A/N: This little plot bunny had been hopping around my head for days. I finally got it all out. The quick oneshot is based in part on a drawing on Tumblr by itstartwithasmile. Maybe you'll recognize the scene in the story when you get to it. Thank you, itstartwithasmile for the inspiration!
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 almost didn't notice it at first, the first time she saw it happen. She'd been walking through the yard to Maura's guesthouse, a sack of groceries on her arm, when movement in Maura's living room caught her eye through the window next to the back door. As nosy as everyone made her out to be, Angela didn't really give the movement much thought. After all, Maura lived at the house, and it was late on a Thursday evening in late spring. It wouldn't be unusual for Maura to be home.
She had continued walking to her door to unlock it when what she heard caused her to drop the sack of groceries and spin around.
"Oh, Jane."
Angela caught a glimpse of Maura rocking back and forth, presumably on some part of Jane, as she moaned again. Maura's moan had been so low that Angela had almost missed it, but she didn't miss the tone or the words Maura spoke:
"You feel so good."
Angela quickly picked up the groceries and let herself into the guesthouse, initially embarrassed by what she'd seen and heard, but not quite as surprised as she should have been. Jane had been a lot happier lately, and Maura had been positively glowing. It didn't take a detective or a pathologist to figure out that Jane and Maura had finally let their relationship slip past the "just friends" stage. Angela was just surprised it had taken them as long as it had.
The second time it happened, Angela had been leaving the precinct and was walking to her car when she turned the corner and spotted Jane leaning over to give Maura a kiss. The kiss was rather chaste, and Jane looked ready to turn back toward the precinct when Maura pulled her back suddenly. The second kiss was passion-fueled and rather inappropriate for the middle of a busy Boston sidewalk, but Angela used the crowd as camouflage and made her way to her car without either woman spotting her.
She didn't mind that they were keeping their change in relationship under wraps for now. It was new to them both and she figured Jane was probably still coming to terms with it. Maura had always seemed the more open of the two of them, so Angela figured Maura was probably already comfortable with her new relationship. Jane would likely have to be pulled out of the closet, kicking and screaming. Angela just hoped she wouldn't have to be the one to do it.
As Angela drove home that day, she realized that Jane had always had girl crushes. First, there was that Susan Smart girl in the third grade. Jane had followed her around like a lovesick puppy and had been inseparable from her. When little Susan had found a newer, cooler set of friends, Jane had sat around and outright mourned for weeks afterward.
Then, there had been Cindi Stolletti, Jane's lab partner her freshman year of high school. It was always "Cindi this" and "Cindi that", and "isn't it cool that Cindi spells her name with an i at the end?", Angela realized. Back then, Angela just figured Jane idolized the girl for her friends and her mature sophistication. Looking back at it, Angela realized that maybe Jane hadn't just idolized Cindi. Maybe she'd been infatuated with her, even if Jane herself didn't know it at the time. When Cindi found a boyfriend in their sophomore year, Jane spent weeks pouting around the house before she found new friends to spend time with.
The third time Angela got an eyeful of something she never wanted to see her daughter doing, she nearly got caught. The last thing she wanted to do was embarrass either woman by catching them in the act, but enough was enough already. Angela remembered what it had been like to be deeply attracted to and unable to keep her hands off of the man she loved, so she understood Jane and Maura taking every opportunity that presented itself. But for crying out loud, they were in Maura's office with the door open, and doing it during work hours! Angela realized that she knew more about Jane's sex life than she ever wanted to know, and as she was the ultimate helicopter mother, that was saying something.
She had gone down to the morgue to deliver Maura's special-order quinoa wrap when Maura had failed to come up to the café at lunchtime to claim it. She rounded the corner from the lab, walked through the (thankfully) empty autopsy suite, and was making her way into Maura's office when she saw them. Jane had Maura pushed up against the back wall of the office, one leg between Maura's thighs. Maura's skirt was pushed up around her waist and Jane had her hand between Maura's legs, furiously pumping in and out. Maura had her hands gripping Jane's hips, her head thrown back in ecstasy as Jane kissed up her neck to her jaw and Maura cried out.
