Thirty One Weeks

Disclaimer: I do not own Rizzoli and Isles, including the book and the TNT show; Jane Rizzoli belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Angie Harmon, and Maura Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Sasha Alexander. The plot for this story is my own, but that is all I could or would stake claim to. Leave feedback if you wish; these girls are delectable, and my muse would appreciate your affirmation!

Synopsis: Minor language, minor drama, minor fluff, and some realizations on the part of the Rizzoli family members. Companion piece to Thirteen Weeks, Nineteen Weeks, and Twenty Five Weeks. It's not entirely necessary to read the others before this one, although you might find it fun. As always, let me know what you think. :D

"You wanna beer? You're wiggin' out." Frankie twisted the cap off of his own bottle and gestured towards the fridge, but Jane shook her head.

"Nah. I told Maura I wouldn't drink." The middle Rizzoli child almost chuckled, but turned it into a mock cough.

"Whipped," he choked out, covering his mouth with a fist as he pretended not to be saying anything. Jane stopped worrying at her scars long enough to slug him in the arm, and cracked a smile.

"Shuddup. This is why you don't have a girlfriend." Frankie slouched into his sofa and toed off his shoes.

"No, I don't have a girlfriend because my sister steals all of the hot girls." Jane laughed and perched on the arm of the couch, still picking at her fingernails in anxiousness.

"That only worked until eighth grade, idiot. Besides, I'm married." Jane shrugged comically before finishing the dig. "Those other girls don't have a chance with me, so you should be able to convince them you're the next best thing."

"Okay, you know what? Start talking or get out. You're ruining my self image." Jane looked down at her clasped hands, and let out a breath.

"You're right. Just," Jane paused, still wondering if she knew how to say what she wanted to say. "Just, hear me out, okay?" Frankie nodded.

"You're freakin' me out, Jane, but yeah. Sure." The older Rizzoli shook her head, curls flipping over her shoulders.

"No, I mean, if I were you, I wouldn't want to hear me out. So promise me you'll let me say my piece before you flip." Jane finally looked her little brother in the face, her brown eyes troubled. Frankie swallowed a gulp of his beer, then nodded.

"I promise." Jane looked down at her hands once more as if to steel herself, then dove in.

"Maura and I," she began slowly, "we picked Hannah's godfather." When Jane risked looking up at her brother to see if he understood, she saw his jaw tighten, and then nod, placing his beer on the side table. Her brain registered that he didn't use a coaster, but she brushed the very Maura thought aside.

"Okay," Frankie started to reply, but Jane shook her head, standing suddenly.

"No, wait. It's not who you might think." Frankie's mouth snapped shut even though his snarky side wanted to tell Jane he had no idea who he was thinking it might be. "Look, Maura and me... We've been arguing about this for days. Weeks. This is a big deal and... well." Frankie was growing tired of his sister's unusual inability to say what she meant to say.

"Janie, spit it out already."

"We picked Tommy." There was silence. Deafening silence. "Okay, I know that this seems illogical, but it's not. I think that he's really turned himself around this time, you know? And, I mean, far be it for me to say that, right? That's Ma's line. Oh, Janie, he'll change. We have to forgive him, blah blah blah. But you've seen him, I mean, he has two jobs, and one of them he's been at for a whole year, and Maura and I, well—"

"You've got to be shitting me." Frankie's voice was hard as he sat forward on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees. Jane stopped pacing and ranting, her back turned to him, and her shoulders fell slightly.

"No, Frankie, I'm not." The eldest sibling turned and gazed down at her brother. "We talked about this a lot. And I'm not getting any of this out right, but the truth is... I'm a cop. And you're a cop."

"Yeah, I am aware of my own job, Janie." Frankie started to stand, but Jane put her hand up.

"You promised, Frankie." The young man sat down. "Hannah's godfather has to... He has to be here, Frankie. You know what I mean? He has to be here when Maura and I aren't here."

"What, so you think Tommy's the best person for that job? You've got to be kidding me. Tommy is never here. He wasn't here when you got shot or kidnapped or when Dad left or for fuckin' Christmas morning for five fuckin' years, Janie." Frankie was standing now, and Jane suddenly felt smaller than him for the first time in her life. She closed her eyes, briefly, knowing why he was upset and understanding it to her very core, but unable to change her mind.

