It's almost dark by the time Jane returns with a double-armful of firewood and Maura's already set up the tent and their sleeping bags. She's putting the finishing touches on the placement of the lamps inside when she hears under-her-breath, agitated swearing from the brunette outside. Wiping her hands on a towel, she walks out to see what's going on.
To her surprise, the fire's lit; the profanity not the result of unsuccessful fumbling with matches. Instead, she finds Jane elbow-deep in their food chest, searching for something.
"Jane,what are you looking for? I can most likely tell you precisely where it is," Maura tells her. "Or at least I could before you went rifling through everything."
"It's fine, Maur, it'll only take a – Yes, there is it!" She declares triumphantly as she pulls a small paper bag from the depths. She jumps to her feet and reaches for Maura, taking her hand and pulling her over to the fire she'd coaxed into existence mere minutes before.
"Okay, now you sit there," Jane instructs as she points to a log with a blanket draped over it. Before she takes her own set on a bare log across the fire from her best friend, she jogs back over to the tent and grabs a couple of sticks. She offers one to Maura who simply stares at it. Jane rolls her eyes, "Maur, we're making s'mores, you need to have a stick to roast your marshmallows."
Maura would really like to take the tree limb, really, she would, but her mind keeps spouting facts and figures about the bacterial count and which bugs live here and the massive variety of animals that could've marked it as their territory and her hand stays by her side. "Jane – I – the sanitation standards out here..." She trails off, unsure of how to finish that sentence.
Jane gives her a look that screams, really? but gets up and walks over to Maura, sitting down beside her. She holds the stick out to the doctor again, "Maura, it's a bamboo skewer from your kitchen. I'm using the tool from the forest, not you. I know how you are about these things."
On auto-pilot Maura takes the proffered piece of wood, her mind too busy processing this information. She knows how I am about these things. She brought me a skewer so I could still enjoy this with her. She covered the log with a blanket so I wouldn't ruin my clothes.
God, I'm in love with her.
Jane smiles widely at Maura as they both take a marshmallow from the bag and the pathologist knows she's a goner. It's easy to feel herself fall just a little more in love with her best friend as they laugh and attempt to carefully melt pieces of chocolate bar onto graham crackers.
It's one of the best experiences of her life, and there's no one Maura would rather share it with.