The afternoon breeze blew the fallen leaves across the street as Jane pulled into her usual place outside her apartment building. Pike had eventually gotten evidence to Susie who was able to determine where the victim had been killed and so the detectives had spent the better part of the afternoon at the murder scene collecting evidence and canvassing for witnesses.
Jane trudged up her stairs, regretting that she'd said she would clean. All she wanted was to crawl into Maura's embrace and sleep. Pike was so tiring and Maura was the only remedy. She opened her door and closed it behind her, then sighed heavily, telling herself to clean. She made a deal with herself to ease her way into it. She would have a shower first and then begin, even though she'd probably need a shower afterwards as well.
She plodded into her room and resisted the incredibly strong urge to jump onto her bed and close her eyes. She opened her draw and grabbed out a pair of shorts and a baggy t-shirt and carried them into the bathroom. She dropped them down onto the vanity and began stripping off. When she was in her underwear, she looked at herself in the mirror, and thought Maura would like what she saw so she scurried back out into her room to grab her phone and hurried back inside.
She took a photo straight on with her hair pulled over one shoulder and her thumb hooked into the waistband of her panties. She smiled at the photo then turned around and unclasped her bra and let it fall to the floor. She took a photo over her shoulder with her hair still mainly over her shoulder, but a few strands had fallen down her back. Jane giggled to herself, for she had never done anything like this before. She calmed herself and opened the first photo to send to Maura, but before she could press send, she heard her front door close.
She placed her phone down on the vanity and picked up her shirt and pulled it over her head, then moved out to her room and quietly grabbed her gun and cocked it. She heard another noise and stepped out into the hall where she saw a bucket and an old rag hanging over the side of it. "Don't make me shoot you, Ma," she said as she stood out into the kitchen and Angela popped up from in front of the couch.
"Janie, you wouldn't shoot me." Jane tilted her head in deep thought and then hopped out of the way before a damp cloth hit her in the face. "I thought you could use some help, or motivation. What were you doing?"
"I was getting ready to have a shower before I cleaned."
"Mmhm," Angela mumbled to herself then picked up the bucket and rag by the door and headed into the kitchen.
"What about Maura?"
"Susie popped by and said she would stay until we got back."
"Okay, well, I'm going to have my shower," Jane excused herself. She walked back into her room and deposited her gun in her top drawer and then moved back into the bathroom. She picked up her phone and finished writing her message to Maura.
To make you feel better ;) Say hi to Susie for me, but don't show her the photo! xo
She placed her phone down and pulled her shirt over her head and then wriggled out of her panties and jumped into the shower. She pulled her hair up into a messy bun at the top of her head, deciding that it would take too long to dry before cleaning. She dipped under the water once she'd turned it on and found a temperature that was neither freezing, in case she caught a cold, nor too warm, in case she fell asleep.
She heard her phone buzz and looked over to see it light up, so she stepped half way out of the shower and reached over to tap the message open and chuckled when she read Maura's reply.
Susie says hi back. Photos of you in a state of undress are all mine; so fear not, my love xo
She was about to reply, when her bathroom door swung open and she had to quickly leap back into the shower. "Ma!"
"Oh, relax, Janie. Clean the shower please," she said as she placed down a few cleaning products and a wet cloth. All of sudden her phone buzzed again and both Rizzoli women glared at it, but Jane had the most fear in her eyes. "Do you want me to get that?"
"No, I got it!" Jane announced loudly, surprising Angela, before she stepped out again, this time not so worried about her nudity, and grabbed the phone. "Thanks, Ma," she said before opening the message. Angela nodded suspiciously at her daughter and left, so Jane opened the message. It was a reply photo of Maura in her underwear standing in her bedroom. Her panties didn't match her bra, but Jane liked it. She wound her finger into a strand of hair that had fallen down when she noticed that Maura was standing the same way; twirling a strand of hair around her finger as she bit her bottom lip.
Jane bit her bottom lip in response and then kissed her phone and placed it down to clean her shower. She scrubbed down the floor and soaped up the glass and the tiles. Had her mother not knocked on the door to see how she was going, Jane would've proceeded to soap herself up and take a few more pictures for Maura. Later, she told herself. She rinsed down the soap and was surprised at just how much cleaner the glass looked. She washed herself then, all the while, wishing Maura was with her. It had been one day, and she missed her. Her touch; her smell; her kisses. Her.
She hopped out and put on her bra and underwear again and then the clothes she had gotten out to clean in and let her hair down to brush it. She hated brushing it because of the knots she'd always find, but she remembered the few times Maura had done it for her; after Hoyt had attacked her the first time, after she'd shot herself and one time when she'd had a terrible cold and had to keep putting down her brush every second to wipe or blow her nose; and it seemed a whole lot easier.
