I never wrote a multi-part story before…
But as I finished publishing "Turn to Dust", I felt there was more to tell, as another story.
So this is a continuation of "Turn to Dust".
I strongly recommend you read that one first to understand where this is beginning from.
Unfortunately Fanfic net does not allow me to put the link to it here, but if you search for JCRMDI in the site, and see the list of all my stories, "Turn To Dust" will show there. Or if you Google Turn To Dust JCRMDI, the first result should be the link to the story.
Jane and Maura/Dory are in DC, and romantic RIZZLES finally happens – if this is not your cup of tea, DO NOT continue reading.
ALERT: if you have not watched the show yet, there might be spoilers – I use references to things that happened across all seasons.
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.
I am not a native English speaker, and I don't have a beta. So all mistakes are 100% mine.
Enough of disclaimers and warnings – read at your own risk. Reviews are always welcome.
Chapter 1
It was a Friday night. Jane had left the agency and stopped by the gym to do some boxing. She sparred for an hour before showering and heading home.
She was surprised to see Maura's car was not yet parked by hers in the building parking complex. Maura should long be home by now.
They had moved to the side-by-side apartments Maura had bought in DC six months earlier. Maura was still Dory for the world, and had been working in the ME division of the Agency, only handling the escalation cases, so she had absolutely no external contact and could minimize the chances of exposure of her image to the media. And even inside the agency, her direct interactions were limited to two or three people tops.
Maura had been able to drop the crutches shortly after beginning work on the Agency – the initial weeks being dubbed as her final recovery from a motorcycle accident.
The building Maura worked at was in the same campus where the Trainings Jane taught happened, but they didn't cross paths daily, and they tried to keep their acquaintance as discreet as possible at work to avoid lightening the connections people might make between them.
Jane sent a text to Maura, concerned:
"I just arrived home, ordering delivery. Will you join me?"
The answer was typically an immediate yes, with the suggestion of what Maura wanted Jane to order for them.
When Maura had not yet answered a few minutes later, Jane's apprehension began to rise.
"Are you okay?" Jane tried again.
Jane had been overprotective, the memory of Maura's shooting and presumed death for three weeks still too fresh in her mind even after almost a year of it happening.
Another quarter of hour elapsed without a response. Nothing again.
Jane exhaled. The rational side of her told her to drop it, order her food, it was just likely a delay. Something at work. Some personal errand.
The emotional side of Jane, though, took the best of her. The scenarios running through Jane's mind were wild. Maura lying on a pool of her own blood in the lab in the agency. Or Maura slumped forward over the steering wheel of her car somewhere, the bullet this time having found its mark on the back of Maura's head.
Feeling the bile rising up the back of her throat, Jane stood, picked up her phone and her keys, and decided to drive to the Agency campus.
Jane rationalized she would drive to Agency campus, and go through the parking lot. If Maura's car was still there, Jane would park close to it and wait.
So it was with frustration that Jane realized the campus had way more cars than she had anticipated for that hour… She should have imagined the Agency really never stopped. After driving around without spotting Maura's car, Jane decided to stop by the building Maura worked at. If so many people were still working, there might be someone manning reception who could maybe reach out to Maura – or, better saying, to Dory.
Jane checked her phone once more, but there had been no response from Maura.
Jane entered the building, looking around for someone on reception, when Dean walked out.
"Jane? Are you okay? What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked, visibly concerned, placing a hand on her arm, and noticing she was shaking.
"I cannot reach out to her." Jane responded, her eyes urgent and wide.
He didn't need to ask who 'her' was. He looked at his clock. It was around 8PM, not typical time for being at work, but certainly not time yet for panic.
"I know what you will say. But… With the recent past events…" Jane hesitated, knowing how silly it sounded but at the same knowing how strong she felt about it.
He looked at her, thinking for a moment, before nodding.
"Wait for me here."
He turned on his heels and headed inside of the building.
It took a few minutes, that for Jane felt like a lifetime, but he was back, a puzzled smile on his face.
