A/N: You guys continue to blow me away with the amazing feedback you all provide. Thank you very much. This will be the second to last chapter and the next chapter will be the one I'm sure most of you guys are waiting for, the big confrontation. I'm still debating if I should do an epilogue but right now I'm focused on finishing the final chapter. Feedback/reviews are always welcomed and once again, thank you to my beta socks-lost for all the help.
Disclaimer: Don't own any of the characters or make money off of this.
Jane hadn't moved from the spot on couch she was on since Maura left her apartment. Her whole body hurt and to make things worse, she felt a migraine coming on. She got up from the couch a little too fast and suddenly felt nauseas. Jane carefully walked over to the kitchen counter and took her medication. She stumbled her way into the bedroom and flopped down hard on her bed, not caring how painful the landing was going to be for her healing body. No physical pain could compare to how she currently felt. The brunette wondered how long it would take before the medication kicked in and made her go into a much needed slumber.
But at the moment, she was haunted by too many thoughts about the miscarriage, Tasha, Casey and Maura. Each person evoked a different emotion from the detective and she wasn't sure how to process everything. Her carelessness cost her the life of her baby and it almost cost Tasha hers as well. All she could think about was how stupid she was being by going into that warehouse alone. Jane learned the hard way about the consequences of being careless more than once and now she had gone and done it again. She had one job, to protect the tiny human inside of her and she failed. The guilt was gnawing at her. Jane felt she had to be held responsible and help all those hurt by her actions.
That is why the she was so compelled to foster Tasha. In such a short time, she made a strong bond with the teenager and genuinely believed she could make a positive impact on her life. Jane lost one thing already and she wasn't about to lose another. She wanted so desperately to help Tasha and the fact that she couldn't only added to her guilt. Jane knew she was being irrational because the teenager's circumstance was out of her control, but it was her duty to help people in need.
Jane let out a heavy sigh. She knew Maura was right all along, losing the baby was a big factor in her decision to try and foster Tasha. The brunette hated how she lashed out at Maura for only trying to help. What she never expected to happen was for her friend to finally call her out on her past behavior. Things were never supposed to be this way. Maura thought that she was oblivious to how Casey treated her but the detective wasn't stupid, she knew and she accepted it. Jane was never a fan of complicated relationships and things with Casey were about as uncomplicated as they could get. She experienced so many sleepless nights where she would tell herself countless times that she was the biggest coward to ever live. She much rather watch the love of her life be happy with other people than risk losing her. Maura had been the one steady thing in her life, her village. Now she was in danger of losing it all because she couldn't face the truth.
The detective had been a strong, confident and independent woman once. She could remember vividly the speech she gave Joey Grant the night her mother tried to set them up. Detective Jane Rizzoli has never needed of a man and never will. The only two things the brunette needed were Maura and her family.
But oh, how the great fall.
Once she fell in love with the medical examiner, everything she thought she knew about herself went straight to hell. She was suddenly a love struck fool who couldn't focus on anything but the object of her desire. Jane would do anything to ensure the doctor's happiness. The love she felt was so strong that the detective's initial instinct was to run away from it. Jane wasn't ready to accept the consequences of falling in love with Maura, so she ran. Jane buried everything deep inside, in hopes that it remain locked inside her soul forever. She would tell herself that Maura deserved better than a careless blue collar detective anyways.
Jane wasn't ready to accept her attraction to the blonde and probably never will be. She had a hard time coming to terms with her attraction to Maura because that meant accepting a part of herself that she had suppressed for so long. Her earliest memories consisted of her running around with the neighborhood boys and her brothers. She was known as the notorious tomboy of the block and she heard the constant gossip about her. All the mean girls in middle school would yell out, Gayzzoli or Lezzoli as she walked to class and was constantly teased her for dressing less femininely.
Everybody was so quick to put a label on her at a time when she wasn't even sure who she was yet. Her whole life she was told she was going to be a certain type of person and it was all very confusing. As a result, Jane was so determined to not let those people define her and spent a large part of her childhood trying to prove them wrong. She dated boys and dismissed her attraction towards certain girls. Even after she grew up and joined the academy, Jane tried her hardest to prove the childhood bullies wrong. Accepting her homosexuality would mean giving those people just what they wanted. On top of that, she grew up in a very Catholic household where it was also shunned upon. Being gay would mean she had dishonored her family and that something was wrong with her. She had already disappointed her mother enough by becoming a police officer and Jane didn't want to give Angela another reason to be ashamed of her.
