and that her mouth was dry; her legs shaking. But all she could notice now was the distress in her wife's eyes. A distress she had never seen before, even less before a medical fact.

Maura didn't fear medicine. It was part of who she was.

"Bleeding... A lot?" As if her question would change anything. Feeling angry with herself, Jane bit her lower lip and turned around. "Can you walk to my car if I hold you and we go slow? Are you in pain?"

Maura nodded – vaguely – and accepted the hand Jane held out to her. Together, they walked to the car and with the greatest care in the world, the Italian helped her wife to sit in it before rushing to her seat herself.

"Are you okay?" Stupid question. Maura couldn't stop crying, her tears running down her cheeks through a path of bitterness before disappearing in the depths of her neck. She wasn't fine at all. Why asking her in the first place? They weren't on their way to the Caribbeans.

Without waiting for a reply nor telling anyone that she had a last-minute change of plan, Jane drove off and took the direction of the hospital in the most scaring silence she had ever had to face so far.