Thursday morning, seven o'clock.
Maura had arrived half an hour early to deal with mountains of paperwork but had gone up to the bullpen five minutes before seven to be there when Jane arrived. She was concerned, but looked perfect as usual in a tight sand-colored skirt-and-jacket combination over a buttercup yellow blouse.
She expected Jane to show up in the collar, and Cavanaugh to demand she take it off, and Maura was there to defuse any problems that might arise from this. It was just a silly bet, after all, and nothing worth a reprimand or friction with the lieutenant.
Then Jane strode through the open doors to the detective bullpen and Maura's mind halted, along with all conversations in the room.
She was wearing tight black jeans, a tight black tank top, the collar and a hip-length black leather jacket with an off-center zipper. She looked stunning, like some heavy metal dream made flesh. She even looked taller. Maura checked her feet. Jane was still wearing boots, but these had heels and very complicated straps-and-buckles. They were a far cry from her usual door-kickers. Jane had been raiding parts of her closet that were rarely disturbed.
"Yes, people, I stupidly made a bet with Maura again and I'll be wearing this all day. No, I'm not into S&M. No, I'll never learn from some mistakes. Yes, it could have been a LOT worse, I could be here in a hula skirt and coconut bra but Maura's too nice for that. I figure if I only play bad cop all day and not go near any grieving relatives we can make this work. Will you help me out, guys?"
Maura marveled at the opening line. Jane had defused the critics, made it seem like Maura had picked out the clothes, had figured out a way of sneaking around the inappropriate-ness of the ensemble and got the rest of the team to pitch in and help her make it through the day. It was a chess gambit anticipating all the oppositions' moves.
The detectives gave a slow clap but there were no catcalls or whistles. Either everyone was too intimidated by Jane, or there was so much appreciation of her form that no-one wanted to mar it with crude comments.
Frost walked past Maura and leaned close to her in passing. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have excellent taste. She's a keeper." He walked off toward the break room to get coffee and hide his enormous grin. Maura followed him with her eyes. Jane was explaining the bet to a cluster of detectives who were trying very hard to not openly stare at anything below her collarbone. A few of them were making discreet thumbs-up signs to Maura when Jane wasn't looking. Cavanaugh was watching from the door to his office, eyes narrowed. Maura decided to do a bit of blocking and absorb some of the ire before he could lash out at Jane.
"Good morning, lieutenant."
"Hello, doc. Your idea, I hear?"
"In part, yes." No need to risk hives, when the truth could work just as well as a lie.
"That is far from work-appropriate for police, but Rizzoli has a point. If she keeps away from grieving relatives and the press I'll let her keep it for today. If anyone outside homicide comments, I'll say she's prepping for undercover work."
"I could just ask her to go home and change clothes. It's no big deal, it was just a bet."
"You know something, doc? I don't think so. I've seen Rizzoli back out of bets a few times when she's considered the price too high. I've never seen her back out on a bet with you. In fact I think she'd rather get fired than fail on something she promised you. You may want to keep that in mind when you make deals with her in the future. It carries a lot of responsibility." Cavanaugh looked directly at her, driving the point home.
"I'll remember it. Thank you."
Jane came sauntering over, or at least tried to. The clothes did not lend themselves to her usual confident swagger, so it morphed into something more nervy and aggressive. Maura had always felt that some clothes carried themselves and affected the wearer's stature – at least on her – and this ensemble obviously did the same for Jane. Leather-and-jeans-Jane had a tinge of adrenaline in what she did. Maura thought she looked delicious.
"I haven't dressed like this since I was 20, and I've never worn a collar like this before." Jane grinned.
"Will this teach you to not make bets with me?"
"Doubt it. Given time I could get used to wearing this, at least once in a while. Ask me again later today when I've had it on a bit longer."
Maura felt a warm wave flow through her body again. The thought of rocker-Jane stalking around and intimidating people was a bit of a turn-on. The collar that had just seemed like a fun, romantic and slightly goofy idea when she bought it looked a lot hotter and more serious around that slim neck. Owned by M. The thought of rocker-Jane stalking around Maura's house in that collar was even more interesting and made select parts of Maura pulse. Maybe she could convince Jane to... she shook her head. This was not a good time for zoning out. Her phone dragged her back to the present. She answered, and listened while Jane looked at her eyes, gauging her reactions, trying to see if it was a call-out or internal work.
