Jane Rizzoli comes to the funeral.
At first, Maura isn't sure that it's her. It's been almost five years, and this tall, dark woman striding across the parking lot towards the church is thin, and much too jagged looking.
And she has a child.
But no, it must be Jane. There is the telltale hand through the hair, the impatient roll of the shoulders. Maura watches as she turns and extends a hand to the little girl behind her, ungloved in the cold November wind. Yes, those long fingers belong to Jane. There can be no mistaking them.
Frost comes up beside the doctor, and when he looks where she is looking, his face registers nothing but shock.
"Is that…"
Maura nods, but she can't take her eyes off the little girl.
"Wow," Frost says. There doesn't seem to be anything else to say. Together, they watch the woman they used to know stop at the door to the church and bend down to pick the child up into her arms. She turns then, and her brown eyes sweep the parking lot, falling on Maura and Frost staring at her.
It is Jane, tall and willowy, dressed in dark dress pants and a long dark coat turned up at the collar. The girl in her arms says something, and Jane turns her attention away, nodding and murmuring back, the wind carrying pieces of her words back.
Yes, and we'll see…
And sweetheart.
"I didn't think she would come," Frost says, shaking Maura from her daze.
She swallows, trying to make her mouth respond. "Ne-neither did I…I sent her the clipping, of course. She knew Beatty, worked with him a couple of times too."
Frost nods. "She trained him," he says. "But I didn't think…" he trails off as Jane looks towards them again, and then turns swiftly, and heads into the church.
…
She comes back.
Maura knew she would. There was not one minute during the one hundred and seventy seven days that Maura did not believe she would.
She is bruised and battered, twenty one pounds lighter, with dark dark circles under her eyes. But she is back, and Maura stands outside the hospital room, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
"Who better than me?" She asks, spreading her arms out.
It was Korsak's team that found her, finally, on the outskirts of the city, and it's Korsak who stands there now, not letting her in.
"Doc," he says in the tone that tells her she's missing something. "It might be better if somone who doesn't know her…who hasn't been…" he trails off, trying to find the words.
Maura can feel anger and panic starting to twist the floor underneath her feet. She blinks, and fury is hot and neon behind her eyes.
"I'm a fully trained, fully licensed-" She begins, but Korsak cuts her off again.
"You're her girlfriend," he says, and she stares at him. He looks a little guilty. "Jane told Frost and me a few days before she disappeared. I know you guys wanted to wait and work it out with her mom…but she couldn't…"
Maura shakes her head. "That doesn't make a difference," she says, trying to keep calm. "It doesn't matter. And if it does, then only to underscore the importance of me going in there first," she can hear her voice rising and can do nothing to stop it. "She's got to be terrified. I'm not just going to let some stranger attending walk in there and-"
"Maura she's been assaulted."
Korsak has to shout it over her, and for a moment she doesn't understand. Yes, of course she's been assaulted. She was abducted by a psychiatric patient with active delusions and hallucinations. Of course she was beaten, possibly tortured and-
"Oh," it comes out strangled. "Oh…Oh my God."
"Look, Doc," Korsak looks worried she might pass out. "I didn't want you to find out like this…why don't we wait for Angela and-"
But Maura is filled with a new kind of emotion as she tries to pull herself together. For all the definitions of words that she knows, this feeling cannot be nailed down. She draws herself up to her fullest height, and when she does, she can look Korsak in the eyes.
"I'm going to see her," she says firmly, and she can hear the authority in her own voice. "I'm going to see her right now. Are you going to try and stop me?"
Korsak shakes his head.
.
The room is dark and the bed is empty. Maura steps further in, her heart loud in her ears.
"Jane," says quietly. "Where are you honey?"
She walks to the bed and turns back to the door, frowning. "Jane," she says again.
The brunette advances on her quickly, aggressively, and Maura backs up without thinking, her hands outstretched, placating.
