bAN: Longer chapter- adding a little side plot instead of pure fluff and introspection lol
The FBI for Jane was a interesting adjustment to say the least. Maura was right to recommend her to Cameron in the past as a subject matter expert. Although she didn't know the exact science behind her abilities to interrogate people, she had gut feelings that seemed to elude the science. Although Maura could site every physical tell on a person's face or body language to find the true meaning of what they were saying, Jane's skill on top of Maura's information always led Jane to be successful in interrogating anyone who came in for questioning. All physical tells weren't the be all or end all of finding truth. Even Maura would admit that not all the physical things like body language, or physical appearance of discomfort is damning evidence of guilt. Even Maura was always amazed at what Jane could accomplish. This morning she posed a misconception to her class while pacing in front of her whiteboard.
"If you are interviewing someone and they don't make eye contact, does that make them guilty?" A bunch of murmurs hit the room, no's and yes's divided the crowd in the academy auditorium.
"If you said yes. You are wrong. One clue is not enough to determine guilt." Jane corrected and smiled as the room grumbled. "At most those tells are just clues. If you take that information of physical tells and know the basis of ways to reach the truth, you will be much more effective. It is like playing chess- you have to be ahead of who you are questioning so that you can catch them in a clue." She explained this to her class in depth of how knowing and feeling would be the perfect combo to a successful interrogation. "You have to get a cluster of clues in, and then you go in for a kill."
"While you are in interrogation, there are things that you know. and no one else knows. You take advantage of that. You want to get the trust of who you are interviewing, you want to set a baseline and to see what they are like calm." Jane walked about the room slowly through the classroom making eye contact with her students.
"You have to manage your bias, and if you get into this interrogation and you want to see things you have set yourself up for failure. You have speculation at this point. However, if someone is comfortable and you've set them and calm moment- you can then see differences when it matters. You want to see a behavior after they are at a baseline. You take those verbal and nonverbal cues and determine what its related not just because they exist."
A student lifted up his hand as she spoke. "What happens when they are so calm, and you have no clues after that? You see no deceptive behavior?"
"Then you look for evasiveness. Someone can tell you the truth for most questions they asked to get you believing that they are good person. You have to go into this thinking everyone is a good person and want to tell you the truth, but you could then be biased to thinking that this person only tells the truth. You have to force questions that beg to follow up. That follow up needed comes with their answers start coming with exclusionary qualifiers." The former detective liked that her students had questions that means they were thinking. A second student raised their hand.
"Yes, Susan go ahead." Jane asked for the student to speak.
"What if they don't give you anything?" Susan questioned.
"Then you have to look into their statements. Look for them to be convincing or combative. Why are they convincing you, why are they combative, because they want to avoid this whole situation. Dig into that. Pause between your questions, people who are guilty are very uncomfortable with those quiet moments and can do or say something to lead on. One more thing to make your interrogation effective? Go in prepared, know what questions you want to ask - so when you ask those questions all your focus can be on their responses. Practice, practice, practice. Your brain needs muscle memory." A buzzer sounded that signaled their class was over.
At the top of the classroom auditorium, close to the students streaming out the exit, she spotted Cameron waiting for her.
"Great class Jane, I think students always rely on fun google facts that they don't realize that there is more to it than that." Cameron commented loudly as Jane smiled.
"Agreed, at least they know some of those fun facts. Fun facts inspire the passion in individuals. It put a spark of interest in them -which leads them here." The curly haired tall woman replied while gathering her laptop and her bag.
"You ready for dinner?" he grinned as she walked towards him and the classroom exit.
"Yeah, whereto? I better be introduced to your best Italian in this area. I haven't been too successful so far to find some places that compare to my mother or Maura's cooking when she isn't trying to make me healthy."
"Well, there is a place called Taglio's that does a mean pizza. I'm confident you will like it."
"As long as it isn't healthy, I'm in." Jane linked arms with Cameron out the door. It had been a few weeks since she left Paris and she was in a groove of her instructor role at the FBI Academy. As she found out Cameron was not in her chain of command - just an advisor to the Academy for operations. She had finally rescheduled the raincheck and was pleasantly surprised to find that Cameron Davies did not fit into the two types of men that were interested in her. He couldn't be a badge bunny because she no longer was a detective, and as far as she had seen so far - he had no forced fetishizing the use of cuffs. After all, Cameron himself had all the accouterment she would have as detective. He was also extremely supportive of his friendship with Maura and keeping in touch with family in Boston. If she had to admit it, Cameron would be a perfect boyfriend, but he still felt like just an easy friend in her life in Quantico.
