Chapter Four: Say Something Nice

Maura didn't know what to do with herself.

Her department store catalogues were stacked —being one of the rare few to still order physical copies, she was quite proud of them— and her music CDs were arranged in alphabetical order by artist and genre. Her kitchen was spotless, and she'd even gone through the trouble to vacuum each step of her carpeted staircase. But much to her chagrin, it was only half past two in the afternoon.

She was running out of chores. Even the ones she had newly created. Maura cursed herself inwardly for always keeping such a clean and presentable house. There was no mess or clutter anywhere. Not anymore, at least. Maura knew for certain that she had to keep busy. Sitting down and letting her mind wander would not bode well. There were two reasons for this: one, to stay out of her wine cellar and two, to keep herself occupied for whenever Detective Jane Rizzoli came knocking… Which had been twice already that day.

Jane had shown up at Maura's front door early that morning, knocking with claims of "just wanting to talk". It's not that Maura wished to hurt her or to give her the cold shoulder, quite frankly it was because she didn't know how to continue— meaning, of course, she didn't know how to move past the clear and defined anger that she'd shown her best friend. Maura had never shouted at Jane before. They'd never even fought before. Not like that. Sure, they had their spats and their disagreements, but Maura had been upset with the detective like she'd never been before in her life. It must have been written all over her face whenever she left DPD the day before, because Jane was not only at her house the very next morning, but she showed up on her lunch break as well.

"Can you believe Garcia asked me if I was sick just because I took a lunch for the first time in like four years?" Jane laughed.

Maura heard a dull -thud- against the heavy wood of her front door as if Jane had slumped against it with her shoulder or her back.

"You should have seen it, I thought Stanley was gonna blow a fuse when I told him that his coffee tasted like he brewed it in his dirty socks. I dunno how my mom can work for that guy. I guess she just wants something to do." Maura heard a sigh come from the other side of the door then. "Maura, I know you're there. Please…"

She hadn't found the courage to open the door by the time Jane decided to get up and leave again. She simply didn't have the words. All would be fine in a few more days. After the weekend was over, she would be able to get back to her regular life. She could go back to work and have a regular day with Jane, with their regular coffees and their regular Monday morning runs… All would be fine. She just had to get through the thick of things first.

Maura was on her third or fourth lap around her living room looking for one thing, anything really, to be out of place. It was hardly six o'clock and her hands were beginning to shake a little bit. It was as if her bones ached and her skin felt more sensitive than it ever had before, but she didn't want to drink. She couldn't trust herself.

A -knock- came from her front door, and Maura found herself leaping toward the sound of it. An apology was ready and waiting on her lips as soon as she opened it, but alas, it wasn't the Rizzoli she was expecting. Frankie stood there with a puppy dog smile and a brown paper sack full of what was probably her favorite Vietnamese take-out.

"Frankie…"

"Hey, Maura. I um- Well, we were wondering if you'd gone stir crazy yet and so we- the guys… and Jane too, we thought we'd bring you some dinner so you didn't have to cook. Or maybe you wanted to cook and now you can't 'cause I—" He fumbled around his words a third time, "We brought you food—"

"It's alright." Maura smiled. "Please, come in."

Frankie laughed through his nose and scratched the back of his head as he stepped through the threshold. "Thanks. Woulda stood out there flappin' my gums all night if you had let me." He placed the sack of food on her kitchen counter and began pulling items from it one at a time. "Frost wanted to stop at that other place down the street, but I remember the tofu fiasco from two years ago- I don't think he was there for that, actually…"

"It's a nice thought, regardless. Thank you." Maura said, unsure of what to do with her hands while they shook still. She clasped them together and pinched the web space of one with the other. Jane would call it a "weenis", and the thought of it made Maura chuckle and break out into another smile. Frankie looked up at her and smiled back.

"What's so funny?"

Maura shook her head. "Oh, nothing…" She paused, working hard to conceal the tremble in her voice. "So, has Jane tossed Dr. Pike out on his heels yet?"

