You remember the days fueled by sunlight.
When you would run through blades of grass and wildflowers,
your hair flying behind you. Golden. Like the laughs you sent into the stratosphere, racing the shadows.

You were photosynthetic.

You were beautiful.

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A/N: Another one of those clumsy love stories. Definitely AU.

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When you meet her, your life is filled with honey. An amber haze, warm like the sun that keeps you alive. You are quiet, but bursting with life; she is the shadows you've been running from all along.

She is new.

You can tell by the way her uniform is a couple sizes too big. The way it hangs from her shoulders, and, well, honestly you think you'd remember seeing her before. It would be difficult to forget those dark curls spilling onto the table or that sharp jaw that has your fingers tightening around your pencil.

She sits next to you, doodling in her notebook like she is thinking about being anywhere else. She draws rocket ships and stars versus your notes on the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and all you can think is: oh, wow because you get to sit next to her for the whole rest of the year.

She glances over at you for the first time since she sat down. Her eyes are a rich brown. You feel an overwhelming urge to gape at her.

You hear your own voice, and for a moment you're tremendously proud of how normal you sound. She smiles, but you can't remember what you've just told her. You feel your cheeks flush as you search your brain.

"Well," she says, tearing her drawing out of her notebook, "Maura Dorthea Isles, you can have it."

You feel a little bit like running away because oh god did you actually tell her your full name within two seconds of meeting her?

"Thank you," you mutter, tucking the picture away in your folder, while a million and one cycles of i am so embarrassing spin around your head.

But when the bell rings and you bend to reach for your purse, the world goes still and quiet. You feel a hand light on your arm, lips close to your ear. Your breath catches, and your stomach drops into your knee socks. Her words are barely above a whisper: "Jane Clementine Rizzoli."

And then she's gone.

If hearts could leap, yours would soar.

..

..

You see her every day in Calculus, but she never seems to pay much attention to the teacher or the review, and it makes you wonder how she plans on passing the final next week.

You start to ask her if she wants to borrow your notes, but your words fizzle and waver when her brown eyes catch yours, a smirk playing across her mouth.

You could faint.

.

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Your roommate, Clarissa, has her study group in your room every Saturday morning, leaving you to fend for yourself out on the quad for three and a half hours. It used to feel like exile, a party you were never invited to.

Now you know it's freedom.

You lie on the grass and spread your arms out wide, fingers splayed with your legs crossed at the ankles. You can feel the energy in the soft grass, the beginnings of the summer to come.

And the sun.

It really is the best part.

The way the warmth spreads across your skin and sinks into your bones. You could stay like this forever and forget all about Keaton Academy and the girls who you know are staring at you as they pass. Forget that shaky A- you have in Latin.

You scrunch your nose, because who are you kidding? All you really want to do is forget the argument you had last night with your father about college in the fall. You'd hung up on him, and you think that might have been the boldest, yet outright most disrespectful thing you've done in all your life. And if you're being completely honest with yourself, your hands are still shaking.

So here you are, relying on the sun to take your mind off of the storm you'll be facing when you go home next week. You don't fare well in clouds, so you're soaking up as much light as possible now because you're going to need it where you're going.

You take a deep breath, filling your lungs with the kind of air you'll be lacking next week in the city. And the sounds! You're going to miss the quiet. No car horns or sirens or jackhammers.

If you keep going on like this, you'll ruin your mood, and that's a pretty awful way to start off a Saturday.

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The sun disappears behind a cloud, pulling a groan from deep within your chest.

"Hello to you, too," a voice says, chuckling.

Your eyes snap open and the world is a most unpleasant shade of blue. You blink a few times, and the moment you recognize her, you cover your face with your hands. "Hi."

"So, uh, what're you doing there, Maura Dorthea Isles?"

"Just Maura, please." You wonder how red your face is at this point, and it makes you laugh a little. "And I'm… photosynthesizing."

"What, like a plant?"

"Yes," you drop your hands to your sides, palms up toward the sky.

"Does it work?"

You crack one eye open and smile at her, "Why don't you see for yourself?"

.