"I'll be down at once." She hung up. "I'm needed in the lab. I'll see you later."
"Yeah, how about lunch together?"
"Yes please. Ooh, I have an idea! You remember 'Marseille'? Let's eat lunch there on my dime. I can't wait to see how the maitre reacts to the two of us when I show you off." Maura smiled mischievously and walked toward the elevators. Jane stared after her wearing the vacant look again. The rest of homicide watched Jane idle in place, making discreet bets about calendar dates and outcomes.
- R&I -
Jane settled in to do paperwork in order to stay out of sight and keep a low profile, but was constantly interrupted by officers who came in to ask about strange and more often than not completely irrelevant things. After rudely dismissing the fourth nonsense request in fifteen minutes she realized that people were coming just to check if the rumors were true about the collar, and she retreated to the break room with her stacks of paper instead. It was weird and inconvenient, but not really unexpected.
Twenty minutes later Frost and Jane got a call-out. A body with visible blunt force trauma plus bullet holes, found in a parking lot in a mixed residential and business neighborhood. The Rizzoli-Frost combo meal arrived at speed in a dented sky-blue Cop Vic and parked on the curb since regular black-and-whites, Maura's prius and a grey forensic van already – annoyingly – crowded the lot. Frost stepped out of the passenger side, looking dapper and in control in a tailored gray three-piece, lavender silk shirt and shiny shoes. Jane climbed out from behind the steering wheel, looking dangerously feral and attracting a lot more attention from the assorted personnel and random passers-by.
The uniform standing guard over the crime tape recognized Jane, like most men (and many women) in Boston PD, and wisely avoided asking why she was dressed for punk revival rather than detective work. He held up the tape and Jane scowled past him making a beeline for the body. Like everyone else who got close enough he saw, and read, the metal sign under the spiked collar and stood unfocused for a couple of seconds while his mind and libido digested the implications of 'owned'. In his mind there was no question about who the owner was. He turned to sneak a look at Jane's ass and instead got the full force of the Cobra Stare since she anticipated it and met his eyes as he turned. She snarled at him, continued to the body and stepped carefully around it to stand beside Maura who was busy taking and preserving swabs and samples.
"People are having a lot of fun watching me." Jane talked to Maura while following Frost with her eyes as he headed off to get crime scene background from the uniforms.
"I only gave you the collar, the rest is self-inflicted and that officer was not trying to get a better look at the collar." Maura produced a Mona Lisa smile while swabbing the wounds on the body.
"My ass is my private business, not his. He shouldn't look at it."
"I look at it."
"You look at my ass?" Jane felt her gut clench for a moment, and warmth spread out from it in select directions.
"Yes. I think it looks very attractive, especially in those jeans. Am I not allowed to look either?" Maura was putting swabs in sterile tubes and labeling them while she talked, apparently 100% concentrated on her work. Jane was staring at her, 100% concentrated on staying upright instead of collapsing in a puddle of hormones as her mind filled with unexpected and very explicit images. Be cool, be cool, stay on track.
"You are allowed, he isn't."
"How come?"
"You're my..." Jane felt her train of thought derail. "You're my... owner." That did not come out right. I think.
"And therefore I'm allowed to look at you?"
"Yes."
"Do you look at me? Like that?"
Jane suddenly felt like a small mammal frozen in the middle of the road while something big and bright approached. She decided to brave it out.
"Yes I do. You are a very hot woman."
"I'm glad to hear it. I look forward to a detailed conversation about this when we get home."
The bright light resolved into a semi. Today might be a good day to turn into a crunchy pancake after all. She had forgotten that the workday would end at some point and she would spend the rest of the evening at Maura's place.
"No problem, I have nothing to hide." Just my emotional balance and my biggest secret ever.
"...And no way to hide it from me. Don't worry, Jane. I'll be gentle."
