Summary: An accidental kiss during a night in has Jane questioning her feelings for her closest friend.

Disclaimer:I don't own anything related to the show.

Rating: M

A/N: I've been writing for a while, but this is my first Rizzoli & Isles fic. It's going to be short (probably just two parts). I just started watching the show last week, but I've caught up to season four, so hopefully this won't be too out of character or anything!

"Maura, I've had a really long day and I just want a beer!" Detective Jane Rizzoli whimpered in frustration as she flopped down on to her best friend's couch. Maura was busy lining up glass bottles on her kitchen counter. She stopped what she was doing long enough to frown at the other woman.
"And I have an entire selection for you right here. See!" She pointed out the beers with an over exaggerated hand gesture, as though she was worried Jane had suddenly gone blind.

"Yes, but you won't let me drink any of them." Jane whined petulantly as she got back to her feet and dragged herself over to the counter. She brought her chin down to rest on Maura's shoulder and reached out for one of the fancy labelled bottles. The doctor slapped her hand away.
"Not yet Jane!" She scorned. "I had these imported so we could taste them together. I have notebooks for us and-"
"Maaauura!"

"Fine! Fine! We don't have to take notes." Maura gave in, as she often did when the other women was being her cantankerous self. She picked up the first bottle on the left and handed it over to a grateful Jane. "I know you hated the wine tasting I dragged you along to last week, so I thought we could do something you'd enjoy more."

"I'd enjoy drinking these beers." Jane smirked as she sat back down. Maura followed her over, bringing the other bottles of beer with her. She sat them down on her coffee table, back in the order they were meant to be drank.
"The one you have there is a Tutankhamen Ale. It's brewed in a Cambridge lab to a secret recipe found in Queen Nefertiti's Temple of the sun in Egypt-"

"Tastes ok." Jane shrugged. She could care less if it had been brewed in Obama's bathroom, she was just glad to be kicking back with a beer after a gruelling shift at work. She'd had to tell the parents of a seventeen year old kid that their honour roll son had been killed because some idiot gangbanger had tried to do over a bodega for the grand sum of forty-two dollars. Some days the detective just flat out hated other people; except for Maura.

Jane's best friend was one of a kind. No matter how bad a day she'd had, Jane could always depend on Maura to cheer her up; or at least she usually could, when she wasn't lecturing Jane on the origins of her beer. "It is the cheapest of the four, at fifty-eight dollars, but it still has a-"
"Fifty-eight dollars?" Jane almost spat the beer back in the bottle with shock. "What did you buy, a crate?"
"No, just a bottle for each of us. Why? Do you think I should have bought more?" Maura asked as she sniffed at her own bottle, assessing the aroma before taking a tentative sip.

Jane rolled her eyes at the other woman. She loved her dearly, but sometimes it felt like they were from two different worlds. The illustrious doctor had grown up in a world of glitz and money, far removed from Jane's blue collar upbringing on a plumber's salary. The money Maura wasted on designer clothes and fancy beers would probably give Jane's frugal father a heart attack. It was Maura's money though. She worked hard to earn it and she could spend it however she liked; Jane just hated her spending it on her.

"I've also got Crown Ambassador Reserve, Carlsberg Jacobsen Vintage aaand…" Maura drew out the suspense as she headed over to one of the kitchen cupboards and pulled out a small gold bottle that looked like an expensive paperweight. Jane's eyes lit up at the sight of it.
"Shut the hell up! You did not buy Utopias!"

"I did. For you." Maura beamed. She sat back down beside a very excited Jane and handed the bottle of very expensive Samuel Adams over to her.
"Maura! Thank you so much!" Jane threw her arms around the other woman, practically crushing her. "Last time I had this was when I made homicide. My dad was so proud he went out and bought me a bottle." The detective smiled absently, thinking of happier times in the Rizzoli household.

"Let's have a glass right now!" Jane jumped up to grab two glasses. Even she wouldn't drink the luxury beer right out of the bottle.
"But you've still got Tutankhamen to finish!" Maura protested. She was a little irritated that her beer tasting night had gone completely off plan. Jane quickly reached back for her open bottle, finishing it on the way back over to the kitchen. She felt a bit of a buzz from downing it, but she had been too excited to wait.

