Falling

Chapter 1

Pairing: Jane/Maura
Rating: T (Will increaseto M in the next chapter)
Disclaimer: Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles do not belong to me.

A/N: This is Part One of what will at least be a two-shot with the possibility more depending on how things go. Part Two will go up to an M rating. I've lost interest in writing anything that falls within a canon setting, as the more recent seasons have been uninspiring to say the least. I'm really interested in exploring scenarios in which Maura and Jane meet outside of the job and how they interact with each other at first and then later when they end up working together. This is one idea I had.

Jane Rizzoli sat down at the hotel bar. She didn't have a room at the hotel, nor did she need one. The hotel was adjacent to the Boston airport and the bar overlooked Boston Harbor and the Boston skyline. It was the city she lived in and swore to serve and protect as a homicide detective in the Boston Police Department, and it never failed to amuse her that one of the best views of the city was from the airport.

This was her escape. Much to her mother's dismay, Jane was not married, nor had she had a serious relationship in years. Jane was fine with that reality, other than the constant pestering from her mother. She loved her job and had little interest in pursuing relationships that she knew would eventually end with her partner complaining that she spent too much time working, so she found it easier to not even bother trying to start any relationships.

But Jane still had needs and she had figured out a way to fulfill them every once in a while that worked for her. She didn't want to date, to give anyone the impression she would be interested in the possibility of a relationship. Finding someone to hook up with online didn't appeal to her and she didn't want to risk people she knew seeing a dating or hook-up profile. For the same reason she didn't want to go out to bars in most of the city for fear of running into another cop or someone else she knew.

She started going to the hotels near the airport. She'd go to the hotel bar, order a beer and sit and see if anyone struck up a conversation with her or if there anyone she thought was worth pursuing. She only did it once every few months. The airport hotels were full of people who were just arriving or about to leave Boston because they lived other places. Usually she could end up finding her way to someone's hotel room for a couple of hours and then she would head home having scratched that particular itch for a while.

Maura Isles stepped into the hotel bar hoping to have one decent glass of wine before heading to bed. She was supposed to already be on her way home to San Francisco, but her flight was canceled and she ended up at this hotel for the night after being rescheduled for a flight the next morning. It had been a long day already. She arrived in the morning on a red eye flight and spent the day interviewing with members of the Commission on Medicolegal Investigation, who were in charge of interviewing candidates for the position of Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and then touring the medical examiner's facilities in Boston and having dinner with the full commission.

She hadn't felt the need to plan to stay any longer in Boston when she booked her flights. She had been born in Boston, not that she remembered it from then, her family having moved away by the time she turned one year old. Then she attended college in Cambridge so she was familiar with what the city had to offer. Now that she was stuck here for the extra night she wished she had planned on staying an extra day or two to enjoy the city.

After checking into the hotel, Maura found that she wasn't as tired as she thought she would be. Her body was still on west coast time and she decided that a drink would be a good idea to help her relax. In the bar, she was going to sit down at one of the open tables, but upon noticing that the bar was empty except for a strikingly beautiful brunette, Maura opted to go to bar, choosing a stool a few down from the other woman.

Jane noticed a gorgeous woman standing in the doorway of the bar and watched as she sat down a few feet from her and ordered a glass of chardonnay from the bartender, who poured the glass and then returned to the other end of the bar to watch the game on the television hanging at the wall on the far side of the room.

Maura took a sip of the wine and then made a face at the taste, or rather lack of taste.

Jane couldn't stop herself from laughing at the sight and Maura turned toward the sound of her laughing and looked at her questioningly.

"Sorry," Jane said. "I just…your face…it was funny. Sorry," she repeated, "but I could have told you that ordering a glass of wine at the bar in hotel airport probably wasn't the best idea."

"What would you have suggested I order?" Maura asked.

Jane pointed at her bottle of beer. "You can't go wrong with a beer."

Maura made the same distasteful face and Jane laughed again. "Are you laughing at me?" Maura said good-naturedly.

"No. Well, yes, I was. But not in a bad way. It's…you're…that face you make is kind of adorable," Jane responded

Maura smiled at Jane in response.

"Here, try my beer," Jane said, pushing her bottle towards Maura.

"Oh…no, that's okay," Maura said, shaking her head.

"Come on, it can't be worse than the wine. And worst case scenario, you make that cute face again," Jane teased.

Maura pursed her lips in an attempt to hide another smile. She took Jane's beer, took a tiny sip, and then said primly, "It's not terrible."

Jane moved over to the seat next to Maura and held out her hand and said, "I'm Jane."

"It's nice to meet you, Jane. I'm Maura," she replied, shaking Jane's hand and holding on to it slightly longer than was necessary while maintaining eye contact. When she let go of Jane's hand she turned back to her glass of wine.

Jane took a drink of her beer and asked, "What are you in Boston for?"

Maura looked back at Jane, studying her profile for a moment before answering. Her initial assessment that Jane was beautiful, even dressed casually in jeans and a white button down shirt, was even more apparent up close. "I was here for a job interview," Maura answered.

Jane ran her fingers through her long, dark, loosely curled hair to sweep it back off of her shoulders as her gaze traveled up Maura's body, taking in the high heels, dark gray pencil skirt and red blouse while she tried to guess what this gorgeous woman would do for a living. "What do you do?" she asked.