Frankie laughed again with a loud "hah" and then stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Almost. She, um…" He cleared his throat for a moment, "She yelled at him for moving things around in your autopsy room."

"Technically it's the city's autopsy room—"

"We don't see it that way." Frankie smiled warmly at her again. "That's where we know to find you. It's yours."

"Well," Maura took a deep breath and let it go slowly, "That's sweet of you to say."

"Eh." He grimaced slightly, clearly unable to take a compliment. He and his sister were so much alike in that way. "You doin' alright, though? Need anything else?"

"Think you can convince Cavanaugh to let me come into work tomorrow?" Maura asked flippantly.

"Nope, sorry."

Maura hummed a sad note. "Stir crazy" didn't even begin to cover it. What on earth was she supposed to do tomorrow?

"Listen, Maura…" Frankie began, turning his full attention to her now that he had discarded the empty food bag into its appropriate receptacle. "Don't be sore with Jane. It's not her fault. It's…" He cleared his throat a second time, a sign of nervousness. "It's mine, actually. I sorta mentioned to Cavanaugh that you were maybe a little bit tired."

"You did what?" Maura said, stopping herself just as she was about to sit on one of her cushioned wooden bar stools.

"I saw you yesterday morning… I smelled it on you as you walked by…"

"Frankie—"

"I didn't want anyone else to catch on…"

"You didn't—"

"No! No, I didn't tell him that you were drinking, I swear. I won't tell anyone. I just said that you were having a hard time, is all. Some of the guys mentioned seeing you trip a couple times…"

Maura stood up straight and squeezed her hands even tighter. Frankie was right. She was tired. She was tired of being both conscious, and sober.

"I'm sorry, I'm not feeling all that well." She said as she went to unlock and open the front door again. "Goodnight and thank you for bringing me dinner. It was very kind."

"Maura…"

"Goodnight, Frankie."

The middle Rizzoli hung his head and clutched at the keys which jangled in his pants pocket. His eyes flashed upward when Maura leaned to give him a quick peck upon his stubbled cheek as he left, but he didn't say another word.

Maura felt horrible. Frankie had only meant to help her. He probably had, in fact. If he had caught her, then it's likely others would have too. He really would make a good detective one day… But her reaction bothered her to no end. What was so wrong with her that she just couldn't find what to say anymore? How in the world was she supposed to get it out of her if she wasn't willing to be angry? And why was anger the only emotion that allowed her to say how she felt? Maura could have absolutely kicked herself.

So, she decided that she would. But with a great, big, glass of wine. Because if she couldn't be mad, then she might as well deserve to be sad.

The shaking in her hands had stopped.

Maura finally felt calm. A bit warm and fuzzy didn't hurt, either. One glass of wine had turned into a bottle, and then another. Her house was pristine still, all except for the two empty wine bottles that sat on her kitchen counter on either side of her sink. They offset the order of the rest of the countertop, one being on the left side and the other on the right. Her kitchen was in pairs; Two appliances per cabinet, two potholders, two dishtowels, two dispensers, two refuse pails… She smirked unhappily and set one of the bottles on the left side of the sink, pairing it with the other. Then the thought struck her to just take them out to the recycling bin where she stored her used glass products.

Outside, she nearly bumped into the tall Texanum privet hedge where it jutted too far out onto the stone path around the side of her house. When was the last time she called a landscaping company out to mind her lawn? Had so many things really fallen by the wayside lately? The hedge eventually ended, and in the darkness, Maura found the bin to dump each of the bottles that were tucked up underneath her arms. One fell to the bottom with a loud -clang- and then the -thunk- sound of a car door followed. It was close enough to make her spin around and accidentally drop the other bottle onto the concrete driveway at her feet with a -crack-. It bounced once, twice, and then shattered into a thousand small pieces. Maura screeched and went to take a step back but realized that she was still barefoot.

