Repost. Originally posted on 4-11-11 under Googlemouth's account.

Characters aren't mine. They belong to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro (or whoever is about to take her place), Turner Broadcasting, Warner Brothers, and other assorted important people. I gain nothing from writing these stories but the fun of doing it. Please don't sue me.

"Positive," said Dr. Maura Isles as she met Jane at the precinct building, first thing in the morning. The lab technician had called her the moment he had read the readout from the mass spectrometer, knowing she would be glad to have the information. "Low levels were detected, but enough to determine the cause of death. Mathias was poisoned." A little thrill went through her, as it often did when she delivered the good news that she had solved a medical puzzle. Her best friend would be able to use the answers she had found to obtain justice for a young murdered boy.

Jane, or as the Boston Police Department knew her, Detective Rizzoli, got a look in her eye of partial satisfaction. She had an answer, and now the chase was on in earnest. This was her favorite part of any murder investigation, when all the pieces came together to form a cohesive, coherent picture of the how, the why, and most of all the who of the murder. "I know why I had that dream," she said with an undercurrent of building excitement in her husky voice, "because I know where I've seen that plant before. Can you type the genetics of the monkshood in Matt's body and match it to the plant it came from?"

"No," replied the medical examiner as they stepped towards the building.

"Can you lie about that?" Jane asked, already envisioning the scenario in her head. Knowing where she had seen the monkshood plant was the key to nailing the killer. When confronted with the 'facts' of the genetic typing, the stepmother, an avid home gardener, was bound to break and confess. Jane even had a pretty good idea of the motive involved. The stepmother wanted to have children by the boy's father, who said that he already had a son and didn't need more. But Maura dashed her hopes.

"No. I don't lie." She stopped walking, shocked that such a thing would even be asked of her.

"Well, it's not a lie," Jane backtracked a bit.

Maura tipped her head and pursed her lips, looking disappointed. "Well, yes, it is. I know when it is. I start to hyperventilate."

"Okay, it's a white lie," tried Jane again, acknowledging what she thought was the basic point. After all, it was a lie that would result in truth coming out, in justice being served. It wasn't a pointless lie, or a malicious lie, or a lie that would have bad consequences. It wasn't so bad to massage the truth a little bit, was it?

Again, Maura shot her down. "It's still a lie."

Inside, Jane pushed the elevator button. It ground into action, dinging and opening almost immediately. "You've never lied to a guy and tell him he was good when he wasn't?"

"No."

No way. Jane couldn't believe such an assertion. It was one thing to say that you couldn't lie, but another to actually live that way. Everyone lied all the time, she knew. As a detective, she saw huge lies all the time, but also the little tiny lies that even very good people would utter just to grease the wheels and make daily conversations easier. She decided to test it out. "Do you like this shirt with this jacket?" she asked as she pushed the button for the basement where the morgue and evidence lockers were located, feeling certain Maura would either lie, or try to distract her from remembering that she wanted the truth. Or then again, Jane would be told that she actually did look okay today, which would also be nice.

But Maura didn't miss a beat. "Not really, no."

The elevator doors closed on Jane's disbelieving expression.

Ever since that day, Jane had made a game of trying to catch Maura in a lie. She didn't do it often, hoping that Maura would never realize what she was doing, and so far Maura seemed oblivious.

It started at the end of a work day, when she'd worn her only clean trousers even though they were of a decidedly non-flattering cut. "Hey, do these pants make my butt look big?"

Maura had studied Jane's rear end, and Jane was sure she would try to come up with something nice to say. "Yes. There's no convincing reason you should ever wear them again. Your hips aren't nearly as wide as those awful trousers make them look. I wish you'd let me take you shopping, or at least introduce you to my tailor."

A couple of days later, Jane tried again, right in front of Korsak. "Korsak, you smell like wet dog. Doesn't he, Maura?"

"Yes."

Later that same day, "Frost was bragging about his date saying he was a good kisser. You think he would be?"

Maura considered the question as her scalpel cleanly opened their latest murder victim. "Undoubtedly. He has very attractive lips."

A couple of weeks went by before Jane tried again. "I got a call yesterday from a guy I knew in high school. Actually, the first guy I ever slept with. Hey, how old were you?"

"When?" Maura asked, distracted from the conversation by the pair of Louboutins she had been flirting with for days, mouse hovering over the image button, finger hovering over the mouse button, flicking back and forth indecisively, before virtuously closing the window instead. Today, she actually clicked the Add To Cart button instead.

"When you… you know…"

Maura was busy typing in the number from her credit card, memorized long ago. "No, I don't."

Jane kept pressing. "When you first had sex. Lost your virginity."

This time Maura's hazel eyes did flick up towards Jane. "Define sex."

