ad astra per aspera
(a rough road leads to the stars)
I rewatched the scene in season five when Jane tells Maura she'd want her to care for her baby should anything happen to her. It lead to this. For purposes of the story, Jane did not miscarry in It Takes A Village.
Sometimes, she looks at it in two different ways.
One day, she had Jane Rizzoli in her life. Jane Rizzoli, and the beautiful, intelligent Emma Rizzoli who Casey did not want to know. They would have dinners at her house and Emma would tell Maura that she could count to ten. Jane would always sit a little taller, beaming proudly. And then, the next day, she did not have Jane. She only had Emma, who continued to excel at counting and learned the definition of discombobulate before she was four.
The other way of looking at things is much worse. That she had been given a family of sorts without the need of blood relation, that she had been teetering on the edge of something with Jane, that she had begun to feel a deep, maternal bond with Emma.
And then it had been ripped from her without warning.
Maura no longer thinks about it at all.
She does not go to the morgue to look at the body. Mostly – or so she tells herself – because it would breach protocol; she and Jane had been close. A smaller part of her brain, the part that, if she were to appreciate metaphors, controlled her sentimental heart, tells her it is because she would not be able to handle it. Instead she steps off the elevator and heads towards Jane's desk. Emma sits at the chair, little legs swinging, her curls tangled, watching Maura approach her.
"Hello, Emma," Maura murmurs, crouching in front of the three year old. "Would you like to go to a private room? I need to speak with you."
Something sets off alarms in the back of her head. A voice like Jane's saying you can't speak to a kid like that, Maur, you're not holding a conference at the UN.
Emma shakes her head, leaning back in the chair. "I wait for mommy."
Maura allows her eyes to trail across Jane's desk. It's almost as if nothing has changed at all. Jane's scribbled notes from this morning are still there, along with a framed photo of herself and Emma, a lukewarm cup of coffee resting perilously close to the edge. She forces herself to look away, standing and hooking her hands beneath Emma's armpits to lift her up and hold her close.
"It's about mommy," she says, passing Korsak who had been watching Emma. She studiously avoids meeting his gaze. She has never known how to process grief. She knows the stages, but the practical is so drastically different to the theoretical.
She finds them a quiet room away from the buzz of the precinct. Emma sighs when Maura sits her down, staring at the door she closed behind her. Maura finds herself trembling as she sits, wondering how to tell Emma that her mother is dead, she is gone, she is not coming back, and they still need to live their lives regardless of the pain that is threatening to rip holes in her lungs.
"Emma…" Maura pauses, clasping her hands together in her lap. Oh, why had she offered to do this? She couldn't have expected Angela to do this – she had just found out she had lost her only daughter, she couldn't be expected to break her granddaughter's heart too. Maura had wanted to protect Angela, and Frankie, from that pain. But now she's unsure. What would Jane say? "You know…"
Emma frowns. "Where mommy?"
Maura finds herself slipping from her seat to kneel in front of Emma, trying her best to give her a soft smile that feels genuine enough.
"Emma, some people, like your mom and the rest of your family, believe that… When a person dies, when we lose them, they go to Heaven to be with God. Do you know about that?"
Emma nods. Maura suppresses her urge to list the scientific evidence that suggests there is no afterlife.
"Emma, honey… Your mommy has gone to Heaven," she whispers, watching the toddler's face fall. "But I'm sure she's watching over us. Right now. Wanting to give you a big hug."
"No!" The toddler protests, wriggling off of the chair. She runs for the door but Maura catches her, holding her back. She screams, trying to rip herself free of Maura's grip. "Mommy!"
"Please," Maura whispers, unheard over the way Emma begins to cry. She remains kneeling, pressing her forehead against the toddler's back, trying to remember how to breathe as Emma cries, and cries, and cries. "Please, don't."
Korsak comes to help her eventually, drying Emma's tears with tissues and telling her stories of Jane on the job and the people she'd saved. Maura sits silently on the opposite side of the table, staring at Emma and her corkscrew curls, wondering how on Earth she'll ever live up to her promise to Jane.
After the funeral, they hold the reception at her house. It had been Angela's idea, really, and Maura hadn't the heart to suggest elsewhere. Not that she thinks, really, she would have gone out anywhere. Everything she sees now, every place she goes, only serves the painful reminder that Jane is gone. That she is not coming back. And she is not a believer of religion – so she has no comforting thoughts of Jane looking down on them from Heaven. She only has Emma.
The toddler has been silent all day. Maura has been searching her mind desperately to find something to say to her. At one point, during Frankie delivering the eulogy, Emma had begun to wail. She had murmured it's okay, before Angela had picked her granddaughter out and, crying too, had left the service for a few minutes.
Perhaps it is best she stay silent.
The crowds around her pass in blurs as Maura settles on the couch with Emma in her lap. Some try to make conversation with her, some don't. Angela passes her a plate of food to feed Emma. The toddler accepts a few forkfuls of lasagne before she refuses anymore, and Maura doesn't have the energy to fight a Rizzoli. Not today.
Halfway through the reception, Emma's eyelids begin to droop, her hands trying to tug her hair free of the bun Maura had pulled it up in earlier. She lets her do it, watching the curls spring free and stick in three different directions. There are things about Emma that are like Casey, of course – she's a little bulkier than Jane had been at this age (and Maura has seen many, many photos), a little more like her father in stature. Nose a little rounder than Jane's. Everything else about her is just so much like her mother.
"Maura?" Emma speaks for the first time that day. "I'm tired."
Maura kisses her forehead, standing and holding Emma on her hip. Someone tries to speak to her as she makes her way through the crowds. They fill everywhere, all of this space that is supposed to be hers, which she had only ever been willing to share with Jane and her family. They even gather outside her bedroom, so disrespectful, so unaware of her needs. Does no-one remember the three year old who misses her mother?
