Rizzles. Jane and Maura and their children (yeah, one of those fics) go to the museum. Fluff and humour.
Now, I've done something weird here, by kind of fanficking someone else's fanfic. I HIGHLY recommend Drumchik's "Anatomy, Barbies, Baseball" (read it now!: .net/s/6392840/1/Anatomy_Barbies_and_Baseball). It was the first thing that ever won me over to the idea of Jane and Maura having kids, and they were such a lovable family that my head filled with stories about them ;)
This was meant to be a story about Casey being shown to be an utter bastard, but somehow he never showed up, and then Max began to share the things he'd been learning in his anatomy lessons...
I don't own these characters. They belong to TNT, Tess Gerritson, etc, except for Sofia and Max who bleong to Drumchik.
Baseball: The Family Game
"No, no, no. Maura, I'm watching the game this afternoon." Jane Rizzoli brandished the remote control triumphantly and lay back down on the couch, with her back to her wife who was struggling to get a squirming toddler into a parka.
"No! Mommy! Come to the museum with us!" squealed the toddler, who was soon joined by his sister who ran into the room then slid towards the sofa with her socks on the bare boards,
"Mommy, come and see the dinosaurs. You promised."
"Quiet. Quiet everyone," said Maura, letting go of one of her twins and beginning to wrestle the second into her coat as she spoke. "Your mommy will be coming to see the dinosaurs with us. We're going as a family. She thinks that I know nothing about baseball, but, over the last decade, I've learnt enough to know which are the truly important games, and this isn't one of them."
"Oh, Maur. How can you say that? You only say that because the Pilgrims are playing and you don't like that Jesse Wade's brother is on the team now.
"Your mama has a thing against Jesse Wade," she explained pulling her son up onto her lap. "He was a brilliant baseball player. Two-time Allstar. Rookie of the year in his first season in the big league. But he invited me out on a date once, and your mama thinks that's a bit kooky."
"You forget, Jane, that man turned out to be murderer," Maura pointed out, "Besides, I really think that – " but Jane was turning off the tv and scraping her long black curls up into a ponytail so whatever Maura had been going to say was now redundant.
"I think," said Sofia, who was now by the door, struggling to get her boots on, "that you might like seeing the dinosaurs, Mommy. Mama says that they are all very, very, very definitely dead and not at all alive, so maybe you can work out who killed-ed them?"
"You know, Sofie, between your Mama and I reckon you're right, and we can get a pretty good grip on what happened to those poor dinosaurs! Now, come on, everyone, this family is going to the museum."
The Rizzoli-Isles family were not the only ones who had decided that museum's special dinosaur exhibit on loan from New York was a good place to spend a Sunday afternoon. They struggled to find a park and then had to queue out onto the forecourt for tickets. Luckily the twins kept up a constant stream of chatter about dinosaurs and death which Maura was able to participate in proficiently. Jane stood contently in the crisp early autumn air watching the other families around them and thinking, wondering, with amazement, that this gentle scene of families and toddler-chatter and Maura beside her had come to be her real life.
Once they made it into the foyer of the impressive building the excitement in their little group mounted with a small dinosaur skeleton being on display, sporting an impressive set of teeth that soon launched the sort of conversation that involved the twins each assuring the other that she or he would indeed be the first to be eaten by the dinosaur should it come alive.
At the counter Jane asked for a family pass and handed over the correct change.
"I'm sorry?" asked the cashier, and Jane repeated,
"One family."
It became apparent the cashier had not intended his words to be a questions, but more a statement.
"Jane tuned to look at Maura beside her, who now had Max up in her arms. Jane bent to pick up Sofia and then turned back to the cashier,
"We don't want to create any sort of scene, but I wonder what it is about our family that you don't see, sir."
Rather than humbly mumbling something under his breath, which was the general response that that particular speech elicited, this man sat up straighter, took a breath and looked as if he was about to launch into a the sort of speech that Jane never intended her kids to hear. Before it could begin she put her daughter back down, reached into her pocket and flashed her badge.
"Maybe you should just be careful what you say in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, hey?"
Without taking her eyes from his, Jane reached forward and pushed the money further across the counter. It was the cashier who broke his gaze first, taking the money, placing it in the till and handing over a ticket and exhibition map.
"Hooray!" yelled Sofia, who was sshed by both her mothers. But there were other people in the line and in the foyer who laughed and even a few who also cheered.
"I love it when you do that, Mommy," said the little girl, snuggling up to Jane's leg.
"We all love it when your mommy does that," said Maura, using one arm to pull her wife close enough for her to kiss. Max, who still on his mama's hip did his best to get out of the way of the kiss, but Sofia, alone on the floor did her best to snuggle into the hug of her family and demanded that she get a kiss too.
The dinosaurs were a hit with everyone. The only person on earth who could compete with four year olds for dinosaur knowledge and passion was Dr Maura Isles, and Max and Sofia took every advantage of it that they could. Even other children were drawn into the Maura's semi-lectures on whether a Deinocheirus could win a fight against a t-rex by pointing out differences in their claws and teeth and length of their running legs versus the strength of the their wings. Jane generally felt that she was no was no help in a museum (unless maybe they visited the American history part, but currently both children claimed to be scared of witches, so it wasn't a common household topic of conversation), yet Jane was glad that she wasn't at home with a beer and the game. Just like her children she asked questions about the animals on display and she had great fun playing in the kids activity corner, helping the twins - and numerous other small children – over the dinosaur themed obstacle course and in discovering the camouflaged dinosaur eggs hidden in the display. When Sofia's interest moved from the dinosaur, onto the majesty of the building they were in Jane lifted her up onto her shoulders so that she could touch the plaster mouldings and look out the windows.
