DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.
Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.
Chapter 4
Jane went to bed, emotionally exhausted. What Dean had told her, coupled with her reliving and retelling what happened to Maura brought so many things to the surface that Jane felt overwhelmed.
It still scared her to death to think she could have killed herself not knowing Maura was still alive. And it could have caused Maura's death.
It still scared her to death to think that Maura could have died have Dean delayed a little longer to tell Jane she was alive, or if Jane had taken a little longer to reach Maura.
But what still scared the shit out of Jane the most was what she had tried to drown with alcohol, but Dean had stirred to the surface.
Yes. Jane loved Maura as her best friend.
Yes. Jane had been in love with Maura, as way more than a best friend. For a long time, if she was completely honest.
Jane had glimpses of it every time Maura had been in danger. As early as when she was under gun point by Leahy in the morgue when they were investigating the Boston strangler case. Or when Bobby revealed to be the bad guy in the precinct siege. When Hoyt made her suffer and later tried to kill her. When she was abducted by her mafia father. When Dennis Rockmond almost killed her. When she went to jail for Brad Adams. It had been worse when Maura was abducted by Alice Sands' minion. And it hit her full force when Maura was supposedly dead for three weeks.
And yet, as soon as things were back to some resemblance to normal, everything went back to the old normal. Jane never considered telling anything, or changing anything. Sincerely speaking, she didn't even consciously admit to anything. Not even to herself. It was all buried inside her. What she had drowned with alcohol during those three weeks had been again buried by their day-to-day familiarity and proximity like it always had been in the past ten years. And likely it would be for how long they ever lived.
But… what if… What if Maura felt the same way, as Dean had implied? Could it be possible?
Jane turned and stirred for hours before finally sleep won over her agitated state of mind.
Meanwhile, on the apartment down the hall…
Maura went to bed, emotionally exhausted. What Dory's birthday stirred in her was painful. It just brought to the surface the lie she had been living day in, day out. And if she was honest with herself, she had not been living some level of a lie only for the past ten months. It had been going on for much longer. Just the pretense was of a different nature.
Maura thought about her own despair waking up in that hospital bed, disoriented, immobilized, and in immeasurable pain, menacing men in black suits all around her. Through her foggy mind, she remembered repeating Jane's name like a mantra to keep her sane. Most of all, she remembered welcoming the fever, because in her delirium, Jane was there. Until Jane was there for real. To save her once again.
Maura knew she didn't have other close friendships to benchmark against. But based on her observation and research, what she and Jane had was way beyond friendship. And not only recently. It had been for a long time. If Maura had any doubt before, the decisive moment had been when Jane had jumped off that bridge to try to save a witness, and Maura had spent the entire night sure Jane was dead.
Maura still recalled that the thought of Jack didn't even cross her mind that night – and she was in a serious relationship with him then, he was caring, and she thought she loved him. But knowing Jane was dead, Maura was sure she would not be able to go on another day. It was almost as if someone had removed the floor from underneath her feet. It had given her a new perspective of her relationship with Jack – and was one of the factors for her not to propose any crazy idea of moving to New Mexico and following Jack. He was not the person for whom Maura's life could change or stop. Jane was.
Maura shuddered recalling vividly how she felt she could not survive even the first twenty-four hours without Jane on that night of the bridge incident. They took less than twelve hours to find Jane was alive, and Maura had already felt lost and broken and beyond hope. The pain had been unbearable. But whatever surfaced then about her feelings towards Jane, Maura pushed back to the recesses of her mind as soon as she found out that Jane was alive and well.
What brought Maura to the recent present. She had some idea of the alcohol fueled grief period Jane had experienced during her presumed death – Dean had implied it, Jane had been explicit about showing her the evidence in her kitchen cabinet.
What Maura had no idea until tonight was that Jane had seriously contemplated not being able to live without her. Maura's heart skipped a beat just thinking if Jane had used her gun. It made Maura physically sick just to think how she would have felt if she had survived just to find out Jane had killed herself.
While in France, Constance also probed Maura about her relationship with Jane. Her mother could not believe that anyone would have done all that Jane had done for Maura just because they were best friends. And Constance had asked the same question before, when she had first met Jane and Jane had been bold and daring to protect and defend Maura's interests. And again when Constance had been hit by that car and saw her daughter miserable and in pain with the rift in her relationship with Jane. So, while in France, Constance had gently asked Maura again about her feelings for Jane, and Maura had been honest and admitted what she thought she felt, that she was pretty sure that Jane didn't feel the same way, although also admitting she never had acted or discussed it with Jane or with anyone else, that things were good the way they were and Maura would never risk losing what she had, it was too precious and too important for her to risk it in anyway. Maura would never forget her mother nodding her understanding, but saying: "It is your life, and I try not to interfere, Maura. But you know, now more than ever, that things can happen in the blink of an eye, and you will never know until you talk about it, darling… Don't wait for another close brush with mortality to grab life with both hands."
Could it be possible that Jane felt the same way Maura felt about her?
Maura turned and stirred for hours before finally having to resort to yoga and deep breathing exercises to fall into a restless sleep.
