The air in the bedroom of one Dr. Maura Isles hovered expectantly around her and the man on top of her. It remained cool despite the scorcher ravaging Boston outside, and as much as she wanted to attribute that to her superior air conditioning, she had to concede that some of the… mildness might be due to Professor Jack Armstrong's struggles out of the proverbial gate. They lay together in her bed, as intimately together as two bodies could be, and the only sounds to punctuate the silence were the occasional sheet-rustle, the perfunctory grunt of stymied exertion, until neither could quite take it.

"Should I just…?" Jack, unable to complete his thought, awkwardly prostrated on Maura, surveyed the connection between them as though it were a manual on what to do. He shrugged imperceptibly, internally, and began to piston his hips at a different angle than the few others he had tried in the past ten minutes. Their first time had been smoother, so much less effortful, so much less… sober. Maybe that was it; he needed a little liquid courage.

"Oh, ok… just a little slower, don't-" Maura squeak-shouted when he sped up, his quickness more sharp than pleasurable.

The professor's face and chest, under Maura's fine hands, reddened as he crawled to a near stop. "L-like that? I'm sorry, I'm usually a little more… as you know," he asked sheepishly, with an awkward laugh.

"It's… it's ok," Maura replied, she bit her lip, adjusted her hips, "that'll work, babe." Her head smacked the pillow and her eyes closed to black out the midday sun pouring through her window, and attempted to lose herself in the hurried panting of her boyfriend.

Her professor. Inelegant, unsure of himself, but so charming. And he cared for her, truly. It was a rare occurrence in Maura's life for a man to put her pleasure on par with his own, let alone above it, so in that sense, he had already skyrocketed near the top of her list of lovers. Technique could be learned, especially with Jack being all but a genius; kindness and attentiveness usually could not, at least not in the bedroom. For today, all she had to do was play lead, provide the rhythm training wheels, and he should make his way through.

Unfortunately, after several agonizing minutes spent stimulated but wheel-spinning, however, Maura had had enough. He was close, teetering on the edge, and she was miles behind, when she decided to take things into her own hands. "Jack?" she cooed, infusing her vocals with honey, with a feline plot disguised in deference. She looked into his dark eyes, thrust her pelvis back into his, and squeezed the curve of his ass. "Jack, honey, let me take over, you've done enough…"

He nodded with gusto, a crooked smirk crossing his mouth, ego intact. That was the thing with Professor Armstrong: he, not unlike many men, needed a good pride-stroking. So her face asked for permission, while her body worked double-time, flipping them as soon as she saw even the first hint of assent. Her legs clamped over his, and she clenched her core, her powerhouse abdomen, to poise herself over him, riding in overdrive to make up for time and orgasms lost.

"God," Jack croaked, blindsided.

"Fuck, fuck…" she whispered as she increased her pace, moving a hand between her legs to help herself along. Her man stared at it in hurt for two, three heartbeats, suddenly clued in to his relative obsolescence, but she shuddered in victory before he could get a word in about it.

"Maura," he said simply, hands on her strong thighs. He was pacified when she bent to lower a kiss to his forehead, but whimpered when she got up to find some clothes.

"Sorry, Professor, but I'm late for softball practice," she smiled, giving him a wink. She pranced about in search of her jersey and cleats, taking no heed of him as he sulked in the sheets.

"Can't I come watch you?" He asked, knowing full well the answer. "I think you would be cute out there on the diamond. Plus, I'm a baseball guy, remember? I'm sure I could give you some pointers."

"I'm a lot more than cute, mister," Maura chuckled despite the diminutive that rubbed her the wrong way, "and you absolutely cannot. Jane already only agreed to let me play because she owed me; I'm already on thin ice," his face fell again, and he nodded in reluctant understanding. This softened Maura's heart. "And of course, she would ream me if I was distracted by the presence of a handsome man in the stands and not focused 100 percent on the play in front of me."

