DISCLAIMER: Don't own, don't profit.
FML, I wrote a baby fic.
Title from The Guitarist Tunes Up, Frances Cornford.
The thing is that he's perfect. Not in that awkward, every-newborn-is-cute-although-squished way, but in that dark, dark eyes, cupid bow mouth way. In that ten tiny fingers, ten tiny toes way. In that fuzzy-headed, dark-haired with a cowlick way. He doesn't fuss, just nestles into her—into her breast, into her neck, whenever she cradles him. He blinks at her, and just takes her in, and he mirrors her open-mouthed admiration like they were meant for each other.
Maura panicked a little when Jane brought him in the night before, because even in August, Boston is cold at night. But Jane held him close, and Angela reswaddled him with two extra layers, and between the three of them, they managed to get some preliminary supplies and keep him monitored and safe and warm.
Truth be told, Baby Boy's ill-timed arrival was a godsend. She knows it and Jane knows it. For a good three hours last night, she just sat, immersed in nothingness. It was borderline catatonia and somehow, someway, Jane knew to just sit with her with a hand on her thigh and the occasional soft word to keep her tethered. Baby Boy's presence forced her out of it, forced her back into herself.
It's like every other time—there's never a moment to dwell on a trauma because the next one is right around the bend—but this time, there's a baby, and he's anything but a trauma because the thing is, he's perfect.
The thing is that when she calls her mother, around noon, to tell her about the things that happened with Dennis, she says "I have a baby" instead. It's not at all what she intends to lead with. She intends to lead with, "So I accidentally went to dinner with a serial killer, and he tried to cut my throat, but Jane came for me so he threw himself down an elevator shaft. I'm okay, though." In retrospect, neither seems like a particularly good choice, but she and her mother have been working on direct communication, and burying the lead would work against that. To be honest, every time she calls her mother and hears her voice—that regal, distinguished, Constance Isles blend—she thinks of those horrible, horrible hours when she thought that voice was gone forever, and all her words come out in a rush.
So she starts with "I have a baby."
The thing is that her mother, with a casual dryness that Maura never sees coming, responds with, "Well, that was fast. Jane's, I presume?"
Once Maura stops choking on air and once her mother realizes that she isn't joking, things go quickly. Mother has always been good at the action side of things, and within thirty minutes, both she and Father are booked on a plane to Boston for the end of the week and she's set up meetings with the Art department at Harvard to offer an advanced seminar for the upcoming semester. And then, for a brief and beautiful few minutes, Maura gets to talk about Baby Boy, and she does. "Maman, he's beautiful, you have to see him—all dark hair, dark eyes, dark lashes, como i putti."
Somehow it turns into Mother reminiscing about baby Maura, and how they were all convinced that she wouldn't have eyebrows, and how her first word was shoe. "Your father was mortified to see the effects of nurture up close."
When the talk finally turns to Dennis, there's an edge of frenzy to her mother's voice. "I'm all right," Maura assures her.
"Jane came for you?"
"Yes." She wants to add always but somehow, it feels redundant.
"Bless her." And then, and then, and then: "I love you. And I'm terribly proud of you."
By the time they hang up, Angela's been back from her cafe shift for an hour and Baby Boy is fast asleep in the bassinet. Maura doesn't quite understand how she got so lucky as to have her own mother, to have her for the first time, and to have this whole other beautiful family in her life. Angela fixes them both a light snack and tea and just talks to Maura and looks at her like she's precious all on her own, like even without Jane, she's still lovable.
Maura doesn't understand it, but she cherishes it, and it changes everything.
Jane and Frankie return to the house by 5:30, and Maura knows right away that there is bad, because Jane won't look at Baby Boy, and Frankie won't hold him. "Ma? Maur? Can we—can we sit and talk?"
The clatter from the kitchen sink almost brings a smile to Maura's face—Cincinnati, she thinks—but not quite. "Sure thing, Janie, let me just put this water on—"
"Now, Ma. Please." Frankie's voice is toneless, his usual drawl completely subsumed by—anger. That slight widening of his nostrils, the set of his brows, it's all anger.
They each take a seat around the dining table, and that's not normal. Frankie leaves a seat empty between Angela and himself, and that's not normal, either. "I talked to Cavanaugh," Jane starts, softly, and Maura can see her twisting her fingers together underneath the table. Reaching out is instinctive, slipping one hand between both of Jane's is reflex; Jane holds her gaze for an extra second and they're okay. "Little Man, he's, uh, they're ruling him a Safe Haven drop, even though this isn't a facility. But, um, since I didn't see Lydia—just the car—and I can't confirm the license plate, can't prove that the bassinet was the one from her shower—I can't say it was her, for sure."
No one in this family knows what to do with their hands when there is bad. Angela looks around for a split second, as if to grab something just to keep herself busy. "What does that mean?"
Jane looks to Frankie, and that means they practiced this. Maura squeezes, lightly, at Jane's hands. "Well, when someone turns a kid over to an officer of the BPD, Ma—Safe Haven's all about the kid. We don't care who you are, just do the right thing by your kid, right?" None of that helps the confusion Maura feels and sees reflected on Angela's face. "So—we can't say absolutely that he's Lydia's, Ma, and we don't know who his father is, which means he's subject to all the rules of Safe Haven laws." Frankie swallows, looks down, and then something almost ugly passes over his face. When he lifts his head and meets his mother's eyes, there's anger in the corners of his mouth again. "We're supposed to turn him over to DCF, Ma. By nine tonight."