"Jane," she says, but she keeps coming, her eyes dark and hollow. They show no recognition. Maura's back hits the wall by the door, and Jane comes right up to her, so that they are almost nose to nose. Maura is saying Jane's name over and over, until the words run together, but the detective does not respond to it. It's like she doesn't even hear it.
"It's Maura," the doctor says. "It's me, Jane, it's Maura." Up close like this, she can see the bruising left by Dominic, stark and blue against her throat. She watches Jane swallow.
"Don't. Touch. Me." Her voice is deep and rough, but devoid of emotion.
"Okay," Maura says at once.
"Don't."
"Okay."
Jane's shoulders relax an inch, but she does not back up. Maura has seen her stand this way before, on the mat, when she's waiting for a sparring partner to make the first move.
"I'm not going to touch you," Maura says. "I promise."
She looks up into Jane's eyes, feral and unblinking. "Do you know me, Jane?"
Jane swallows again.
She doesn't answer.
…
She arrives close to the service and chooses a seat in the back, but the near ecstatic cry of a rookie makes almost everyone turn around.
"Detective Rizzoli!" The name causes a ripple effect through the people already seated in pews, and a couple rows ahead of her, Maura sees Frankie turn around casually, as though he assumes that the call is for him.
"Barry," Maura nudges him urgently, and he tears his eyes away from where the rookie is shaking Jane's hand vigorously to see where she is looking.
Frankie has gone completely pale. He stares towards the back row like he's looking at a ghost, and then, all at once, he clamors to his feet, his eyes still locked on his sister and her daughter. His niece.
"Barry." Maura says, and she's not sure if she wants to stop the scene that is about to take place for Jane's sake or for Frankie's. It is hard to tell which one of them is paler, or which one looks more furious.
"Yeah," he breathes. "On it."
He slips out of the pew and intercepts the younger Rizzoli on his way to the back of the church.
"What the hell?" Frankie's anger makes his voice louder than it should be, and several heads turn back to the front at the sound.
Maura hears Frost say, "Frankie. Frankie…Chill," and then his voice drops too low for her to hear. Maura swallows, and chances a look behind her, at Jane. The brunette is watching Frost and Frankie. Her former partner and her brother. Her face is pale and drawn, and she looks…tired. She looks like she is very, very tired.
She watches as Frost gets Frankie settled back in his seat. Watches as Frost turns to look at her, and incline his head once, before sliding back into his seat next to Maura. And then they are looking at each other.
Maura feels herself stop breathing, as Jane's eyes meet her own, but she is unable to remember how to restart the process. Jane stares at her, barely blinking, like she wants to take as much time looking as possible. Next to Maura, Frost puts his hand on her shoulder, and the doctor watches Jane's eyes flick to him and then to his hand, and then away. She looks down, at her daughter, who is playing with something in her lap, and a lock of hair falls across her face, and Maura can't see her eyes anymore.
…
For a while, Jane gets better.
She sits up, eats the food that Maura brings her, and submits to the doctor's visit when he comes by during the day.
It has been three days since Jane's rescue, and then a week. A month.
On the 37th day since she's been home, Jane cracks a joke. She smiles. And when Maura holds out her arms, Jane steps into them tentatively, sighing a little with relief when Maura doesn't fully return her embrace.
Maura helps her into an oversized sweatshirt, and a pair of sweatpants.
They talk about what they will have for dinner, where they might go to buy Jane new bedsheets, how long they think the summer will last.
They do not discuss Jane's inability to handle large portions, or that she needs new sheets because she was sick on her old ones. They don't discuss that it was winter when they last spent time together like this.
Angela comes over most days, and most days there is civility. The matter of her daughter's health, it seems, take precedence over all of the other issues the two of them have been having.
Jane seems wary and grateful at the same time. Angela wraps the cuts and bruises on her daughter's back and her eyes stay dry.
Maura kisses the side of Jane's head or wraps her arms around Jane's waist and Angela does not make a comment.