A few hours later the distinguished detective was lying spread across Maura's couch, giggling at the collection of empty bottles staring back at her from the coffee table. "I can't believe we finished the whole bottle of Sam Adams!"
"Hmm." Maura answered with her eyes closed. She was lying at the bottom of the couch with Jane's legs across her lap. It was safe to say that the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could not hold her beer.

"Maura, wake up!" Jane nudged her friend with her foot. She whined as the other woman swatted her foot away. "You're being a bore…" Jane got up on to her knees and crawled over to the other side of the couch. She was intending to shake her awake, but she lost her balance as one of her hands slipped off the couch. Jane stumbled forward, falling against Maura at an awkward angle. The other woman's eyes shot open as their lips met.

Jane tried to pull back, horrified at the slip. Maura seemed to have other ideas though. Her hand reached up, cupping the back of Jane's neck as she sat up; fully awake and kissing her shell shocked best friend. "Jane?" Maura frowned as the detective wrenched back so violently that she fell off the couch and flat on her ass.

"I got to go." She scrambled to her feet, barely remembering to grab her boots and jacket as she went for the door.
"Jane, wait!" Maura called after her, but it was too late. Jane stumbled out of the door as she finished pulling on her boots. She didn't bother waiting around to call a taxi. The world was spinning as she started walking and her mind was racing. She'd just kissed her best friend; albeit it by accident.

She probably could have just laughed it off, but Maura had kissed her back. She'd kissed back and Jane was freaking the hell out over it. Her phone went off a bunch of times in her pocket, but she chose to ignore it, knowing it would be Maura calling her. Eventually she made it back home to her apartment. She kicked off her boots and shrugged off her jacket, moving straight for her bedroom. She didn't even bother to change out of her clothes as she collapsed on to her bed and all but passed out.

Morning came around all too quickly for the detective. She woke up with a raging hangover. It was probably the most expensive one she had ever had, but she couldn't dwell on how thoughtful Maura had been in arranging the beer tasting night for her; she was too busy thinking about how badly she had screwed up.

She stumbled in to the bathroom to take a shower, pointedly ignoring her flashing phone. She probably had a ton of missed calls and messages from Maura, demanding some kind of explanation for what had happened the night before. Jane would have been happy to give her one, had she had the first clue herself. She felt a little more refreshed once she'd showered and changed in to a clean shirt and some slacks.

"Mother of mercy…" Jane cursed as she realised her gun and holster were missing. She remembered taking her holster off when she'd arrived at Maura's. She always left it in the top drawer of the side table by the front door. Jane absolutely knew it was there, but the cop in her wouldn't let her settle until she made sure. She picked up her phone, but it wasn't Maura's number that she dialled.
"Hey Ma, can you do me a favour and bring my gun to the precinct with you? I left it at Maura's last night."

"Sorry sweetheart, I'm already at work! Mr Stanley asked me to come in early for stock counting. Maura drove me in. I don't know if she has your gun…why didn't you call her? You never call me-"
"Ok, bye Ma! Nice talking to you!" Jane quickly hung up before her mother could get in to a full on lecture. She bit her lip, agonising over whether or not to call Maura. She thought about chickening out and texting her instead, but the fearless detective was going to have to bite the bullet sooner or later. She paced her apartment nervously as she waited for Maura to answer. The phone rang and rang, until eventually going through to Maura's voicemail. Jane cursed under her breath before hanging up. Was Maura mad at her? Or was she feeling just as mortified as Jane and avoiding her? Putting her detective skills to good use, she checked the missed calls on her phone and spotted they were all from the previous night. Maybe Dr Isles wasn't so keen on talking in the sober light of the morning.

Jane tried to bury the suffocating guilt that was welling up in her throat. Her clumsy fall and inadvertent kiss had clearly offended Maura so much that, for the first time in years, she hadn't picked up when Jane had tried to call her. She decided against trying to call again and just took herself off to work instead. She was glad she'd picked her sunglasses up on the way out of the door; the morning light was doing nothing for her raging hangover. She pushed she shades up on top of her head as she entered the precinct and flashed her ID at the young officer manning the desk.