But then she met the gorgeous medical examiner and the attraction she felt for her hit Jane like a runaway freight train. She had never felt this way about anyone and it scared the shit out of her. For once, she actually thought about giving into those labels placed on her and confessing her feelings. Then Jane thought about what her mother might say and the crippling fear of disappointing her family returned. She usually didn't care about what her mother had to say to her, so she couldn't fathom why it hurt her so much to think about Angela's potential disappointment in her sexuality. Upon further analysis, Jane realized that this is who she was and that she wouldn't be able to survive knowing her mother couldn't accept her for being her true self. As much as she hated it, she needed her family. Ultimately fear won out and Jane continued to repress her feelings, which was why Jane wanted to see Maura be happy with other people. She wanted the doctor to be with someone who had already figured themselves out and not constantly be hiding from others. Maura deserved someone who would proudly take her out on dates and not worry about what other people had to say.
Jane believed that the medical examiner represented everything that was good in this world and she wasn't about to ruin her. So she settled for crappy men. Well, two in particular.
First there was Dean, who was nothing more than a decent lay. He came into her life at moment where she desperately needed a distraction from Hoyt and her ever growing feelings towards a certain blonde doctor. He was unattached and very willing to not take their relationship to anything past casual. Jane eventually came to see him as a friend or that was until he immediately violated that trust. Dean almost cost her the one person she valued over anyone else, Maura. Jane had no problem never seeing him again and she never did.
After that whole Dean debacle, she was left with Casey. Jane's relationship with Casey was just a big cluster fuck that she let get out of hand. Things with him could of been as simple as they were with Dean, but stubborn detective always liked to complicate her life. The detective was desperately seeking an escape from the truth because her whole life revolved around Maura and all those buried thoughts were coming ashore and drowning her. She needed an out and Casey was it.
Her decision to be in a relationship with him was probably her lowest decision ever. She was hiding from herself and living in constant sadness and denial. Jane reasoned with herself that the situation with Casey was ideal. Casey would go back overseas for most of the year, which meant that she wouldn't have to deal with him and she could continue to focus one hundred percent on her job. She didn't mind that he only returned to have sex with her and then leave again. He used her and she was okay with that because she also used him. Casey was her distraction and Jane prayed that eventually her feelings for Maura would die off. Jane pulled away from her best friend and it created a riff in their friendship. The only way to squash those feelings she had for Maura was to cut off the source. Jane genuinely believed that if she distanced herself from the blonde, it would be easier to ignore and repress her internal battle. The strategy was to talk about Casey to the doctor enough times to convince herself that she loved him and that he would be enough.
Jane soon found out though that getting a certain medical examiner out of her head was impossible. On the rare occasions that Casey would show up and they ended up naked on the bed, all she thought about was a certain blonde doctor. The world was truly a cruel place, everything reminded her of Maura. Not a day passed that Jane didn't think about her beautiful friend. It pained her to behave so badly towards Maura, but it had to be that way. The brunette was so far up in denial that she couldn't see how this also negatively affected Maura. Her own selfishness made her hurt the one person she swore she would never hurt and things only got worse when Casey proposed.
The proposal took everyone by surprise. The detective knew their relationship wasn't ready to take that step, yet she contemplated actually saying yes. It really wasn't that difficult of a decision because normally Jane would never under any circumstance, think about leaving her job, family, and Maura.
But fear is a very powerful emotion and it had a strong grip on Jane Rizzoli.
If she agreed to marry the veteran and move away from everyone, it would be much easier to live a life full of lies. On the other hand if the brunette stayed, she would have to continue to wrestle with her inner feelings and eventually face her fear. To be honest, running away seemed a hell of a lot like the better option than staying.
She attempted to imagine her life as an Army wife but it was so dull. But who was the detective kidding, a life without Maura, in general, would be meaningless. Was Jane genuinely willing to give up the one thing besides the blonde that gave her life meaning, her job. Being a detective was the one thing that kept Jane sane. The brunette may have been running away from her personal life but being the best homicide detective in Boston was her ultimate motivation to continue on in life. She wasn't sure if she was ready to let that part of her go.
