Characters are not mine
Hey everyone!
First of all: Thank you so so much for everything! There are over 200 of you out there right now, and I feel equally sad and happy about that. Like always I want to remind you that I'm here to talk or even just listen.
I hope you'll like this chapter, we'll go through one more dramatic talk, and I promise I'll keep it a bit lighter and fluffier for some chapters afterwards!
Trigger Warnings: Self harm (as usual), mentioning of abuse
Maura pressed Jane's hands one more time before letting go. "I'll be in my yoga room. Call me if you need me."
She had already turned to walk away when the brunette reached for her hand again and spun her around. A sudden need of closeness had hit her, a need that she silenced as her lips found Maura's in a gentle but urgent kiss.
They pulled away when Frankie coughed, but not before reclaiming each others lips one last time. "I love you" Jane whispered.
Frankie watched as Maura raised her hand to lay it onto his sister's face, bringing her close once more. "I love you, too."
"Did I interrupt something?" he asked once the blonde was gone.
Jane looked at him bewildered, "No, why?".
"Her neck" he answered while pointing at his own, "Seems like someone was a little bit too eager.".
Jane mirrored his smile, thinking about how Maura got those marks earlier that day in the shower, but spoke with a more serious voice, "I wished.".
Frankie's face changed from amused to confused. "Wait, that wasn't you?"
The brunette rolled her eyes. "Of course it was me."
Feeling equally annoyed by her brother questioning her sex live, and degraded as she had to remember once again that she wasn't yet able to let her walls down and sleep with the doctor, she tried to change the subject. "Did you mean to talk about my love life when you wrote that letter?" she said as sarcastically as she could, but it came out a lot more desperate than she expected.
He took a step towards her, laying his hand on her arm soothingly. "If that was something you felt like talking about, I wouldn't mind."
After a few moments of silence and a glare from his sister he added, "Okay I would mind, but I'd still listen."
Touched by his words a tear escaped her eyes, something that would have never happened just a few weeks ago.
"Damn, why am I always crying lately?" she asked mostly herself while trying to shield herself from the other Italian.
Frankie had learned from a very young age on, that it was better to leave Jane alone when she was showing signs of being hurt. But his sister had never looked that small before, and so he acted against his experiences, closed the distance and took his sister into his arms.
To his surprise she didn't pull away. She didn't hug him back either, but she leaned against him, sighing as she debated with herself over allowing herself to feel safe or to pull her walls up and run.
It was Frankie who stepped back first, before Jane could decide.
"Why don't we sit down?" he suggested.
They walked towards the couch, Jane sitting down with her legs up between the two of them.
"What do you want to know?" She asked, the mantra Let him be there for you replaying in her head over and over again.
"What are you willing to share?" he replied calmly.
"What do you know?" Her voice seemed fragile, and the scars on her hands were aching.
"You cut."
Jane's head shot up. She hadn't expected her brother to be that bold and forward. She recovered rather quickly though. "Sorry, I shouldn't have been that surprised. I mean I knew that she told you." She looked at her brother who was shaking his head.
"Maura told me, yes, but I already knew."
She crooked her head to one side, silently asking for him to elaborate.
"You showed signs that people usually wouldn't recognize, but I did because of Tess."
She stayed in her position.
"You avoided having weight on your thighs. You even avoided to wear tight pants, and if you did, you pulled at them when sitting down, as if to relieve the tension." Jane looked at him, not believing his words. "Not good enough" she stated.
"Your bandages showed through from time to time." he explained.
Jane shook her head slowly. "Why have you never said anything?"
They talked for hours, about the self harm, about the therapy that had just started, about Maura. Jane felt more relieved with every minute that passed.
Her worst fear had been her brother to stop seeing her as his idol, that he'd pity her. But every reassuring smile, every pause he made to let her talk, every comment from him eased her fear.
Maura came down once to get some water from the kitchen, and left pleased with the progress that the siblings were obviously making. She spend some of the time meditating, but once she was relaxed she stopped, calling Dr Breen instead to get some advice on how to deal with their situation.
"What about Ma?" Frankie asked at some point.
"What about her?" Jane replied.
"Maura told me Ma had a great deal in some of your break downs."