"Maura, why do you have to be so literal?" Jane gave a little stomp of her foot. "You know what sex is," she gave a shrug, rolling her eyes as she did so, "I mean, come on, you're a doctor." She gave an exasperated sigh. "Okay, okay… so when did you first… have," the detective cringed, not believing she was actually asking the question out loud, "intercourse?" She made a face. "God, I hate clinical terms. It's, like, the worst kind of uncomfortable."

Maura tilted her head, wearing a look of insistence that Jane at least try to understand. "There are a lot of different definitions of sex, Jane. Some people define sex as being any genital contact – internal or external, whether orgasm is achieved or not, and some don't even require that contact to be voluntary on both parts in order to qualify for the definition. Others define it as any orgasm from any stimulation whatsoever, or even an attempt at orgasm. Very broadly, one can include vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex, manual sex which is otherwise known as mutual masturbation, phone sex, video sex, and of course solitary sexual experiences which have their own wide array of…"

"Okay, Maura, I get the picture." The detective rolled her eyes. "Fine… fine… how about," she made another face, "internal genital contact by someone other than yourself where orgasm was attempted." She shifted uncomfortably. "God, I can't believe I got myself into this."

If Maura found any amusement at Jane's expense, she did not let on as she leaned back in her chair to consider. "Let's see. Genital contact… internal… attempted orgasm… Wow, this is a harder question than I thought it would be. Okay. Well, I can't count Garrett, because there was no genital contact at all. Terry won't count, either, since Terry never reciprocated, so Terry had sex but I didn't. By the same token, Shawn and I were always clothed, so there was no direct genital contact. Chris and I… that was all external. And of course, Adrian and I weren't actually attempting orgasm at all, and at the time had no idea what it even was. We were just playing. By your definition, I can really only count my experiences with Ashton, so I was… of legal age." She paused. "In that state."

Jane blinked as she listened to her friend's list, and her famous gut suggested a new line of inquiry. "Maura… change of question here. How many of those people on your list are guys?" Eyes narrowing, she leaned against Maura's desk.

At that point, Maura became suspicious. "What is this about, Jane? You've never been interested in hearing any details about my sexual history before."

"First, answer the question. Then, I'll tell you." Jane's face turned smug.

Maura's lips tightened in disapproval of the deal, but in the end she accepted Jane's terms. "Garrett, Terry, and Chris."

Jane's eyes widen as she pushed off the desk, practically dancing. "Ha! I knew it. You do lie!" She pointed at Maura, her voice cracking with her excitement. "Last night you said, 'I wonder what kind of women we would like if we liked women', but, if you've had sex with a women, then that means you do like women, which means you lied when you made that statement. Which means," Jane made a grand gesture with her hands to accentuate her point, "you do lie." She made an 'ah ha' face quickly followed by a puzzled face. "What a minute… Maura, you like women?"

Maura stood to follow Jane and calm her down, hands raised to calm and shush her friend and keep her lab safe from flailing arms. However, that accusing finger pointed right at her chest, causing her to come up short. "I… uh… Well, um, Jane, what I meant to ask on that occasion was what sort of woman each of us might favor if we liked women. Liking women specifically would imply that gender were the most important qualifying factor when evaluating a potential sexual or romantic partner."

Her voice started out a bit tense and higher in pitch, as dishonesty was not a comfortable accusation and she hated being thrust into a defensive role, but lowered as she found sure footing in precision. "I can't actually say I ever gave it any thought. So, no, I didn't lie, because I don't like women. I also don't like men. I can tell it wasn't a lie because I didn't have any trouble breathing at the time."

"You don't like women, but you've slept with at least three?" Jane was clearly confused. "Maura… what? Okay, okay," she dropped her hand, shaking her head to clear the confusion. "So, basically what you're telling me here is you're just attracted to whoever?" She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms as Maura nodded, though she didn't seem to notice the nonverbal affirmative. "So, that time, when you said, 'People are attracted to people who are attracted to them'… what does that all mean? Does that mean you're attracted to… you know, I don't even know what I'm saying right now." The detective let out a groan of frustration.

"If you had paid attention, you would realize that I just told you," Maura reminded Jane, "that according to your own stated criteria, I only had sex with one. But yes, being attracted to someone does provide a higher probability that they'll be attracted to you. You see, people, as well as animals, exude attraction pheromones indicating a purely biochemical attraction. Pheromones put out by one person will often affect the object of their attraction, causing that person to also put out pheromones."

Again she paused, processing the conversation as far as it had progressed. It puzzled her; she couldn't think of any reason for it. "Jane, did you ask me these very personal questions just to catch me in a lie? Because if that's what you want, maybe you should try asking things you're a lot more sure I wouldn't want to answer."

With a defeated sigh, Jane waved her hand as if to dismiss the whole thing. Shoulders slumping, she said in a tired voice, "Yeah, I did, and I'm going to stop trying. Just… just answer this for me, okay? I just want a straight answer that I can actually follow, please?" She ran a hand across her forehead, trying to battle the headache growing between her eyes. "Maura, are you bisexual? I don't care, but, thanks to this conversation, I really want to know."