between your ribs
I hope you enjoy this. You guys deserve it after all I've put you through in the past chapters...
Chapter Fifteen:
December 11th, 2015
Jane finds herself studying herself in the mirror despite reminding herself that Maura has seen her at her lowest. The only person she has ever given permission to.
Still, she twists a little, surveying. Maura had told her that it doesn't matter how she dresses for this. It's just going to be them, after all. Casual. Still, she stares at her reflection and tugs at the hem of her red sweater. Stares at her unruly hair, flying out at all angles. She'll never be classy and put together like Maura. Never as beautiful. No-one can ever amount to Maura, though. So maybe it's okay that she's a little bit messy.
Not that she wants to impress her.
Sighing, Jane heads out of the guest room she's been staying in and heads to the front room. The decorations they had hung together last week make the place look homely again. Maura had laughed and laughed at Jane's attempts to get the angel to balance just right above the Christmas tree without falling off. They'd gotten all caught and tangled in the wires of the fairy lights as they tried to wrap them around the tree. She'd draped red tinsel around Maura's neck even as she squirmed as it tickled and hung baubles from her ears as mock earrings even as Maura rolled her eyes. Even now, she finds herself smiling at the memory. This is home. With Maura.
Slowly, this place is reverting back to being Maura's. The mess and clutter is beginning to disappear, its warmth beginning to spread and is becoming infectious. She's noticed – over the last two weeks that she has been living with her best friend – that Maura has been smiling more often, allowing herself to laugh. She is softer around the edges and, sometimes, looks at her in a way that makes her hold her breath.
"Good evening."
Maura is in the kitchen, hair falling in soft waves against her neck, green dress clinging to her torso and flaring a little at the skirt. It makes her look gentler than normal. Jane almost forgets how to speak.
"Hey," she manages.
She wanders over to the island as Maura turns to the oven to pull out the small turkey she's been cooking all day. Jane's eyes roam over the food Maura has prepared – the vegetables, the stuffing, the potatoes, all of it smells so delicious and makes her stomach rumble.
"How was work?" Maura asks as she sets the turkey on the side, sticking a thermometer in it.
"Okay," Jane says, rubbing her hands together and feeling her scars itch. Trying to figure out a way to say, all I wanted to do was get home to this. To you. "Slow."
"Paperwork?"
Jane huffs a laugh. "Pretty much."
She helps Maura set the table for the two of them. Carries the dishes and sets them in the order Maura would, watching for her smile out of the corner of her eye. It makes her heart pound. Christmas. With Maura. To make up with the one that they'd lost last year.
The cutlery is slippery in her sweaty hands as she finishes serving her food. Maura sits across from her, practically glowing in the warm amber light of the Christmas decorations. She wants so desperately to tell her how beautiful she thinks she is. Maybe, one day, she'll be able to.
"I handed in my resignation to Cavanaugh today," Maura admits after she takes a bite of her turkey. "I suppose the word will spread soon."
"Uh – actually, everyone pretty much already knows. Cavanaugh told us. Seemed pretty convinced your resignation was for real this time."
"It is."
Jane sets her cutlery down for a moment to gather herself. It's really happening. Working without Maura. She'd never convince her to come back – not if it's not what she wants, not what she can handle. She wants nothing more than to provide her with what makes her happy. But that thought is a little terrifying. She doesn't quite know how they work without that dynamic. What if without it she can't give Maura everything she wants, all of the things that make her happy?
"I'll miss you," Jane says, clearing her throat before she adds. "Working with you, I mean."
Maura smiles. "I'll miss it too. But I think this change will be good. For us."
Us.
Jane fights a smile, simply nods and says something about agreeing before she tucks into more of the food.
Later, once they have cleared away, they settle on the couch. Jane pulls her legs up beneath her as Maura smooths down her skirt, holding the present in her hands tightly.
"C'mon, Maur," she whines. "I'm sure I'll love whatever it is."
Maura flushes a little. "I'm not sure what I was thinking – "
But Jane grabs it from her hands before Maura can protest, shaking it a little out of curiosity even as she's berated for it. Not much sound emerges so she rips the finely tied ribbon and silver wrapping paper from the present eagerly. A small square box awaits her.
"I thought you might like a new one. I'm not sure it's exactly your style. But it just felt right," Maura says.
Jane lifts the lid of the box to find a watch inside. Black leather straps and a simple face, silver notches to it and the time already set correctly. She slips her old silver watch off, ready to put it on, but Maura stops her.
"I had the back of the face inscribed," she tells her.
Frowning, Jane flips the watch to the back. On the middle of the back of the watch is the inscription. Like the sun.
"It's part a larger quote from Anna Karenina."
Jane looks up, thumb rubbing across the inscription.
"What does it mean?"
Maura looks away, blushing a little. "You should read it."
"Are you kidding me? I've seen that sitting on your shelf. It's huge," she protests, making Maura laugh. "But I – I love it. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
She slips the watch onto her wrist before heading over to the Christmas tree to grab the present she'd bought – well, technically, the present she had made – for Maura. She slumps back onto the couch as she passes it to Maura, feeling her face warm a little as she takes her time opening it. It's not the most Maura-y gift she's ever given her. It's just something that she thought she… well, something she thought she might have needed.
Maura frees the photo album of the wrapping paper, the white leather engraved with the words My Family. She watches as Maura brushes her fingers over the gold words, a smile tugging at her lips before she flips it open.
