AN - My first Rizzoli/Isles Fic. Please be nice. Hopefully I haven't butchered characters. This scenario sooooo not going to happen, so I thought I would write it.

I haven't read the books this is strictly TV-verse.

She had three children this morning. Three.

Thomas James Rizzoli

Jane Sarah Rizzoli

Francis William Rizzoli

Up until today.

This morning she mourned for her troubled son. His decision to enter rehab would be welcomed by Jane and then because Jane would welcome it, it was assumed Frankie would too. Frankie used to follow his sister around and worship the very ground she walked on. He followed her, his whole life. One step after the other. From School, baseball and then to the academy. Even now in his career he was starting to make the decisions that she had made. So when Jane was angry Tommy would be met with such a welcome, Frankie, by default was too. But those opinions no longer existed. His delayed return meant nothing now. Because Jane would never be able to voice those opinions.

They tried to comfort her, telling her that her daughter was trying to save her son. They said to her that her daughter was brave and tough. She didn't need the words, she knew exactly who her daughter was.

The more she thought, the more she realized that they both knew this day would come. A conversation while making gnocchi one evening last month came to mind.

"When are you going to settle down?"

"Ma!" Jane replied smiling even though she was exasperated at the continued nagging.

"Jane, really. Look at you, you are beautiful and your smart and you can have anyone you want."

"I don't want to talk about this again."

"You could marry well, raise a few kids, take it easier at work, you know… I worry."

"I know what I signed up for."

"I didn't sign up for anything Jane Rizzoli. They don't give me anything when my daughter gets abducted by strange men, or when I get called to the hospital in the middle of the night when they find you bleeding to death... I didn't sign up to anything where I have to watch my daughter die." Her mother's voice waivers and the tears that had been threatening finally fall.

Jane's face turns from exasperation to understanding. She walks around and hugs her mother, Angela flinching at the unexpected affection. Jane raises her hands to capture the older woman's face.

"Ma, I love you but I've gotta do what's right." She stepped back a little and resumed cutting up the herbs. "That's all I do. If that means that you worry, I'm sorry, but if any of these people were your family, you would want to know who killed them and you'd want the killers punished - So I make sure that happens. Sometimes the price is higher for me than others and I'm sorry to put you through it, but I'm not sorry that I put bad people in prison." She looks at her hands and shrugs.

She watched her daughter's demeanor as she carried on slicing and then moved on to mincing some garlic. She watched as her daughter starts putting ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

"You're not going to settle down and get married are you?"

Jane looks up surprised and frozen.

"I've watched you with her. I've watched you get close and pull back. I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her, but yet… you don't. I thought you were ashamed to tell us, that maybe you and Dr Isles were together and just keeping it from us maybe thinking that we are old and don't know what's what… but…" She takes a deep breath, hoping to gain some courage to question her daughter. "This is your way of protecting her?"

Jane's eyes fall to look at the sauce that she's now mixing the garlic into, she doesn't say anything just continues to stir. Her mother places her hands over her daughters and stills her movements. Jane's eyes lift to meet her mothers.

"You love her don't you?"

Jane's eyes searched Angela's , looking for any sign of judgment, upon seeing none she nods a slight affirmation before returning her eyes to the mixing bowl and the women continued to work as though the fundamental truths of Jane's life had not just been exposed.

After that encounter she understood her daughter a lot better, she understood Jane's motivations, her work ethic and her lack or a social life, she understood her daughter but understanding didn't give her her daughter back.

The room's silence was broken by the sound of heels clicking on the floor. Angela Rizzoli looked up to see a paler than usual medical examiner with bloodshot eyes. Her dress was wrinkled and not sitting correctly and her usual perfect makeup was far from flawless. She watched as the blonde took a steadying breath and tried to lift her eyes to look Angela in the eyes, failing miserably.

"I'm… I'm sorry for your loss… Jane was… Jane was… everything."

Angela wrapped her arms around Maura the same way she used to comfort her daughter, when Jane let her.

"I'm sorry for your loss too Maura." She whispered. She felt the sobs increase and felt a little comforted that her daughter had been loved as much as she had loved. "Thank you for keeping Frankie a." Angela choked on the word 'alive'. Three of her children were alive when she woke up this morning, and now, one was not and another was not out of the woods yet.

"Jane- she – she made me. She always seemed to think I knew everything."

"You were there when she-"

Maura nodded. She didn't know what to do. It was bad enough offering condolences but what was the socially accepted thing to do in this position? Not for the first time she wished she could ask Jane. She stayed silent waiting for Angela to say something that could help her gauge what she should do.

"Does she need to have an autopsy?"

"She died in hospital, there are 23 witnesses and all of them saw her pull the trigger, protocol says that there is no need, unless the family would like-" Maura was hitting her stride when Angela interrupted.

"She pulled the trigger?"

"You didn't know that. I'm sorry I should have kept my mouth shut, Jane's always telling me that I have no filter."

"She shot herself? I don't understand"

"Frankie was injured and she wanted him to be looked after, they secured him but they couldn't get him out of the building while she was being held hostage. No one could do anything because there was a possibility of shooting her. Jane wanted it to be over to get Frankie to safety… so she did what she did, the bullet went through and she caught the bad guy. They were able to get Frankie out in time."

She watched as several emotions floated across the younger woman's face, eventually settling on heartbroken. Once more she took the woman in her arms and rubbed circled on her back, hoping to take some comfort in the embrace of the one person her daughter had treasured above all others. She thought about letting her in on Jane's secret when her daughter's words came back to her. 'Sometimes the price is higher for me'. Regrets. Might-have-beens. Those words would offer no comfort and the protection Jane believed she had bestowed would have been for nothing. She stayed silent and kept rubbing soft circles along the woman's back.

Both mother and daughter had silently acknowledged this day would come, but for Angela Rizzoli knowing that it was going to happen hadn't made it any easier.