For almost a month, Maura thinks that they will be okay. Her girlfriend will get back on her feet. Angela will come around and accept them.
Time will heal everything.
And then they get the news. And everything crumbles around them.
Jane slips away from them when she hears, losing herself in nightmares, and daymares. She forgets what they look like, who they are, what they want from her.
One afternoon, when Maura tries to rouse her from a bad dream, Jane wraps her hands around Maura's neck, eyes wide and asleep, fingers tightening and tightening until Frankie came and yanked her off.
After that, she is dead eyed and listless.
Maura and Angela are at each other's throats over everything: medications, treatments…what do about the baby.
The baby.
Sometimes, at night, Maura will run her hands through Jane's hair and whisper to her.
"Please," she will say. "Come back. Help us. Help yourself. Baby, lovely, beautiful girl…Don't leave me."
The detective might as well be made of stone.
…
The little girl has cloudy eyes, grey and a little disconcerting. She stares up at Maura with a curious look that is so much like Jane, that Maura feels like she's looking into the past.
Small miracles.
Small miracles, that Jane's child is a girl, that she has dark brown hair and long legs and that she looks just like Jane.
Maura comes across her at the refreshments table after the service. She has somehow divested herself of her mother, and is standing on tiptoes, reaching for a chocolate cupcake that is on a platter on the table. Like she can feel the doctor's eyes on her, the child turns her face from the table, her hand still outstretched, reaching for a cupcake. She appraises the newcomer carefully, waiting to see if Maura is going to tell her she can't have a sweet. When Maura says nothing, she grabs the cupcake off the table and turns to face the doctor fully. "Hi," she says, unafraid, unselfconscious in the way that only children can be.
"Hi," Maura replies when she finds her voice.
"Ma said I could," she says quickly, and Maura smiles, even though she knows this is not the truth.
"Okay, would you like me to unwrap it for you?"
"Ummm," she hesitates, clearly worried that if she gives up her cupcake, she won't get it back.
"They're very good," Maura says, taking another, careful step towards the girl. "I had one earlier."
Jane's daughter sighs, like she's already resigned herself to the loss of her treat, and hands the cupcake over. Maura pulls the little paper wrapping off the bottom half and hands it back to it's stunned looking owner, who takes it and pushes almost half of it into her mouth.
"Fanks," she says, like an afterthought, and she grins up at Maura, a perfect little dimple on each cheek.
"You're welcome," she says, and then, reaching out automatically to wipe the crumbs from the little girl's cheek, "watch your dress."
The child looks down at her forest green dress, velvety and down to her knees. She makes a noise that sounds like, 'mmph," and wrinkles her little nose.
Maura has to clasp her hands together to keep herself from scooping this child up into her arms. "You don't like your dress?" she asks, when she's sure her voice won't shake.
"Wellll," the child says, "it is a dress…and those are not good for most things that are fun," she looks up at Maura, thinking. "Buuttt," she bites her lips for a second. Maura thinks, Jane. "This is a not fun thing. So I guess you gotta wear a not fun dress."
The logic is perfection. Maura nods. "That is very sound reasoning," she says, and the little girl nods, thought she looks unsure as to what that means.
"That man was my Mommy's friend," she says suddenly. "Was he your friend too?"
For a moment, Maura can only nod. Then, "yes. He was."
Contemplation. "Do you know my Mommy?"
And how the hell is she supposed to answer that?
There was a time when she would have nodded immediately, when she might have bordered on bragging as she explained just how well she knew Jane Rizzoli. They had spent more time together than Maura had ever spent with anyone, ever, including her parents, and when they had finally, finally, gotten together, Maura found that she could predict Jane's body almost as well as she'd been able to predict her next sarcastic comment.
"Hellooo?" the little voice pulls Maura out of her reverie and she looks down at the little girl, face pulled into a comical expression of frustration. Oh, she is so much Jane that it hurts.
"Sorry," Maura says, trying to pull her back to reality. "Sorry."