Inside, the photos begin with pictures of her, Constance and Arthur. She watches as Maura's throat constricts, flipping through the minimal pictures of them all. Jane had struggled to find any photos at all – any that weren't from formal events like art openings, the family hosting dinners with other social elite members. She's contacted Constance for some personal ones and Maura's mother had seemed a little saddened when she could barely provide her with any. Still, they'd filled at least the first three pages. Some of Maura as a child, carefully reserved, her age in the photos growing wider apart from the moment she'd left for boarding school. But then the photos of her and Jane begin. Slowly. As their friendship had blossomed until there are photos of Maura and her Ma; Maura and Tommy; Maura and Frankie. Group photos including Korsak and Frost and Susie at the precinct. Newer ones including Nina after the loss of Frost. Maura grows happier, smiles wider, as the photographs progress. Pictures from their last Christmas spent together and among all of these, interspersed, some of Hope and Caitlin. Maura is not close to them by any standards, but she still has them in her life.
"It's not full," Maura comments, staring at the half-empty album.
"You still have a life to live, Maura," Jane murmurs. "You'll have so much more to fill it with. Melissa didn't take that from you."
Maura presses the tips of her fingers against the last photo in the album. Jane had convinced her Ma to try and take it last week – she'd helped her gather some of the photos. Maura soft and smiling politely for Angela as Jane grins beside her. Their fresh start.
She doesn't realise that Maura is crying until she looks up at her. Just a few small tears that she wipes away with the back of her hand.
"Thank you, Jane," Maura whispers hoarsely.
She wants to say it. I love you. She wants to say it again and again until there's no more space between them to say anything else at all. Instead, she says, you're welcome. And finds that there is more than one way of saying what she means.
Maura's gaze drops to her lips for a moment and Jane feels her heart give out.
Maura leans forwards until she can press a gentle kiss to Jane's cheek. She doesn't pull away immediately, hovers close by, her forehead brushing Jane's. She can feel her breath on her cheek, her skin hot and burning all over from Maura's nearness.
"Merry Christmas, Jane."
Jane finds Maura's hand and squeezes.
"Merry Christmas, Maura."
Maura pulls away and Jane feels the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding rush out of her all at once. But then Maura is wiping away the last traces of her tears, her hands trembling, and she finds it easier to breathe.
"You know what we need? Christmas music."
Maura frowns but Jane is already rushing to grab her laptop from her room. She returns skidding on her socked feet, placing the laptop down before pressing play. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer begins immediately as she holds a hand out for Maura expectantly.
Maura splutters. "You can't be serious."
"As a heart attack. C'mon, Maura. It's fun."
Maura slips her heels off and accepts her hand warily.
She pulls her to her feet, slipping on her socked feet as she twists her hips and takes both of Maura's hands. Maura rolls her eyes a little but plays along, bopping a little awkwardly on the spot. But Jane keeps tugging on her hands until she begins twisting with her, and soon enough, a few songs later, they're dancing around the whole room, probably looking ridiculous but laughing and happy and the sight of Maura's smile, her laughter, uncontained and beautiful makes her grin so wide she almost thinks it'll split her face in two.
As one of the songs finishes, in the space between the next one beginning, Maura squeezes her hands.
"Thank you."
Jane frowns. "For what?"
"Giving me space when the anniversary passed the other week. For this day. For not giving up on me. For your patience… and for your love," Maura lists, blinking furiously against the few tears that begin to gather.
She squeezes Maura's hands in return. These things have all been hard. Especially watching Maura suffer as the year anniversary of the day she had been abducted passed eight days ago. But she had just wanted to carry on as if everything had been normal.
"You don't need to thank me for that," she murmurs. "I'm always gonna be right here with you."
Maura opens her mouth as if to argue, but then the next song begins, and Jane spins her so that the next sound she hears is her laughter.
Before she crawls into bed that night, she googles the part of the quote from the watch Maura had given her. Instead of looking for an explanation for the quote, she finds the full thing.
He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.
Her heart pounds as she closes the lid of her laptop, slipping off the watch to stare at the inscription of like the sun again. Is this a hidden message Maura wants to figure out, to acknowledge but not to act upon?
No. It doesn't matter. The motive is not what matters. The words do.
She falls asleep clinging to the watch, images of waking with Maura and kissing her without fear flickering behind her eyelids. Her hand grips the watch a little tighter.
One day.
December 18th, 2015.
Maura grips her hand so tight she thinks that it might break.
On Maura's other side, Constance is holding her breath as the jury files back out into the courtroom. Angela curses in Italian under her breath as Melissa Matthews dares look over at Maura. Behind her, Korsak reaches forward to squeeze her shoulder, murmurs something about how Maura's testimony had been brilliant. Maura doesn't acknowledge any of them, simply continues gripping Jane's hand.
And the jury announces they find Melissa guilty of all charges.
Her ma, Korsak and Frankie are on their feet immediately, cheering so loudly Jane is almost defeaned with the noise. Constance stands too, clapping with tears in her eyes, but Jane stays sitting with Maura, hands linked.
Maura turns to her, so close, her chin brushing Jane's shoulder as she speaks.
"Is it over?" She asks through the celebrations.
Jane smiles, knocking her forehead against Maura's lightly.
"It's over. You won."
Maura gives a small sob of relief, practically falling into Jane. She catches her and holds her so easily. As if this is what she had been born to do.
"Everything's going to be okay," she whispers.
Maura shifts until she can press a kiss against her cheekbone through her tears.
"It always is when I'm with you."
TBC