"She is fine. You can go home. Just know she will need you tonight."
"Wha…"
"Everything is fine, Jane, but I will let her tell you what is going on."
"But she is alright?"
"She is perfectly safe." He confirmed.
Jane nodded, exhaling a breath she had not realized she had been holding.
"Thank you, Dean."
As she turned to leave, Dean touched her arm again.
"You haven't told her yet, have you?"
Jane looked at him, genuinely puzzled.
"Told her what?"
He scrutinized her warm chocolate brown eyes, seeing sincerity in her confusion.
"You don't know yourself, do you?" he asked, almost pained.
"Dean, I swear to God I am not following you..." Jane replied, irritated.
He guided her to sit in one of the benches outside of the building, in the warm night breeze.
"I don't want to sit, Dean. Now that you told me she is alright, I will go home so she does not realize what a fool I made of myself…" Jane sighed, frustrated.
"You love her, Jane." He fired.
"Of course I love her, she is my best friend."
He continued boring his dark eyes into hers.
"It is more than that, Jane. It has always been…"
Jane snapped her head up, feeling her stomach drop.
"Wha…"
He raised a hand, signaling for her to stop.
"I knew it long ago. I was sure you both knew it too and were just very discrete."
"Dean…"
"Jane… I could point out evidence as back as when shit hit the fan with the warehouse events. It was clear as day even then that you were in love with each other. I could even argue the sparks were there since the first time I introduced myself to both of you in the Hoyt's apprentice crime scene, when I first met you both. But I won't go there. I will stop in the recent past, the past year. When you were drinking yourself to death, and even admitted to me that you had considered biting a bullet, to join her, when you believed she had been murdered. When you didn't think twice about abandoning your job because you thought you have lost her, or of going underground or off the law to be with her."
Jane was panicking. During her three weeks of binge drinking, certain things, feelings, fleeting thoughts, that she always had kept buried had surfaced… Jane had attributed them to her drunken state, and she had drowned them into additional drinking. And they had remained buried deep into her since things had been back to a normal.
But Dean had to stir the pot.
"You don't need to confirm or to deny or to tell me anything, Jane. I know. And I will not spill your secret. But you know how close you came to losing her. Don't leave things unspoken, or undone."
Jane was pale under the moonlight, and he could see she was dejected, as if she had been defeated in the most important game of the season.
"I wish things had been different, I do. I was jealous of her… I wished you could feel that way for me." He admitted. "But I realized long ago I never stood a real chance, not compared to her."
Jane shook her head.
"Please, Dean. Don't… don't you ever…" she paused, unsure of what to say.
"Tell her? Why? Don't you think she feels the same?" He dared, angry.
"Of course she doesn't!" Jane almost shouted, frustrated.
"I beg to differ, Jane. Do you know what was the final tip of the scale that made me decide to go to you when she survived the first few days?"
Jane was glad they were in public, so she could contain her desire to choke him. She just shook her head, in anger.
"She kept asking for you, Jane. Conscious or unconscious. Your name was the only thing on her lips. To the point at first WitSec thought Jane was the person who had shot her."
"She would be saying my name because we are best friends, you moron. Because she knew she could trust me…"
"Jane, don't fool yourself, you are smarter than that... The name of your best friend would likely appear if you were dying, true. But trust me, it would not be the ONLY name a person would say for seven days any time she opened her mouth…"
Jane passed her hand through her unruly hair.
"Go home. You don't need to talk to her today about it. Just know she will need you today."
"And you are 100% sure she is alright?"
"I am."
"Okay." Jane stood, wishing to put as much distance between her and Dean's ideas as she could, as fast as she could.
"You can run from me, Jane. But you shouldn't run from the truth…"
"Goodbye, Dean." Jane cut him, almost running back to her car.
She sat, and had to stop to breath, she was hyperventilating.
"Calm yourself down. Dean is wrong. He is obviously wrong." She repeated to herself, driving back home. But deep down she knew he was right.