Chapter Twenty Two
Jane's eyes snapped open. She was surrounded by darkness and the only thing she heard was the labored breaths she slowly realized were coming from her. She forcibly squeezed her eyes shut closing them tightly holding them closed for a moment. She then let them slowly open again. The room was still just as dark but she was slowly adjusting to the darkness. She could at least start to make out different shades of black throughout the room.
She listened again to her labored breathing and tried to tell herself to slow it down. To steady it. She forced herself to take in a slow, deliberate breath in. After holding it for a moment she just as slowly let it out trying to get her respirations in check. She came to realize she was damp and clammy from a cold sweat. And she was trembling. Labored breath, shaking, and sweaty. She was an absolute mess.
The room was going from a solid black to a lighter shade of black with some gray mixed in as her eyes continued to adjust. She wanted desperately to get a sense of her true surroundings. She finally felt like she was awake enough to attempt to sit up. She pulled herself up into an upright seated position and brought her hands to her face to wipe the remaining sweat away from her forehead and rub the sleep out of her eyes.
That's when she felt it.
And she was instantly completely confused. She slowly took the thumb and forefinger of her right hand and let them travel across the palm of her left hand.
It was there.
But how could it be there?
She switched thumb and forefingers and found the matching scar on her right palm as well.
What the hell?
A dream. It had all been a dream.
And then suddenly it really hit her. It was a dream.
She desperately felt around for the light switch on the night stand.
3:24 am.
She didn't care.
She had to check.
She had to know.
She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and dialed the number.
She had to know for sure.
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Ring
Ring
Ring
"Come on...please," Jane spoke out desperately into the empty room.
"Uhhhhhh...lo?" came a completely asleep, disoriented voice.
A voice so sweet Jane didn't even try to stop the tears now starting to trickle down her cheeks. A voice that even draped in sleep was the best sound Jane could remember hearing. She didn't say anything. She really didn't need to. She had just needed to hear that voice. It had all been a dream.
"Go back to sleep Tommy," Jane whispered. She held her cellphone up to her ear with one hand and she held her other hand out in front of her so she could stare at the scar again trying to make sure it was really there.
"Kay...huh?" he was slowly coming around.
"Go back to sleep little brother," Jane said softly.
"Janie?" voice recognition was kicking in.
"Yeah, seriously. Go back to sleep Tommy. I was just checking something."
"To see if you are crazy?" he asked now utterly confused.
"Something very close. Good night," she said.
"Night."
"Tommy?"
"Huh?"
"I love you."
"Ok."
He was already falling back asleep and that was perfectly alright with Jane. She hung up the phone and let herself cry the rest of the tears that had been threatening to fall since Tommy had answered his phone.
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A few minutes later Jane still sat in bed trying to figure out what the hell had happened and what had caused her dream. Her mind was racing trying to figure out what pieces of images flooding through her mind were real and what pieces were just a dream. It was alarmingly disconcerting. Her normal nightmares scared her but she knew immediately she was ok and what was real and what wasn't as soon as she woke up.
This was different. She was struggling to figure out what parts of her life were real and which had been part of this dream. A vivid, powerful dream that had managed to shake Jane to her very core.
That's when she remembered what may have caused the dream in the first place.
The Dirty Robber.
A simple, innocent conversation at the Dirty Robber with Korsak and Frost.
"Come on Korsak you know that's totally his do over moment," Frost insisted.
"Do over moment?" Korsak asked now a little confused.
"You know, that moment. That thing from your past that you would do over if you were given a chance. You know that Buckner would totally redo the '86 Game Six and that ground ball."
Korsak couldn't really argue that the desire would have been there. Frost was probably right about Buckner. But life didn't work that way. "No one gets to redo their past Frost. Billy Boy is forever stuck with that ball squeaking through his legs. No matter how painful it is to Red Sox nation even to this day."
"True," Frost conceded. "But that does make for an interesting question though."
"What question? If Buckner regrets misplaying that ball? That's a no brainer," Jane chimed in.
"No not Buckner. Just in general. It makes an interesting question about life in general. You know. The whole 'if you could change one thing in your life what would it be?' question. I think everyone has at least one moment."
"Really?" Jane asked.
"Really. Korsak, I bet you do don't you?" Frost asked.