Things were bright in Quantico for Jane but she did miss being a detective. She did miss working at BPD. She vaguely missed Boston, though she had to admit that not being around buildings and sights that would bring back bad memories was amazing. She also absolutely missed Maura. She promised Maura she would keep in touch forever, having to constantly reassure her that they indeed were LLBFFs even after she left the force and her. Maura had grown so much from the off-putting, no-nonsense cold and calculated examiner that some people saw her as to blossoming to someone who now made friends easily and had a makeshift Boston family in Angela, Jane, Frankie, and Tommy. As Maura left Paris her ex-husband Edward actually reached out to Maura to see if they can be friends again after the divorce party. So Jane wasn't worried about Maura reverting to become lonely now that she was gone, she just always had this inexplicable pull to tell Maura first about all her best moments and her worst moments.
After their date at Taglio's Jane had let Cameron walk her to her apartment like she had so many times before. This time however she wanted to test something. If she was going to make the most of this change in her life she might as well move things forward in all its aspects. She didn't see why her friendship dates with Cameron shouldn't progress after as many dates that could be considered dragging her feet, she was finally willing to see what opening a door for the agent could mean, or what it could feel like.
"So. I know you've wanted to take this slow, with everything changing in your life I don't want to rush anything. I had a really nice time tonight, and all the other nights we have went out." The agent started to say. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to break the physical barrier - in fact the last time he was in Boston - they had already broken that proverbial barrier- it just felt less like an escape and more of an intentional move to progress in her life and she wasn't so sure that is what she saw with Cameron. It made things really confusing and scary to be intimate with him because of what it could mean. She had made a mistake with Casey, and she didn't want to make another one.
"Let's find out what rushing might mean." She breathlessly spoke nervous and eager at the same time to test what this relationship could mean. Quietly Jane reached for her keys and unlocked the door to her apartment and then after it was unlocked, she reached for his hand and pulled him inside.
The morning after, Jane turned in her bed and heard Cameron snoring lightly. It was a different for sure waking up in her Quantico home with someone in her bed. It wasn't bad or good, just okay. She got up as Cameron stirred sitting up as well and gave her a morning kiss, she returned it reluctantly moving slightly so he caught a bit of her cheek.
"Morning," he grinned with his slightly tousled hair. She smiled too, "I'm hungry. I'm going to get some cereal." Trying to lighten the mood and not linger on the what had occurred last night. "Want some?"
"Yeah, let me just get dressed." the agent said as he turned toward the bathroom and picked up his clothes. She admired his muscular physique as he walked away, but also picked up her own clothes off the floor and put on some weekend comfy clothes. A loose-fitting shirt and some basketball shorts.
They met at the table in the kitchen and shared the cereal as she talked about some subjects at work, and he talked about some family at home. It was comfortable and easy. Her alarm went off as 10am hit.
"Oh, shoot sorry Cameron, I've got some things this morning to do- would you mind..." She looked around for him standing washing up his cereal dish gesturing toward her own dish.
"Sure, I'll get yours too, then I have to go meet a couple academy recruits this afternoon, so I'll probably get going soon after."
"Sounds good. Ok bye!" she turned to place a quick peck on his cheek before turning and heading to her shower.
11am rolled around and Jane was fully dressed and lifting the lid on her laptop. Her thing to do in the morning was her Saturday morning catch up with Maura over zoom. Daily they would check on each other and send each other texts to say hi or to share an interesting thing they were doing, but the Saturday catch up was an in person catch up, complete with facial expressions and laughter. She was grateful that Cameron didn't ask and that he also had other things he needed to do so that she could do this part of her week that she enjoyed.
She started up her browser and opened up a meeting, she was freshly showered but instead of in her loungewear she had put on some clothes for going to the store since she would likely need to do some groceries after their catch up. She had a maroon Henley on with some of her black denim stretch pants. The browser with her meeting up soon also right on time showed Maura in the room already. Their webcams adjusted to focus on each of their faces respectively. She noticed Maura wearing a fitted flute dress and had her hair half up and some light make up.
"Aw Maur, did you get all dressed up for me? You didn't have to." Jane teased knowing it would elicit a smile from the medical examiner.
"Hush Jane, you know I always put my best foot forward when I can. But enough about me! How did it go?! Did you get a nice dose of Immunoglobulin A? It really is good for your health."
They had already talked about where Jane and Cameron were in their dating progression and Maura had been trying to convince Jane for weeks that she should just take the plunge and take him home.