"Okay, look. The point is, we picked Tommy." Jane shrugged, her hands spread wide before her, then turned to pick up her jacket and keys from the side table. "You need to be okay with that fact because in a week, we're gonna tell him and I will not have this tearing our whole family apart. When you're ready to really hear me, then come talk to me." Standing at the door, Frankie might have noticed how tired his sister looked, and how much her eyes said that she needed her little brother to get it, but he was furious.

"I'm not the one who needs a lesson in tearing families apart, Jane." Momentarily, the siblings we're squared off, staring at one another, one unimaginably angry and the other resigned.

"I know," Jane replied softly. Then, she turned to leave, pulling the apartment door open and shutting it behind her. For a moment, she allowed herself to breathe deeply before making her way down the hallway and out of the building.

. . .

Autopsies weren't any more difficult for Maura to complete during pregnancy than they had been beforehand for most of the obvious reasons. Her mind was just as sharp as always, as was her attention to detail, and she hadn't experienced any nausea related to the corpses on her tables, which Frost claimed "just wasn't fair." And while she now wore several types of facial mask during the process so as to protect herself from air born contagions, fluids, and some of the chemicals she used during the autopsy, nothing about her examinations had changed very much.

Until she hit twenty seven weeks.

She'd read the books and the websites. She had excelled in medical school. She knew that women often spoke of "waking up one morning to find themselves really pregnant." Until the Tuesday morning of her twenty seventh week, however, she could not have been prepared to understand that phrase as well as she did now.

The night before, she and Jane had watched both halves of the seventh Harry Potter film on the couch, warm and comfortable with Maura's back pressed against Jane's chest and their hands resting around her "baby bump." Their child was growing right on schedule, fluttering away inside of her, and she figured that she looked pretty pregnant. Jane certainly had a hard time keeping her hands and eyes away from her body.

And then she had woken up the next morning, glanced in the mirror on the way into the shower, and realized exactly what a baby bump was.

Jane called it a basketball.

Maura figured watermelon was slightly more accurate to the spherical shape her body had suddenly acquired, but the point was made.

Since that day, the hardest part about her autopsies were simply reaching the table. She now found herself circling the body as she could not accurately observe the body's left arm from the right side of the table and vice versa. Not only did this frustrate the medical examiner to no end, it also lengthened the autopsy process, which was counterproductive to her attempts to cut back her hours.

This was how she found herself beginning the fifth hour of an autopsy on their latest floater, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. The examination was almost complete, and she had sent each sample out with a technician as it was discovered and labeled, so she knew the end was in sight. Her body, however, was beginning to protest mightily, and she found herself fighting for the last dredges of energy.

Sliding a string of unwaxed, cotton floss between the man's teeth, then lowering the strands into a small manilla envelope, Maura spoke evenly into her recorder, noting food particulates and remnants from the man's time in the harbor waters. Her coroner's assistant entered as she was finishing a comb of the man's hair, snapping gloves into place, and Maura could not have been more relieved to see him.

"Jonathan, I'm glad to see you." Maura tapped the piece of white paper with the hair particulates into another folder and sealed it.

"Hiya, Doc. How are you?" Jonathan Tompkins was a bright, young medical student from BCU who had requested an internship with Maura almost three years ago, then become a technician after graduation. He worked quickly but thoroughly, understood evidence collection and chains of evidence, and spent serious time remaining knowledgeable about the field of medical examination. Maura liked him, and he had worked his way up the line to become her assistant in almost no time at all.

"I am finding myself quite tired, Jonathan. This autopsy ran much longer than I had anticipated." The young med student looked at her, concerned.

"You sure you should still be here, then, Doc?" Maura smiled gently at him and shook her head. No matter how many times she encouraged him to call her by her first name, he stuck to the "Doc" moniker.

"No, I am not sure I should still be here," Maura laughed lightly. "But I am here. Would you mind finishing the sutures? I have collected all I can collect at this time, and you are more than capable of cleaning up my mess." Jonathan looked excited and pulled the nearby tray of equipment towards him.

"You never leave a mess, Doc, but I'd love to help you finish here." Maura stepped away from the table and pulled off her gloves.

