A/N: This fluffy one-shot was written for a Tumblr prompt by socks-lost.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Symbiosis

Maura and Jane aren't always together.

Frost and Korsak tease the doctor when Jane isn't around to snap at them. They call her "shadow" mostly, but sometimes Frankie joins in and then she's "caboose". When she'd stared blankly, Frankie had winked and said it was because she was always "bringing up the rear." She doesn't mind their teasing; these words don't have the same bitter flavor as Poindexter or Maura the Bora. It means that she's one of the group and while she loves that Jane is her staunch defender, she's pleased that the boys like her well enough to tease her. Belonging hasn't always been Maura's strong suit.

Still and all, Maura and Jane aren't always together.

Tonight is one of those rare moments. The team is out on a mission to find witnesses for their newest case, leaving Maura behind to get a start on the body. Before working with Jane she wouldn't have thought twice about the situation. Why is she put out that she is alone in the morgue? The Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has no business attending witness apprehensions, interviewing suspects, or going undercover. Tonight though, she's anxious and fidgety…unfocused. After three failed attempts at starting the preliminary paperwork for the autopsy, Maura finds herself standing in front of the evidence cage with a pickset in her hands.

Maura isn't always Maura if Jane isn't with her.

After she brought Jane here to help confirm her hunch about her mobster father and suspiciously philanthropic mother, she has returned a couple of times when she is alone and her mind won't let her do her job. The evidence cage is a physical manifestation of Maura's current mindset: shelves and shelves of neat boxes filled with information until you reach the aisle with Paddy Doyle's records. There the boxes are jumbled and crooked, information disorganized and shoved haphazardly into lidless bins. Decidedly un-Maura-like and very fatiguing. The doctor entertains the idea that if she straightens the boxes, that if she reorganizes the material then this restless feeling will stop and she'll be Maura again.

She should know better but Maura doesn't think like Maura when Jane isn't here.

The trouble is, while organizing, Maura is compelled to stop and read and absorb information about who genetics say she is. Nature versus nurture. Outwardly, Maura is an Isles, with Constance's love of fashion and art and high society, flawless manners, and champagne tastes. However, Jane couldn't have been further from the truth when she asked why Maura was slumming at the precinct. Nature dictates that she's Southie Irish trash at heart: Doyle, Doyle, Doyle not Isles. One cannot be slumming when one is surrounded by peers. She sinks to the floor, boxes all around, and rests her head on the nearest one. Change is exhausting and there's no reason to hurry. The detectives will go home after their search; they had all driven separately so they didn't have to come back to the station. Maura has all the time in the world. So she sleeps.

Jane and Maura aren't always together.

The music is blaring in the car, an obvious attempt at distraction. They apprehended a lot of nothing, and both Jane and Frost got a bit banged up shoving through an alley after a cold trail. Her partner barked his knuckles against the brick building, but Jane is pretty sure that she needs stitches after her struggle with a rusty chain-link fence. She's also pretty sure that she wouldn't have gone down the alley in the first place if Maura had been with them. Maura is Jiminy Cricket: whispering, advising, nagging behind her, repeatedly saving Jane from herself. She's called Maura's phone a dozen times, initially frustrated then concerned, now almost frantic to get to the precinct instead of home. Maura always answers the phone for her, or immediately returns Jane's calls. Something is wrong. So many things are wrong. If she just would have brought Maura along.

Obviously, Jane and Maura aren't always together.

Jane's bicep burns and she can feel the blood puddle in the bent elbow of her blazer. She feels stupid; she should have bound the wound tight enough to stop the bleeding but after her initial curse and immediate wince at the lecture she knew was coming, she remembered Maura wasn't there. Once she remembered, the detective in Detective Rizzoli lost a little focus. They would have to come back tomorrow with a warrant to shake-down the house so now both she and Frost are discouraged. But she can't even think about tomorrow because she's too busy worrying about why her phone is not ringing Chopin and she is alone in her car, bleeding everywhere. Jane catches herself debating going to the hospital since she doesn't have Maura to give her a diagnosis, then shakes her head in disbelief. Jane Rizzoli voluntarily checking herself in to the ER?