She nodded sadly, thinking for some time. "I wish she could understand" her voice was breaking, "but she doesn't. I talked to her about me possibly having clinical depressions, and she tried to comfort me." A sob escaped. "And the next day I tell her that Maura and I are a couple, and all she says is that I have to be okay again now that I have her, that I have no reason to be sad."
Frankie reached out to hold her hand but she pulled back.
Her mind was once again a spinning wheel. Should she tell him about Casey? That their mother kept mentioning him? That would mean she'd have to tell him. Did she want that?
Frankie noticed her internal struggle, staying silent and patient.
With her eyes glued to her hands she whispered, "And she keeps talking about Casey.".
"What does she say?" he asked carefully, having noticed that Jane was particularly sensitive about her ex on previous family dinners.
"Before Maura she said stuff like that I let a perfect man go, that I made him leave with my behaviour, that it was my fault I lost that relationship – well especially that she lost her oh so perfect son in law." She cried silent tears, not one sob or strangled breath coming out to accompany the drops of salty water.
"And now..." Frankie tried to get her to go on. Even through the tears, something he had maybe witnessed two or three times in his life, he recognized the wall she had pulled up partially.
It took some time for her to find the strength to go on. "She says if I don't change Maura is going to leave me like he did."
"What does she think he left like?"
She sighed. "That he grew tired of my behaviour, not smiling enough for him, not being happy enough when he was here. She thinks he left because he deserved better than me." The tears burned hot paths onto her cheeks.
Frankie pulled out some tissues and gave one to his sister, who happily took it and blew her nose. "What did he really leave like?"
She clenched her teeth. "I broke up with him. I threw him out." she muttered.
"Why?" he asked even though he noticed she was running from the truth.
She looked up at him, her eyes pleading to take the question back, well knowing it was too late to go back then.
He wouldn't ask a second time, but he waited. He had been just about to give her a way out when she breathed in deeply.
"When I opened up to him about this..." she pointed at her thighs, her eyes staying there as she continued, "he abused me" she inhaled sharply, "in every way.". The last words where barely a whisper.
He did his best to comfort her as she went through it with him, opening up further than she did with Maura. Maybe it was the fact that he was her brother and never going to be sexual with her, maybe it was the fact that she knew him almost all her life, it was easier to talk to him either way.
She eventually rocked closer to him, leaning up against his side, feeling safe in her brother's presence.
Quivering from locked up sobs, she finally lost control when he told her to let it out. He held her close as she sobbed and screamed and lived through the pain again, giving her the safety to not fall apart.
Maura shot up from her laptop as the first scream echoed through the house.
She ran down the stairs, skipping some steps as she hurried toward the living room, finding Jane curled up to Frankie, clawing at his shirt while he was stroking her hair. His eyes locked with Maura's and he mouthed the word "Casey" towards her. She nodded in understanding, leaving the two of them alone again.
Theresa had told her she needed to leave things to Frankie sometimes. Jane deserved more than one person to turn to, and Maura deserved more than picking up the emotional pieces every time Jane fell apart.
Having seen and heard Jane cry like that, made her feelings overwhelm her, causing her to sit down on the top step of the stairs and quietly cry.
She wondered about how long the brunette had kept all those memories, all that pain, hidden inside her to cause her to literally scream out. She knew Jane had told him more than her.
After the initial hurt inflicted by that, she hoped her friend, girlfriend, had finally let it all out.
After agonizing minutes the screams and sobs subsided.
Maura got up and made her way down to the siblings again. She stopped out of their sights when she heard Frankie speak quietly, "Does she know?"
Jane's hoarse and after crying crackling voice answered, "Not everything.".
"The way you looked at her earlier...you've never looked at someone like that."
The brunette sighed softly. "I really love her."
"She loves you, too."
"Where are you going with this?"
"What you told me – don't you think she should know, too?"
It stayed silent for some time. Maura felt bad for listening when clearly she shouldn't, but she couldn't bring herself to go away.
"She wouldn't leave you, I'm sure. Not because of this, so why are you afraid of telling her?"
"I'm not afraid."
"Yes you are."
Maura didn't hear a response after that, and had already convinced herself she had just missed it, when Jane's voice softly broke through again.
"I'm afraid she will leave me...not just because of this. I'm afraid that one day it's going to be too much, or she's going to realize that I'm not what she wants, that I can't give her everything she wants. Yesterday, when I thought she'd left me..." she didn't speak on.