Usually she would head in to the café to grab some coffee and say good morning to her mother, but she willing to skip her caffeine fix for one morning if it meant she got out of listening to her mom while her brain felt like it was about to ooze right out of her ear; of course Maura would tell her that was just plain silly, or cite some obscure case study where it had actually happened, if she were actually talking to her. Jane's finger hovered over the button in the elevator that would take her down to the crime lab, but she wasn't quite ready to face her friend. She slammed the button for the floor that was home to homicide and tried not to think about just how much grovelling and apologising she was going to have to do later.

The stupid kiss had been completely accidental, but of course Jane had blown it all out of proportion by storming out instead of sticking around to face the music. She and Maura were old friends, surely they would have been able to just laugh it off and carry on with their night, but not. Jane and her guilty conscience had gone and blown it. How many times had she thought about leaning in close and brushing her lips ever so softly against Maura's? Or, on more long and frustrating nights, pushing her up against the kitchen counter and kissing her until she was breathless. Jane's stomach twisted with a mixture of guilt and arousal.

She hadn't dared to admit to anyone just how curious she was about kissing her best friend, least of all Maura herself. Jane had instead taking the good old catholic approach of sticking her head in the sand and trying to ignore her feelings until they went away. They hadn't magically vanished though. They'd just grown in to an insurmountable wall of guilt and shame. It had gotten to the point that Jane had been cautious about drinking too much in her friend's presence; in case she did something really stupid like try to kiss her.

"Smooth move Janey." She chided herself quietly before stepping off the elevator and walking in to homicide. She felt a little naked without her holster at her side and was praying that no one would notice.
"Hey Jane, where's your piece?" Of course Frost had to be the first person she bumped in to on her way to her desk. The hawkeyed young detective didn't miss a thing. Jane felt her cheeks growing hot as she tried to bluff her way out of the situation.
"Uh, I took it down for servicing this morning. I think there's something up with the firing pin." She was pretty happy with herself for the quickly thought up lie and was confident that Frost had bought it; that was until she sat down at her desk and, out of habit, opened the drawer where she usually locked her gun away, only to find it sitting there.

"That's funny… since Maura brought it up here an hour ago." Frost was looking pretty smug as Jane looked back up for her desk. His grin was stretched from ear to ear as Jane flipped him off.
"Ok, so I left it at Maura's last night! It's not like I left it on the counter at a 7-Eleven!" The older detective huffed as she pulled out her firearm and clipped it on to her belt. Frost just laughed at her as he shook his head, knowing it was a bad idea to tease Rizzoli so early in the morning.
"So, did you and Maura have a late one last night?"
"What? No! Why would you say that?" Jane snapped defensively, cursing the tremor in her voice. Frost might have been a kid compared to the likes of Korsak, but he was still a seasoned homicide detective.

His eyes narrowed on his partner as he seemed to be weighing up her answer. Eventually he shrugged his shoulders at her. "No reason. Dr Isles just seemed pretty beat this morning. She looked like she hadn't had much sleep." Great, Maura had probably been up half the night trying to get in touch with her and then freaking out when Jane hadn't answered her phone. It was a miracle she hadn't called dispatch to ask them to send a uniform to check to make sure Jane had made it home safely. Jane's guilt was eating away at her as she tried to act casual around the other detective.

"Oh. Well, we had a few beers…actually, Maura ordered these really expensive beers; Including a Sam Adams." Jane's lips curled up in to an absent smile as she thought about Maura's gift to her. It had been a really good night, except for the part where Jane had kissed the good doctor and then freaked out.
"Utopias?" Frost guessed correctly and let out a low whistle. "Wow. I have got to find me a woman like Dr Isles."
"Maura's not my 'woman'…We're not like that!" Jane grew even more defensive, despite the fact that her partner hadn't really meant to insinuate anything. Frost stared her down as he tore his attention from his computer screen and eyed her up like she was a two bit perp.
"Ok, spill."