"Thank you," she responded as Jonathan began his work, then made her way into the locker room and showers where her normal clothes awaited her. The steam and heat eased some of the tension in her shoulders, but also began to make her feel lightheaded. Shutting the shower off immediately, Maura leaned carefully against the tile walls as she dried herself off and dressed, caring little for her make up or hair as she pulled it back into a loose ponytail. As she made her way to her office, she saw that Jonathan had almost completed his task and was preparing the body for storage. Shooting him a smile, she sank into her desk chair and allowed herself a moment to plant both elbows firmly on the desk and rest her head in her hands.

"Oh, Hannah," the blonde whispered quietly. "Hannah, I think I might have pushed a little too much today." Blessedly inactive for most of the day, Hannah chose this particular moment to stretch or lurch within her, bringing a small smile to Maura's face. Leaning back in her chair and blinking at the suddenly too bright lights, she laid a hand on the top of her stomach and rubbed gently. At thirty one weeks, she had forgone her usual wardrobe of designer dresses and heels, but refused to leave behind her sense of style. Instead, she wore a teal silk blouse over a maternity skirt in layers of light cream linen, and had purchased flat sandals for the first time in many years. At first, she had fought against losing her beloved heels, but, as Jane pointed out, she could no longer see her feet for most of the day, so what did it matter?

Maura contemplated her choices, which were looking unpromising as the fluorescent lights made her vision swim. She needed to eat, and although she knew there was a protein bar stored in her desk drawer, it didn't seem at all appetizing. She also needed to let her body rest before her feet and legs swelled unmanageably and she spent the night awakened by muscle cramps. All of these goals required her to get up and drive home, and yet she had no energy to do so. All she really wanted to do was sit. Perhaps even close her eyes.

"Heya, Doc." Frankie Rizzoli's voice jarred the medical examiner from her thoughts and she pulled herself more upright in her chair.

"Frankie," Maura acknowledged, shuffling the papers on her desk into a neat pile for lack of anything else to do with her hands. "Come in, sit down." She knew how Jane's visit to her brother's apartment had transpired, and regretted that she had not been able to convince Jane to let her tag along. Now that she was faced with a real opportunity to talk to the more responsible of her two brothers-in-law, however, she wasn't sure she knew what to say.

"You okay, Doc? You're not lookin' too good." Maura forced herself to smile as she made eye contact with him.

"Thanks, Frankie," she tried to tease. "I appreciate that." The middle Rizzoli child just shook his head.

"You know that's not what I mean. I think you look tired." Frankie paused to watch his sister-in-law react. "I also think you look guilty." Maura couldn't help herself and rolled her eyes.

"You Rizzoli detectives are far too good at what you do for your own good, you know that?" Frankie couldn't help grinning while he moved from the doorway to one of the chairs in front of the medical examiner's desk.

"So what is it?" Maura contemplated him for a moment, then sighed and allowed her hand to return to the swell of her growing child.

"I had a very long autopsy today, Frankie, and I did not take care of myself like I should have. Before you arrived, I was trying to decide if I was well enough to drive myself home." Frankie raised an eyebrow, making Maura shrug apologetically. "Sometimes, the job gets to me, too."

"Well, whaddya need? Food? Water? I can get you a bottle of water from the vending machines upstairs." Maura smiled but shook her head, gesturing to a half empty neoprene bottle.

"No, but thank you," she responded. "I do need food, but another granola dinner does not sound at all desirable at this moment in time."

"Can I drive you home, then?" The blonde considered this, then nodded.

"I think that might be the safest option here, Frankie. Thank you for offering." Maura began to push herself from her chair, but found her legs weak and unstable. The male version of her wife moved swiftly around the desk and took her elbows and forearms in his grasp.

"Woah, Doc. You weren't kidding about not feelin' good." The medical examiner breathed deeply and shifted until she felt balanced again. "My car's in the parking garage. You gonna make it there?" Maura shook her head.

"You can drive my car," she responded, gesturing around her in search for her purse. "My keys…"

"I got 'em, don't worry. Let's get you out of here." Maura gave a non committal answer and took her bag from Frankie, almost unaware of his supporting arm as he herded her out of the morgue.

. . .

They'd picked up gyros from a Greek take-out restaurant and Frankie had wordlessly handed Maura a Powerade with a Rizzoli glare that said, "Drink this," in undeniable terms. On the way home, with September's first cool breezes drifting in the car windows and flavored water seeping into her system, Maura began to feel marginally better. When they got home, she made her way up the driveway into the darkened cavern of her home and made it as far as the kitchen table before she knew sitting was a necessity. Her legs were beginning to ache and Hannah would not settle down.

