"I would have done that for you," Jane says.

Maura blinks away a few tears and looks from her television to Jane. The end credits of Thelma & Louise continue to scroll as the wistful strains of the soundtrack fill Maura's Beacon Hill living room. The two women are already dressed in their pyjamas, way past the point of pretending Jane would ever go home after drinks and a movie.

"What?" Maura asks.

Jane nods her head at the television, stone faced, eyes still glued to the screen. "I would have done that for you. I almost did."

Maura watches Jane carefully and Jane resolutely does not look back at her. She sits slouched down on the couch, her socked feet kicked up on the coffee table, long arms folded across her chest.

Maura understands exactly what Jane is telling her, but she wants Jane to look at her when she says it so she willfully misunderstands.

"You almost drove me off a cliff?"

Jane shoots her an irritated glance. Her features are set in hard lines, but her eyes give her away. They glisten ever so slightly, betraying her vulnerability. Under ordinary circumstances, Maura would tease Jane for getting so emotional over what she repeatedly insisted was an action movie, but something tells Maura these are not ordinary circumstances.

"I would have kept us from the cops."

Jane says 'the cops' like that's a separate thing from her, like it isn't exactly what she is, and picks at a small hole in the threadbare sweatpants she's wearing. Maura says nothing, which is a trick she learned from Jane's interrogation tactics, an attempt to force the other person to fill the silence.

"I was going to do it," Jane continues. "I had it all planned out. There was a moment. I had a window of opportunity when I knew we would arrest you but no one had said it out loud yet. I almost came here to take you away with me."

Maura puts everything she has into repressing a shiver at Jane's choice of words. She wets her lips and chooses her words carefully.

"That would have been foolish, Jane. I wouldn't want you to blow up your life if I'd committed a crime."

"You hadn't committed a crime, though."

"If you wanted to run away, I think you might have been worried that I had."

Jane very firmly shakes her head no. "I didn't think you did it, but I was worried we couldn't prove it without you. And as good as Susie is, I don't think we could have if you hadn't helped from jail." She looks over at Maura, making sustained eye contact for the first time since she started talking. "I never believed you did it, Maur. Not for one second." The look in Jane's eyes is fierce and Maura has no choice but to believe her. "But even if you had, I wouldn't care."

"Jane, are you seriously saying you wouldn't care if I'd killed that man?" Maura is already convinced but she cannot help the thrill she gets from making Jane insist further.

"I know you, Maura." Jane looks irritated. "It would have been self-defense. Just like the movie."

Maura tilts her head to one side. "I mean, it wasn't really. Louise had already rescued Thelma and there was no longer an immediate threat of harm. Louise was right to run from the law; she would certainly have been found guilty."

Jane frowns and Maura knows the moral debate that wages internally. Maura remembers the Massachusetts Marathon and Jane's comment about wanting to allow the killer to finish the job. She remembers how Jane wasn't especially bothered when they couldn't figure out which teenage girl had actually murdered their rapist driver's education instructor and instead had to let them all go free. She remembers Charles Hoyt.

"Louise didn't have to kill him," Jane concedes. "But he deserved it."

"But she committed a crime," Maura says. "Sometimes you have to." Jane folds her arms across her chest once again and shrugs. "If Ma had given me that recording, I would have gotten rid of it. I wouldn't have thought twice."

"And then what, Jane? You would have had a felony conviction. You wouldn't have been able to work as a detective. Any good job would have been difficult to find." It's incredibly stupid, but Maura is aroused by the notion that Jane would throw away her life's work for her. She absolutely hates it when Jane behaves recklessly but it also, quite unfortunately, makes her hot.

Jane grins wryly. "I guess I was banking on my super rich best friend taking care of me after I went to jail for her."

"I would," Maura says quickly. Perhaps too quickly, judging by the sharp arch of Jane's eyebrow, but she can hardly help it. Maura is involved in a wide range of charitable endeavors, but given the opportunity, turning Jane Rizzoli into a kept woman would barrel into first place as her number one most devoted cause. The idea of living with Jane, taking care of Jane, dressing Jane is almost too much to bear. Against her better judgment she indulges for just a moment and a vignette plays in her mind of having Jane fitted for a bespoke suit, of tucking some spending money into the breast pocket with a kiss and a wink. She looks down into her wine glass and finishes the rest in one long swallow, hoping that the stain of red she can feel across her cheeks will pass as being flushed from alcohol.

Seemingly oblivious (or perhaps willfully ignorant) to the elaborate domestic and financial fantasy playing out in Maura's mind, Jane continues.

"Besides, if I'd trashed it, the only person who could have ratted me out was my mother. She wouldn't do that to me." Jane scowls. "And she shouldn't have done that to you. You're her family."