"Oh Jane, yes, please, please!"
"Fuck, Maura you're so wet."
Angela shuddered, thinking she had seen and heard way more than she ever should have to, so she quickly took the wrap back upstairs with her before Maura could open her eyes or Jane could turn around and could see her standing there in shock. When Maura never turned up to pick it up later, Angela packed the sandwich wrap up and brought it home with her.
Three times was enough. Angela was having a hard time keeping a straight face and maintaining eye contact with Jane and Maura. She had never kept a secret for so long. She wanted them to know that she knew about them, and that she was okay with it, but she wanted to have a little fun first. She would consider it good-natured payback for all the eyefuls and earfuls she hadn't wanted, but had inadvertently gotten anyway.
When Angela arrived home later that evening, she wasn't the least bit surprised to see Jane's car parked outside. Since she had started discovering her daughter and her pseudo-daughter in compromising positions, Jane had practically taken up residence at Maura's house. It was taking all of Angela's resolve to not mention it every time she saw Jane or Maura. Even Jo Friday was there most of the time, and Angela was sure that if she snooped, she'd find Jane's tortoise somewhere in the house too.
Angela made her way to the back door and knocked once. She didn't receive a response, though she could hear movement in the kitchen. She knocked again and waited a long moment before trying the knob. The door was unlocked. She pushed it open slightly and stuck her head in.
"Maura?" she yelled into the living room.
"In here, Angela," Maura responded. Angela could clearly hear the sound of clothes rustling. She prayed she wasn't about to walk in on something else that she didn't want to see.
Angela walked through the living room toward the kitchen and found Jane and Maura standing behind the island. She watched Maura quickly and very ungracefully wipe the back of her hand across her mouth before she unconsciously straightened her very rumpled blouse.
"Hey Ma," Jane said casually. A little too casually.
"Hi Janie. Hi Maura. Are you all right?" Angela asked them both.
"We're fine, why?" Jane questioned.
"You're both looking a little flushed."
Jane looked over to Maura, who looked back at Jane. They shrugged in unison.
"We're fine, Ma."
"Okay, well, I brought your wrap over for you, Maura. You never came up at lunchtime to get it." Angela placed the wrap on the island and slid it toward them.
"Oh, I was so distracted at lunchtime that I completely forgot about it. I'm so sorry, Angela. Let me get my purse and pay you for it."
Angela waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it." She looked between Jane and Maura. Jane looked very uncomfortable, and Angela could tell the wheels were turning in her daughter's head.
"You must be working a pretty big case, if you forgot to come up and get your lunch," Angela said sweetly. "You can't forget to eat, honey."
"Oh, it's not a big case that kept me from eating," Maura said brightly, and Jane elbowed her in the ribs.
"Ow!" Maura squealed, her surprise from being jabbed transforming into shock about what she'd nearly just admitted.
Angela had fun watching the realization form on Maura's face. She had to remember to keep cool, that she wasn't supposed to know about them, or why the expression on Maura's face had changed so rapidly. She looked expectantly from her daughter to Maura and back again, waiting for them to say something. Anything. Neither woman said a word.
"Is there something you want to tell me?" Angela asked softly.
"Like what?" Jane asked in turn.
"Oh, I don't know. You two have just been acting weird." Angela was proud of how she was able to keep a straight face through all of this.
"Weird how?" Maura asked, her face already starting to flush.
"I can't really put my finger on it, but something is going on. I can tell," Angela said.
Angela knew that she could very easily back Maura into a figurative corner, because Maura couldn't lie. But doing that would take a lot of the fun out of getting them to admit that they were sleeping together, and Angela also felt that would have been bullying Maura. No, if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. She was going to make her daughter squirm.
Angela waited for either woman to fess up, but they all just stood there and stared in a very awkward silence. Jane shifted uncomfortably, and Angela watched as Maura's eyes shot quickly to Jane's waist and back up again.
Angela narrowed her eyes and tried to figure out what Maura was looking at. Slowly, Angela started walking around the island, toward both women. Just as slowly, Jane and Maura started to shift so that the kitchen island remained in between them, blocking Angela's view.
