This is a totally new story that has been on my mind for a while and I decided to put it to paper. It's also a G!P and AU story. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.
Disclaimer: I do not what so ever own Rizzoli and Isles, they belong to Tess Gerritsen and TNT...
Chapter 1
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"Detective Rizzoli? That woman at the hospital…" there was a burst of static over the radio's speaker. "…she's awake and asking for you."
Jane's heart quickened. "Me?" She spoke into the radio. "How does she even know me?"
"Dunno... figured you'd want to know." The officer on the other end stated before another burst of static sounded, indicating the transmission was finished.
"I'll be right there." Jane put the radio mic back in its place and turned onto the highway, accelerating towards Altus Baytown Hospital. This was the first violent crime she's had to deal with since moving to Baytown, Texas nearly a year ago, and it made her gut twist. She thought she left the beatings and muggings behind in Boston, Massachusetts. Yet early this morning, she learned of a young woman that had been found unconscious in a fast-food parking lot at the edge of town, and her purse missing. One of the other deputies had taken the call, but since it was the biggest news in Harris County all year, everyone was talking about it. The story had been especially intriguing because the unidentified woman had been found clutching an infant! A baby boy who was thankfully unharmed in the attack!
When arriving at the hospital, the cop was directed to the second floor where the mystery woman was being cared for. Jane hoped she would have a clear memory of what happened. Whoever the jerk was who struck her on the head, Jane Rizzoli intended to catch him and make it clear that violence wasn't tolerated in Harris County. Not on her watch, of her hometown of Baytown! Baytown, Texas with its estimated population of 85,000 and Jane Rizzoli vowed to keep her streets safe!
As Jane approached the door to the woman's room, she heard a feminine voice, sounding distressed, coming from inside. "I don't understand this at all! Why am I so bloated? And what happened to my hair?"
That voice! It sounded just like…but it couldn't be! Maura Isles would never set foot outside of Boston! Unless it was a visit to New York or some place on the other side of the world, Maura always considered Boston her home. She wouldn't be caught dead "in the sticks and in the mud," as she referred to any place where its population was under a million people. And she most definitely wouldn't be traveling with a baby! She'd never met a woman less… maternal.
Jane's heart ached, as it always did whenever she thought of Maura. Ruthlessly, the cop pushed the memories aside that threatened to invade her peace of mind. Those were for later, when she was alone in her own bed at home!
"Maybe Detective Rizzoli can shed some light on things," another female voice said soothingly.
Jane knocked on the partially open door. "Someone call?" she asked, managing a calm, steady tone despite the contrast of her inner turmoil.
She stepped into the room, receiving the shock of her life! It was Maura Isles! Even with a black eye, a swollen fat lip, and with her honey blond hair cut short, the woman lying in the hospital bed was unmistakably her ex-girlfriend! She hadn't seen her in almost a year, since she'd so abruptly left Boston.
"Oh Jane, thank God! What took you so long? Please, tell me what's going on!" Maura spoke desperately.
The nurse, who was in the process of changing a bandage on Maura's arm, looked up at the cop. "You know her?" she simply inquired.
"Yes, she's my—she's Maura Isles." Jane managed to inform the nurse.
Looking lost and scared, Maura reached out for her, and reflexively Jane bent over the bed and hugged her. The feel of her small frame and the smell of her hair evoked those painful memories screaming back into her head. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" The endearment slipped out without effort, nor resistance.
"I think so. But how did I get here?" Maura asked, looking confused. "Were we visiting your Mother?"
Jane reluctantly released and pulled back in order to view her former girlfriend with her own growing concern and confusion. "You don't remember?"
"The last thing I remember is the two of us going out to dinner with the Fairfields. How long ago was that?"
Good Lord! Jane barely remembered that dinner! And that was at least if not more than a year ago!
"Jane?" Maura looked up at her with improbably green eyes. "Will you tell me what's going on? And what's with the khaki uniform?"
Before Jane could answer, her mother, Angela Rizzoli walked into the room with a scrunched-up blue blanket in her arms. Angela had raised Jane and her two younger brothers all by herself after her husband, Frank Sr. died from cancer. Although Jane loved her fiercely, Angela was a hospital volunteer as well as the town busybody, which often grated against Jane's sense of sanity.