Vince snickered. "I have three ex-wives. Talk about a no brainer. Of course I have at least one."
The three laughed but didn't force Vince to name the ex-Mrs. Korsak he probably wished he hadn't married. Or maybe it was the ex-Mrs. Korsak he wished wasn't an ex at all. Either way Jane and Frost didn't ask for specifics.
"I have one for sure. Maybe two," Frost admitted. Again, neither Jane nor Vince asked specifically. But Jane wondered if it had anything to do with Frost and his relationship with his father.
"Jane?" Vince asked.
Jane didn't say anything for a minute but she did look down at her hands. Both men caught the look. "Everyone has at least one moment," was all she said before she made her way to the bar to get another round for them all.
By the time she returned the guys had moved on from '86 and all its misery to '04 and all of its Boston glory.
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Clearly the conversation stuck with her and followed her all the way into her subconscious. She had been awake now for about twenty minutes and she was still a little shaky from the dream. It was becoming easier for her to recall details of how things transpired in her dream. And for the second time that night, things just hit her.
Maura.
And not Maura in the sense that she needed to check on her safety. She was awake enough to know that Maura was physically fine and hadn't been held at gunpoint and Jane hadn't needed to shoot at a man who was holding a gun to her.
That part she understood.
What hit her, and hit her hard, was the relationship. She had been in love with Maura in that dream. Deeply in love with her. Maura had felt the same way. They were together in that dream. Very, very together. And it had been incredible. It had felt so right.
Now her head was spinning again.
What in the hell did all of this mean?
She looked over at her clock again.
3:54 am.
There was no way she was getting back to sleep now.
She sat resting her back against her headboard absentmindedly scratching the back of Jo's head. Looking down at the peacefully sleeping dog she was suddenly jealous that Jo didn't seem to have a care in the world. Sleep seemed to find her dog so easily.
Maura.
She wasn't prepared for the feelings that were now overwhelming her. All of them so familiar but yet so foreign at the same time.
4:07 am.
Then she decided and was out of bed in a flash.
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Maura was starting to wake up just before her alarm was set to go off. That didn't surprise her. She had a pretty stable internal clock and she was pretty sure she could get away without setting an alarm and she wouldn't oversleep. She always considered her alarm as a provisional measure. She rolled and stretched trying to work out all the kinks in her body when she was suddenly aware of a sweet aroma drifting through her room.
Coffee.
She looked at the clock. 5:12 am. It was a bit early for Angela to be awake and down in her kitchen but the smell of coffee put Maura in a very forgiving mood. Bless that woman for starting the coffee already. Maura got up and headed for the bathroom. She would take a quick shower before heading downstairs to chat with Angela for a few minutes. That had been their morning routine. Only usually not at 5:15 in the morning.
Maura didn't linger in the shower long. As she let the water works it magic on waking her up she started to get worried about Angela's early arrival that morning. Normally Angela wandered over around 6:30 am. She was now hoping that nothing was wrong.
She in no way had been expecting to see who she found in her kitchen. Jane. It hadn't been Angela who had started the coffee. It had been Jane. Jane who was sitting on a stool at her kitchen island. Jane who was leaning onto her elbows just staring off into space.
"Jane?" Maura asked as she walked into the kitchen. Now she was worried. Jane was never up at this hour without some sort of bodily threat.
Jane blinked and turned her head towards Maura. "Morning," she acknowledged but in a tone that only added to Maura's confusion of finding her best friend in her kitchen before 6 am.
"Jane, don't take this the wrong way but what are you doing here?" she couldn't help but ask.
Jane straightened up in the stool and looked over at Maura. Even after over an hour of trying to straighten out everything that was swirling through her mind, she had no clearer idea about what she was doing at Maura's house than she did when she grabbed her car keys to drive over.
"Do you want some coffee?" Jane asked. In truth she was stalling for time.
Maura just looked at Jane her concern growing. She recognized immediately that Jane was avoiding the question. Somewhat typical for Jane. What had been atypical was the in person early morning visit.
When Maura didn't answer Jane got up and poured her a cup carrying it over to her. "Here. I hope I didn't wake you. I was trying to be quiet."
"You didn't wake me," Maura assured her as she accepted the coffee. Jane then returned to sitting on the stool and seemed to get lost in her thoughts while staring at her palm which she was rubbing circles around the scar. An action Maura knew she only did when something was bothering her.