"So do you?" she will not be put off, and she steps closer to the doctor, cupcake gone, "Do you know my Mommy?"
Maura opens her mouth, to say…something. But then-
"Isla!" Doctor and child turn towards the voice. Towards Jane's voice.
"Mama! I wan't even eatin' a cupcake." Classic mistake. Maura watches Jane's darkened expression lighten by a degree. She holds out her hand, and doesn't look at the doctor.
"Come here, chick," she says "Leave the doctor alone."
The little girl looks up at Maura, her mouth moving over the word doctor before she scampers off towards her mother. Jane glances up before turning away, her eyes dark and…fearful.
And Maura…Maura is reeling, her mind replaying that word over and over in her head, a new wave of realization crashing over her each time.
Jane's daughter's name is Isla.
…
Maura thinks later that it's the last big fight that pushes Jane over the edge. She must have heard them, must have gotten up for some reason and heard them talking about her like she was a child…or an animal.
"She can't just…get rid of it." Angela sounds horrified that anyone could even make the suggestion.
"Ma," Frankie says, his tone somewhere between frustration and exhaustion.
"What?" Angela says turning wide eyes on her son. "Am I a monster for wanting to save my grandchild's life?"
Maura puts her hand up quickly, stopping Frankie's furious retort. "It is not a life yet," she says matter of factly. "Scientifically speaking. And we need to think about what's best for Jane…Your daughter. She's been through a tremendous amount of-"
"You think I don't know my own daughter? You don't think I worry for her? What's going to happen to her if she doesn't keep her own child? You don't think she'll feel responsible for the life she took?"
But Frankie can't be kept silent anymore. "It's not a LIFE, Ma," He says angrily. "Maura just said. And if you think that she's just going to keep the child that… that psycho…" he can't say it. His face twists into something ugly that Maura has never seen before. "Just to satisfy your sick need for a grandchild."
Angela looks half angry and half chagrined. "It's not about…" she shoots a look at Maura. "It's not just about…The Bible tells us that-"
"No." Frankie says vehemently, and he points a finger at his mother. "No. No more Bible says bullshit. You tried to ruin them with it," he gestures to Maura, who feels herself blush, "and I will be damned if you try to use it to force something on Jane that she doesn't want."
"I'm not going to let her make the wrong decision," Angela says, her voice rising. "I'm not going to let my daughter live with something for her whole life that she'll regret."
"What about living with a reminder of the past six months of her life, Ma?" Frankie yells. Maura feels like her head is going to explode. She opens her mouth, but cannot think of anything to say that would adequately express the depth of confusion she finds herself in.
"She was getting better!" Angela wails. "She was getting better! Eating and talking and walking around on her own."
"She was coping," Maura fills in. "She was compartmentalizing, but she wasn't really healing. It's worked for Jane, in the past. Ignore something until it stops hurting." Maura thinks briefly of Hoyt. "But," she continues, "discovering her pregnancy was an overwhelming setback. It was too much for her psyche to handle, and so dissociation is the only way she knows how to-"
"Oh, BE QUIET!" Angela cries, and Maura closes her mouth, eyes going wide as the other woman continues. "Be quiet, Maura…Doctor," She says the last words bitingly. "How can you be so clinical? My daughter, the woman you say you love, is lying completely absent upstairs, and you want to talk to me about brain functions and compartments, and who knows what else. That is not a patient up there, Maura! That's my daughter. Do you even…Do you even love her at all?"
The words hit the doctor like Angela has slapped her across the face, and she sees Frankie jump to his feet like she's looking through a long tunnel.
She is going to pass out.
Do you even love her at all?
She does not respond because she cannot respond. Her throat seems to have closed up on her. She can't see and she can't breathe and she can't respond that she loves Jane so much that sometimes she is afraid that she doesn't exist outside of that one, single feeling.
She doesn't say anything.
The next morning, Jane is gone.