"Well, well, I heard through the grapevine you were awake and kicking!" Angela said to Maura, her curly light brown hair bobbing in a ponytail as she kept walking closer to the bedside. "I'm sure you're anxious to see this young man!" She gently plopped the blue blanket onto Maura's lap. It was then that Jane realized it wasn't just a blue blanket!
Maura looked at the sleeping baby as if it were an alien invader, making no move to touch it. "Excuse me? You must have the wrong room." Her voice softly spoke, looking ever more puzzled.
The nurse and Angela exchanged worried looks. "Dear heart," the nurse said, "this is definitely your baby. At least, he was with you when you were found."
Maura looked towards Jane for help. "Tell them, Jane! Tell them there's been a mistake!" She said in a rising desperate tone of voice before looking back down at the beautiful baby in her arms.
Jane was just as shocked as Maura! She'd known the mystery woman had been found with a baby, but she'd forgotten about that once she'd realized the woman was Maura! The child appeared to be approximately two to three months old, which left Jane with an inescapable conclusion: she too was a mother! Maura had borne her a child and somehow hadn't seen fit to tell her about it!
Maura Isles felt like she was in the middle of some highly peculiar dream! She could make out every eyelash of the strange child the volunteer had placed in her lap; she could smell the antibiotic ointment the nurse had just applied to the scrape on her arm! But as hard as she tried, she couldn't remember how she had arrived into this hospital room in Baytown, Texas, a billion miles from her home in Boston- well, more like approximately 1,830 miles… but nonetheless, not a place she would go to unless a team of demons were dragging her!
They told her she had been mugged. Someone had hit her over the head in a parking lot and stolen her purse, and probably her car too! Just fucking great, Maura thought.
The baby stirred and started to fret. Instinctively Maura's arms went around him, suddenly realizing with a bolt of clarity that yes! This indeed, was her child! Though she couldn't remember or even explain it, this just felt so right!A recent pregnancy logically explained why her body felt softer, not the reed-thin figure she remembered. It was also likely why she'd changed her hairstyle to something short and requiring no to minimal fuss.
The woman who brought the baby looked studied Maura intensely. "Are you saying this isn't your baby? Because if it's not, I'm required to know!" She anxiously informed Maura; however, the anxiety wasn't directed at her specifically.
"He's mine," Maura said with certainty, silently acknowledging the fact that she'd misplaced a good chunk of her memory. Maybe she didn't consciously remember this baby, but her instincts practically screamed that he belonged with her.
The older woman looked relieved along with the nurse. "I'll take him back whenever you're ready. I'm a volunteer here at the hospital, and I've been caring for him while you're resting." Abruptly she looked over at Jane. "Jane, what're you doing here? You found the creep who hurt this lovely young woman, I hope?" The woman addressing Jane seemed to know her in more ways than a hospital volunteer and law enforcement officer.
"This isn't just any lovely young woman," Jane said, her voice curiously thick. "This… this is Maura."
The woman's faded gray eyes bulged in surprise. "Your Maura?"
Jane only nodded.
Suddenly the woman was all smiles as she looked back at Maura Isles anew. "Oh my gosh, Maura! I'd hug you to pieces, but I don't want to hurt you, what with your injuries and all! I'm Jane's mother: Angela Rizzoli. It's such a pleasure to finally, FINALLY meet you!" She said with genuine warmth.
"Likewise," Maura said uncertainly. So, this was Jane's mother, the woman who had raised her. "Could…could someone please tell me what day it is?"
"Why… it's Friday," Angela replied.
"No… no, I mean… the date." Maura clarified hesitantly.
"April first," Jane said.
"And the year?" Maura asked confused.
Angela and the nurse both jerked in surprise at the question, but Jane didn't.
Jane told her it was 2018, confirming her suspicions. She had lost an entire year of her life. And what a year it must have been! Maura thought, looking down at her baby boy, who surprisingly looked so much like Jane.
"I'll just go find your doctor," the nurse said as she briskly left the room.
Angela gently smoothed Maura's hair. "Whatever's wrong, I'm sure living in Baytown will set you straight." She told the younger woman soothingly. "You probably just need to rest, honey."