So Maura takes them upstairs instead, to the guest bedroom where Jane used to stay. She tucks Emma beneath the sheets and the toddler protests when she lifts to leave. She doesn't resist. Instead she sheds her heels and blazer, slipping into her bed with Emma, beneath the sheets that still smell like Jane. Emma watches her, beginning to tear up.
"I gonna live with grandma now?" She asks.
Maura's hair rustles against the pillow as she shakes her head. "No, you'll – you'll live with me. It's what your mom wanted."
Emma sniffs. "Okay."
Maura reaches out to curl her hand around Emma's small one. They fall asleep like that, and when Maura wakes from nightmares of blood and Jane's corpse in the early hours of the morning, she finds the presence of a Rizzoli more than soothing.
She takes two weeks leave from work.
Emma still wants to go to the preschool Jane used to send her to. Maura thinks of it as part of her maintaining routine. So every morning she dresses an exhausted looking Emma and kisses her on the cheek when she drops her off. She fills in paperwork to become her legal guardian and Angela does not protest this once. She reads mindlessly, spends hours designing the toddler's bedroom, and surprises her one day when it is finished, picking her up early to show her, so eager to make sure that Jane Rizzoli's daughter will be happy with her.
"Do you like it?" She asks nervously from the doorway.
Emma stands in the middle of the room, bare feet wiggling against the cream carpet. She inspects her elephant duvet and the lilac shade of the walls – her favourite colour – and the few trinkets of her mother's that Maura had collected from her home for her. Red Sox memorabilia and her detective badge, Jo Friday's old collar. She peers into the toy box and finds her toys all hidden inside, crouches in front of the small bookcase and sees all of the books Jane used to read to her. And then she stands on the bed despite the fact it rumples the bedsheets, staring up at the pink bunting, then trails her hands over the white stencilling against the walls.
"Emma," she reads slowly, before turning to Maura and smiling.
With every day that passes, they learn to adjust. Emma begins to shed her silent exterior and revert back to the talkative, happy child she used to be. Maura gives her photos of Jane and Emma when she had first been born to frame and keep in her room. Emma kisses the photo every night before bed.
She had been unsure, at first, how to operate. She knew kids needed routine. She had seen Jane do it on the few nights they'd spend here, or when she would visit her. Yet – it had felt out of place. For her to tuck Emma into bed, to turn on her nightlight (even though, she pointed out, there was nothing to fear in the dark, only the fear of the dark was what scared Emma), kiss her on the forehead and wish her goodnight. But Emma had looked at her so expectantly, lower lip beginning to tremble with fear that Maura might break any part of her routine.
So she had turned on the nightlight without a comment, kissed Emma goodnight, and when she closed the door, sat on the floor for three hours, staring into the dark.
Angela is in the kitchen when Maura emerges on the morning of Emma's fourth birthday, peering into the oven.
"Good morning, Angela," she greets, passing her for the coffee machine. "You're up early."
Angela opens the oven, pulling out a cake that looks a little sorry for itself. Maura frowns, watching, as Angela huffs before pulling icing from her bag.
"Making a cake for Emma?"
"Yes, but it's not – " Angela huffs, gesturing to the cake. It's beginning to deflate in the middle.
Maura smiles, squeezing her elbow. "I'm sure she'll love it regardless."
They do not talk about Jane. They do not talk about how it has been four months and sometimes Emma asks for her mom when she's tired. Maura doesn't think she's said Jane's name aloud since the last time she saw her – safe, alive, teasing her as she performed an autopsy and Jane demanded information. She can still see the shape of her smile in her mind, hear the exact tone Jane used, picture exactly what it was she had been wearing. Sometimes, that Jane appears at her bedside, just watching her, before Maura blinks and realises she had been dreaming.
By the time Emma wakes, Angela has iced the cake, inscribing the words Happy Birthday, Emma and making it look somewhat more edible than before. Maura has blown up balloons and set snack food (or, rather, what Angela classifies as snack food children actually want to eat) out on the table. Emma's presents wait for her by the couch, wrapped neatly with ribbons tied around them just as Jane used to do.
She heads straight to the counter, pushing up on her toes to peer at the cake on the side.
"Is that for me, grandma?"
"Not until your party it isn't," Angela replies, swatting Emma's hand away when she tries to scrape icing off of the top of the cake. She passes the bowl she'd used to mix the cake together so that Emma can scoop out the remains.
Maura heads towards them, frowning. "That's not very safe to eat – "
Emma sighs, rolling her eyes in the perfect imitation of Jane. Maura freezes on the spot.
"It's my birthday, Maura," she says. "It's allowed."
Maura does not protest again.
One morning, Emma wakes with flushed skin, complaining of a stomach ache. Maura carries her to the couch so that she can watch the whale documentary that always calms her, before rooting through her cupboards for something age appropriate to treat her.
"Maura?"
"One moment," she calls over her shoulder, before fumbling with the aspirin in her hands. How is it she has nothing to treat a child with? She's supposed to be Emma's legal Guardian, had promised Jane she would take care of her if anything should happened to her, and now she can't even treat a bug? What had she been thinking? More importantly – what had Jane been thinking, leaving Emma to her? She can't care for a child. Jane should've known better, she shouldn't have been so foolish, she shouldn't have ever gone and died in the first place, it should be Jane here now, calming Emma, having the right medicine for a child –
Maura feels tears burning her eyes, so she launches the packet of aspirin across the room, only remembering to breathe when it hits her fridge.
On the couch, Emma vomits.
In the end, it only results in being a simple case of gastroenteritis. Angela brings her child friendly medicine and two days after, Emma is fine, sleeps soundly through the night, and all traces of vomit on her floor are gone.