This answer pleased him. He liked Jane, genuinely, for her love of the game, and he also liked to feel wanted. "Jane is a pistol. I wouldn't want to get on her bad side." He smiled to signal to her that everything was well, and she patted herself on the back as she neatly tied the laces of her cleats.

"Good. I wouldn't want you to either," she said. She moved to kiss him, and then pulled on her Boston Homicide cap. "Lock up when you leave?"

"Of course."

"You're late, Doc," whispered Frankie to Maura as she stalked up to the fence behind home plate at Teddy Ebersol's Red Sox Field. Sweat peppered the back of his jersey and cap, but he was in good spirits nonetheless. His eyes never left the batter opposite the pitching machine, his older sister. "You know last person to arrive has to shag fly balls from the laser show." He threw a thumb in the direction of the plate.

"Shh, maybe she won't notice," Maura, still acclimating herself to the oppressive heat, acknowledged him. She touched his bicep and followed his eyes.

"You two should really learn how to whisper," Jane barked in between loadings of the machine, turning to face them with the barrel of her bat in her grasp. A pair of Oakley shades hid her presumably playful eyes, so her upturned lip seemed more dangerous than not. Frankie chided himself for saying something.

Maura noticed two things when her friend finally curled her fingers through the chain link of the fence that separated them. One, Jane always towered higher than she remembered, their height difference enunciated by the shade suddenly cast on her from the brim of Jane's hat. It thrilled her, sent small zaps of electricity through her thorax, made her feel safe, protected, not intimidated. Two: the detective's personal scent, muddled with the humid musk of her sweat, fascinatedMaura. Maybe her previous romp with Jack compounded the situation, but she also conceded that studies had found truth in the allure of some humans' smells over others – Jane smelled good to her because of some chemical reaction between the two of them that made them suitable to each other. She reveled in the fact that she had a friend close enough for that to occur.

"Where were you, huh? You live five minutes away and you still got here dead last," Jane teased. She flipped the lenses of her sport sunglasses upward to reveal Arabica irises.

Maura harbored no hesitation in meeting them, smiling back at them. "I was… otherwise occupied," she answered, reddening.

"Mmm. I think someone was otherwise occupying you," Jane quipped, with a hint of raillery in her chuckle. Someone called out that the pitching machine was ready; she waved them off without looking back.

"And that's it. I can see this is an AB conversation," Frankie put his hands up, slowly backing away until he picked up a bat to take his occupied sister's place.

"Maybe. Are you going to make me take the outfield when you hit again?" Maura batted her lashes theatrically, and Jane only put her head down in mirth.

"Honey, tell me why I should even let you on the squad," she responded, in true managerial fashion, "when you picked Jack's junk over us."

"Au contraire, Detective, I picked my own orgasm over the team," Maura said, stepping on her tiptoes and leaning in so that only the fence separated their faces.

"Either way…" Jane started, pausing, as her friend inched closer, "no. You don't have to shag fly balls. It's hot. I'll make my brother do it."

"Hey, Skip!" Frankie called out sarcastically, apparently finished with his round of batting practice, "you gonna take round two or stand around all day?!"

"It's already my turn. I'm gonna hit, ok? Try to stay cool," and just like that, one of Maura's favorite Janes appeared, the kind, soft one. Her eyes crinkled in a tiny smile before she flipped her shades down again, and she jogged back to where Frankie waited for her. She must have informed him of the switch in duties, because he cursed, but then grabbed a glove and ran to the outfield.

Jack was wrong, Maura mused. Jane isn't a pistol, she's a Winchester, and I'm about to watch her do barrel work. At 2PM on a late August day, those Rizzoli joints needed no lubricating, those muscles needed no loosening, and Maura prepared to study one of her favorite subjects: anatomy. Her detective friend was a master class when she was at the plate, a carnal Sistine Chapel of torque. This day especially, however, must have been a clinic day, the way Jane was hitting. She wondered for a moment about bringing her new class here this quarter, seeing as it was all about physiology and movement. That thought ultimately was pushed away in a selfish rush – this was her time, away from work, away from the obligations of the university.