"Spill what?" Jane was getting flustered. Her cheeks were burning up with embarrassment. She was dying to run away from the conversation that Frost was trying to drag her in to, but at the same time part of her wanted to spill her guts to him. Maura was her only real female friend, and it wasn't like she could talk to her mom about the kiss, so her partner was the best logical choice. She glanced nervously around the office, glad to see the division almost empty for once. "Ok, so I kind of… last night… I… I-kissed-Maura." She said the last part in a hissed rush, her words all spilling out as one. She waited for her partner's response, unsure of what to expect. Frost had barely batted an eyelid when he'd found out his mom was marrying a woman, but Jane was his friend; maybe he'd think differently about his partner kissing the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts.

Her partner stared blankly at her, his expression coloured slightly by his confusion. "And?"
"And I kissed her! Maura! My very female best friend!" Jane hissed at him, wishing her long legs would reach all the way across to her partner's desk to kick him. Frost's frowned deepened as he struggled to comprehend what the problem was.
"Wait, like, for the first time?" The penny finally dropped for Jane as she realised why he was staring at her so strangely.
"Of course for the first time!" She snapped at him. She looked over her shoulder, checking her raised voice hadn't attracted any unwanted attention. The last thing she needed was for Korsak to come lumbering in and overhearing her. "Wait, why wouldn't you think it was the first time?"

It was Frost's turn to look uncomfortable as he squirmed in his chair. "Well, it's just…you two are very close." He chose his words carefully, not wanting to anger his partner; riling Jane was like poking a grizzly bear with a stick. "I grew up with my mom and Robin and-"
"Ok, conversation over." Jane shot him down before Frost could finish. It was bad enough to know that her partner thought there was something going on between her Maura without him comparing them to his mother and her future wife. "Maura and I aren't…Maura's straight." Jane wasn't sure how else to finish that sentence, so she went with the obvious.

"Sure." Barry snorted in to his coffee, barely disguising the little chuckle he had to himself as he went back to typing up his reports. Jane frowned at him, but didn't push it. She wanted to get off the subjected of her and Maura altogether. His comments were still playing on her mind later in the morning, when she'd finally summoned the courage to go downstairs to face her best friend. Maura was sat at her desk, poring over some files. It was clear to see why Frost had guessed they'd had a big night the previous evening. Maura's hair was tied back haphazardly, with stray strands of blonde hair escaping and falling in to her eyes as she chewed nervously on the end of her pen. Her usually flawless skin was darker around her eyes, a sure sign of a restless night spent worrying about Jane.

The detective cleared her throat, letting Maura know that she was leaning against her open door. "Hey. Can I come in?"
"Of course." The medical examiner put her papers aside as Jane stepped in to her office. She went to close the door behind her, and then seemed to have second thoughts about it. She left it open a crack, in case she was in need of a speedy getaway.
"About last night…" Three words she had thought she would never have to say her to best friend. Jane swallowed hard as Maura stared at her expectantly. The hot blooded detective wasn't very good at apologising. "I uh…"

Jane's pager went off before she could stumble over any more of her ill prepared apology. Maura's phone started going at the same time, alerting them both to a waiting homicide; Jane had never been so grateful to have a body waiting for her. "Looks like we caught a case… good talk." She forced a smile she didn't feel as she turned tail and all but ran out of Maura's office. The detective's evasiveness carried on for the rest of the day, with Jane dismissing Maura's offer to help her with notifying the victim's family. She'd sent the doctor back to the lab and had barely been in touch all afternoon. She'd checked in on the autopsy, but had only stayed down in the crime lab for about five minutes before making her excuses to leave. She'd stayed to hear the cause of death and then vanished again.

Maura wasn't naïve. She knew Jane was avoiding her because of what had happened the previous night. When the detective's lips had clumsily connected with Maura's she'd been a little shocked, but her surprise had quickly given way to desire and she'd started kissing Jane back. The other woman pulling away in horror had been a bit of a slap in the face. Maura was a big girl, she could take rejection. What she couldn't take was her best friend treating her like a leper because of what had happened between them.

She'd harboured a secret attraction to her best friend for years. She'd liked her even before she'd known her, when Jane had just been some rude undercover in the drugs squad and Maura had tried to pay for her coffee. She'd been hoping to strike up a conversation, and maybe a little more, with the long legged detective. What Maura hadn't expected though, was just how amazing the other woman was. Jane was far from perfect, but her attributes went far beyond her enticing appearance; she was fiercely loyal and protective, with a deeply engrained sense of right and wrong. Her family were just as mind blowing to Maura and she had been overcome by just how welcoming and inclusive the Rizzoli clan had been towards her.