Maura considers making a glib remark about how in Massachusetts there's one very easy way to make that last statement factually true, but humour isn't her strong suit and now is not the time to flub the landing on a joke.

"So does that make me Louise? Since I was the one at risk of going to prison?"

"What?" Jane looks sincerely offended. "I'm obviously Louise."

"I don't know, Jane," Maura muses. "You're the tall one."

"Yeah, Maur. That's definitely the defining quality we should use to determine this. Please be real."

Sure, Maura can be real. She gives Jane a long look.

"You know, Louise kisses Thelma."

Jane goes quiet.

Maura decides she's had enough. She's been up at the edge of this cliff too many times and she's never hit the gas. She places her wine glass down and in one swift move she gets to her knees on the couch, pivots on one leg, then swings her other over Jane's thighs to take a seat on her lap. It's a risky maneuver but it has the benefit of pinning Jane in place, which is always a difficult task.

Jane looks up in surprise and goes very still.

Maura doesn't move either.

She thinks about the time she had gone hiking in the French alps and came face to face with a deer. It had been an incredible experience to see one up close, the European red deer much larger and more majestic than its North American counterpart. Maura had frozen immediately upon seeing it and the deer had slowly approached her, but then Maura had ruined everything by reaching for her camera. She wouldn't be making that mistake again.

After several agonizing moments, Jane unfolds her arms and places her hands on the outside of Maura's thighs, just below her hips. Maura can feel Jane's hands tense, as if about to take a firm hold. She briefly wonders if she has miscalculated and Jane is about to direct her out of her lap, but then Jane's hands relax.

Their relationship is strange enough that if Maura simply dismounts without anything else happening, they can probably pretend this didn't happen and continue on exactly as they have been.

"I read that it wasn't in the original screenplay," Maura says conversationally, just as she would if she wasn't straddling Jane. "Did you know that? It was Susan Sarandon's idea, allegedly. It was the final shot on the final day of filming and Sarandon said to Geena Davis, 'you know, I'd really like to kiss you.'"

Maura places her hands on Jane's stomach. Jane has leaned her head back against the couch and is staring intently at Maura with dark, unreadable eyes. She hasn't spoken a word. Maura wonders if Jane is also employing interrogation tactics or if she truly has nothing she wants to say.

"So no one planned for it," Maura continues, her voice just a little bit softer than before. She looks down at her hands, splaying out her fingers against Jane's abdomen. She can tell Jane is flexing, can feel that glorious muscle definition beneath her fingertips. Is Jane doing it for her benefit? She doesn't resume speaking until she feels Jane relax again. "No one had in mind that they would kiss when the script was written, or when they started casting it; it didn't occur to anyone almost the entire time they were filming. It was just a story about two best friends."

Maura looks up from her hands and is almost surprised to find Jane still looking right at her. She was expecting awkwardness and avoidance by this point. It makes Maura a little more brave and she forges ahead.

"I think it's still a tremendous film, even if the kiss doesn't happen. If it's a movie about female friendship, about two women who protect each other at all costs—I think that's a special, wonderful movie." Maura pauses just a moment before continuing. "But you know what, Jane?"

It takes Jane so long to respond that Maura sincerely wonders if she might not do it at all. But eventually Jane's lips part and her voice emerges as barely more than a wisp of smoke, delivering the first word she's spoken in several minutes.

"What?"

Maura takes a deep breath through her nose.

"I like that they kiss."

Maura tries her hardest to maintain eye contact but despite her best efforts, her gaze drops to Jane's lips and she licks her own.

Jane doesn't respond, doesn't move.

Maura is undeterred.

"I like that they could have everything they had with each other, and then just a little bit more," she says, drawing her eyes back up to Jane's. "I don't think it alters the movie at all. It doesn't recontextualize everything that came before it. They're the same two people they were before it happened because the kiss just makes sense. It just…fits."

Maura thinks it's really quite obvious what she's doing but Jane continues to stare at her with that indecipherable look in her eyes and Maura's trying not to panic because she is way out on this limb. She has been sitting in Jane's lap for several minutes now and in that entire time Jane has uttered one single word.

"I'd really like to know what you think about it, Jane," Maura says quietly. "Do you think it improved the film? Or do you think the story would have been just fine the way it was?" She wants this to be a genuine hypothetical question, but she knows that a little bit of sadness takes root in her voice when she offers Jane the escape route.

Instead of a response to her question, Maura feels Jane's abdominal muscles tighten beneath her fingers, announcing the other woman's intention to sit up just a split second before it's happening. Maura quickly removes her hands from Jane's stomach, lest they get trapped between their bodies, and wonders if this is a signal that she should get off. She must also have tensed up in preparation for movement, because Jane's hands quickly slide around from Maura's upper thigh to grip the swell of her ass, pulling her close, unambiguously holding Maura in place against her torso.