She feels her hand slip out of Jane's, feels her body sway just slightly, and then there's a cool hand on her cheek and a steadying arm at her waist. "Maur? Maura, sweetie, you just went pale. Maura?"
She tries to take a deep breath but it sticks. Jane's eyes are locked onto hers and she tries, tries, tries, to focus. "No—I'm okay. I'm sorry. No. I'm okay."
"Bullshit, Maura, you're practically blue." Jane scoots her chair a little closer, moves one hand to the middle of Maura's spine and the other to her knee. "Frankie, get her some water. Ma, you good?"
"You are not taking my grandbaby to the Cabbage Patch."
"Ma, you don't even know if he's—"
"There has to be another way."
Another way. Maura catches the phrase and clings to it, closes her eyes and follows it. "There is, isn't there?" she whispers. "Fostering."
When she opens her eyes, there's that familiar mix of frustration and admiration on Jane's face. "I don't understand it. You look like one of your corpses but the Google's still going."
Frankie puts a glass of water in her hand, waits to make sure she's got a grasp on it before going and sitting next to his mother. "Maura's right. We can agree to foster him for a minimum of six months."
Angela's shaking her head, twisting a dishcloth between her hands. "We—they can't ask us to decide this tonight!"
Jane sighs, rubs small circles on Maura's back. "If we don't give them an answer by nine, I face disciplinary action for violating Safe Haven regulations. Maura could, too. Law says 24 hours, Ma."
"Well—shouldn't we at least have Tommy here, if it's his—"
"No, Ma," Frankie says softly. "Tommy's an ex-con and he's still on parole. Unless we can prove paternity in thirty minutes, Tommy's got no link." He sighs, looks to Jane, who nods at him. "It should probably stay that way, until we know."
Angela puts her head in her hands, and when Frankie goes to comfort her, she holds out a hand, pushes at him lightly. "No. No, I need to think."
Frankie and Jane are looking at each other with expressions Maura can't read; it feels like a silent argument that Jane loses. "Ma, there's nothing to think about. We have to turn him over."
"No—"
"Ma. Please. Frankie lives in a studio apartment and works rotating shifts and more OT than half the homicide squad. Even if Tommy turns out to be his father—Ma, his plan is painting houses. He's got no money, no steady job, he alternates which utility he's gonna pay by month. You—Ma, you're 55 and gonna run around after a baby who might be your ex's bastard?" They all flinch, even Jane, when she says it.
"You could do it, Janie, you're—"
"I can't, Ma. I can't. Two nights a week, easy, I don't come home because of a case. Three times a year, I almost die. I have no regular hours, no support system for myself—I mean, come on, Maura's taking Jo half the week as is. I can't, and no one in their right mind would let me."
"He is your family, Jane Rizzoli—"
"We don't even know that, Ma! For all we know, Lydia got herself knocked up by Giovanni, okay?"
Angela's voice gets louder, and Jane's whole body is tensing up, and Maura can't do anything but hold the hand on her knee and wait. "I raised you better than this—you are not turning that poor baby over to a state facility just because—"
"No, hold on a second, how did this become about raising me better? How 'bout your genius son who maybe knocked this broad up—"
"—It doesn't matter who his parents are, he needs us—"
"—only now learning about condoms?"
Baby Boy whimpers, twice, and then wails, and everyone shuts up. With a quick squeeze to Jane's hand, Maura goes to him, leans over the bassinet and strokes the center of his palm, twice. "Baby Boy, Baby Boy, don't you worry, cucciolo, don't you worry about a thing," she murmurs, strokes his cheek and smiles when he turns toward the touch, quiets to an intermittent whine.
She knows how this has to go, now. She picks Baby Boy up and settles him to her shoulder, comes back to the table and stands next to Jane, looks between the two of them. "I can do it," she says, and all of Jane's anger comes roaring up again.
"No." Those dark, dark eyes—and Baby Boy has the same ones shining up at her—are burnt and angry, and Maura's heart hurts because, really, it's fear. Fear and confusion and helplessness, because all of a sudden Jane doesn't have a choice and nobody takes away Jane Rizzoli's choice. "Absolutely not."
"Yes," she counters steadily, and looks at Frankie. Same eyes, same mouth; he looks back at her and those dark, dark eyes open up with possibility.
"You are not taking on my family's mistakes, Maura—"
She sits, careful not to jolt Baby Boy, puts her knees right up against Jane's. Angela's got tears in her eyes and a hand over her mouth and she's nodding without meaning to. "Jane," Maura says softly, and presses a haphazard kiss to Baby Boy's ear. "Jane, he's me."
And that's the thing. Jane runs a hand over her face and looks down at Baby Boy, puts a hand on Maura's knee and the other on Baby Boy's shoulder, puts one finger in the palm of his little hand and smiles when those tiny, tiny fingers curl around hers. There's a violent ache in Maura's ribs, and Baby Boy stirs just slightly, pulls at Jane's finger. She knows why; her heartbeat's shifted to strong and desperate, fast and longing, and he feels it.
He feels them both, and that's the thing.