Ka-fluff, fluff-fluff, fluff-fluff. Semi: 1, helpless bunny w/ fresh tread pattern: 0.
Jane raised a cold hand to her suddenly hot forehead and tried to focus enough to get at least vocal and basic motor skills online again.
"I need to go. Over there." She pointed to a spot at random without looking and stalked off while groups of PD personnel watched her go and Dr Isles stay with a proud smile and an unsettling gleam in her eyes, still marking sample tubes.
Everyone realized something serious was happening, but it was not 100% clear what it was. Either Dr Isles and Detective Rizzoli had been a pair for years and were falling out, or they were actually just best friends up till now and were falling in. Either way it would be prudent to keep the distance. Getting too close would mean getting mauled by Rizzoli at the very least and only God knew what Dr Isles was capable of if she ever got angry enough to harm someone.
Jane stood in front of a shop window and re-organized her thoughts for the second time that day while staring at nothing. Keeping a handle on her swiftly developing relationship with Maura was edging into a half-time occupation. It had gone from best friends with a subtle sprinkling of hope-of-more to something decidedly beyond just friends but not exactly a commitment – yet – in a matter of hours. She was re-sorting and analyzing conversations and innuendo until her eyes suddenly focused and she realized she had been staring at a wedding dress in the window for ten minutes. She groaned in frustration and marched back to the crime scene. Everyone from the PD was watching her. Bystanders were watching her. Pigeons were watching her. She gritted her teeth and high-stepped back over the crime tape scattering witnesses, nervous uniforms and various subjects of the Queen of the Dead. Only the pigeons were unimpressed, but on the other hand it was well known that you might get a Boston pigeon to blink if you struck it with a hammer. They were – oddly, for birds – unflappable.
"Jane, heel." Maura said it casually and at normal conversation volume but through some freak psychosonic effect it carried far and wide. Everyone stiffened minutely except Jane who growled and changed course toward her. After the previous bit of vocal sparring she was painfully aware of Maura's very shapely ass in that tight skirt as she sat squatting next to the body. If she stood behind Maura to look over her shoulder she would inevitably stare at it and drool, drawing attention to herself from subjects and uniforms. If she stood in front of Maura she would probably be staring at her legs and halfway up her skirt instead, calling attention to herself from Maura. She needed sunglasses. She carefully positioned herself to Maura's side, getting an eyeful of her breasts in profile instead. It was deeply unfair that she had no body parts that weren't alluring.
"You rang?" Her Lurch imitation fell flat. Maura was all business.
"Preliminary cause of death is gunshot plus blunt force trauma. The weapon is roughly finger-wide and heavy. The wounds have minor parallel tears in the skin orthogonal to the direction of the wounds, and the alternating widths of the imprints combined with the tear pattern gives me the impression that we are looking for a piece of folded rebar used as a baton. I'll know more about the bullet caliber when we have measured the wound channels at the lab."
"So someone came here with an iron rod and started beating on the guy, then corpsy here fought back and rebar guy pulled a gun and dropped him. Sounds plausible?"
"Plausible. The victim has been dead since around six o'clock, any hope of finding witnesses from that time frame?"
"Lots of shops means lots of people around. Someone should have seen something even if it happened early in the morning. Some of the shop owners could have been loading in supplies and restocking around then."
"Do you have any special plans for that wedding dress?"
"As a matter of fact I do, but I haven't popped the question yet so it's all a bit premature." Jane was struggling to stay still and not run off whimpering. The stakes were much too high for her taste today and her mouth kept taking the initiative without consulting the rest of her. She was not ready for pressures like these when under-caffeinated.
"You'll tell me when you decide to make any major changes in your marital status, I hope."
"You will literally be the first to know." A crash made them both jump and they turned and looked at a mortified subject who had dropped a tray full of gear on the pavement and now tried to avoid eye contact and look casual.
"It's almost nine o'clock. How about I make a lap and look for witnesses, and then we go and eat lunch?"
"Good thinking, my lunch reservation at Marseille is from eleven to one. I'll help butterfingers here pick up the things he eaves-dropped. See you in about two hours." Jane walked away while Maura stood and prepared to embarrass her minion to death.