None of the children seemed to mind that in her discussions Maura often used words that cannot possibly have meant any more to them than they did to Jane, yet they all listened enthralled and they, and their parents, asked questions. Jane, exhausted from too much dinosaur play and the heavy lifting involved in lugging around the ever growing twins, sat on a long low bench from where she could hear and see her family but also got to rest. She was soon joined by a small boy, about the same age as Max.
"Does that lady live here?" he asked Jane, pointing at Maura.
"No. She's just visiting," explained Jane. "She knows a lot about dinosaurs, though, doesn't she?"
"Uh huh. She's ah-mazing. I think that maybe when I grow up I will marry her."
"Well, I hope not," said Jane, looking down at the child beside her, "because I already have."
"Oh," said the boy. Then, after a pause. "Can we share?"
"Maybe not," laughed Jane. At that minute a man's voice called out a boy's name and her companion ran off into the crowd. Maura escaped from her preschool groupies a few minutes later and came to sit beside Jane.
"You just received a marriage proposal, by the way," said Jane, kissing Maura on the lips.
"Really? I hope you weren't rude when you explained that I was spoken for?"
"Hardly. He was four."
"Eeewww, Mommy, are you talking about boyfriends again?" interjected Sofia.
"Of course they are," said Max. "Boys are the best. Me, Uncle Frankie and uncle Tommy, we're boys."
"You sure are," said Jane, standing and taking her son's hand. "But no one in this family is talking about boyfriends until they are 18. Right now we're going to talk about a snack."
Finally, after a coffee for the grownups up in the cafe and several repeat visits to the kids corner to make sure that every possible colouring-in sheet was filled in, and, it was time to go home.
Back in the foyer the queue was gone and the space was now shadowing dark in the approaching evening. As the family walked across it a voice called out,
"Rizzoli!"
All four stopped and looked around.
"Jane," the voice said again. "You really need to remember how much better you look in a pretty pink dress, Detective."
Stepping out from behind one of the ornate columns that spread through the museum was a face that Jane recognised immediately: "Jesse Wade."
"Ah see, I knew you'd remember me," he smiled. That same childlike smile, now looked even more out of place in his middle-aged face. Instinctively Jane nudged both her children towards her wife and reached for her hip where her gun would have been had she been at work.
Wade saw the move, and laughed. "You scared Rizzoli? I'm not planning on hurting you. I never knew I was even going to run into you. I've only been out for a few days. But I've had a lot of time before that to be thinking about you. And I did think about you a lot, Jane. Jane. Do you mind if I call you 'Jane'?" He stepped towards her again as he asked.
"I'd prefer that we weren't having this conversation at all," was Jane's response, attempting to continue walking towards the exit, but Wade stepped sideways and blocked her in beside the wide column and cutting off her view of Maura and the twins.
"No, no, no, Jane, don't walk away. Hear me out. See, I've had ten years worth of thinking. And you, you were the only girl who I ever thought about while I was in there, if you know what I mean. Because the way you and I hit it off, not many find anything like that in their lifetime. There aren't many women who care about baseball like you and I do, and we need to stick together. We – "
"No thank you, Jesse. We're going to be going now."
"We? We? Ooooh, you mean these adorable little things are yours then?" He pointed at Max and Sofia who, not sensing the vibe of the conversation, were looking less than adorable, in fact Sofia appeared to be picking her nose while she watched the conversation unfolding between her mother and Jesse Wade. "You mean you didn't wait for me, Jane?"
"Jesse. Look, you just got out of prison, life is pretty confusing for you now. Just let us alone."
"No, no, no, Jane. If this is your family I want to meet them."
Sofia, ever keen to please, stepped forward then and reached out as if to shake his hand. "My name is Sofia," she said. "Pleased to meet you. What's your name?"
Jesse, maybe in slight shock at this pint-sized socialite, told her his name which elicited a response from Max who chortled, "I know you! You asked my mommy out on a date and now she isn't allowed to watch the game." Max appeared to find this the funniest thing he had heard for a long time, and was bent over double with laughter.
Wade meanwhile looked from Jane to the children to Maura as if couldn't quite work out what was going on. "I have a question," it was Max again. "If you are a boyfriend, do you have a penis? Like Uncle Frankie and Uncle Tommy?" At this Maura and Jane both guffawed, only Sofia cocked her head to one side as if it were a perfectly sensible topic of conversation.
"Come on," said Maura at last, stepping forward and taking the children's hands to lead them off, "Remember Max, we've talked about the right place and the wrong place to talk about penises."
"That? That's your family?"asked Jesse Wade, without something between awe, shock and laughter in his voice and face. "You've turned down a lifetime of the best seats in the stadium for hanging out in the museum with googlemouth, toilet humour and a fairy-princess-thing?"
"Gladly, I have," said Jane, taking the continuation of his shock to step between him and the column,
"Goodbye, Jesse. You were a long time ago, I've made a lot of decisions since then, and all of the ones relating to my family have been the best decisions I ever made." With a few steps she had caught up to her family again as they all exited back into the outdoors.
"Do you think we'll be home in time to see the end of the game?" asked Sofia, taking Jane's hand.
"I doubt it, Sofie, my love, but there are things in this life that are much, much more important and wonderful than even baseball.
If you haven't done so already, read Drumchik's original story: .net/s/6392840/1/Anatomy_Barbies_and_Baseball