…
They are filing out of the church, when Angela pulls up.
Her car screeches to a halt haphazardly, and Maura is not sure that Angela even stops to turn off the ignition before leaping out, already calling out.
"Janie?"
Frost, standing next to Maura looks over his shoulder, to where Jane is buttoning her daughter's coat. Maura looks too, and sees that the brunette seems paralyzed by the sound of her mother's voice.
"Ahhh, damnit, Frankie," Frost says, sounding frustrated.
"JANE!" Angela nearly sprints up the walk. She throws her arms around her daughter, and begins to sob. "Janie," she says. "How could you….where have you…" she is unable to get a complete sentence out, and as Maura draws closer, she takes in Isla's confused and nervous face and Jane's impassive expression.
Anglea releases her daughter and spins to her granddaughter. "Look at you!" she cries, bending to hug the child.
Isla's face slips into fear, and she backs up. "Ma!" she says, and the name she calls her mother makes Angela cry harder.
"Oh, Janie, why didn't you tell me. Why didn't you come home?"
Frost reaches the three of them before Maura, and he slips between Angela and Isla, shooting a grin at Jane.
"Hey there, little Jane," he says.
This makes the child grin. "I'm not little Jane," she says, giggling. "I'm Isla. Jane's baby!"
"Yeah?" Frost looks dubious. "You sure?"
Isla looks up at Jane, and Maura watches the detective melt a little. She nods and Isla looks back at Frost, really smiling now that she has been given full permission.
Frost smiles back at her, looking a little wonderous. "Did you know that I used to work with your mommy?"
The little girl's eyes light up. "When she was a tector?" Isla's chest puffs up, and she takes Frost's outstretched hand without a glance at her mother. "She was the best, huh?"
"Yes," Frost agrees.
The child looks satisfied. "I knew it."
Maura can't help smiling. For a split second she meets Jane's eyes, smile still in place, and it looks, just for a moment, like Jane is about to smile back at her. But then Angela spins, eyes flashing.
"And you!" She points at Maura, and the pain on her face makes the doctor's heart stand still."You knew she was coming?"
Maura shakes her head, feeling tears burn the backs of her eyes. "No," she begins, but Angela doesn't hear her.
"And look at her," she gestures to Jane, standing with Frost, "Look at both of them. They're fine! That's my granddaughter and she's gorgeous."
Maura shakes her head, but no words occur to her. She closes her eyes, trying to ground herself.
It doesn't seem to matter to Angela. "And you wanted to…You want to-"
"Don't you dare," It's Jane's voice. Maura wipes her eyes and looks up to see the detective step in between them, facing Angela. "Don't you dare go after Maura," she says, and her voice is calm and serious…and deadly. "She did nothing wrong."
Angela stares at her daughter, eyes wild. "You're back," she says, "Frankie called and told me and I thought he was…thought it was…How could you come back into town and…and…" her eyes flick to where Frost is entertaining Isla by making a quarter disappear and reappear from behind her ear. "How could you not tell me?" Angela asks, her voice strained, and she is talking about her granddaughter, and Jane's return, and much, much more.
"I couldn't," Jane says simply, her shoulders rise and then fall.
"You thought I wouldn't find out?" Angela asks, "You thought with Barry here, and Maura and your brother, that I wouldn't find out?" Her voice is desperate, like she's trying to get Jane to react to her, even negatively.
"I knew you'd find out," Jane says, sighing.
"And you didn't TELL me?" Angela's eyes become, if possible, even wider.
Jane looks away, and Maura studies her profile, sharp and dangerous looking. Exquisite.
"I couldn't, Ma," she says again. "I could not."
"Why?" Maura hears her own voice without realizing that she's spoken.
Jane whirls to face her. "What?"
"Why couldn't you?"
Jane clenches her jaw, and Maura watches her hands curl a little by her sides. Even after all this time, even after running away, and giving birth, even after living somewhere else for years, her reaction is so familiar, and so completely correctthat Maura can't suppress a shiver.