Maura never seemed to find knots. The brush just slid through Jane's hair like it was silk. She was gentle and kind and would kiss the top of Jane's head when she'd finished. She was in a trance as she imagined Maura's hands cradling her tired head and pulling the brush through her wild hair. She felt as if she could fall asleep in those hands, knowing that they would be there to hold her up and caress her aching scalp.
"Jane!" Angela bellowed as she swung open the door.
"What?" Jane spat back, slamming down her brush.
"I'm not going to do all the cleaning, you know."
"Then you shouldn't have come over and offered," Jane argued as she pulled her still knotty hair up into a ponytail so that she could help her nagging mother to clean. She vacuumed all the floors while Angela dusted down every single thing in the lounge room and kitchen, but decided to leave Jane's room for Jane in case she came across something she wasn't meant to.
"I'll see you back at Maura's," Angela called to Jane who had long finished vacuuming and was somewhere in her room looking at old photos that she'd tucked in between pages in books that meant something to her: the first novel she ever read by herself; a book Maura had lent her, but she'd forgotten to return; and a joke book that she used to take to school to make each day happy. She found photos of her from her childhood and from high school; probably photos that she didn't want anyone to see because of how dorky she was. As she was flicking through the book Maura had lent her, a bulk of photos fell out.
She picked them up and leaned back against her bed to look through them. They were mainly just old photos of when she'd first became a homicide detective and Angela had insisted to take photos of everyone she was introduced to that worked with her baby girl. And then she found one from the week she met Maura. She'd finished a night shift of being a hooker and was heading out of BPD to go home and take a long and overdue shower when she saw Maura hop into the elevator to head down to the morgue.
She decided to follow her down and apologise for how she'd acted in their first meeting, but for some reason felt nervous. She'd walked out into the morgue and could hear the doctor's high heels making their way down the hall to her office, so Jane followed. She'd knocked gently on her door and introduced herself and apologised for being so rude. Maura had giggled at her because she thought she was "so sweet." No one had ever called Jane Rizzoli 'sweet' and it took her aback. Little did she know at the time, but not many people had ever gone out of their way to talk to Maura or to make her feel better, and so that was why she was sweet.
Jane looked over the photo she had taken of her and Maura on her phone. She'd had it printed out so that Angela could have a hard copy of whomever this Maura girl was that Jane was hanging around with lately. She'd wrapped her arm around Maura's shoulders and pulled her in close so that they could fit in the frame and that had, apparently, made Maura blush. The doctor's cheeks were flushed and her smile was wide as Jane grinned toothily at the camera. They'd agreed to have a drink at the Dirty Robber the next night, and the next, and the next, and so began their great friendship.
Jane wiped at her eye and slipped the photo into her pocket to show Maura. She found a few other photos of the two of them at various times in their friendship; one of which was the first Christmas Party at BPD that they both attended. Jane had gotten Maura a little bit drunk and had made the mistake of standing near the mistletoe, for Maura came over and kissed her on the cheek just as Frost, it must have been, snapped a photo of it. Maura was blushing again, as was Jane this time, and so Jane nodded deviously to herself as she slipped that photo into her pocket as well.
She finally stood up after rifling through her old photos and then cleaning the rest of her shelves and made sure her room was presentable. She wanted to bring Maura over to spend the night one time if she could. She gathered up what she'd need for her night at Maura's, which ended up being a fresh change of underwear and her phone, which was still sitting in the bathroom from earlier that evening.
By the time Jane had locked up her little place and made it across to Maura's through the traffic it was nearing dinner time, so she typed out a quick text to the blonde while she was stuck at a red light to see if she had anything planned for dinner. She received a text a second before she took off again saying that Angela had cooked them all up something and that Susie was staying for dinner. Five minutes later, Jane pulled into Maura's driveway and practically skipped inside; eager to see her best friend and girlfriend. She didn't know if what she and Maura had going would last as a relationship, but she knew that they would always be best friends.
She closed the door behind her and bounded up to Maura's side and wrapped her arm around her. "Hi, Susie," she said rather cheerfully. Susie smiled back as she helped Angela dish out dinner. "Hi, you," Jane whispered to Maura who was seated on a stool.
"Hi, you," Maura said back, with a smile that could light up the darkest of rooms. "Who knew cleaning could make someone so happy."
"I found some pictures of us from when we first met."
"Oh?"
"I think I loved you from the moment I met you," Jane explained with a small smile.
"Oh, did you... sister?" Jane laughed at Maura's mocking of their first conversation which caught Angela's attention.
"What are you two laughing about?"
"Nothing," Jane said, bringing her face back to a neutral expression. Angela smiled knowingly at the two women. She too knew that Jane had loved Maura from the first time they met, and was very glad with herself that she was right.