Maura's arms need to go somewhere, so she leans her arms on Jane's shoulder, her forearms crossed at the wrist behind Jane's head.

With anyone else, the intimacy of this position would send a crystal clear message, but Maura has been forced to write off so many other situations as platonic that she is somehow still afraid of moving too quickly.

"Why do you think Louise kisses Thelma?" Jane asks.

If it weren't for how close they are, which is very, Maura would be irritated that Jane has answered a question with another question. She's really not in the mood for the Socratic method, but Jane's face is tilted up at hers and their mouths are close enough that she can almost feel the pop of Jane's consonants against her lips, so she decides to let it slide.

"I think Louise had no other way left to express what she was feeling. She'd already killed a man to let out what was inside of her, so what else was left but a kiss?" Maura is aware she might be flying too close to the sun now, implying a similarity between Louise killing Harlan and Jane killing Hoyt. They never really talked about it, but despite her aversion to speculation Maura is pretty certain that Jane killed Hoyt as much for Maura as for herself. Maura looks carefully into Jane's eyes, which stare at her so seriously, pupils blown out so far as to look almost entirely black. She can feel the rise and fall of Jane's steady breathing where their chests are pressed together, while her own is halting. She wonders how Jane can possibly be so calm.

"I also think…" Maura continues carefully. "I think perhaps Louise was always drawn to Thelma, but maybe she didn't understand exactly in what way, or maybe she did and she was worried it was one-sided. But then at the end, when she sees that Thelma would rather have one more moment of freedom with Louise than turn back, she finally knows." Maura draws one hand back from around Jane's neck to ever so gently cradle her jaw, brushing the pad of her thumb just below Jane's lower lip.

But you know I don't like to guess," Maura says softly and she catches just the faintest hint of a smile across Jane's features, barely more than the slightest crinkle around her eyes. "What do you think, Jane?"

"I think Louise waited too long."

Jane closes the negligible distance between them, the hair's breadth that is both insignificant and profound, and presses her lips to Maura's.

It is nothing short of spectacular. Better than any kiss that tastes like red wine and stovetop popcorn has a right to be. A jolt of arousal travels up Maura's spine and her head spins. Jane's lips are softer than Maura expected they would be, considering she's never seen the woman apply lip balm in all the years she's known her, and she had been so sure it would be hesitant but Jane is kissing her confidently, with intent.

To her enormous chagrin, Maura is out of breath bare seconds into the kiss, her nerves rendering her breathing too shallow, but she presses on until her lungs absolutely scream for oxygen and she's forced to pull away. Right away she's terrified that somehow this will be the only kiss and she has cut it short because she couldn't regulate her breathing, a task so simple that a body does it subconsciously. She is suddenly at war with her autonomic nervous system.

She pulls in a broken, shuddering breath and it is so loud and she is so worried about letting on how much this means to her, how badly she has wanted it, because it seems impossible that the intensity won't scare Jane away. Maura is absolutely, unequivocally desperate for it but if she has to pretend this is just a little kissing between best friends she'll do it, just to have this for a moment.

She considers trying to make a joke, demonstrating that this really is no big deal, but before she can do anything that stupid Jane's right arm is wrapping tightly around her waist and her left hand is in Maura's hair, around to the back of her head, drawing her back down for another kiss. This time Maura manages to take a deep breath.

Surely, now, she can stop pretending that this isn't everything she wants in the world. She winds her arms tightly around Jane as they tilt their heads in complimentary directions, deepening the kiss. Jane's hand slips beneath the hem of Maura's shirt, presses her palm against her bare back, and Maura parts her lips in surprise. Jane slips in, her tongue caressing and withdrawing in an evocative rhythm that truly leaves Maura no choice but to moan into Jane's mouth and grind her pelvis against Jane's stomach.

Jane draws back and Maura makes no effort to hide her whimper at the loss. Jane's eyes search hers questioningly, except Maura has no idea exactly what question Jane is trying to ask. She gives every possible answer she can think of.

"Yes. All of it. Everything. Since always."

"Are you sure?"

Jane's voice is hoarse. Maura isn't sure if she's quoting the movie on purpose but the dialogue certainly fits, because once Jane drives their car off this cliff, there will be no turning back and Jane needs to be certain.

"Yes, Jane," Maura laughs breathlessly. "Yes."

She lowers her face to Jane's and just barely touches their lips together. It's not quite a kiss. Maura just wants Jane to feel her next words as much as she hears them.

"Let's keep going."