Sometimes she worries. That she might not be able to love Emma enough, in the same way that Jane had. But then she picks Emma up from preschool when she has afternoons off, and the young girl throws her arms around her, grinning, asking what they're going to do. And then those thoughts are gone.
The last person that she expects to show up on her doorstep is her mother.
"Surprise!" Her mother laughs, kissing her cheeks as she steps around her and into her house. "I'm sorry if this is an inconvenience, darling. I'm working on being spontaneous. What do you think?"
But her concentration wanders from her mother and fixes on the mess her house is. It's difficult to keep it as clean as it used to be now that she has a four year old running around. There's a half finished cup on juice on the table and Emma's favourite blanket thrown haphazardly over the couch, some toast crumbs from her lunch on the floor by the counter. One of her toys – a remote controlled police car – sits behind the couch, a safety hazard if there ever was one.
"Maura?"
Maura tries to maintain calm, deep breaths, but there is no-one to calm her down from the overwhelming feeling of disappointing her mother. Who is now raising her eyebrows at her, staring at her as though she is worrying her daughter has lost her hearing. But at the point, Emma skips down the stairs – taking them two at a time, despite how many times Maura has told her not to – and heads straight for them when she spots Constance. Smiles bright and holds out her hand to shake just as Maura has taught her. She feels her heart pound a little with pride.
"Hello!"
Constance smiles uncertainly, accepting Emma's handshake. "Hello there. Who might you be?"
"Emma Rizzoli. Hey, I know you!" She cries, before rushing off to Maura's bedroom, returning with a framed picture of Maura and her parents at her college graduation, one of the few pictures Maura has of herself and the two of them. Emma holds it up for Constance to see. "You're the lady in the picture!"
Maura smiles, the thought of mess fading from her mind. "Emma, this is my mother, Constance Isles."
Emma frowns. "But you don't look like her."
"I suppose I don't."
Emma considers this for a moment before shrugging. "Can I watch TV?"
"Of course. Put the photo back first, please."
She does, leaving Maura and her mother alone. Maura ducks her head, gesturing vaguely towards the kitchen. Constance follows her, waiting until Emma is fixated by TV before she speaks again.
"Rizzoli. I didn't know your friend – Jane, isn't it? – had a child."
Maura smiles thinly. "Yes. Well. Emma is four now."
"May I ask why she's here? It almost looks as though she lives here."
Maura breathes in. Out. Jane. It's just a word. Just a name. She can say it; she can explain. It doesn't have to make her cry. If she cries, it makes this whole thing real. It means Jane won't ever come back. It will mean she has reached the stage of acceptance.
She does not want to accept Jane Rizzoli's death.
"Jane was killed by a suspect. Nine months ago," Maura tells her, watching Constance's face drop. "When she was pregnant, she informed me that she'd want me to take care of Emma, should anything happen to her. So I do."
Constance hesitates, before reaching out to squeeze her hand. Maura frowns, a little uncomfortable with the touch. How long has it been since anyone but Emma had shown her affection?
"I'm sorry, Maura. You never mentioned it," Constance murmurs before releasing Maura's hand. She looks over to Emma. "She seems happy."
"She is. I hope she is," Maura says, following her gaze. "Truthfully, I don't think she completely understands what has happened. She never really asks after her mother anymore. Almost like she's… forgetting her."
"She's young and needs to adjust. Perhaps it is her way of coping," Constance suggests.
Maura shrugs, knowing her mother hates it. She continues watching Emma as the colours from the TV play across her face, completely unaware that she should be sad about anything at all.
Her mother stays with them for a week. Emma loses her first tooth, excitedly telling them that this means the tooth fairy will visit her tonight. Maura cannot bring herself to tell her that the tooth fairy isn't real, so she tucks a dollar beneath Emma's pillow that night in exchange for the tooth. Stores it away to keep. The next morning, Emma carries the dollar around with her with pride, insisting she take it to preschool to show her friends.
On the last night, Emma falls asleep in her lap watching documentaries. The ones about sea life – of any kind – calm her the most, so Maura always makes sure to put these on just before bedtime. As she gathers Emma in her arms to carry her to bed, she catches her mother watching them.
"What is it?"
"Nothing. I only – " Constance hesitates, staring at Emma's sleeping face. "I simply hadn't ever realised motherhood suited you so well."
Maura practically crawls into Jane's guest room that night, wraps herself up in the sheets that no longer smell like her.
They should've been doing this together.
Emma says nothing on the anniversary on her mother's death. Maura asks if she wants to go for a walk, maybe by the river, or go to her favourite Italian restaurant, the one that gives her crayons to draw on the table. They could go with the rest of the Rizzoli's. Emma simply shakes her head, picks up her battered copy of Harry Potter, and holds it out for Maura to read.
She doesn't mention the anniversary again.
Emma squirms while tugging at her uniform, unruly hair in pigtails and backpack hanging off of one shoulder, as Maura stops her for a photo. Other parents kiss their children's cheeks and watch them go tearfully, but Maura wants this moment to last just a little longer.
"Stay still, Emma. Your grandma will never forgive me if I don't get a photo of you on your first day of first grade," Maura says, smiling at her. Emma finally stands still for a moment, allowing her to take the photo. "Done."
Emma turns to stare at the school buildings beyond the gate. It's the finest – private – school in the area, requiring uniforms that make Emma look adorable. Maura knows this is one element of her life that is different due to her raising her. Although, maybe – maybe – Jane might have relented and allowed her to pay for a private school for Emma had she been alive. She would've wanted the best for her too, after all.