She stretches out beside you, long curls spilling into the space between the two of you. You close your eyes and press the backs of your hands deeper into the grass.

"So this is it?" she asks, and you feel her eyes on you.

"Yes."

"And you just do this all day?"

"Sometimes."

"Huh," she says, stretching her arms out to her sides again. Her fingertips brush your arm, and despite how warm you feel inside, you shiver.

You can already tell she's bored. Maybe not of you, but of what you think is fun. But the thought of her getting up and walking away snaps your eyes open. Beside you, she's closing one eye and reaching her hands up to the sky as if she can capture the clouds between her fingertips.

"Hey, Jane?"

"Hmm?" she grabs at the air with her whole hand.

"What made you transfer here with only two weeks left?"

She is quiet for a moment, but her hands never stop moving. You think that maybe you'd gone and asked one of those bad questions that are the reason you're not invited into study groups or to lake houses over long weekends.

"My ma," Jane says finally. "She just got hired here… She's a cook, and they let me go to classes if I help out in the kitchen. I don't have a schedule or anything. I just go wherever."

She props herself up on one elbow and looks down at you, smirking, "I'm not a real student."

"That's funny." You want to reach up and touch her face. She's so close. It would be so easy.

"What?"

"You're free to attend any class you want, and yet you choose to spend an hour and a half every day in Mr. Santini's AP Calculus class. Why is that?"

"Well, that's where you're at, isn't it?"

You don't even have two seconds to react before she sits up and brushes a few pieces of grass off her t-shirt. "I'll see you around, Maura."

You feel yourself go up in smoke.

.

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Today is Sunday, and that means you have to start packing. This time for good.

Across the room, Clarissa is listening to some pop song you don't recognize out loud while she empties her dresser. She's been your roommate for a year, yet you don't know where she's from or her middle name or if she's planning on being something great.

She glances up before you can look away, and gives you a small smile. She shoulders her bag, "If you find any of my stuff mixed in with yours, I'll be staying with Erin for the rest of the week, so you can find me there."

She starts to leave but stops in the doorway. Turning a little, she smiles again. "Have a great summer, Maura."

"You too," is all you can say because you think that's the most she's ever said to you all at once.

.

Twenty minutes later, you're being led by the wrist down the hall at an uncomfortable jog to compensate for the fact that one of her strides is about two of yours. She's so much taller than you remember.

So much more beautiful.

Inside your head, it's jane, jane, jane and not much else.

After Clarissa left, you opened the door and the window because without her and all her bright things, the room was far too quiet, too empty. You felt unsettled and silly. You started to count all the right angles in the room just so you would stop thinking about it.

You got to about three hundred eighty-seven before you heard a knock on the door jamb.

And here you are, though honestly, you have no idea how she convinced you to take a break and go with her somewhere. Okay, maybe she just said: you wanna see something? and you automatically said yes because, well, you're ridiculously attracted to her, and you still haven't got a handle on it.

So you follow her, trying a little too hard not to think about her fingers curled around your wrist or how her hair is in a ponytail today which would normally be fine on anyone else, but now you can see the smooth curve of her neck and that jawline that shows up every time you close your eyes. And dear god her cheekbones have your heart trying to escape your chest.

"Now, are you rea‒ Hey, are you alright?"

You nod because, really, that's all you have left at this point.

"You sure? You look a little red." She reaches out, her hand stopping just inches from your face, "I didn't mean to go so fast, I just… Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I'm fine… So, what did you want to show me?"

"You'll see," she says over her shoulder as she starts to lead again. This time, her steps are smaller and slower. For you.

She's taken you to the garden behind the dorms. The air around you is cool from the shade and the water in the creek. The gravel path crunches beneath your shoes as you fight the urge to stop and spin around just so you can see everything. Above you, the aspens are whispering in the breeze, and there are more flowers that you're certain you can identify. It occurs to you that you've never actually been here before. It's only been just outside your window for years.

Light passes between the gaps in the trees, spilling onto the path in small splashes. It hums against your skin as you walk just behind her. You can feel your fingers twitching, pulling toward something you have no words for, wanting something you can't name.

