When they'd first met, Maura had felt something inexplicable.
Irritation, sure.
But Jane found Maura in the morgue later, cutting up one of the Johns. Ate a whole Danish, propped in the doorway, robe draped over her skanky little skirt, makeup still plastered on her face, heels higher than Maura had ever worn. Her badge hung over the gown, and Maura didn't want to ask where she kept her gun.
But she did, and Detective Rizzoli had choked on her Danish and laughed, a sound so deep and pleasant that Maura let herself bathe in it for a moment, wondering if she would get an answer.
She never did, but instead she got the second Danish in the bag, sweet and glazed and full of complex carbohydrates.
She'd felt it then. A sense of being comfortable. She relaxed when Detective Rizzoli appeared for autopsies, and thanked her when she chased away that awful Crowe.
Jane always gave her a slanted grin, a raised eyebrow, and a promise that she'd ask the same of Maura one day.
Detective Rizzoli made the promotion to homicide she'd wanted.
"You know, this means we get to spend more time together," Jane told Maura, her voice low, as though they were co-conspirators. Something about Jane had Maura feeling like a giddy teenager, and Maura had never, ever been a giddy teenager. Maura looked up with her usual flat smile, seeing a flash of hurt behind Jane's eyes and knowing she'd caused it.
"Congratulations, Detective Rizzoli," Maura said, her voice and tone as flat as her smile. Jane shrugged and pulled away; she'd been reading a report Maura had been typing from over her shoulder, her surprisingly soft breasts pressing against Maura's back. With Jane's shirt unbuttoned, if Maura turned her head, she'd be afforded a view she wasn't sure she could handle, not with the memory of Jane's warmth against her shoulder blades. When Jane had almost reached Maura's office door, Maura relented.
"I'll miss you in those heels," she said, blushing and wishing she'd said anything else. Jane's grin was cheeky and her hand rested gently on the doorframe as she swung back to look at Maura.
"I bet my ass you will," Jane said, eyebrow raised, and Maura's blush deepened further. She'd thought she'd been discrete with her glances to the other woman's posterior, but apparently she'd been caught out. Jane's grin was knowing but not unkind, and Maura's mouth quirked up shyly to match her smile. Jane's eyes softened, and so did her mouth, and Maura felt that something inexplicable rise in her chest again. Jane tapped the doorframe twice, as though she was about to say something else, but instead she just tucked a corner of her bottom lip into her mouth and nodded three times, pushing away from the doorframe with her endless energy.
Maura was one of the first on the scene. Korsak beat her, cleared the room, covered Jane with his coat while the crime techs photographed the basement.
Jane was sobbing, somewhere. While Maura examined the other woman in the basement, already knowing what she'd seen, what had been done to her. She left Hoyt, bleeding, on the floor. The ambulance could deal with him, and he was cuffed and taken out before they arrived.
Korsak beckoned Maura over.
"She always said she likes you, and hell, I can't help her with these bear paws." He held up his thick hands. "And I will not make her wait for the ambulance."
Maura glanced over at the other woman. Catherine. She'd been sedated and one of Maura's lab techs was sitting with her, along with a detective. She'd been tied, and her bounds hand been loosed.
So when Korsak drew back his coat, Maura gasped. She hadn't expected - tears sprang into her eyes. She touched Jane gently on the chin, making eye contact before Jane nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.
There was a reason Maura didn't doctor the living. She never knew what to say, how to interact with them. But she knew Jane. She slipped on fresh gloves and heard the ambulance. A few blocks away still, but she couldn't leave Jane like this a moment longer. Right now she was calm; almost catatonic. In a moment she might struggle and injure herself further. Dimly Maura was aware of Korsak shielding Jane from view, from cameras, from people, keeping Maura and Jane secluded while Maura worked as quickly as she could.
She gave Jane a quick sedative.
"This is going to hurt," she warned Jane, grasping a scalpel that penetrated the entirety of one of those thin, strong hands. Jane's jaw clenched.
"Didn't think otherwise," Jane said, some of her former bravado returning.
Maura prepared gauze, laying it on Jane's stomach over her shirt. She readied herself. When she was unable to avoid looking at Jane any longer, Jane's eyes were soft and full of something Maura couldn't read.
"Rescue me," Jane said, too quiet for Korsak. She wasn't angry or impatient, just resigned to her fate.
"The paramedics are here, I'm sure they have more experience..."
"No. You're the only person I'm going to let touch me."
"It's not-"
"- in your job description. I know. But you're the only person who can see me like this and not think any less of me, because you couldn't care less."
Maura's brow furrowed, but she pulled the scalpel free, Jane's breath hissing out of her sharply, Korsak turning to check in, then looking away again quickly, giving them their privacy.
One down. Maura doused the hand in antiseptic and loosely bound it. She swallowed as she reached over Jane, crouched on the grimy basement floor in a dress that cost more than the house and land combined. She looked down at Jane.
"I could care less. But I don't. And I don't want to care less about you." Jane's brow wrinkled as she tried to follow the logic. Her eyes caught on Maura's chest as she leaned over her, and her breath caught as well. "I don't want to do this because I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you to associate this with me, because I think we were good colleagues, and we might have been more if you hadn't asked me to do this."