Before Frankie could answer his phone rang. Maura used the distraction to slip into the bathroom, hoping it was a good enough cover up. As if on cue the male Italian called for her a minute later.
She flushed the toilet and retreated from the small room, finding Frankie standing in the doorway.
"I was on call, they have a body" he said while quickly hugging Maura. He added a "I'll call you later", and with that he was gone, leaving the two women alone again.
A few red spots had made their way onto her chest, but she ignored them as much as possible.
When Maura turned around, Jane was already on her way to the kitchen. "I'm hungry. Are you hungry?"
"Yes I am" Maura replied as she walked towards the kitchen, too.
She was about to open the fridge when Jane's arms wrapped around her. The taller woman nuzzled her face into Maura's neck from behind, breathing in her scent. "Thank you" she whispered.
The blonde leaned back against the Italian, melting into the touch.
"For making me talk to him, for telling me it would be okay, because it was. Thank you so much."
She kissed Maura's neck, surprised when she whimpered and pulled away from her lips.
"Sensitive" she explained.
Jane stepped back enough to take a look at her girlfriend's neck, equally shocked and proud of the large purple spots that have seemed to turn darker during the past hours. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" she asked, carefully running a finger along the bruises.
"No" she shook her head softly, enjoying the gentle caress of her skin, "I'm just lucky I don't have to work tomorrow." She chuckled softly "Or the days after."
The thickness in the air of the previous events seemed to lighten up with every passing second, leaving them giggling as Maura got the boxes of food out of the fridge.
"Hey Maur?" The blonde turned around while Jane got out two plates out of a cupboard. "Let's do something crazy!"
The doctor suppressed a laugh. Jane looked like a five year old, her face glowing in excitement about her seemingly genius idea.
"And what would that be?" she asked, eyebrows ridden up both in amusement and curiosity.
"Let's eat outside today!"
"But Jane, it's almost winter."
The brunette's tired smile didn't falter. "Oh come on, what are jackets there for?"
Realizing she hadn't yet convinced the blonde, she put some spoonfuls of pasta in tomato sauce onto her plate.
"Fine. You don't have to go with me. But I need some fresh air and I feel like I have to break out of normal for some time. Feel free to join me." And with that she left.
She had been sitting in the dark, cooled down by chilly air for a few minutes already when she heard the door open and close again. A pale blue jacket was placed onto the back of her chair and Maura sat down next to her.
"You forgot yours" the blonde said while pulling up her zipper completely. Freezing outside just one day earlier had been enough for her.
Jane shifted a bit, sheltering herself from the harsh wind. "Thanks, but I actually want to feel the cold." she said while pushing a tiny bit of food past her lips. The blonde watched in worry as her friend gulped down the pasta.
"You didn't even warm up your food" she stated while pushing her fork into the steaming dish on her plate.
"I always liked it better as a salad rather than a warm meal" was the only reply she got.
They ate in silence, remaining on their seats even after the plates were emptied.
"I'm sorry Maura. I feel.."
A warm hand closed around her cold one.
"I feel open, like...like everything is just flowing out of me freely."
The hand began massaging hers.
"For a moment I felt great, like I accomplished something huge, and then everything went down again. I thought maybe the cold would help, but it doesn't."
"Can I do something to comfort you?"
She nodded. "Hold me please."
Maura rocked her chair until it touched Jane's, put their plates on the ground, and took the Italian in her arms afterwards.
Feeling the brunette relax after some time and return the hug, feeling her fingers in her hair, she suddenly knew it didn't matter that Jane hadn't told her everything. Three weeks ago she didn't even suspect anything to be wrong. Three weeks ago she hadn't known about anything that had happened. Three weeks ago she didn't know Jane loved her.
They had already come so far, and sitting together in the cold, reassuring and holding each other, she realized nothing mattered more than exactly that.
"I love you" she whispered, not meaning for Jane to hear it.
The words "I love you, too" reached her ears as her head was turned to the side and her lips were met by Jane's.
AN: I hope you liked it! I plan on focussing a bit more on Jane and Maura's relationship in the following chapters, maybe I'll put a therapy session in it, too. Again: My inbox is open for stories, questions, and ideas.
Reviews are appreciated as long as they are written in a nice/neutral tone and aren't written to hurt or offend.
Take care, Alex xxx