Maura paused again before answering. Usually explaining to people who didn't know her that her job involved investigating deaths and performing autopsies on dead bodies put a damper on the mood. "What would you say if I suggested that we don't talk about our jobs or anything related to work tonight?"

"Okay," Jane agreed. Similarly, people's responses to finding out that she was a cop were unpredictable, although now her interest was even more piqued about Maura's occupation. "How long were you in Boston for?"

"Just one day. I arrived this morning on the red eye from San Francisco."

"You must be exhausted," Jane said sympathetically.

"Actually, I feel great right now," Maura said, grinning at Jane.

Jane smiled back at her and asked, "So San Francisco? Is that where you live?"

"Yes," Maura answered.

"Have you spent time in Boston before?"

"Yes I have," Maura answered. "I went to college in Cambridge so I'm very familiar with the city."

"In Cambridge?" Jane responded, eyebrows raised and laughing lightly. "Harvard or MIT?" Jane asked, guessing that it would have to be one or the other.

"Harvard," Maura answered. "What about you? How much time have you spent in Boston?"

"I grew up here and most of my family is still in the area," Jane answered honestly, although omitting the fact that she still lived in Boston.

"Is that why you were here, to visit your family?" Maura asked, assuming, as Jane knew she would, that Jane was also at the hotel because she lived somewhere else and would be flying home the next day.

"Something like that," Jane answered vaguely. She tried never to outright lie to people. If she was sufficiently vague, people made their own assumptions. Using skills she honed as a detective, Jane was good at asking questions and directing the conversation back to the other person while withholding as much information about herself as possible.

"Perhaps our paths crossed before, when we were both living here," Maura said.

"Perhaps," Jane agreed. Maura finished her glass of wine and Jane said, "Can I buy you another drink? Maybe something other than the wine?"

"As long as it's not beer," Maura responded.

"Hmm," Jane said, giving Maura a comedically studious look. "How about a martini? Or maybe you're a cosmopolitan kind of woman?"

"I'll have a manhattan," Maura responded.

Jane signaled the bartender and ordered two manhattans. When the drinks were placed in front of them, Jane held out her drink towards Maura and Maura clinked her glass against Jane's before they each took a drink.

The hotel was warm and Jane took a moment to roll up the sleeves of the her shirt to her elbows. She did it slowly, revealing tanned and toned arms, aware that Maura was watching her the whole time. She picked up her drink again and looked at Maura, who quickly averted her eyes and sipped her own drink again. "So, if we're not going to talk about our jobs, we'll have to find another topic of conversation. How about sports?" Jane suggested.

"I don't really follow sports."

"Relationships?"

"I'm not in one, if that's what your asking," Maura responded, smiling coyly again.

"Neither am I so I guess that's the end of that topic. What about family?" Jane suggested.

Maura scrunched her nose. "I'm not close with my parents. I mean, we talk every once in a while, but we don't see each other often. They spend most of their time in Europe or traveling around the world and we don't find ourselves in the same place very often. I don't have any siblings. Are you close with your family?"

"I'm from a large Italian family, so I don't have a choice," Jane joked.

"Who do you visit in Boston?" Maura asked.

"My parents and my brother Frankie live here. Plus my grandmother and some aunts, uncles, and cousins. But mostly I see my parents and my brother."

"Tell me about them," Maura said.

"Really? You want to hear about my family?" Jane asked skeptically.

"Yes, I do."

"Okay," Jane said, looking at Maura curiously. She would normally redirect the conversation back to the other person in this situation in order to reveal as little about herself as possible. But there was something different about Maura, something beyond the obvious physical attraction that made Jane want to talk to her. She felt bad for a moment that she hadn't been completely honest with Maura so far and briefly thought about coming clean, but she couldn't see any point to that at this point since it would likely derail wherever this evening was heading. Instead she started talking about her family, telling Maura stories about everyone, especially about her and her brothers when they were kids.

They talked for a while, laughing together at Jane's stories about getting into trouble as kids and her mother's attempts at getting her to be the girly girl she wanted her to be. Jane spoke animatedly, talking with her hands as she recounted stories, and leaning towards Maura as they laughed about something or punctuating her stories by touching Maura's arm.

Once Jane figured she had told enough of her own stories for one night, she asked Maura what she remembered from Boston from her college days. Maura talked about going to school and living in Cambridge and then they tried to figure out a time or place when they could have crossed paths back then, but in the end they couldn't come up with any.

When they had exhausted that topic, they both fell silent for a few moments. Maura was an enticing combination of sexy and adorable and Jane had had more fun with her than she'd had with anyone in a long time. She wished they were meeting under different circumstances but she could only deal with the reality that in the morning Maura would be flying to the other side of the country. Jane didn't want the evening to end, but she couldn't invite Maura to her nonexistent hotel room so instead she asked, "Would you like another drink?"

"No, thank you," Maura answered and then glanced at her watch to see that they had been talking for nearly two hours.

"Okay, well…um, it was really nice talking to you," Jane said, interpreting Maura's glance at her watch as a sign that she was getting ready to say goodnight.

Maura held Jane's gaze for a moment. She was having a similar internal conversation to Jane's. The attraction between them was obvious and she wanted nothing more than to take Jane up to her room and spend the rest of the night getting to know every inch of her. She didn't have any problem with one night stands, but tonight the thought was overshadowed with the regret that it would be nothing more than that. Still, she didn't want their time together to end and she reached out and lightly rubbed her fingers against Jane's forearm and said, "Would you like to come up to my room, Jane?"