"It's big," Emma states, eyeing the other kids. "Maura – "
"We've talked about this. You have to go to school, Emma," Maura says, crouching beside her. "Besides, you like learning. That's what school is about! And you're so smart, just like your Mom was."
"I dunno," she says, brows furrowing in the same way her mother's used to. "What if the big kids don't like me?"
"Who wouldn't love you?" She finds herself saying easily. She tugs on Emma's jumper, smiling, until Emma grins back. "Ah, there's that beautiful smile."
Emma wraps her arms around her and Maura hugs her back tightly.
"Have a good first day, Emma," she murmurs, kissing her forehead as she pulls away. Emma begins to walk away, towards the building, pausing only at the door to look back over her shoulder and wave.
Emma soon excels in her classes, the best in every one of them. Maura had no idea she could be so pleased over the something like that, had worried about being too overbearing and expectant like her own parents had been. But Emma surprises her, just like Jane always had. She really, truly wants to learn, a little like Maura had been at that age without the lack of social skills.
She finds herself bragging to the technicians about Emma. She could talk about her for hours on end, about how her reading age is far beyond others in her class, how her first book project had been the best in her grade, how the principal has considered bumping her up a grade. The years pass by and she does not stop, nothing other than proud of Emma Rizzoli.
It happens when Emma is ten.
Casey turns up on her doorstep.
Maura's jaw almost drops before she collects herself. Glancing around to check Emma is upstairs in her room, she turns back to Casey, frowning. "What are you doing here?"
"I heard about Jane," he says, the bags beneath his eyes carved deep.
"Seven years late?" She asks, and almost chokes on the air she breathes.
Seven. Seven years. She has been without Jane Rizzoli for seven years.
"I just want to see my daughter. I know I should've come back before now. But I just didn't know how to."
But Maura only stands straighter, feeling some strange, unfamiliar feeling creep into her chest. Almost – protective? All she knows is that she will not allow Casey Jones to step one foot in this house without knowing that it is what Emma wants. She will not allow Jane's daughter to be used for other's gain.
"You have no right," she says coldly. "You lost your right to Emma the moment you told Jane you wanted nothing to do with her. When you didn't turn up for her when Jane died. You didn't even have the decency to ask me how she was doing, whether she was coping."
"Because you would've handed her over easily. You couldn't handle sharing Jane with me, so who knows how you would've reacted if I'd shown up for Emma."
Maura's eyes widen. "How dare you – "
"Maura?"
She turns to find Emma standing behind her, frowning at the pair of them. Casey is unfamiliar to her, Maura realises. She has never even seen a photo of him. Hasn't ever asked who her father is. Maura closes her eyes, sighing. This is a subject that she should've discussed with Emma a long time ago. She has a right to know who her biological father is, at least.
"Emma," she says, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. "This is Casey Jones. He's your biological father."
Emma stares at him, shoving her hands in her pockets. Does not offer one to shake.
"Hello, Emma," he says, smiling. "You – you look so much like your mother."
"I do," Emma replies curtly before looking at Maura. "May I be excused?"
"Well actually, Casey was wondering if you might like to… Get to know him."
Emma shakes her head. "I have a family already."
Casey's face falls. "Emma – "
"I don't need a Dad," she says, before turning on the spot and heading back to her room.
"Goodbye, Casey," Maura says, grinning, before shutting the door in his face.
From the doorway, she hears Emma switch music on. It's something poppy – no matter how hard she tried, she could never get her interested in Bach – that she doesn't know. Not that she knows any pop songs, actually. It's something that always makes Emma laugh, when they're driving together and Maura tries to sing along to something on the radio with her.
She knocks on the door before entering, hearing Emma's soft come in over the music. When she steps inside, she finds Emma sitting on her bed, the framed photo of herself and Jane when she was only two years old in her hands. She runs a finger over Jane's face reverently as Maura squeezes onto the bed beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tugging her closer so that Emma will rest her head against her.
When had parenting become such an automatic response for her?
"She told him about me, didn't she?" Emma asks, staring at Jane's smiling face.
Maura sighs. "Yes, she did. He didn't…"
"Want me?"
Maura feels tears burn her eyes, so she kisses Emma's hair, feeling the girl relax against her.
"He's a selfish fool, Emma. What matters is that your mother wanted you. Your grandma, your uncles. No matter his decision – whether he had been in your life or not – you always had a family who loved you regardless."
Emma looks up at her with wide, watery eyes. "And you?"
Maura laughs, surprised.
"You'll always have me."
She's passing Emma's room one morning doing laundry when she spots her. Emma stands in front of her mirror, back straight so that she is tall, grinning at her reflection when she shoves Jane's hat over her curls.
"Emma?"
The young girl whirls around, pulling the hat off guiltily. "Sorry, Maura. You had her uniform in the guest room – "
"It's okay," she assures her, setting the laundry basket on the floor. Heads into Emma's room to stand behind her, reaching for the hat in her hands. She pulls her curls back a little, so that the hat will sit right, even if it is still too big for her head. It slips down to cover her eyebrows, but Emma simply laughs. "There. That looks right."
She runs her hands along the ends of Emma's curls. They're getting long now, halfway down her back.
But the young girl rushes off, rooting through one of her drawers, before pulling out Jane's badge. She runs back to stand before the mirror, the hat skewed slightly now as she holds the badge up.
"Police!" She cries, before tilting her head back to look up at Maura. "Did I do it right?"
Maura stares at the young Rizzoli in the mirror, heart pounding.
"You certainly did."
Emma gets into a fight on her first day of high school.
Maura is pulled away from work to speak to the principal. Her hands are clammy and she almost crashes her car on the way there. Emma has never been anything other than good. How will she handle this? Jane would've been able to handle this sort of thing. Not her. She doesn't know how.