It was her time to focus on the pivot joint of the hips, to watch explosive movement, catastrophic vertebral rotation, culminate in a singular, microscopic, metal-meets-leather strike. To put it bluntly, the bat was not the only thing that Jane wielded well. It was all about the mechanics around the bat, in the pelvis, in the core, in the arms. Those created a successful swing. A home run every time, even if only metaphorically.

Because Jane can even manipulate that, Maura mused as her fingers uncurled from the chain link and her feet walked of what seemed their own volition to the dugout where the others waited. Jane could unload on a pitch and send it over the fence, or she could choke up and place the ball far enough down the line, close enough down the line, to beat the throw for a bunt base hit.

"Can I take a few swings?" Maura called out over the whirr of the pitch machine. She wanted to do those things too. Call her competitive, but an MD wanted to perform, no matter what the task presented.

Jane found an in-between pitch moment to respond. "Yeah, let me take two more, make it easy on Frankie," she barked behind her shoulder, unwilling to turn from her position. Maura had seen that before – some superstitious thing about not wanting to lose "the wheelhouse". She whacked a couple of softballs up the middle, and then went to turn off the empty machine. "Gimme the bucket, little brother, and I'll reload. Pillow princess over here wants to take a couple whacks."
Frankie giggled as he set the full bucket next to his sister, but rather than be incensed, Maura merely shrugged and grabbed the bat out of Jane's hand. "Who said I was anywhere near any pillows, Jane?"

Whatever her intention, she sure received a reaction. The detective colored, and the tips of her ears burned. She said nothing.

"Are you going to load me up, or what?" Maura prodded, and even Frankie was starting to feel embarrassed.

Jane quickly recovered, and merely winked at her best friend.

"You want me to field, Janie?" Frankie asked. His sister didn't quite have a chance to deliberate, however, because he was already halfway out to second base when she replied.

"Sure, we'll work on grounders today," she said. "Ok, Maura? Ground balls good with you?" Suddenly, she was all business, and Maura loved that she loved this sport so much. The doctor just didn't quite get why she needed to hit balls to Frankie when Jane got to hit them all over the place.

"Why can't I just let 'er rip? You get to do that," she half-whined.

"Well, when you can control where the ball is going, you can. But right now you don't have enough power to produce useful fly balls," Jane replied, and Maura looked offended.

"I do so-"

"Look here, Baby Girl. I may have owed you one and that's why you get to be here, but I'm still captain and my goal is still to make my team the best it can be. So let's not fool ourselves, ok? You're not gonna hit home runs all over the place. I said right now you don't have enough power. I didn't mean ever. So do me a favor, and while you work on that, give me the best of what you do have. Like speed on the basepaths," at this point, Jane was towering over Maura again, and Maura felt that familiar comfort tinged with a little something that must have been respect. "You're fast. You learn to hit the ball on the ground wherever you want, those fat bastards on Vice could try all day and never throw you out once."

The medical examiner, smirking goofily, couldn't help but wipe at Jane's right eyebrow with her thumb. She caught a bead of sweat headed for the white of her eye, and Jane didn't flinch. "Ok," she assented. Simply. No fight, no argument. In fact, with a little bit of giddy warmth at the fact that Jane knew exactly where to put her, how to use her, all for the benefit of the team, a team she now felt a part of. That she could definitely accept.

Frankie had apparently had enough of the banter that he could not hear.

"Why am I asking this again? You gonna stand around and yak all day? Or you gonna actually hit?"

"Ok?" Jane asked, ignoring her brother's jab.

"Ok," Maura repeated.

"What, no scientific facts to prove that you're actually better at this than I am?" her friend asked, smiling good-naturedly.

"No, because there are none. And I would like nothing more to learn from the best."

"Ok, then let's get to work."