"Maura—"

She could recognize that deep, husky voice anywhere.

Jane's dark, wavy hair jogged toward her from underneath a lamp post on her lawn. Maura could see that she wore sweatpants and a loose concert t-shirt. Her tennis shoes crunched over the tiny bits of opaque green glass as she held her hands out with caution.

"Stay right where you are, I'll come to you."

Maura shook her head, wondering if she was seeing things now. That would be the absolute last thing she needed on top of everything. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting." Jane said as she walked carefully around some of the bigger pieces on the ground.

"For?"

"I dunno. You wouldn't answer the door."

"So how long have you been in my driveway?"

"Long enough, Maur. Now hang on—" Jane warned as she scooped an arm behind the backs of Maura's knees and picked her up. Maura squeaked and wrapped an arm around the detective's shoulders, and her heart leapt into her throat with a painful lump. Jane looked down as if she were about to plot a path back through the glass toward the front of the house, but she made no effort to move. She stood there with her jaw set, blinking intently at Maura instead.

"Um. The front door is that way." Maura pointed sheepishly.

"I know." Jane grinned. "But I think we're gonna stand here until you say something nice to me."

"What—" Maura scoffed. "You can't be serious."

"You want me to put you back down?"

"No…"

"Alright then. I'll wait." Jane said, giving her chin a proud tilt.

Maura gawked at her. "You can't stand here holding me like this all night."

"And why the hell not?"

"You… you'll get tired." Maura hesitated. "Won't you?"

"Mmm, maybe. Maybe not."

"Oh, fine."

Jane quirked her head as if she couldn't hear her. Maura grumbled, and then leaned against Jane's shoulder, defeated. It's not like she didn't want to say something nice. She just usually tried her best to not have her spine wither and collapse on her every time Jane decided to be both stubborn and charming at the same time.

"I—" Maura began, her mind grinding each of its gears in search of something to say. "Frankie told me that you yelled at Pike for touching my things. Thank you."

"I caught him sitting in your chair." Jane said plainly as she began to walk carefully around and toward the stone path.

Maura gasped animatedly, making Jane laugh. "He didn't…"

"Oh, he did." Jane nodded with a smirk. "But he won't ever do it again, that's for damn sure."

Maura giggled behind her free hand. "I wish I could have been there to see the look on his face."

"It was priceless. You would have loved it." Jane admitted.

Suddenly, Maura bounced slightly in Jane's arms as they took the step up into the covered archway in front of her door, and she realized that Jane had carried her all the way around the front of the house. A moment later she was placed back down onto her feet. The brick still felt a bit warm beneath her toes from how long it faced the sun each day. Jane caught her when she swayed forward a little, her head still spinning a bit from all of the commotion…

"Hey." Jane said. Her face was just a few inches away from Maura's now and she flashed a winning smile as if she were truly pleased to see her. They'd only spent a day apart… how on earth did it feel like so much longer than that?

"Hey…" Maura replied quietly, her eyes dropping toward Jane's lips. She need only fall forward, just for a second or two. They looked so soft, and Maura's resolve had worn so thin…

"Tell me what you did today?" Jane asked.

Maura quickly snapped out of her stupor.

"I don't even know where to begin…" She said, rolling her eyes playfully as she turned to open the door.

Jane stepped out of her shoes one at a time once they were inside and kicked them toward a side table, just like she always did. "That bad, huh?"

"I think Bass can sense my boredom. He got himself stuck under the same island cabinet three times."

"Maybe he was just giving you something to do. He's a smart turtle."

"Tortoise."

"Potato, tomato." Jane mocked as she walked into Maura's kitchen and retrieved a beer from the fridge. Maura pointed toward the corked wine bottle at the end of the counter and then gestured toward the glass beside it. There was an unspoken rule in Maura's house: if you get yourself something to drink from the host's kitchen, you also bring something for the host. Jane nodded and poured her a glass.