Jane isn't always Jane if Maura isn't with her.

She drops her ruined blazer in the garbage can by her desk in the empty bullpen. The gash along her bicep is a gaping mouth of disgusting, but again, Jane can think of nothing but finding her best friend. She grabs some fast food napkins out of her desk, shoves them against her throbbing arm, and stomps off to the elevator. The detective calls out for Maura when she enters the morgue then pushes her way through the doctor's office door. The phone on the desk shows 18 missed calls from Jane and a practically dead battery. Jane's brain jumps from Doyle's enemies stealing Maura away to maybe Ian Faulkner sweeping Maura off her feet.

She should know better, but Jane doesn't think like Jane when Maura isn't here.

Confirming her hunch about Doyle will be easiest. She cringes as she yanks open the office door with her bad arm, feeling the napkins get a little warmer from blood. The evidence room isn't far, so she clomps down the hallway towards the room, hoping that she brought her keys. The doorway to the room is open and Jane can see a sliver of light pushing through the darkness of the cage. Then she notices that the cage itself is open. Who in their right mind would be down here at 11pm? She draws her gun, saturated napkins stuck against the wound, and eases herself through the open gate.

"Hello?" The detective calls out, gun trained on the open door. No one answers so she steps forward to walk the aisles, up and back, until she notices through the racking that there are boxes down and strewn about in the next row. Paddy Doyle's aisle.

"Maura?!" Jane calls out again, holstering her gun and jogging the rest of the row and around the corner. The scene before her would have made her laugh if she wasn't so worried. Instead, tears spring to her eyes as she studies her best friend curled against an evidence box, her blond head resting on the forearm she'd propped against the container. There are papers in neat stacks all around the slumbering doctor.

"Hey," The detective's voice is soft as she kneels down next to Maura and puts a gentle hand on the doctor's shoulder, "Hey, Maur, what are you doing?"

She startles awake, the look of confusion on Maura's face makes Jane want to wrap her arms around her. She looks so vulnerable and Jane can't help but want to protect her.

"I was going through Paddy's evidence boxes in case we missed something." One hand rises to her cheek, feeling for marks from sleeping on her arm.

"It is 11:00 at night, why are you still here? This could be done tomorrow. I could have helped you." Jane's thumb rubs soft circles on the M.E.'s shoulder. "We could have used keys to get in here."

Maura doesn't answer. She cannot say that she's here because Jane wasn't and she didn't want to go home alone. She cannot admit that she worries about being what genetics says she should be. The doctor pulls away from Jane's arm and begins to move the stacks from the floor in to designated boxes. The detective presses her hand to her temple, then shakes her head wearily.

"Do you want to know why I'm here at 11:00?"

Maura freezes, the stack of papers in her hands forgotten. The tone of Jane's voice has changed from teasing to confessional, and Maura is suddenly afraid.

"We didn't turn up anything, but there were noises down this alley. Frost and I decided to bang our way through the brush, and well, I got caught up on a fence." The doctor looks at Jane for what she realizes now as the first time since she has awoken. There is a bloodied wad of McDonald's napkins stuck to Jane's upper arm and her eyes are tight with pain. "And all that I could think about was how angry you were going to be with me when I got back to the car. I forgot you weren't there because you're always there."

"Let me see that." Maura steps towards her friend, but Jane turns away and captures Maura's outstretched hand in her own.

"It'll keep, I'm not finished."

"Jane, you are putting yourself at risk for infection and, depending on your booster schedule, tetanus."

The detective continues, tiny smile lines from the mini-lecture easing the pain around her eyes. "I called and I called you. Why don't you have your phone?"

Maura looks appropriately chagrined. "You all were planning on heading home after the sweep. I was going to start the autopsy but…"

"Trouble focusing, Dr. Isles?"