The principal assures her that Emma will only be suspended until the end of the week without further punishment. It seems she had punched a boy and broken his nose, but no witnesses could keep their stories straight about what had instigated the assault. Emma's stellar academic reputation saves Maura from having to explain that she isn't usually like this.
She remains quiet when she begins to drive them.
"I have to get back to the precinct once I drop you home," Maura tells her stonily. "But don't think you're getting out of this."
Emma rolls her eyes. "I didn't do anything. I was walking out of biology and he called me a nerd – "
"I've taught you more than enough verbal and peaceful ways to deal with teasing, Emma. You didn't need to resort to violence."
Emma huffs, rubbing a thumb over her bruised knuckles. Through her anger, Maura still feels her heart constrict. Emma is hurt. It goes against her instincts to let her suffer.
"I told him to leave me alone. And then he said my mom was a whore."
Maura has to swerve suddenly to narrowly avoid driving head on into a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. Emma gasps, thrown against the door without any time to brace herself. Maura finds herself pulling over immediately, unbuckling to reach for Emma, forcing her to look her in the eyes.
"Are you okay? What hurts?"
Emma laughs, pushing her hands away. "I'm fine."
"What about your head? Did you hit your head, Emma? Are you experiencing – "
"I told you, Mom, I'm fine."
Maura freezes, staring at Emma who simply smiles at her. Her hands drop from Emma's temples and she sits back in her seat, heart pounding as she frowns at the steering wheel. Emma Rizzoli gets into fights. Emma Rizzoli is intelligent. She is so much like her mother.
Emma Rizzoli just called her Mom.
"Your mother was not… You know that she – "
"Oh, c'mon," Emma groans. "You know I wasn't defending Jane Rizzoli's honour."
"Jane Rizzoli is your mother," Maura replies sharply.
"Jane Rizzoli is a dead woman I don't remember."
Maura has to let her window down for air. The city of Boston continues to move around them, bustling, loud. One woman passes them with a small dog like the one Jane used to own. But the woman walking the dog looks nothing like Jane. Her hair is bleached blonde, straw-like at the end, lips pinched as though she has eaten something sour. Maura looks back at Emma, who is staring at her curiously, and sees Jane. Right there. In that face. With that dark, uncontrollable hair, those deep eyes, high cheekbones, sharp and slanting jawline. This is all she has left of her, now, and she's losing her grip on Jane.
"She gave birth to you. She loved you."
Emma scoffs. "That doesn't mean she's my mother. You should know that. You're adopted, after all."
Maura flinches. "That's different."
"No, it's not. Not really. Jane Rizzoli gave birth to me, yes, and she loved me, and I am grateful for it, and I am sad that she is dead. But you are the biggest gift she could've ever given me. A mom."
"I'm not your mom, Emma."
Emma's undoes her seatbelt, turning to face Maura completely, curls falling in her eyes.
"Yes, you are. You drop me to school every morning, you're there to say goodnight every time, you do everything in your power for me – you buy my clothes and feed me and teach me everything you can and love me. Don't you?"
"Of course I do," Maura whispers. It shouldn't even be a question.
"Then you're my mom. And I love you. We never talk about Jane Rizzoli, you've never taken me to see her grave. Not even on the anniversary of her death. I don't even know where her grave is. Don't you see? She isn't my mom. If she was, we'd talk about her, wouldn't we?"
"I can't…"
Emma tilts closer, frowning. "Mom?"
"I can't talk about her!"
The tears spring to her eyes and she doesn't stop them. She cries for Jane Rizzoli for the first time since she died eleven years ago. And – Oh, God. Oh God. Eleven years. Eleven years without Jane Rizzoli.
Why couldn't everything have just paused? Why can't she go back, tell Jane to wait two more seconds before she broke into the suspect's apartment so that he wouldn't get the drop on her? She is not Emma's mom. She shouldn't be without Jane.
Maura rests her elbows on the steering wheel, hiding her face in her hands as Emma squeezes her shoulder.
"I can't talk about your mother, Emma. It hurts too much," she whispers, choking back a sob. "Do you understand?"
Emma says nothing. Jane would've. Maura sucks in a deep breath, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have – "
"Do you ever consider the fact that maybe I always wanted to talk about her with you?"
"What?"
Emma scowls at her lap. "So many people would talk about her with me. Grandma, Uncle Frankie, Uncle Tommy. Korsak. There was even this guy in my middle school – his mom knew her once, saw when she was given an award for shooting herself. But I just wanted to talk about her with you. Because she chose you to look after me, and because you're my mom."
"I'm not – "
Emma flushes with rage, tears spilling from her eyes. "I get it. You don't want me. You're only looking after me as a favour for Jane."
"No – "
But Emma is already slinging her bag over her shoulder and leaving the car, slamming the door behind her.
"Emma!" Maura calls out of the window.
She shakes her head, wiping away her tears. "I'm getting a bus. Leave me alone."
Maura sits back and watches Emma walk away.
When she gets home that evening, she finds Emma has already made dinner. Admittedly, it is only the heated leftovers from last night. It's a gesture nonetheless, sitting there waiting for her, not too hot and not too cold. Emma herself is nowhere to be seen.
She eats the meal alone. Silent. It almost feels like before her, before Emma. Before Jane. Before the most beautiful period of her life.
After, she washes the dishes, surprised by Emma's patience. She'd usually bound in the kitchen with an apology, desperate to make up – or desperate to argue a little more, if she had been pushed too far. Always so expressive, just like Jane. So she takes herself up the stairs, surprised when she finds Emma's door open, her room empty.
Her first instinct is to panic. She reaches for her phone, already calling Emma when she spots the note sitting on her desk. She shuts off her phone.
Mom, she'd written. And then crossed out to begin again.
