Author's note: Thank you very much for all the reviews, they're very much appreciated.

Chapter Three

After making sure that she was comfortably sitting on the floor by the fireplace, Maura took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Only for a few seconds, a tiny lapse of meditation time. It should result to be enough for her to calm down her heartbeats. Then everything would be alright.

Hopefully.

With a shaking hand she finally clicked on the green button and nervously waited for Jane to take the call. She hadn't slept well. Her new environment had only managed to add stress to a situation that drove her crazy in the first place. Yet among this emotional mess, a bittersweet reality kept on shining brightly: she needed to talk to Jane, she needed to see her. To hear her voice, her laugh. No matter what had happened.

Something was missing when Jane wasn't around, something that put back in question the precarious balance of her very own existence.

A sentiment of relief had embraced her frame the moment her friend had positively replied to the resquet via a text message. It was what they had planned on doing anyway: a call per day. The time difference woud be challenging to handle but it wasn't the first time that they would respectively have to face such kind of issue. They could overcome it. They could overcome absolutely anything.

"Good mornin', Oregon." Jane flashed a smile but immediately squinted her eyes at the screen. She leaned over her computer. "A fireplace? In August?"

Jane's casualness warmed up Maura's heart. She relaxed right away even if a little voice in her head kept on telling her that they couldn't pretend that nothing had happened. They would have to talk about it at some point, even if through half-words only.

"It's 39°F outside and probably 42°F inside the house. I can't believe I'm about to say this but I'm actually deeply missing the heatwave that Boston is having right now."

"Oh... Wow." Jane laughed nervously. She cast a brief glance at something on her left – something Maura couldn't see from where she was – then waved a large cup at her friend. "Second frappe of the day. I'd die without it. Looks like you can draw a line under any cold drink and go for a hot chocolate instead. So how's Oregon?"

A thin layer of disappointment spread over Maura's heart. It was very ridiculous but she had hoped that they would allude to their kiss. Instead they were casually talking as if life was going on. It should have made her happy - after all, Jane spared her a delicate moment of incomprehensible feelings - but against all expectations, it left a bitter taste in her mouth and she didn't like it.

"Apart from being cold? I don't really know. It's 9am and I haven't left the house yet. As a matter of fact, I guess a few of my colleagues are still sleeping. Others went for a jog. We aren't supposed to meet Daniela Caruso before the end of the afternoon so we still we quite a lot of time ahead of us."

The medical examiner of Newport had insisted on everyone to arrive on Friday even if the internship would not start before Monday. She had assumed that forty-eight hours would be more than welcome to discover the area a bit.

Sadly it was without counting on the awful weather that had chances to compromise such a sweet idea.

"Wait. Maura Isles didn't go running? Really? She decided to stay inside instead and enjoy a cup of coffee by the fireplace?"

Maura unfolded her legs. She held back a yawn then turned the laptop around so Jane could see the weather outside the window. It was still pouring, the wind blowing hard as ever. The sky was so gray that she could hardly tell where the sun was supposed to be.

She had turned the lights on in the living-room to avoid sitting in the darkness while the rest of the house seemed to be succumbing to a symphony of odd noises.

It was a bit gloomy.

"Oh, I see." Jane took a sip of her frappe – a long one – as if she were trying to win some time before offering her friend a more or less decent reply. "Now I get why you didn't bother buying sunscreen."

Maura didn't miss the slight discomfort that kept on punctuating their conversation but everything came to an end rather abruptly the moment the main door of the house got opened and William – Matthew – and Emily stormed in.

The temperature of the living-room dropped within a second as a gust of wind followed the small group inside.

Maura curled up against herself in a protective gesture and politely smiled at her colleagues and now roommates. The WIFI didn't seem to be working in her bedroom. It wasn't very surprising though. The weather was too bad and the house too old for her to have at her service an impeccable Internet connection.

"Ahem... Is everything okay at home?"