"You could say that. I was irritated that I felt left out. There was no conceivable reason for me to go along with you, so I couldn't figure out why I was so upset. I left my phone in the office…I just needed to center myself and I thought organizing this mess would help."

"Do you know what I think?" The detective tries sarcasm, but what comes out is more epiphanic. "I think you missed me." She blushes under Maura's thoughtful glance. The doctor gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

"I think you're right. I should have never come in here searching for myself in these boxes, but you weren't here to remind me that this," Maura gestures with her free hand at the open boxes and stacked papers, " isn't me."

"It's not you. Everything laying around down here is the—the antithesis of you." Maura's eyebrows raise and she cocks her head, smiling at Jane's reassurance. That's all she is looking for and now that it is given, she's ready to leave.

"Thank you. Now, can I see your arm?"

The women had thrown everything back into boxes and stacked everything neatly back into the racking before Maura dragged Jane to her office to look at the gash on her arm. One suture kit and eleven stitches later both women are sitting on Maura's couch, Jane nursing a beer and Maura swirling a red in a large wineglass.

"You don't think this is unhealthy, do you?" The detective's scratchy voice is hesitant, her brow furrowed, as she meets Maura's placid gaze.

"Well, I think if you limit yourself to one or two and don't make it an everyday occurrence, it's rather good for you. Beer is a source of soluble fiber, B vitamins, and bone-strengthening silicon—."

"No, Dr. Isles, this." Jane rolls her eyes and swings her bottle between the both of them, pointing first at Maura then at herself.

"I'm not sure what you mean…"

"Maura, I cut my arm open on a fence running down absolutely nothing because I was thinking about you. You were sleeping in the evidence cage, for fuck's sake, upset that you weren't along for the ride." Jane takes a pull off her beer then contemplates the label. "I just want to know if you think it's unhealthy."

"Codependency is generally considered unhealthy by psychologists, but in a codependent relationship one person manipulates the other for personal gain." Maura frowns and meets Jane's eyes. "I don't think we do that, do you?"

Jane can see Maura retreat into her own head, reviewing every interaction that they have had to convince herself that she has, indeed, not taken advantage of the detective. "There was that one time..."

Jane cuts her off before she can get worked up over her less-than-stellar social skills. "No, Maur, there wasn't that one time." She throws up air quotes with beer bottle in hand, then reaches forward to take the doctor's glass. Jane sets both drinks up on the desk behind the couch and takes Maura's now empty hand in her own.

"Look." Jane clears her throat and tries to hold Maura's earnest gaze. "We are not codependent. We do not manipulate one another." She clears her throat as the times when she has tricked Maura into guessing pop into her head. "At least not maliciously. What we are…it's so much more than that. Symbiotic?"

Maura's brow furrows. "We aren't different species, Jane. Symbiotic refers to—."

"Hey! Just use your imagination for once please, Doctor." Jane pulls on Maura's arm until the other woman has no option but to tuck herself into Jane's side. "Plus, I do believe at one time that word was used to depict people living together in community." Maura shoulders her way up underneath Jane's arm and leans her head against the detective. Jane tightens her arm and continues.

"I mean symbiotic in that we are at our best when we're together." Jane tilts her head and rests it against Maura's. "I focus better when you're near; I'm at the top of my game when you're around." Maura smiles and nuzzles in closer. "I like having you close. When you're not with me I feel like something is missing…"

"I understand. I feel it too." Maura reaches up to hold the hand that is around her shoulder, idly playing with Jane's fingers. "I like this. Can we do this more please?" The doctor's request is hesitant.

Jane smiles. Despite her love of personal space and her frequent proclamations of anti-hugging, she has never felt so comfortable. She turns her head and buries her nose in Maura's hair, breathing in the blonde's shampoo before pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. It's just so relaxed and easy…so right.

"Yeah." She tightens her fingers around Maura's, a reassuring squeeze. "I think we definitely can."