Maura.
Don't worry. I'm safe. Going to stay with Frankie for a couple days. Call him to check if you need to.
You should take this time to grieve, Maura. I'm sorry that you were never given the space for that. They just handed you me, didn't they? And you focused on me, instead of you. Don't think I am ungrateful. I only worry that it isn't healthy for you to live that way. Someone has to look out for you, too.
I'll see you soon.
Love,
Emma.
PS – Don't worry. I won't tell anyone about the argument.
For hours, she sits on the edge of Emma's bed, staring at the room around her. Painted white, now. They'd painted it together two years ago – because it's something Jane would have done, instead of hiring people to do it for her. Emma had asked for white, explaining she preferred a minimalist theme, and yet, now, there are clothes strewn on the floor, a day old half eaten peach sitting on her bedside cabinet. There are so many facets of this girl that reflect her mother, and so many parts of her that are… well, just Emma.
And her, too?
Maura reaches for Emma's scrapbook. Something she had been working on over summer as a project for herself. Documenting moments of her life.
It begins with one photo of Jane while pregnant. Maura had begged her, had practically had to bribe her, to let her take the photo. She had acquiesced eventually. Now, Maura presses her fingers against that photo, staring at that round bump, which had been Emma before she had ever really been Emma. Oh. What she wouldn't give to go back.
The next document the first few days of her birth. Jane, exhausted and still beautiful, holding the newly born Emma. Maura by her side. She frowns, turning the page to see Emma a few months older, in her arms, Jane on the phone in the background. And more, all switching, some of Jane holding Emma, and some of herself holding Emma, but always together. Emma's first steps; the time she threw spaghetti hoops against the wall; her first birthday; feeding ducks at the river; first time visiting the precinct; meeting TJ; her second birthday; her first day at preschool; her third birthday; her reaction to the taste of lemon. And then no more Jane, only Maura, up until the photos meet the point of last summer.
She stops, staring at a photo of her and Emma, back when their living together was new. Frankie and Tommy with beers in hands, cheering at the game on the television. And there she is with Emma in her lap, the toddler asleep against her chest, resting safely and content.
Oh.
She's been her mom all along.
By Friday, Emma has been gone for two days, and Maura has never known an absence like it.
In the morning, she calls in for the day off. She showers and does not sing. Dresses and stares at her own reflection in the mirror, pausing before blowdrying her hair.
She's old, now. A lot older than she had been in those photos. The lines on her face aren't so easily hidden; she's been dying the grey of her hair away for more years than she cares to count. This woman in the mirror has lived for eleven years without Jane Rizzoli. She almost wants to reach out and touch her.
Maura looks away, staring at her aging hands. What would Jane think of her now? Would she still look at her the same way, now that so much of her has changed, practically deteriorated? Jane would've been beautiful as she grew older, of course. She had always been beautiful. Everything about her demanded attention.
The tears begin to fall and she finds herself grateful that she is alone. But her room is too big, too empty for her to live in on her own. She wants Jane, she wants her and the way she fills up a room just by walking into it.
"She is dead," she says out loud. "She is dead. She is dead."
Maura gasps when her breathing becomes uneven, chest finding difficultly in rising and falling. And then is screaming, yelling, feeling it burning in her throat but unable to hear it. There is only a ringing in her ears and she can see her perfumes, her make up, flying off of the vanity, her hands shoving everything away, but everything is distant, not her. How can she be her, if Jane is dead?
She falls to the ground, the broken bottles of perfume sending too strong fumes into the air. Things begin to spin, and she almost gives into it.
But. Emma.
Maura comes back to herself, standing, hands trembling, and carefully walking through the broken glass to the bedroom door. She heads to the mirror in the hallway, staring at the woman in the mirror who has lived without Jane Rizzoli for eleven years.
"You're okay," she tells herself.
She believes it.
That evening, she meets Emma at the gates of the cemetery Jane is buried in. Her daughter has her hair pulled back, too neat and severe, making her look a little too serious compared to how she usually is. She watches Maura approaching her uncertainly, but Maura simply wraps her up in a hug.
"I've missed you, Emma," she murmurs.
Emma laughs, body sagging with relief. "You're not mad?"
"I'm never mad. Not with you."
She has not been here since the funeral. Neither of them have, only Emma does not remember the funeral to begin with – Maura takes her hand and squeezes when they follow one path before taking a left, finding Jane's grave easily. As if it has been waiting for them.
Emma takes a deep breath. "So this is where she is."
Maura smiles, refraining from telling her that her mother would have decomposed by now. Jane is not here. This is just a stone with her name on it.
"I'm sorry. You were right," Maura says quietly. "I never considered that you would want to speak about her with me. I always placed my own needs before yours when it came to her, and that was wrong of me. I'll never forgive myself for it."
"You don't need – "
"Please. Let me finish," she implores, wide eyed. "Emma, you are my daughter. You are. And I'm your mom. But Jane Rizzoli was – is – your mom too. What I mean to you does not mean you can value her any less. She did not choose to leave us. She was taken. If she were here right now, she probably would've hit us both over the head for the way we've been acting."
Emma laughs, stepping forward with eyes bright. "Yeah?"
"Oh. Definitely. And she always had such a sharp mouth on her. I never understood half of the jokes she came out with."
"Now that I don't find surprising. You don't understand half of my jokes either."
"That's very true."
Emma scuffs her shoe against the mud, pursing her lips. "I didn't mean to… make you uncomfortable. Trying to force you into being my mom. I just. I don't know. Longed for one, I guess. And you've always been here for me, I just felt like you were. That you always have been my mom."
Maura laughs lightly. Emma looks up, raising an eyebrow, ever so serious. It's so unlike her.
