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.

Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.


Chapter 14

"We should eat something…" Maura said, checking the clock. It was almost 6PM.

She saw Jane opening her mouth to say something, and then closing it, without saying anything.

"Please don't tell me you are not hungry yet. I am starving."

Jane swallowed hard. "I don't think I have been eating regularly… what we ate earlier was probably more than I have been eating in an entire week…"

Maura shook her head, as she moved to put the plates on Jane's small dining table.

"You will join me, and you will eat something. I understand it will take a while to get back to normal. But the first thing you need to do is to resume a routine. Can you please try that?"

Jane nodded.

Maura heated a smaller quantity of food, enough for her and to be passable for Jane at least, before serving their plates. And she was pleased to see Jane eating, slowly, but eating.

When they finished, Jane helped Maura to clean up.

"Do you go back to your need-to-know consulting case tomorrow?"

Jane sighed.

"There is no need-to-know consulting case, Maura. The non-field agents like me are all in an Agency shutdown between Christmas and New Year's."

Maura stopped dead in her tracks. A full week. Jane would have done it.

Jane waited for Maura's outburst.

Instead, she just heard Maura exhaling loudly, before she slowly turned to face Jane.

Jane kept her eyes lowered. She didn't know if she could face Maura now.

"Look at me, please." Maura's voice sounded broken, and Jane raised her eyes from her feet to find hazel ones welled in tears.

"A week?" Maura asked, in disbelief.

Jane exhaled, before responding in a barely audible voice. "I needed time. In case I couldn't do it in the first tentative." She swallowed hard to her admission in a loud voice.

Maura bunched the cloth of Jane's sweater in each of her hands. "Never…" she began, but a sob escaped her, and she stopped, shaking her head. "Never…" she began again, and again was stopped by a sob, tears spilling from her eyes.

Jane moved her hands to cover Maura's small ones, Maura's knuckles were white given the strength she was using to hold the bunched cloth of Jane's sweater. "Never again, I promise… I promise you, Maura."

Maura nodded, still unable to stop her sobbing, and Jane moved her hands from Maura's hands to close them behind Maura's back, pulling Maura closer to her in a tight hug, as Maura let herself sob and cry.

"I am sorry…" Jane repeated, her nose buried in Maura's hair, feeling the smaller body shaking against hers. "I am so sorry…"

It took a while for the sobs to subdue and turn into sniffling, and only then Jane loosed a bit her hold, just enough to kiss Maura's forehead gently.

"Can I… can I stay?" Maura asked shily.

Jane furrowed her brows.

"Of course. Do you even need to ask?"

"I had planned to go to a hotel, thinking you would be working… But now… I want to stay… Here… with you…"

"I would feel offended if you stayed anywhere else, Maura." Jane replied gently.

Maura just nodded, and inhaled deeply, letting go of Jane's sweater, and running one hand through her tousled hair, drying the tears from her face with the back of the other hand.

"I could use a hot shower…"

"You know the way, Maura, the house is yours. You should unpack, by the way…"

"I will…" Maura smiled back at Jane.

Jane looked around her living room. The apartment she barely recognized as her own. Had she really lived here for the past months at all? She probably would need to rephrase the question: had she lived for the past months at all?

She ran her hands through her unruly hair. God, this had been a close call. She felt as if she was waking up from a terrible nightmare. And it was not that the bad things that triggered all of it had not happened – they had. But finally, she felt she could see things through a different angle. And she had Maura to thank for that.

Maura… Jane smiled to herself, her hand moving to hover over her lips, her memory replaying their kisses along that day. How come they had never realized before how well they fit together? Ten years and they were blind? In denial? Or they simply were unaware that all the rules had long been blurred – or they never really existed between them to begin with? Jane was not sure how to explain it. But she was sure she would not let it go. It was just too good to just let it pass…

When she heard movement in the bedroom, she went there. Maura was unpacking.

"I will also take a shower while you unpack. Is there enough space in the closet for your things?"

"There is, Jane, thank you."

Jane came back in clean flannel PJ's. Maura's things were all in place, her empty bag closed pushed under Jane's bed, and Maura was sitting in bed fumbling with her iPad.

"What are you doing?"

"A grocery shopping list for tomorrow."

Jane plopped herself by Maura's side in bed.

"No kale, please?"

Maura chuckled. "Don't worry, there is no kale on the list. Or quinoa."

"Thank you…"

"You spent the past months trying to get away from the world of the living, Jane. I want to use these next few days to be your anchor."

Jane put a hand on top of Maura's, stopping what Maura was doing, and triggering Maura to look at her.

"You are not an anchor, Maura. You are my safe harbor. Always have been."

Maura tilted her head sideways. "Not a very safe harbor, it seems." She sighed, sadly.

"This was not on you, Maura. It was on me. Totally on me. I pushed myself away and kept my distance of my safe harbors, including you. I had decided I wanted to drown..."

Maura grabbed Jane by bunching two handfuls of her flannel PJs and pulling her face closer to hers. "Okay… So I will spend this next week until New Year's making sure you never, ever again, has any reason to consider drowning yourself as an option."