"Scared," Jane finally admits, her teeth bared, like she's daring anyone to challenge her.
"What is there to be scared of?" Angela asks bitingly. "What could you have been afraid of? Surrounded by the people who loved you? Who only wanted to take care of you."
"Who had to clean up after me when I threw up on the sofa, or when I shit my pants in that supermarket?" Jane cuts in. "Who whispered that they loved me all night and then discussed me like I didn't exist when they thought I was sleeping?"
Maura shuts her eyes. Angela's voice sounds defensive. "We were trying to discuss what was best for you. We thought-"
"You thought I couldn't hear you. You thought I was beyond saving."
"No!" Maura speaks up, "No, I never thought that. I thought you were…hurt. And I didn't know how to save you."
"You lied to me," Jane says coldly. "All of you. Day in and day out. 'It's your choice, Janie. We'll take care of you no matter what, sweetheart,'" She turns from her mother. "Fucking lies."
"No," Maura says again, "No. I loved you so, so much, Jane."
It is not until she sees Jane's face that she realizes that she's used the past tense. Jane looks like she might cry. and then her face goes hard. "It wasn't love. It was pity. And I couldn't take…I couldn't just let the woman I love sit there and lie to me. Tell me everything was okay when it wasn't. Tell me I was still…tell me she didn't look at me and see victim, see damaged…see filthy."
Her own use of the verb hangs in the air as she turns away from her mother and Maura.
"Janie," Angela's voice is quiet, pleading.
"Go away, Ma," Jane says. Exhaustion.
It is clear that Angela does not want to obey. She stands for a moment, torn, and then she turns and walks away without looking back.
Maura watches her for a moment and then turns to see that Jane is watching her too. She looks hurt.
Jane sighs, and runs a hand through her hair, shutting her eyes, and when she opens them, she looks at Maura. She shrugs her shoulders, as if to say, "that was not my fault," but her eyes stay on Maura's face, asking, "was it?"
"She missed you." Maura says quietly. She glances at Frost, bending to talk to Isla. "We all did."
Jane follows her eyes and then looks away, sighing. "When I got the clipping…I just…I had this overwhelming desire to see all of you…before something…I mean." She sighs again, and Maura can't help but smile.
It is like no time has passed. "I'm glad you came back," she says quietly. This time when Jane looks at her, it feels appraising. Investigatory.
"You look really good," She says. "I…I'm glad I came back and saw that."
How to explain that she is not 'really good?' That she would not even classify herself as 'good.' she looks up into Jane's eyes, and finds she cannot speak.
Jane searches the doctor's face for a moment and then looks away. "Anyway…" she looks towards Frost and Isla, the little girl laughing at something he's said. "I'm really," she pulls her eyes away from the pair, like it hurts her. Maura frowns. "I'm really happy for you," she says.
Maura's frown deepens. "What?" she asks, but Jane is already turning from her.
"Be well," Jane says quietly, and then louder, "Isla! Say good-bye to the magic detective."
Isla turns towards her mother, waving to Frost, who has straightened up and is watching Jane. They spoke for two minutes, and yet he grins and waves at her, and she nearly grins back at him, her own hand lifting once, before reaching down to take her daughter's.
Maura watches her go, something painful and fiery unraveling in her chest.
It wasn't love. It was pity. And I couldn't take…I couldn't just let the woman I loved sit there and lie to me. Tell me everything was okay when it wasn't. Tell me I was still…tell me she didn't look at me and see victim, see damaged…see filthy.
Maura looks up, wide eyed. Jane and her daughter are half a football field away, but she understands now.
"Wait!" She cries. And she starts to run.
…
Here is the truth.
It is not romantic. Jane hugs her knees to her chest and Maura lathers her hair, trying not to look at the blue and purple, fading to green and yellow, all down her back.
"Tilt your head back, honey."
It is not sexy. Jane tilts her head back automatically, and her eyes are empty.