"You didn't make me uncomfortable, Emma. I just worried I was replacing her. I understand now that your love is not so limited for you to only love one of us."
Emma frowns. "You couldn't have said that in a, I don't know, simpler way?"
Rolling her eyes – a habit she supposes she's picked up from her daughter – Maura ropes her close for a hug. Emma steps into it quickly, almost desperate when she grips her.
"I love you, Emma," Maura whispers, kissing the side of her head. "I always have. And you have always been my daughter. I took you in because of that. Not because of Jane."
"Maybe a little bit because of her," Emma whispers, teasing, and Maura laughs.
They're going to be okay.
A new detective – detective Reed – joins the precinct a few weeks after Emma's sixteenth birthday. Parts of her remind Maura of Jane; that sly grin, dark eyes, lanky limbs that tie together perfectly. But her voice isn't low like Jane's, and her humour isn't the same, and her hair falls straight and long around her shoulders.
Still, Emma lopes into her office one afternoon and pauses at the sight of Detective Reed sitting and talking with her.
"Hello, Emma," Maura greets calmly. "I'm sorry, I hadn't realised the time."
"It's okay. I forgot my keys this morning, so…"
"I see. Well, I'm just finishing up some paperwork with Detective Reed here, if you'd like to wait? Your Uncle Frankie is upstairs if you'd like to see him."
Emma nods, tossing her schoolbag onto one of the armchairs of Maura's office. After she spins, heading for the elevators to visit Frankie. Maura turns to find Detective Reed watching her with a smile.
"Your daughter?"
"Oh," Maura averts her eyes to the paperwork in front of her. "Yes. Emma Rizzoli. She's sixteen."
"Rizzoli? I thought your last name was Isles?"
"It is. Emma isn't biologically mine. You've heard of Detective Jane Rizzoli?" She asks, watching Detective Reed nod. "Emma's hers. I promised Jane I'd look after Emma if anything should ever happen to her. She's been in my care since she was three."
Kelly Reed smiles softly. "You're a good person, Doctor Isles."
She moves as if to take Maura's hand. Maura moves away immediately, clearing her throat, and Reed gathers her paperwork to leave.
Emma is a quieter than normal that evening. She has little to say about the debates team she'd joined at school and doesn't ask about any cases Maura has been working on, instead she pokes her food with her fork and asks to be excused when she hasn't eaten half of her meal. She watches her daughter go with a frown.
After she's cleared everything away, she goes to Emma's room, finding it empty. Instead she finds her daughter in her home office. Feet up on the desk despite the amount of times she's told her not to do that, a book in hand and frowning at the page.
"Emma?"
She startles, dropping her feet from the desk. "Mom, I – "
"This room is as much yours as it is mine," she assures her. "What do you have there?"
"Oh, it's a book of letters? Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West."
"Two wonderful writers."
Emma hums. "Listen to this one: I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it."
Emma pauses, looking at her. "It's so… I mean, I know Vita had other lovers, what with her open marriage. But it's beautiful, isn't it?"
Maura nods, quoting the last half of the letter without thinking. "It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this. But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it."
Emma huffs, almost laughing. "Of course you have it memorised. Why did I expect anything else?"
Maura rests against the desk as Emma sets the book of letters down. Her daughter doesn't meet her eyes, instead stares at her hands in her lap. Her curls are pulled back in a bun – she'd cut them short to make them manageable, but complained when it made her look cherub-like – so that her face isn't hidden. She almost seems… pensive.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"If Jane were alive. I would've have two moms."
"Yes. I suppose you would've."
Emma raises an eyebrow, peering up at Maura.
"How long were you in love with my mom for?"
Maura flushes, looking away, at the picture of herself and Jane and a two year old Emma she has framed on her desk. Is there really an answer to that? She's a Doctor, but she has no idea how to quantify love. It is something that she thinks should never be explained by science.
"Your mom wasn't - "
"Gay? Are you sure?"
Maura purses her lips. "I'm… uncertain. No. I don't know if she was. I suppose I never will be certain."
Emma raises from the office chair to lean against the desk with her, nudging her side. Maura blinks against the tears to stare at her daughter's wry smile.
"Detective Reed is pretty. A little younger than you, but…"
Maura laughs. "Yes. She is. She's a little like your mother."
"That's not such a bad thing."
"It is. Because then I'll expect her to be your mother, and she isn't. It would be unfair. For her. For me."
Her daughter sighs, linking their arms together. Rests her head on her shoulder despite the fact she's a little taller than her now and Maura closes her eyes. There isn't one day that passes where she isn't grateful for this. She had been so uncertain when Emma had first come to stay with her. Now she can't imagine her life any other way than this.
"Don't you get lonely, Mom?"
"I have you."
"What about when I go to college? Or when I move out?"
Maura sighs, resting her cheek atop Emma's head. "I won't be lonely. I promise."
She doesn't enjoy lying to her daughter.
Maura prepares dinner as Emma sits at the counter, writing her third draft of her Valedictorian speech. Angela hovers anxiously, and Maura holds back a smile as she watches her daughter roll her eyes at her grandmother's antics. It used to hurt, when Emma would behave as Jane did, just another reminder that she is no longer here. Now, it is a beautiful reminder that Jane Rizzoli had once existed, had once lived, and here is a part of her that lives on.
"Grandma, could you – I don't know – " Emma cringes, attempting not to be rude. "Back off a little?"
Angela huffs, settling in the chair beside her granddaughter. "It's the day before graduation and you haven't finished your speech – "
"I'm sure whatever you write will be beautiful, Emma," Maura interjects, beginning to boil rice.
Emma shrugs. "I guess so."
"Hey," Maura says softly, reaching across to squeeze her hand. "You've a brilliant mind. You were accepted into Yale, after all. Believe in yourself a little."
