A/N: Just a very quick one shot. This plot bunny showed up and just needed release. Jane is still having nightmares about Hoyt. Maura can fix that. She can fix anything.
I didn't think this needed to be said, but now I'm forced to add this to all of my stories:
This work of fiction belongs to me, sociallyawkwardpenguin. The Rizzoli and Isles characters belong to TNT. However this story, and all original characters, belong to me. Absolutely no reposting of this story is permitted (including translations of this story) without my express written permission. If you see this story posted in any other forum besides Archive of our Own or FanFiction, please notify me via private message immediately.
She wakes up shivering, her body bathed in a cold sweat and her palms aching. She knows she won't be able to fall back to sleep tonight, the images of Charles Hoyt's vicious grin and the glint of his scalpel too vivid to get out of her head. Instead she sits up and wipes the sweat from her brow.
It's 2:30 in the morning, and it's too late to call Maura. She knows Maura would answer for her on the first ring, and she knows that Maura will ignore the exhaustion she feels to make her feel safe enough to fall back to sleep, but the idea of waking Maura and causing her an entire day of exhaustion seems too cruel to do to her.
She gets out of bed and walks to the kitchen, filling a glass of water from the tap. She takes a long draw and realizes the water tastes like chlorine, and that maybe she should get a filter just like Maura has to make it taste better.
She lets out a short, guttural laugh at the idea, amused at how the thought would have never occurred to her before she ever met Maura.
Maura.
It's always Maura that her thoughts returned to, no matter what time of the day or night. Maura could fix this.
She grabs her coat and her keys and she locks up the apartment, getting halfway down the stairs before she turns back to get the dog, knowing she won't be up early enough to walk her before work. She locks up again and the car seems to drive itself to Maura's house.
She lets herself in quietly with the key Maura gave her years ago and wonders why the alarm isn't set. She supposes she was lucky; the expensive, high-tech device was hard wired to the police station, and she would have had a hard time explaining herself to the uniforms that responded to the alarm's silent beacon. Big, bad Detective Rizzoli is still having nightmares about Charles Hoyt more than a year after she slayed the bastard. So much for badass.
She leaves the dog to wander around the living room, snuffling at the heavy pile of the living room carpet and her tags jingling quietly. She drops her coat on the back of a kitchen chair and walks slowly down the hall to Maura's room, opening the door an inch at a time. She kicks off her shoes and lifts the sheets, crawling in next to Maura.
Maura stirs and instinctively reaches for her, nuzzling in close and wrapping an arm protectively around Jane's waist.
"Jane?" she mumbles.
"It's me. Go back to sleep."
"Nightmares?" She asks, her voice clouded by sleep.
"Yeah."
"S'okay, Jane. He's dead."
"I know, but…"
Maura tightens her hold around Jane and sighs, a sound she knows she could never tire of hearing. She curls further into Maura's embrace and closes her eyes.
"You left the alarm off." She says suddenly.
"I thought you might come by." Maura says, not bothering to elaborate, sleep already overtaking her.
She realizes that Maura knows her better than anyone, and that Maura knew somehow, through that invisible pull that always brought them back together, that she needed her tonight. She felt her heart melt at the thought and was silently thankful.
She would fight hundreds of Charles Hoyts if it meant she could end up here, wrapped up in Maura and safe from her demons. Maura could always fix it. Maura could fix anything.
Her hands no longer tingle, her muscles no longer ache, her mind no longer races. Her heart and her breathing slow, and she relaxes enough to fall asleep, confident that Maura's arms will still be wrapped around her when she wakes up in the morning.