In a patch of sunlight, you reach for her hand, fingers linking, laced in warmth. She looks down at your joined hands and smiles like, took you long enough.

.

The path ends just at the edge of the campus, leaving you to a slightly overgrown meadow speckled with purple flowers.

Jane flops down in the grass, resting the back of her head on her forearm. She mutters something like photosynthesis and pats the grass next to her, but you can't. Not yet. Not with this new world around you. The colors, the smells. Jane.

You hold your hands out to your sides and tilt your head back to the blue sky, spinning in a slow circle. The sun. You want it all.

"Maura," she says, and from her mouth, your name sounds strong.

You open your eyes, and when you see her you feel as if you're falling from a great height. She's sitting up now, reaching for you with one hand. There are no words in the air. Only her big brown eyes begging, come here.

So you move beside her, ignoring the insecurity you feel in being so close. Instead, you pick at the grass in front of you because you feel like you need to do something with your hands.

You can feel her leaning closer to you, the heat from her skin, the smell of her shampoo. She murmurs your name, and you look up.

Her face is so close to yours, magical things could happen. Big things. Like firecrackers and skyscrapers. Things that make you want to wrap your arms around her until the automatic sprinklers come on.

Things that make you want to run like hell because who would ever think about you like that?

You have to look away.

"Hey," she whispers. "Where'd you go?"

"I think… I need to go study now."

"Right now?" And no one on earth has ever sounded so disappointed. You could cry. You could laugh. You could do a lot of things that you don't. "Can't you stay here?" with me?

"I… just…"

"Please?" she asks, and the next part comes out so quietly, you think you imagined it. "Please, come back to me."

You have to search yourself for some courage, but when you do find it, it's more than you could have ever imagined. It lifts your head level with hers and lets you meet her eyes. The truth you find there hits you like a wave.

You have known this girl for a week.

You are impossibly in love with her.

.

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It's Tuesday, and all of the sudden you're keeping track of every second. When you are not studying, you're looking for her. Sometimes she comes up to your room and lies on the floor while helping you run through your Latin flash cards. Other times she pulls you out of the mess of papers and books that was once your bed and demands you take a twenty-minute break.

During one of those breaks, she introduces you to her mother, Angela. Jane barely gets your name out before the woman is hugging you like you've just returned from the war.

"Jeez, Ma, let her breathe."

"Oh, stop it." She releases you and gives you a smile that makes you feel warm like clothes right out of the dryer. "Besides, it's not everyday I get to meet one of my Janie's friends!"

And after, she takes you to the rec room, apologizing profusely for her mother all the way.

You've never seen her so flustered. It makes you squeeze her hand a little. "No, don't apologize. She was lovely."

"Well, don't tell her that. It'll go straight to her head."

.

Your mother calls you once the sun disappears, and you think that she does that on purpose. As if she knows you're powerless without it.

She tells you that your ticket should arrive tomorrow. One-way to Nice. The way she says it is so clinical, you think that maybe she has mistaken you for one of her clients and not her daughter.

You love your mother. You do. Your father, too. And you know they love you, but neither one of them has made you feel as warm as you did when Angela Rizzoli smiled at you.

"How long before we come back?"

"Why, I don't… Three weeks maybe. Why, darling? I thought you loved France."

"I do, but…" I don't think there's another Jane Rizzoli in France, and even if there were, I wouldn't want her. "I think I would rather just go home, Mother."

"To Boston, really?"

"Yes."

"Well, I suppose that's all right."

You fall back against your pillows, and you think that relief is one of your new favorite feelings, right behind the fluttering in your stomach when you feel Jane's hand at the small of your back, of course.

That's nearly unbeatable.

.

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Thursday night comes before you can stop it. Your stomach won't settle, and it's not because of the Calculus final tomorrow. It feels much deeper than that, and you hate the feeling because you can't seem to find which box to put it into.

It's nearly midnight when you finally push your textbook off your lap. Outside the moon is high and full, and so much of it shines through your window. For a moment all you can do is stare at the big patch of light in the middle of the floor. It's like the whole room is lit up, bright white and silver. You feel like you're going to get in trouble for something.