Emma bites her bottom lip. "About that…"
Angela turns to Maura curiously, who shrugs.
"I was thinking of maybe postponing my place at Yale."
Maura almost drops the lid of the saucepan, fumbling for a moment before setting it down and taking a deep breath. Angela begins to speak at a million miles an hour, protesting, as Emma shrinks a little in her seat under Maura's gaze. Why? Where has she gone wrong? Emma has always loved education, taken more AP classes than Maura had. It doesn't add up. Her daughter would never just throw her future away like this.
"What for?" She interrupts Angela.
"I, umm… Now don't get mad.." Emma twirls the pen in her hands. "I was thinking of looking into applying for the police academy?"
She feels everything inside of her plummet, and there's Jane, right in front of her, smothered in blood and half of her face blown away from the force of the shotgun. Jane, reaching, groping, for something to save her. And Maura cannot move. Cannot save her. In every single dream, she tries, tries so hard. Only met with failure.
"No," she says, resolute, blinking so that Jane fades away and Emma reappears. "You're not joining the academy."
"Why not?"
She hesitates. "You have too much potential. You're not going to waste it – "
Emma scowls. "I never had you pegged as a snob."
Maura glances to Angela, who has gone as white as a sheet, hands balled into fists on the counter. She's staring at nothing in particular, eyes distant and far away. Oh, God. This is like something out of a nightmare.
"You're going to Yale, Emma," she tells her sternly. "And you're going to law school. We've discussed this."
"No, you have talked about this, and I could never bring myself to say anything. But I don't want to do that, Mom. I want to be a detective like my mom, I want to solve crimes like you do, I want to make a difference not defend criminals in court."
"As long as you are under my roof, you are going to do as I say," Maura rasps, watching Emma's face fall. "You're going to go to Yale – "
"No I'm not!"
Emma balls her speech up and tosses it away, ripping herself away from the counter. She storms up the stairs and Maura simply watches her go. She rounds the counter to curl an arm around Angela, who still seems distant, not one tear appearing in her eyes.
"Just like her mother," Angela murmurs. And then she almost laughs.
Emma looks so much older the morning of her graduation. Hair straight and gown on, her cap hanging from fingers, sighing as Maura makes her stand still so that she can take pictures of her before they set off for the ceremony. The whole family is going to meet them there, something she reminds Emma of and makes her cheeks a tinge of red.
She squirms a little. "What if nobody likes my speech?"
"Your speech is going to be wonderful. I'm sure of it."
Emma takes a deep breath, placing her cap on her head. "Okay. I'm ready."
Maura settles in her spot in the audience as Emma takes her place at the podium. She stares out at the crowd, eyes scanning a little worriedly until she spots Maura. The Rizzoli's give her a cheer as she clears her throat to begin her speech, but Emma simply gaves Maura a small wave, and Maura waves back.
"When I was three years old, my mother, Detective Jane Rizzoli, was shot dead while investigating a homicide. After her death her best friend, Doctor Maura Isles, took me in as her own as she had promised her she would. Most people consider her my guardian, but she has always – and always will be – my mom. She has been strong for me without wavering, and taught me everything I have needed to know. She has taught me that it doesn't matter where you come from, you will always find a place to belong, with people who will always love you. She has never allowed any harm to come to me. Her first and foremost goal has always been to protect me. But now, as we all leave high school, most of our parents will recognise that they can no longer control our actions, whether we leave for college or for a job – and that, to both us and them, is terrifying."
Maura sniffs, feelings tears sting her eyes. Angela reaches over to squeeze her hand.
"I do not remember Jane Rizzoli. But what I do know is that she was brave, and loyal, and stubborn as Hell. And she left me with the person she trusted most in the world. She knew the kind of person I would need to guide me through the world of academics while preparing me for the real world after it. Maura Isles often tells me that I am the greatest gift Jane has ever given her, but I don't think she understands the depth of gratitude I have for her. She did not have to take me in, even if she promised Jane she would. She could've broken that promise and never looked back. Instead, she loved me, and raised me to be the best person I could be. No matter where my life may lead me, I will always carry the love of my moms in my heart."
Applause erupts around them, and somehow, through the haze of her tears, Maura meets Emma's eyes and mouths I love you.
After the ceremony, and once the Rizzoli's have finished group hugging Emma so hard that she can no longer breathe, Maura steps up to her daughter and holds her close.
"I'm so proud of you," she whispers into her hair.
"Really?" Emma asks quietly.
Maura feels her daughter's hands trembling. She smiles.
"More than anything."
Maura fusses, as she always does. Barging into her daughter's apartment before her alarm has even gone off that morning, making sure her uniform has been pressed correctly and that she hasn't forgotten to make herself a lunch. Emma has, as she had suspected, so she pulls out the lunch she'd made for her daughter just in case, leaving it out on the side as Emma attempts to tame her curls in the mirror.
Maura steps up behind her, taking the brush from her hands. The curls are tangled and fight against the teeth of the brush, making Emma wince, but soon enough it's tame enough so that she can pull it back tightly, slicking it down a little with gel. She manipulates it into a bun low on Emma's neck, making sure no stray hairs peek out. She did this with Jane, once, before she had been awarded a medal for her bravery.
It doesn't hurt anymore. Thinking about the woman she had loved with every fibre of her being.
"Thank you," Emma murmurs, before turning to stand, grabbing her hat from the dresser.
"First day," Maura notes. "Are you nervous?"
Emma shrugs, before placing her hat on her head. "How do I look?"
Maura smiles.
"Ready to fight crime, Officer Rizzoli."
"Yes, my very dear Virginia, I was at a crossways just about the time I first met you."
- Vita Sackville-West