"I'm not going to live here," Maura objected, a little more strongly than she anticipated. She looked at Jane and managed to soften her voice. "Am I?"
Jane shrugged. She'd said precious little since coming into the room, making Maura wonder what was going on in that beautiful head of hers.
"Well, of course you're going to live here!" Angela said happily, "that's what you were coming here for. To live in Baytown and marry Jane, yeah?"
Jane started to object. Why would her Ma tell Maura that the two of them were getting married? She and Maura had never broached the subject of marriage, much less agreed to it! In fact, they hadn't even seen each other since they broke up, and Jane quitting the Boston police force to move here!
Angela recognized the warning look coming from her daughter, causing her to hold her tongue. She had find out why her Ma would tell such a whopper before calling her out on it and getting her all caught up in a tangled, verbal web! Taking her mother by the arm, Jane quickly regarded the woman in the bed. "Excuse us a minute, Maura." Then she none-too-gently dragged Angela out of the hospital room and into the corridor. "What the hell was thatall about?!" Jane practically demanded in a hot tone.
"Oh Jane! Don't you see it? This is a golden opportunity! You've been mooning over Maura ever since you got here!" Angela stated, barely catching a breath as she continued. "Whenever I urged you to try and make up with her, to convince her to move to Baytown and be with you, you said it'd be impossible! You constantly said: 'She loves Boston, hates small towns!'" She finally stopped to breathe before snorting and puffed another breath. "Well, fate's now stepping in! She was coming here for some reason! My guess is that she wanted to introduce you to your son…he is your son, isn't he?" Jane's mother asked in concern. "I mean; you and Maura didn't break up because she was carrying some other man's—"
"He's mine," Jane finally acknowledged, both within herself as well as out loud.
God, she had to have already been pregnant that night they broke up! Why hadn't she told her? Then again, Jane was glad Maura hadn't. After the events at work that day, Detective Jane Rizzoli had been perilously close to a mental meltdown. Shocking news like upcoming motherhood might have sent her over the edge! She had been behaving like such a psychotic jerk that fateful day a year ago! No wonder Maura didn't say anything to her about the baby.
"Then, who knows?" Angela continued in a hopeful tone. "Maybe Maura was coming here, hoping you'd make an honest woman out of her."
"But we can't just lie to her and pretend that's the case." Jane managed to speak reasonably, although she couldn't deny that the idea of marrying Maura Isles extremely appealing. Of having her settle down along with her in Baytown would be all Jane Rizzoli had ever wanted. Plus a baby, a son… that part was pretty overwhelming!
No, terrifying! But she would do right by the child! She had to!
"We won't lie for long," Angela said. "She's going to have to stay here a while anyway, to recuperate. She's not in any shape to rush back to Boston, and resume work, and single motherhood. She needs rest, and Baytown is the best place for that. Don't you agree?" The mother asked her daughter.
Jane couldn't argue with her Ma's logic. Her hometown nestled in the waterfront of the Gulf Coast region. It was a healing place, with its friendly people and laid-back pace, picture-postcard vistas in every direction.
"You said she hates small towns, but she's never lived in one like Baytown! Once she gives it a chance, she'll want to stay… and marry you! And then it won't be a lie anymore!" Angela's tone grew in excitement as she tried to convince her daughter.
The cop sighed. She was not one to deceive a person, especially Maura! "I won't actually marry her under false pretenses," Jane declared in a soft, yet resolute voice.
"You won't have to! We'll tell her the truth after a couple of weeks- that we simply didn't know why she was here." Angela simply stated. "Then, if she's not convinced that this is the place for her, she can go home."
Yeah, she'll go home madder than hell at me for lying! Jane thought with her sense of dread remaining. Maura might never speak to her again. But was that any worse than the way things had been over the past year?
Jane simply remained standing in her spot while her Ma walked off to attend to another patient. After a few moments, the cop discretely cracked open the hospital room door to see Maura breastfeeding their son.
She looks so beautiful still, Jane thought. She just couldn't believe that they had a son together, and was just now finding out about him. She knew where I was! Why didn't she just call me when she found out she was pregnant? Jane thought, running her fingers through her long hair. She would have to get to the bottom of this and soon.
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Let me know what you guys think, thank you...