She had no idea what was going on in the mind of her best friend. She did know Jane though. And she knew the woman would only talk when she was ready to talk. So Maura knew pushing for a conversation wasn't going to get her to the heart of whatever was clearly bothering Jane any quicker.
When Jane didn't start talking Maura took her coffee and announced she was going to finish getting cleaned up. "I'll be back down in a little while. The paper should be here by now," she added and made her way back up the stairs.
Whatever was going on with her Maura knew it was big. And she knew Jane just wasn't quite ready to talk about it yet.
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Maura finished getting ready and had to admit it was one of the fastest morning prep routines she had ever achieved. She was worried about Jane and wanted to return downstairs as quickly as she could. She was hoping Jane was open to talking by the time she got downstairs. She would press Jane for some answers if she had to but she usually tried to take things at Jane's pace.
She found Jane exactly where she left her. At the kitchen island. Standing and leaning this time not sitting. "No paper?" she asked when she didn't see it or the expected Sport Section out in front of Jane.
"Oh, I never looked for it," Jane admitted.
"Ok, please tell me what's wrong," she said looking at her friend. She still couldn't decipher the look on Jane's face.
Jane looked at Maura and tried to figure out the best way to start this conversation. "Not counting actual nightmares, have you ever had a dream that just seemed to completely shake up your sense of reality?"
So Jane had some sort of dream, Maura noted. It wasn't unusual for Jane to have nightmares. But it sounded like she wasn't talking about nightmares.
"I've had a few that have left me a little disoriented when I first woke up," she answered. "What was your dream about?"
"Changing my past," she said without much more of an explanation.
"Do you want to change your past?" Maura asked.
Almost instantaneously Jane announced, "No."
The immediacy of her answered startled Maura. What had Jane's dream been about? None of this conversation was making much sense to her. "No?"
Jane shook her head. "I think...I think I want to change my future," she said looking up and staring right into Maura's eyes.
The intensity of the look shook Maura to her core. There was a look on Jane's face she hadn't seen before. It seemed to make her knees weaken.
"Jane? What's going on?" Maura tried again to make sense of what Jane was trying to say. "Are you okay?"
Jane didn't answer. Instead she pushed herself away from the island and moved quickly and swiftly to suddenly appear right in front of Maura. Maura didn't seem to expect Jane to move that quickly or move to that position. Her understanding of all that was occurring in that kitchen in that moment seemed to be just a little bit slow.
She was just a half a second delayed.
Delayed in reacting to Jane's close proximity.
Delayed in realizing Jane was leaning in towards her.
Delayed in grasping that Jane's lips were suddenly on hers.
Delayed in feeling her own body respond to an unexpected but certainly not unwanted kiss from the woman in front of her. A woman she had always had strong feelings for.
Delayed in feeling Jane's strong arms wrapping themselves around her body.
Delayed in appreciating the warmth she found as her arms did their part in completing the embrace now existing between the two.
Delayed in understanding that their relationship, their future, had just taken a turn in a most welcomed, wonderful direction.
Delayed.
But she would catch up.
Neither seemed too worried about that for the moment. Both too busy trying to make their first kiss last a lifetime.
A/N I know I usually give you guys warning when a story is about to end but given how I was going to end this particular story there was just no way to do that without giving away that ending.
At the beginning of the story I promised to explain my stance on the 'if only' theme for this story once we came to the end. You may have even figured that out by now.
Everyone has something from their past they think about changing. Wishing it did or didn't happen. But, while I have no issues 'thinking' about 'if only' I'm a firm believer in never actually wanting to change an event from the past.
Even the bad ones.
Who a person is comes directly from all of the experiences she/he accumulate in their lifetime. The good and the bad. I have always held to a belief that to go back and alter even one thing in the past puts everything in the present at risk.
And even if I don't necessarily like absolutely everything about or in my life, there are enough pieces that I cherish that I could never, ever run the risk of losing those.
Cause and effect. The inevitable ripple of change. To change even one thing puts it all at risk. And maybe some things would be better. But at what price? I've never wanted to find that out.
You can't change the past. But you certainly have the ability to shape the future. If you dare to be brave.
The support for this story has been amazing. I am humbled by and appreciative of all the kind words from all of you. So I thank you.
Until next time...