Not long after meeting Jane's family, Maura had decided she would bury the feeling she had for her friend. She couldn't risk losing Jane and her amazing family by letting the detective find out about her feelings towards her; or her very flexible sexuality. Maura had been with women before, though that part of her life wasn't something she'd shared with Jane. Her heart had practically leapt out of her chest when Jane had leant over to kiss her, thought Maura had quickly figured out it had been an accident once her friend had ran out the front door. She'd tried calling, but Jane hadn't answered. She'd either passed out upon getting home, or had deliberately ignored her phone.

When Maura had found Jane's gun the next morning, sat innocently on the side table by her front door, she'd selfishly considered keeping hold of it to make Jane come back to face what had happened between them. Maura could never be that cruel to her friend though, so she'd dropped the gun off at homicide for her. She knew Jane was a very headstrong person and she would need to come around in her own time. Of course knowing something and accepting it were two very different principles.

After a day of being ignored and brushed off Maura Isles had, had just about enough. She could take her best friend being mad at her for the kiss they'd shared, but she at least wanted Jane to acknowledge that was why she was mad with her, instead of trying to act like everything was fine between them. Once she was finished in the lab she headed over to Jane's condo, instead of going straight home. After knocking a few times she figured the detective hadn't made it home yet. Jane was probably throwing herself in to the new case she'd caught, as a way of distracting herself from her worries; she was quite predictable like that.

Maura let herself in using the spare key that Jane had given her for emergencies. She had been alone in her friend's apartment enough times before to feel comfortable kicking her heels off and curling up on the sofa with a glass of wine; she tended to keep a bottle of her favourite over at Jane's house, to save her drinking the cheap stuff that the other woman often bought in. She and Jane couldn't be any more different to one another, yet somehow the dynamic between them worked better than that of any other relationship in Maura's life that she could compare it to; platonic or otherwise.

She thought about tidying up the little apartment while she waited, but she knew how much that infuriated Jane. The other woman was very territorial over her home, and even a little sentimental over the strangest things. Maura was pretty sure she had mild hoarding tendencies, though she would never share that belief with Jane herself; she could also be a little sensitive.

Eventually the medical examiner lost track of the time as she sat drinking her wine and playing on her tablet, waiting for Jane to come home. It was after midnight when Jane eventually stumbled through the door. Korsak had picked up on her hangover and had suggested some hair of the dog after work. Jane had only intended to have one drink. She'd known she still had to go and apologise to Maura and as much as she'd needed the Dutch courage, she'd convinced herself she had to do it sober; four beers later and she had talked herself out of going to see her friend at all. Six and she had forgotten all about their misunderstanding.

She kicked off her boots and pulled her shirt over her head before venturing further in to her apartment to fetch herself another beer before bed. She paused by the couch and frowned at the sight of Dr Maura Isles curled up on it. The other woman had pulled an old crochet blanket over her that Jane's grandmother had knitted and fallen asleep waiting for the detective to come home. Jane felt her guilt come back to hit her ten-fold. Maura had made the effort to come over and set things right between them, while Jane had skulked off to the pub like a coward.

Abandoning her plans for another beer, she sat down on the end of the couch, trying not to disturb Maura too much. She'd looked exhausted when Jane had seen her that morning and even more so when she'd popped in for the autopsy results later in the afternoon. Jane had listened to her talk about the victim for about five minutes, her eyes fixed on Maura's lips the whole time, before she'd made her excuses to leave.

She gingerly ran her fingers softly across the other woman's cheek, wondering whether she would ever again be able to stand in the same room as her best friend without thinking about locking lips with her. Maura let out a strangled whimper at being disturbed, but didn't show any other signs of actually being awake. Jane let her hand drop and carefully leant in to softly press a kiss to her best friend's cheek before curling up beside her and pulling the blanket back over both of them. She wanted stay by Maura's side for just a little while longer, to make up for barely seeing her all day; it wouldn't hurt to just close her eyes for a second.