"Thank you," Maura said as they sat on each end of her couch. "And I believe the saying goes tomato tomato."

"Sure it does." Jane teased as she rolled her hand around into a fist. "Ow…"

"Do you still have pain in your wrist?"

"No, I just like saying 'ow'."

Maura gave a slight -tsk- from behind her teeth and set her wine glass down on an end table. She then waved for Jane to scoot closer on the couch. "Come here."

"Please, no more 'closed concoctions' or whatever it is you did to fix it, I don't think I'll recover this time—"

"Oh, stop it." Maura chided, taking Jane's hand the rest of the way across the couch and laying it in her lap. "You know," She continued as she started to gently massage Jane's wrist, "You come off so tough all the time, but I know you're just a big baby."

Jane dropped her jaw and looked down her nose at Maura, playfully appalled. "Am not."

"Are too." Maura smiled when Jane made an "ooh" sound as she dropped her head onto the top of Maura's thigh.

"M'kay. Maybe a little." Jane admitted, wiggling her shoulders to get comfortable. "Tell no one."

"Your secret is safe with me." Maura promised with a laugh and took Jane's beer from her other hand to place it beside her own discarded glass. She remarked inwardly at how her wine became a little less of a priority whenever Jane was around. It was a welcome relief.

They stayed like that for a while longer as they watched tv, and soon Jane was breathing deep and heavy breaths from where she laid in Maura's lap. It appeared that Maura had massaged the detective's wrist mindlessly to the point of putting her to sleep. She sat there staring at her impossibly dark locks of hair, and even ran her fingers through them a time or two in admiration. Maura's eyes were finally heavy as it was well past two in the morning according to the large clock face on her wall, and she could smell faint notes of bergamot and amber from where she continued to tease her fingers through Jane's hair. She yawned, feeling tired enough that she might lean downward to place a kiss upon one of Jane's sharp cheekbones, but instead she chose to slip out from underneath her carefully so as not to wake her. Every so often Jane had a habit of falling asleep on Maura's couch and letting herself out the next morning, so Maura didn't feel guilty for letting her sleep. She'd shoulder her way lazily up the stairs and fall into bed, where she would dream about the detective carrying her in her arms for no good reason at all.

Miraculously, she made it through the bulk of the day without giving in to the thought of pouring herself a drink.

Packing her Gucci suitcase presented the opportunity to completely reorganize her bedroom closet, where Maura found loads of once-worn cocktail dresses to sort through. Granted, none of them she felt so unattached to in order to part with or to donate, but during her perusal, one in particular stood out well enough to wear that day.

Once sufficiently packed, Maura tore back into her closet to reacquaint herself with a stunning 1950's-styled vintage butterfly patchwork dress. Its top half was sleeveless and black with a nice, ruffled jabot-collar necktie. The bottom half was a cream-colored petticoat and skirt set with a black lace patchwork design overtop. It had sewn butterfly appliqués, the wings of which fluttered gracefully while she walked and gave little twirls in front of her closet's floor length mirror. Her dress indeed kept her occupied for an hour or two, but now she was sat back on her living room couch and doing her best to avoid all of three things for the rest of the day: online shopping, her wine cellar (still) and texting one Detective Jane Rizzoli. She idly thumbed through an issue of Rolling Stone as her eyes darted every so often toward the time.

The large iron hands of the clock on her wall clacked quietly into place at their six o'clock position, and Maura lunged for her phone.

It didn't ring more than three times. It never did.

"You foamin' at the mouth yet?" Jane said in the place of a hello. Goodness was she crass sometimes. Maura loved it.

"That would indicate a number of maladies including seizures, pulmonary edema, poisoning, rabies…"

"God, does your brain ever get tired?"

"…No." Maura huffed a laugh beneath her breath. Two days spent at home, and she missed Jane Rizzoli's brand of sarcasm like she hadn't heard it in years.

"What are you up to?" Jane asked.