"I did." Jane blushed confirming with her friend what had happened on their last date. Although Maura had been regularly rooting for this to happen when it finally did, she did feel a tiny twist in her stomach at the confirmation. She cleared her throat a bit, distracted by the feeling and quickly tried to cover it with her latest work news.
"You know. I have...got a case lately that I wish you were here for. A woman went missing and her boyfriend was the last one she was seen with. Turns up days later in a ditch near the docks. Seemingly no foul play, but some kind of blunt force impact like a car, however it is really difficult to find anything definitive since once the body was found it was extremely bloated due to the recent warm temperatures. Did you know temperature could affect how the body bloats? Cold being a longer turnaround time for..." at the attempt at changing the subject, Jane was quite confused because she was hoping to ask Maura all kinds of advice and questions about last night's decision and activities.
"Maur although normally I'd love to discuss interesting cases with you, I was kind of hoping I could talk to you about personal stuff?" Jane wasn't always this forward, but she didn't get a lot of time with Maura, and she wanted to use it efficiently. "Have you ever been in love?" The brunette asked quickly hoping to pause the Blond's data dump.
Thrown for a loop Maura paused a moment her brow knitted in response. "Yes, I believe so, Ian at one point was the love of my life." Maura answered matter of fact-ly. "Haven't you? I mean you were considering marrying Casey?"
"I thought I had been Maura. I felt like I was trying so hard for him to like me, but I don't know if I feel like it was love. Like I want to understand what is love since I'm in my late 30s trying to make drastic changes to move forward, and I can't even tell for sure if I was in love with Casey, or if I'm in love with Cameron."
"What makes you think you weren't in love with Casey? I mean you accepted his ring, and you showed it to me, and I was pretty convinced you would have married him if you couldn't have been able to tell by the lump in my throat when I asked what I was supposed to do without my best friend?"
"Don't get me wrong Maur, I'd probably had married him if I didn't have doubts, but that's the thing, I've never been SURE about being in love." Jane revealed a little bit lost in thought and a little contemplative. "How did you know with Ian and if you did, why aren't you with him now?"
Maura shook her head at the turn of questioning back to her. "Jane that was a long time ago. I loved him, that I know, it used to physically hurt to miss him, and I just felt happy when I saw him. The sexual attraction was there, and the sex was amazing too, but it was just that belonging and want to always be around him?"
"So how did you let that go? I mean besides that he was committing felonies and trying to take you down with him?" The brunette responded.
"I didn't let go; it wasn't a choice Jane, to let go. He made it clear that I wasn't that important to him, and I had made a decision that I had to let that feeling I had for him fade - to distract myself to force it to fade. You helped me." the blond revealed.
"What do you mean? Maur." Jane asked curiously, analyzing Maura's description of love and belonging in her own situation.
"I.. just you were there for me. made me realize that if a friend cared more for my wellbeing than Ian- Watched out for me more than someone who should have been in love with me too- it expedited the realization that I wasn't as important to him as he was to me. That I had to let him go, even if it hurt. Does that make sense?" Maura paused a little nostalgically as she remembered how protective Jane had been when she had found Ian was doing some shady business and was more than willing to involve Maura in his demise.
"Yeah, I do. He was an idiot. Sorry Maura. I'm just trying to grow, I want to be a better person, and now that I'm not going from serial killer to being kidnapped, I've just been trying to do soul searching. I don't think I had what you had for Ian for Casey. I mean for God sakes when he was in town, I stood him up for event with you remember?"
"Jane, I understand." She smiled at the camera hoping to convey her sincerity. "You are on a journey, in fact both of us are. I'm glad you are sharing it with me." Maura smirked.
"Don't get all mushy on me Maura, it's hard enough that I have to share my feelings."
"Jane just remember - not everything has to happen right now. If it is meant to be with Cameron, you will know. Trust me." Maura put her most reassuring face on that she could, hoping to convey it across the internet.
"I do trust you, Maura. I just don't trust myself." with that, Jane decided to change the subject for now lest she get teary eyed. "So, tell me more about that case.."
Noticing it was getting hard for Jane to continue, Maura decided to change back to her forensic subject, "So that body we found. We have a suspect, but he isn't talking and unless I either get him talking or a lead somewhere, it's going to be dead in the water. No Pun intended. Also, I walked by your desk this afternoon- it was really hard knowing you are gone. Just so you know." Maura too got teary eyed at the thought. She realized this was the second weekend talk she and Jane went through that ended with both of them on the verge of tears. She just hoped that time would ease the difficulty. Both their lives were progressing as they should, it was just harder without each other.