As you're stepping out of your skirt, there's knock on the door. You pull a soft t-shirt over your head, not bothering with the shorts you'd set out earlier. You know it's Jane on the other side of your door, and as far as you're concerned, she can see all of you if she wants.

The door creaks open, "Maur."

"I'm here."

She steps into the room but stops to stare at the bright square of light. And for some unmeasurable length of time, you're both frozen at the edge of the moonlight. Stuck in time, in white, in silver.

She caves first.

You watch her lower herself to the ground, immersing herself in the light. You think about tomorrow, but the thought only takes the strength from your knees. Before you know it, you're settling right beside her, and honestly, in a box of moonlight, anything feels possible.

You're facing each other now, taking shallow breaths. And you know that there are a million and one things you need to tell her. But your words are off somewhere where it's sunny.

This nighttime world… it isn't for people like you. The dark, the late; it's so much more complex than your daylight domain. You're at a loss for words, for senses, for everything.

You're lost.

You're lost. She mumbles your name, and suddenly, it makes sense.

This is her world.

Her eyes are shining, and in this pale light, her skin looks as white as her tank top. Her hair is an inky abyss falling across her shoulders and pooling on your floor.

"I don't want you to go tomorrow."

The breath you take in is too sharp. You don't know how to breathe this air.

"I just found you, Maur," she whispers, and you want her to stop talking right this second. But even more, you want her to go on like this forever because if she never stops, tomorrow won't happen, and you won't have to grow up. You'll just live in this square of moonlight together, and everything will be okay.

She reaches out and rests her hand on your hip, and suddenly you can speak. "I'm going to be a doctor," you tell her.

"Mm-hmm. I'll bet you are."

"But I don't want to be."

"You don't?"

You sigh because you're not being fair. You do want to be a doctor someday. But right now you still feel like you're seven years old, dreaming about the stars, and worrying about missing the ice cream truck.

"My father is angry with me. He doesn't like me to be indecisive," you say to the floor rather than to her.

You feel her thumb trace the bare skin at your hip. You shut your eyes and cover her hand with your own.

"You know, Maur… I don't think you have to have it all figured out right now. And your dad; well, he just wants what's best for you, and when you do get it all worked out, he'll be just as proud then as he would be now."

"It's your life, Maur. You can do anything you want with it." She smiles and moves her hand a little higher on your waist. "Besides, whatever you end up doing, you'll be nothing less than amazing. Obviously."

You slide your hand up her arm, stopping at her bicep. Your cheeks feel wet, but you feel better than you have in weeks. "Thank you."

She nods, of course. And the next breath she takes in is a deep one like courage. "God, you are so beautiful."

Her forehead touches yours. "You held my hand in the sunlight." A whisper. You can feel her breath on your cheeks.

"Can I kiss you in the moonlight?"

You speak six languages, yet all you can manage is a desperate uh-huh, but none of that matters anyway because her lips are on yours and against yours, and you have a fistful of her tank top that says more, more, more. And you're above her with your knees on both sides of her hips. Your hair falls all over the place, mixing with hers. There are fireworks between your bones.

When you pull away for air, you see the lines down her cheeks, and your heart crawls into your throat. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to say goodbye," she says. "I don't wanna stop seeing you."

"No, no," you kiss her cheeks, "we'll see each other. I live in Boston, Jane. I'm not going anywhere."

She swipes her hand across her eyes, laughing with what looks like relief, "And you didn't think to tell me that? I thought I was never going to see you again."

"I'm sorry, I thought you knew." You can't help laughing. Just a little.

"Hey, don't laugh. I thought I was gonna lose you." Now she's laughing too, and you can feel it in the bottom of your stomach. You lean forward and kiss the corner of her mouth because now that you know what it's like, you're probably going to have some trouble stopping.

She smiles against your mouth and slides her hands up your stomach. It feels like the entire solar system is right there in the room with you.

Your eyes fall shut.

And when you wake up the next morning, the moonlight is gone, but she's there with her arms around you. A smile overtakes your face as you snuggle into her. You fall back asleep knowing that with her by your side, you can take on just about anything.

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end