During a long internal debate, Jane came to the conclusion that she valued her job and family too much to go live in army base. She also realized that she couldn't continue to hide from her true self and that sent the detective into a frenzy. She wasn't ready to accept herself, let alone tell Maura. In that moment of panic, Jane quickly came up with an unreasonable solution. She told herself that there was no need for her to tell the blonde anything. She simply could just live alone forever, just as long as she had Maura and her family. Fast forward a couple of weeks and now she was on the verge of confessing the truth to the one person she prayed would never find out.
After the big confrontation with Maura, Jane knew they only way to salvage the friendship she had with the blonde was to admit everything and clear the air. Her brain finished processing that last thought and suddenly, the detective wasn't feeling too well. Her whole body began to shake, sweat, and the room was closing in on her. Jane launched herself up from the bed and ran straight to the toilet in the bathroom. She arrived just in time for her knees to hit the cold tile floor and she began to empty out her stomach inside of the toilet. The brunette threw up until she thought there was nothing left in her system to dispense, her throat and stomach felt like they were on fire and her fever increased in temperature.
The moment Jane began to think about how to approach this subject with Maura, she felt her stomach turn over and it was back to the toilet for her. The stubborn Italian lost track of how long she had been in the bathroom and during her last bout of vomiting, she had strained herself so much that she was suddenly seeing white lights all around her. That's when the epiphany came to her.
Maybe it was the white lights that made her have the epiphany or maybe it was that paralyzing feeling after being struck by lighting that shook her to her core, but Jane realized that her childhood tormentors and fear had power over her because she allowed them too. Her whole life the brunette grew up thinking that if she had proved them wrong, she would take away their power over her. But boy was she wrong.
The only thing Jane was accomplishing by trying to prove everybody wrong about her sexuality was giving them even more power. The purpose of the labeling and name calling was to torture Jane and the misery only continued as an adult. Certain people have dictated a big part of her life but if Jane just accepted who she really was, if she just accepted her attraction to women, there would be nothing left for people to say, nothing left to hide.
Yes, she was in love with a woman.
Yes, she finds women absolutely gorgeously, stunning.
But most importantly, her sexuality does not define who she is. She is a homicide detective who brings people to justice. She is a daughter, a sister, and has the honor of being the best friend to the greatest person in the world. She is a good person with a lot of heart and a lot to be proud of, nobody can take that away from her.
There is something empowering about owning up to one's true identity and it took Jane puking her brains out to discover that. Upon that revelation the detective closed the seat to the toilet, leaned her back against the wall, and began to laugh hysterically. The fits of laughter were joined by tears that suddenly leaked from her eyes and wouldn't stop flowing. The weight that Jane felt on her body was gone, it was like she could finally breathe without the constant pain on her chest. The shackles that were dragging her down every single day disappeared permanently and the brunette felt lighter than ever. She was finally coming to life.
No more hiding or running. She can finally get the fresh start she deeply desired and it's all going to start with telling the medical examiner the truth. It was her turn to fix what she had so badly damaged. Maura had demanded the truth and the detective is going to give it to her. Jane knew that no matter what happens, she was going to try her hardest to work things out with Maura. Even if the blonde rejects her romantic feelings, she is not going to continue running away from who she truly is. Jane felt the fear of rejection from her family and Maura start to creep in but she quickly squandered it. Maura means the world to Jane, so the brunette knows that she could never let that relationship die. Her mother may be a conservative Italian Catholic but if she truly loved Jane, Angela would bend for her. Jane calmed her fears by reasoning that her mother only wanted to see her happy and Maura was it for her. The detective just hated how long it took her to finally come to her senses, how could she have been so stupid to not see things the way there were.
With a final sigh, Jane willed herself up from the floor and up towards the shower. She allowed herself to just stand under the hot water and for the first time since she could remember, enjoy the feeling of the water on her body and not think about anything else. After her shower, she put on her Boston PD t-shirt and underwear, opting not to wear shorts for the night, and went straight to bed.
Jane Rizzoli was in love with Maura Isles and she was finally ready for the world to know.