Maura pulled in a deep breath through her nose and fanned the skirt of her dress, admiring it silently. "Oh, nothing. Do you have plans for this evening?"

"Nope. Bring beer on your way here? I'm all out."

"Okay." Maura replied with a smile. She couldn't wait for Jane to see her dress.

Maura was happy for once just to have a suitable reason to forgo pouring herself a glass of wine. Rare was it lately that it ever just stayed one. She just needed something to do.

Jane's third floor apartment right in the heart of Downtown Dallas was strategically placed betwixt a family-owned bakery, a gun range, and a dog park which served alcohol, all of which were within walking distance. Maura found the downtown area fascinating and quite like Paris in its thoroughfare… but with less of an arborist's touch and even fewer public restrooms. The streets were tight, and the overall pace was busy. Maura parked on the curb and Jane buzzed her upstairs. She was practically vibrating by the time she got to Jane's door. It swung open, and Maura grinned.

"Wow…" Jane's jaw dropped a little, "Why do you always look like you're about to do a photoshoot?"

"I found the time to sort through one of my closets. Here—" Maura said with a prideful lift of her chin as she handed the detective her beer and strutted inside.

Jane laughed behind her. "I'll bet you did."

"Now, just because you went rifling through your own closets today like a fashionable racoon doesn't mean you can just come over to my place and do the same thing to mine…" Jane drawled from where she leaned against the headboard of her bed. Several pillows were tucked up behind her so that she could sit and still drink the beer which she held comfortably in her lap.

"A racoon's opposable thumbs allow them to scavenge, not rifle." Maura stated as she sifted through one hanger at a time in Jane's small half-closet. "Have you even packed?"

"I mean, I was gonna…"

"What, ten minutes before you leave?"

"When else am I gonna do it?"

Maura twisted around to look back at Jane whose eyes she caught running lazily over her bare arms. Jane seemed to be entranced for a split-second but shook herself out of it just in time to catch Maura's gaze. Maura simply pretended like she hadn't noticed and continued, "I'll have to leave early in order to get there in time to sort out some last-minute details. You should wear this—" She held up a black and reasonably modest, short puff-sleeve dress that seemed to be just past knee-length on the detective.

"I wore that to a wedding last year."

"So?"

"Don't you think it a faux pas to wear something you've already worn to a wedding to a funeral?"

Maura hummed quietly to herself. Jane was teasing her. "No, not really, I suppose. Have I seen you wear it?"

Jane shook her head.

"Well, it should be fine, regardless." Maura hung the dress at the top of the closet door and walked over to sit at the edge of the bed near Jane. She pulled in a deep breath and let it go patiently, squeezing her hands repeatedly to dull the ache in them. Her fingers felt like bony knives against everything they touched, but she didn't want to drink.

"Can I ask you somethin'?" Jane sat up and hugged her knees.

Maura nodded.

"Aren't you sad?" Jane's eyebrows pulled together empathetically. "It's just… you don't really seem like it. You've never really talked about your dad before. Can I know why?"

Oh, how Maura wished they could be talking about dresses again. Or even racoons. "Yes. But… not tonight. I don't think I can—"

"It's alright… Don't worry about it, then." Jane said, leaning forward to still Maura's wringing hands. She took one into her own and pulled. "C'mere."

Maura smiled glumly and then climbed upward toward the headboard to sit beside her. She fanned the pretty lace patchwork design over her dress to cover her knees and then laid her head atop the detective's shoulder with a sigh. Jane gave her a squeeze.

"Are you sure you don't want me to get up early and go with you?" Jane asked.

Maura shook her head against the firm roundness of Jane's deltoid. "It's alright. I'll be fine until you get there. Can I stay here until I have to leave?"

Jane tucked her chin a bit to kiss Maura on the top of her head. "Of course, Swiper."

"Jane…"

"Yeah?"

"Swiper was a fox."

Jane laughed, bouncing Maura's head a bit. "Nothing gets past you."