Maura tips the cup of water over her best friend's forehead, down through her hair. Rinsing out the soap. It is the fifth time she's done this and her hand stays steady, but some of the water still drips the opposite way, down Jane's nose and into her eyes.
The brunette squints and catches her breath, squeezing her eyelids.
Maura nearly cheers at this show of emotion. Instead she bites her lip, and keeps her voice soft. "I'm sorry Jane," She says. "Does it burn? I'm sorry."
Jane opens her eyes and looks up into Maura's face. She doesn't answer.
After a moment, Jane looks away, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. She's naked, wet, vulnerable. Maura could lean forward right now and kiss the spot behind her ear. She could pull the brunette into her arms, whisper that she would never hurt her. That they will get through it together. That she is not going anywhere.
But she dips the cup back into the water, and this time, when she pours it over Jane's head, she cups her other hand above Jane's eyebrows.
She wrings the woman's dark hair out, and with a gentle push, she puts Jane's head right again. She closes her eyes and tries to breathe.
Maura cannot stand to look at Jane like this.
That is the truth.
…
"Wait!" Maura runs towards the car, where Jane is loading Isla into the back. "Wait! Jane!"
The brunette turns, looking curious and scared.
"Maura?"
Jane straightens up, and looks down at the doctor, waiting for her to catch her breath. "I'm not!" she manages, and then, when Jane looks more confused. "I'm not with Barry. He's not my…"
She gasps for breath, and watches as Jane's face changes, understanding creeping over her features.
"You're not?"
"No!" Maura says, hoping her tone conveys conviction, and not incredulity. "I'm not with anyone."
Jane looks down at her feet, thinking this over, "You came together," she says, more to herself than to Maura. "I saw him put his hand on your shoulder. It's not a crazy conclusion to jump to."
Maura's heart breaks a little. It's a technique she knows to be common in a lot of therapies surrounding panic disorders. Evaluate every fact. Do not pay attention to gut feelings, or hunches. Look at what you know to be absolutely true.
For a moment, she wonders at this new, cautious, mother Jane. Then she tries on a smile. "No," she says gently. "It's not."
Jane looks up at her and takes in her smile, but doesn't offer one back. Maura doesn't let it bother her. "You've been getting my letters," she says into the silence. She'd written Jane, at least once a week, first over email, and then in print, when she found her in the city, doing consultation for security teams. Jane had never written back, but Maura had not stopped.
"When you asked if I… she swallows, "After you asked about Isla…I-I wanted to write and tell you…Honestly I did. I just…" she looks around.
But Maura nods, "You couldn't," she says "I know."
Jane looks grateful. Behind her, her daughter presses her face to the window, looking up at the adults, her expression bored and impatient.
"She looks just like you," Maura says.
"Not in the eyes," Jane says, but she grins.
"In what she does with them," Maura says, and Jane looks over her shoulder in time to see Isla pull a face, eyes crossing. Jane chuckles, a sound that is enough like the old her that it makes Maura reach out and grasp her wrist.
Jane starts, catching her breath, her whole body going tense, but she doesn't pull away.
"She's beautiful, Jane," Maura says, like nothing has happened.
Jane's face softens. "I know. I adore her. From the moment they put her in my arms."
Maura swallows, "Her name," she begins, unsure about how she will end. But Jane cuts her off, her head dipping so she can catch Maura's eye.
"Yes," she says simply.
Maura tries not to cry. It is impossible. "Can I…would you….Will you let me hug you, Jane?" She asks through her tears.
And the brunette tugs her wrist gently out of Maura's hand so she can wrap her arms around the shorter woman's waist.
She has not realized that she was drowning until she is all of a sudden on solid ground.
"I missed you," she says into Jane's shoulder, harder, sharper, but definitely Jane's. "I missed you so much, Jane."
Jane doesn't answer, she takes a deep, shaky breath, and drops her head into the bend of Maura's neck.
It is everything