"Girls!" Angela shouted, and both Jane and Maura jumped guiltily. "What is going on?!"
"Nothing, Ma," Jane said again, though Angela could see her daughter was starting to sweat.
"Fine," Angela sniffed, turning as if she was going to walk back out the back door. She heard Maura exhale in relief behind her, and she quickly spun back around, marching around the island before Jane and Maura could shift around again.
"OH! OHHHH!" Angela yelled. "Jane Clementine Rizzoli, WHERE ARE YOUR PANTS?!"
Jane flushed deep red and placed her hands in front of her crotch, even though the work shirt she had been wearing was already covering what Angela really didn't want to see.
"Well?" Angela demanded.
Jane looked around. She honestly didn't know where they wound up when Maura practically tore them off of her. "Um, they're over there." She pointed to the floor near the sink, where her pants were haphazardly thrown. They were partially inside out, and Jane's white panties were obviously in with the pants themselves, their light color contrasting sharply with the dark pants.
"And what are they doing over there?" Angela asked, trying as hard as she could to keep the smile off her face. It was getting more and more difficult with each passing second.
"Um..." Jane paused, wracking her brain for a plausible response. "We were, uh, washing them?" Jane asked hopefully.
"Really?" Angela quipped. It was taking all of her might not to bust out laughing.
"They uh, got a stain on them. Today at lunch." Jane nodded, as if she was agreeing with herself that it was actually perfectly plausible for there to be a stain on her pants from lunch today. Considering what Angela had caught them doing, that didn't seem to be too far from the truth.
Maura, despite the embarrassment she felt for Jane and by extension for herself, started laughing. Both Angela and Jane shot her a dirty look.
"I can't help it," Maura laughed.
"Is there something you want to tell me?" Angela asked Maura pointedly.
"Um, no." Maura abruptly sobered. "There's nothing I want to tell you," Maura answered and then looked at Jane before she started to laugh again.
Angela crossed her arms and looked back and forth between the two women again.
"What did you get on your pants, Jane?" Angela asked, flippantly.
"Maura," Jane mumbled, so low that only Maura could hear it. Maura blushed again, and had to fight herself from burying her face in Jane's neck so she could hide from Angela's stare.
"What?" Angela demanded, leaning in closer to her daughter until she realized that she didn't want to be that close to her daughter while she was pantsless.
Jane didn't think it was possible, but she blushed even harder than she already had been. She knew why her mother backed away, and was doubly embarrassed. She couldn't answer her mother's question again even if she tried. She looked to Maura for some help, but Maura just gave her a shrug as she struggled not to laugh again.
Angela had finally had enough. She shook her head, tried to look stern, but her smile finally forced its way through.
"You wouldn't have happened to have stained the thigh of your pants while it was pressed in between Maura's legs while you two went at it like rabbits in her office at lunch today, would it?"
Jane and Maura's jaws dropped in tandem.
Angela walked back over to the island and pushed the wrap toward both women again. "Next time, don't order a special lunch and not pick it up," she said with a smile. "And lock the back door if you don't want me to walk in on whatever it was you were doing behind the island when I arrived."
"On the island," Maura blurted out and Jane gave her a smack on her arm. Maura rubbed it in shock, and then absentmindedly wiped her mouth again. Angela suddenly realized why Jane was the only one without pants, and why Maura kept wiping her mouth. Yet another visual she didn't want. Angela scrunched up her face at the thought, horrified at what she had just pictured. She was completely accepting of this change in her daughter's relationship with Maura, but she did not, no matter how much she hovered in Jane's life, want that visual, or any other visual of her daughter in a sexual situation, ever again. Angela actually shuddered and physically waved the thought out of her head before she was able to continue speaking.
"At least wash it when you're done," Angela said as she looked at the hand that had just been on the island and cringed. "When you've worked up an appetite later, you can eat the wrap."
Angela walked to the back door and stopped once more, looking back at the two women. "By the way, I forgot to mention, I'm so happy for you two. Took you long enough." She beamed at them, and then closed the door behind her. Before she stepped inside the guesthouse though, she yelled back through the door, "Which one of you is going to carry my grandbabies?".