Jane barely heard the whispered question. It was a purely rhetorical one anyway. Maura assumed that nothing serious had happened or else she would have already known about it one way or another. She cast a brief glance at Emily and Matthew who quietly waved at her before heading towards their respective bedrooms for a well-deserved shower. Only William decided to stay in the living-room. He went straight to the kitchen counter to prepare some coffee.

If Maura had wanted to have a minimum of intimacy to talk to Jane, something told her that it wouldn't happen now.

"Yeah. Bass ate all his leaves last night. He's doing great so far."

The rest of the brief conversation died in a semblance of dialogue. From one neutral topic to another, Maura soon found herself putting an end to the virtual call. The screen turned blank.

She paused.

Perhaps it was better like that. She had come up with a thousand scenarios in her head but none of them had turned out to be the path she and Jane had just taken. The easiness with which they had talked was confusing because the weight of the kiss they had shared at the airport was still there, its shadow floating loudly over their heads.

It was too early. They may need some extra time to process the whole thing. But at least they had talked. At least Maura had been comforted by Jane's voice, her smile. The way her dark eyes glimmered whenever something caught her attention. Her presence, even if virtually.

Yet it couldn't stay that way forever. They couldn't stay trapped between the weight of silence and a confusing casualness that seemed to fight its way back into their existences.

As a sentiment of dissatisfaction wrapped her up, Maura grabbed her cell phone. She typed a text message and sent it to Jane. Words she hadn't dared to say out loud because she wasn't alone in the room, because of what had happened at Logan International.

Take care of you, Jane.

I miss you.

"So I was right about the rare pearl, wasn't I?"

William's question made Maura jump. She had locked herself in a bubble of thoughts the moment her Skype session had ended. How long had she been staring at the screen of her phone? It was slightly embarrassing.

"What do you mean?"

William held out a cup of coffee to her before going to sit on the couch only a couple of feet away from the fireplace where she was still sitting.

"I didn't mean to ovearhear your conversation but obviously your rare pearl is Bostonian. You're just not married yet."

Maura had never wished so much to be swallowed by the ground right now. Her cheeks began to burn to the point it made her vision blurry. It wasn't the first time that someone came to such conclusion regarding her and Jane but the nuance was a lot more delicate now that they had shared this incomprehensible kiss.

"Oh no! Jane is just a friend of mine... My best friend, actually."

Her casual tone of voice seemed sincere and for a couple of seconds Maura got satisfied of it. She simply hadn't thought about a detail that William hadn't missed.

"She's living with you, at your place? You asked her if everything was okay at home." A sweet flicker made his green eyes shine mischieviously. It only lasted a tiny second but still resulted enough to ease the slight tension of the living-room. "And I don't even mention the way you were looking at your screen."

Maura shrugged. It was very strange but she didn't find William intrusive at all. There was something in his attitude that she liked a lot. An ounce of respect mixed to a pure honesty. He was just a talkative man, a very joyful one.

She appreciated his presence in this house, especially on such a gloomy day. He was a ray of sunshine.

"It's a long story but Jane – who also happens to be one of the homicide detectives I work with – is staying at my place because her apartment is going under work. So while she's at home, she takes care of... She takes care of everything."

As a friend would do. Maura felt the urge to add this latest comment but decided to keep it for herself instead. She was afraid that it would sound forced. Besides, she wasn't sure that many friends decided to spend a whole month at another friend's place to feed their pets and water their plants; or at least not the way Jane did.

"Ah... Detective Rizzoli! I read about her in newspapers. Actually, that's even the reason why I assumed last night that you were married. When I got the names of the medical examiners who would take place in this internship, I checked each one of them on the web. Out of curiosity. To have a general idea of whom I'll be seeing here, you know. And by the way some journalists described the relation you and Jane have, I assumed you were more than just colleagues or even just friends. They were talking about a symbiotic relation, a duo. A couple. Is that an exaggeration?"

The fairness of the question echoed Maura's current confusing state of mind. Two days earlier, she would have had no issue whatsoever to reply to William. But now she was lost in an ocean of wonders and she didn't know anymore.

"The relation I have with Jane is..." Maura paused and let her brain choose the word that would seem to be the most appropriate. "It's delicate."