Maura pulled the second scalpel out, dousing Jane's right hand, her left already cradled to her chest. Jane sat up, trying to struggle to her feet, and Maura stopped her.
"I bet your Ma always used to kiss it better, huh?"
Jane froze completely, her dirty face streaked with tears, her eyes caught on Maura's lips like a beacon in the open sea. Jane swallowed harshly; Maura had been trying to distract her. With the sedative she'd be unable to get to her feet on her own. She could hear the paramedics assessing Catherine, readying to take her from the basement. She could hear Korsak explaining the state he'd found Jane in. She was running out of time.
She balanced carefully, then leaned in and kissed Jane's temple, feeling the sedative kick in, feeling the weight of Jane's body resting against her. She held her.
"There. All better," Maura said, her voice dull, but Jane just nestled deeper, her dirty face leaving marks on a dress that Maura never had the nerve to clean and the soft, white flesh beneath it in the space over her heart.
Jane had made her feel something.
"Your brother gave your mother my number. Not my work number, my personal number I gave you. For personal reasons. I feel like I need to reassert my professional boundaries."
"Well, I'm off-duty," Jane said, struggling to sit up. Maura helped her reflexively, the body beneath the gown warm against her hands. "So technically you're bringing work to me."
Maura chuckled and saw the way Jane's head shot up, looking at Maura like she'd won a prize.
"She called to thank me. Apparently you talked about me a lot?"
Maura sat in the visitor's chair at Jane's bedside, seeing Jane's eyes watch her cross her legs. They were just shins, but Jane eyed them like a perp in an alleyway.
"I might have been unduly harsh, when you were sedated," Maura said by way of apology.
"You said you cared." Jane's voice was low and almost scared.
"I did. I do. Oh, here." Maura dug in her bag for the chocolates she'd brought with her. Jane waited expectantly, and Maura realised uneasily that she'd have to feed them to her. She washed her hands carefully in the adjoining bathroom, then unwrapped a single chocolate. Jane's hands were covered in bandages, and she was on a morphine drip. She took the chocolate from Maura's fingers like Cleopatra taking a grape from a lover. Maura blushed and looked away as Jane chewed with her eyes closed.
"What the hell was that?" Jane asked, her voice awed.
"I told you about them - I thought you might like them." Maura wet her lips as she unwrapped a second chocolate, Jane's mouth open and ready for her, her lips brushing against Maura's fingers as she took it from her.
Already deeply blushing, Maura couldn't look away from Jane's mouth.
"I only meant some of it." Jane admitted when she stopped chewing. "I hate being vulnerable. I hate that Korsak saw me like that, I hate not being able to do anything for myself. It's why I told Frankie not to hand out my room number at the precinct."
Jane licked her lips, tracking down a crumb of chocolate. Maura leaned forward and wiped a second crumb away, surprised when Jane's tongue stole it from her thumb. She unwrapped a third, unsure what Jane was trying to say. The medication would have kicked in, and she might not mean it now either.
It had hurt, when Jane said Maura didn't care about her. Maura already cared too much. There was a constant tug in her chest when Jane was nearby. Seeing her tortured hadn't made it any easier. It had just made her prouder of Jane, more protective. Jane had shown herself to Maura in her most vulnerable moment, and Maura had gazed at her like the night sky through her first telescope.
Jane chewed thoughtfully.
"You're not exactly easy to get to know. But you pride yourself on being professional and detached. I went for your pride, but I hurt you in doing so, and that was wrong of me. I didn't want anyone else touching me because I couldn't have stood it. You were with me. You understood. You understand. You do, don't you?"
Tears in her eyes again, Maura nodded. Jane nodded too, swallowing hard. She blinked and laughed.
"You looked at me like that, and everything made sense for a single moment. You didn't pity me, or think of me as a victim. You were just happy to see me. The way you always are."
Maura thought back to the first time she'd notice herself relax once Jane arrived at a crime scene, at an autopsy. She trusted her, and was pleased when she arrived.
But happy to see Jane? Surely not. She looked down at a woman who looked much smaller lying down, and she reached out with her bare hand and touched Jane's forearm. Jane's skin was warm and brown and welcoming, and a smile split Jane's face.
"I'm happy to see you too," Jane admitted. "Hit me."
"Huh?"
"Chocolate. Hit me."
Maura removed her hand from Jane's arm, knowing Jane knew she found human contact uncomfortable. But she left it there a little later, when the opiates had rendered Jane unconscious. For her own comfort as well as Jane's.
The older woman who came in a little later was familiar - Maura had met Jane's mother before. She went to get out of the chair, but Angela pressed her back down, then leaned over to kiss first Jane's temple and then Maura's own, her hand resting on Maura's shoulder. She knew, too, that Maura found touching awkward, but she was so physically expressive that Maura knew this was the bare minimum Angela could stand to give.
"You belong there, honey," Angela insisted, when Maura tried to stand. And Maura glowed.
She'd found where she belonged, and it was at Jane's side.