Author's Note: I don't own Rizzoli & Isles, the two mottos, or the Neil Gaiman quote. Yes, I wish I did. Longer AN at the bottom.
Die Luft der Freiheit Weht (The Winds of Freedom Blow)
CHAPTER ONE
"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
A disconcertingly loud alarm blared through the impeccably well-organized and mature bedroom. The trinkets that lined the mahogany dresser were expensive and impersonal. A closet door just slightly ajar, it was clear to see that no clothes lay on the floor but were all hung and folded with care. There were no photographs or posters cluttering the walls. The curtains, edged with delicate lace, matched the bed sheets – a brilliant combination of lilac and white that contrasted the blue of the walls. The bed, despite its teenaged occupant, remained almost undisturbed; it was clear that the girl who slept in it never once tossed or turned during the night. An interior designer would have been proud of the tasteful decorations and well-maintained ambiance.
The only true sense of character and individuality the room held came the bookshelves. Build around the windows that lined the wall, they were completely and overwhelmingly filled with books. The owner had clearly ran out of room, and had begun extra rows to house them. Indeed, in some gaps, books were piled in horizontally in order to utilize the extra spaces.
With a smile on her face and dressed in a silk pajama set, the sole occupant of the room, a blonde teenager, rose from the bed, neatly remade it, and proceeded to the bookcases. Trailing her finger over the books, she at last settled on one. "Perfect first day book," she remarked to herself as she placed it into the already packed backpack sitting beside the desk. Throwing open the closet door, she put on the outfit handing on the hook: a navy and dark green skirt with just hints of yellow peeking through the plaid, a blue polo, and, in a slight act of defiance, a beautiful blue cashmere sweater rather than the standard cotton uniform issue. She packed the issued sweater into her bag as well, in case regulations determined that she could not wear her own but, as she slid her hands down the soft weave, she couldn't help but hope that she would not have to change. The outfit was completed by a pair of simple Mary Jane shoes, patent leather.
Studying herself in the mirror, her fingers traced the emblem embroidered on the skirt. Both she and her reflection spoke as she recited the facts she had memorized. "St. Josephine's Prep School, a Jesuit institution founded in 1823. It is a top-ranked institution in the city of Boston, with thirty six varsity sport teams, over a hundred clubs, and twenty five AP courses offered."
Turning sharply, she picked up her backpack and left the room, still speaking. "And it's an adventure!"
She descended the staircase quickly but silently, remembering her etiquette training even in the midst of her excitement, and preceded down the hallway, bypassing the dining room and proceeding into the kitchen itself. She pulled down a box of Cheerios and a bowl, filled it, poured in skim milk, and deftly sliced a banana into the cereal. She ate eagerly, determined not to be late for her first day. Sliding on a light coat and swinging the backpack onto her back, she locked the apartment door behind her and chose to scamper down the four flights of stairs to ground level. Entering the lobby, she gratefully smiled at the doorman Fred as he held the door for her. Walking a block to her bus stop, she pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to her parents to let them know the first day was underway.
When the distinctive yellow of the bus rolled up, she breathed in deeply, steadying her nerves. For the first time, Maura Isles was going to ride a school bus. She was going to ride a school bus to a new school for her senior year of high school. She was going to meet new people, assimilate, and figure out how to make friends. She was going to be normal.
The minute she finished ascending the steps into the bus, Maura knew that wasn't going to happen. The noise was what hit her first. It was 6:50 in the morning. Shouldn't teenagers be silent at this time? But no. Shouts sounded through the bus, music blared from iPhone speakers, and laughter reverberated on the metal sides. Overwhelmed, Maura took an unoccupied bench about seven rows back.
Forcing her mouth closed, she started listening to conversations. "Frankie! What happened to you man? Your mug got so ugly!" "Susanna, I heard you bagged a lifeguard. Still going strong?" "I went to California! I got so tan, it was ridiculous." Following any single thread would have been impossible, so Maura closed her eyes and let the noise just wash over her.
Inside, she calmed her racing nerves, reminding herself why she was currently on this bus, how she had fought her parents for this opportunity. Maura knew she wasn't "normal". At eleven, she entered her first boarding school – a prestigious school she had had to test into, and a place where academically she had excelled. Her teachers went above and beyond to ensure Maura was challenged, assigning her extra reading and projects, allowing her to occasionally teach a class herself.
She had loved her teachers. She loved the boarding school's library. She even had loved the administration, which lifted dorm curfews for her so that she could read in the library well past midnight and had allowed her to take educational trips around the globe, despite the fact she would miss school.
Despite everything she knew, though, she knew nothing about people. She read all the right books. She understood subtle facial cues – had alerted classmates to their mutual crushes, had exposed multiple fights, knew how to express happiness and disappointment and lust. She knew people – but she could never make the knowledge into anything meaningful. Her smarts and her money had helped her form many acquaintances, but no friendships.
With university looming on the horizon, Maura wanted to learn how to have friends. So she had searched for a more "average" high school experience in a city she had always loved – Boston. Her parents had agreed once she explained that the school was still quite rigorous, that her marks were already excellent and that, if anything, she'd have less competition for the top universities coming from this prep school. There were only upsides, and so her parents had purchased a (in Maura's opinion) rather lavish two-story apartment for her use, and promised to visit whenever their schedules allowed.
A ball of paper hit her on the face, startling her into opening her eyes. She hadn't realized how… clamorous and chaotic this choice would be.
Mouthing the words silently to herself, she attempted to justify the decision again. "You chose this. You want this. You do."
Looking out the window, she watched as the bus traversed the city of Boston, before pulling out outside a school, her peers already clamoring to get off the bus before the vehicle had come to a full stop.
Descending the steps of the bus and stepping onto the sidewalk, she couldn't help a little smile, even amid her nervousness.
This – she surveyed the crowd, a field of blue and green and yellow – this was adventure.
"The mission of Saint Josephine's Prep as a Catholic, Jesuit, urban, college preparatory school is to develop the minds, hearts, souls, and characters of young individuals in their pursuit of becoming men and women for and with others."
Author's Note: To cover my bases - St. Josephine's motto is the motto of St. Joseph's Prep (in Philadelphia), modified slightly to be coed. The title of the piece is the unofficial motto of Stanford University, and captures the spirit of the piece well. That's theoretically the name of the piece, but since that's a little weird, I've decided to call the story "Freedom Winds".
This story was born out of a desire to 1) write a high school AU where Jane /isn't/ an idiot (she'll show up in chapter 2 if there's any interest in this thing) and 2) because I had this really specific vision of how Jane and Maura would have interacted in high school, particularly when they first met, and I wanted to write it.
I have another high school AU one shot "I'll Be Your Friend", and people asked me to continue it, but I felt like I wasn't a fan of that meeting as a first meeting for a longer story. It was conceived as a one shot, and it's going to stay that way. If you want my version of high school Jane/Maura, read this.
I hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you actually want to read any more of this. If you're following any of my other in-progress story, they're still going! I just wanted to see what the reception on this would be. :) Review, prettyyyyy please?! 3 3