"I know, love," she whispered gently as she let one hand slide over her stomach. Frankie moved into the kitchen with the food and began pulling plates out of the cabinets.

"So, you and Jane got a tough case, huh?" Maura appreciated the young man's attempt at conversation, but had little to say.

"Yes," she sighed out gently. "A very young man with a very young child." The food was making her mouth water and she dug in with gusto before Frankie had settled in across from her at the table.

For a little while, they ate in a comfortable silence, more focused on the food than the issue hovering close at hand. But when Maura had demolished her gyro and was contemplating the Greek salad she'd also ordered as an impulse, Frankie's silence reminded her once again.

"Frankie," she started, still unsure if she could move the conversation to the needed topic, but he interrupted her.

"No, Maura. It's…" He paused and set down the last of his gyro, wiping his fingers on a napkin. "It's fine." The blonde met his gaze, unsure. "I've been doing a lot of thinking. I didn't understand when Jane said that Hannah's godfather needed to 'be here.' I thought…" Maura laid a hand on his arm.

"I am not blind to Tommy's history in this family, Frankie. I watched your mother and father when you and Jane were hospitalized after Mariano went bad." Frankie nodded.

"Yeah. He doesn't have the greatest track record. And Jane… She pretends like Ma's the one who forgives him too easily. Like she was one-and-done with Tommy when he went to jail, you know? But she's not." The young man suddenly looked anxiously around him as if he expected his big sister to be lurking in the corner, though Maura knew she was still working. "I mean, she was always protecting Tommy. Cleaning up his messes. He idolized her." Frankie shrugged. "We both did, I guess."

"She's easy to idolize," Maura commented, smiling.

"But you're right. When Tommy hit Father Dominick in a crosswalk, Jane started protecting everyone else from him. Telling Ma that Tommy had called her on her birthday, and that he'd asked about my baseball stats. She wrote him letters and when his answers were short, she'd embellish them. Anything so Ma wouldn't miss him so much." Maura was surprised by Frankie's words, but not by the picture of Jane he was painting. This was exactly the Jane she loved, fiercely protective and loyal to a fault.

"You have to understand, though," Maura began, but Frankie stopped her.

"No, I'm just saying, I called it like I thought I saw it." He shook his head. "But I think I get it. You need someone who isn't gonna die. And Tommy… He isn't gonna die." Maura nodded.

"Jane and I have discussed worst case scenarios at length, Frankie." Maura's hands found Hannah unintentionally, holding her as if she could protect the life with her hands. "Hannah's family will be everything I always dreamed about. She will have three grandparents present in her life, and several Uncles to love her and adore her and protect her from both boys and bullets. I could not ask for a better family to belong to." Frankie laughed lightly.

"You got that right. The Rizzoli's are nothing if not serious about family." Maura pulled the Greek salad towards her and popped off the top.

"That being said, we felt that there needed to be someone who could take care of Hannah if the worst should happen." Taking a whiff of the finely prepared dish in front of her, Maura smiled in satisfaction. "She will be financially secure, no matter what. But I want her to have family." Frankie nodded.

"I get it, I really do." Maura offered some of the salad to Frankie who forked up a cucumber and onion.

"Will you talk to Jane, then?" Maura asked as gently as she could. "She's been… concerned."

"Yeah, I will. Knowing my sister, she hasn't gotten any sleep since I blew up in her face." They finished the meal in silence and Maura heaved herself out of the chair to collect the dishes. Frankie helped her rinse them, then leaned against the kitchen counter.

"You know," he started slowly, steepling his fingers as Jane often did while she thought. "I get that you guys hafta talk about the worst case scenario. We're cops, even you, and that means we get hurt when others don't." Maura nodded, choosing to wash the dishes so she wouldn't have to look at Frankie while they talked. This was her least favorite topic of conversation, and it had come up too many times lately.

"I know," she responded softly.

"But my sister… she's not the cop she used to be." Maura stiffened, misinterpreting Frankie's train of thought, but he plowed on before she could respond. "She was a legend around the precinct when I started, you know that?" Frankie's voice was wistful, but also tinged with jealousy. "She'd do anything to get the bad guy, and she had done everything, too. She had commendations and recommendations and a shiny medal she refused to put on her uniform." Maura finally turned to face her brother in law, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Uniform? You joined before she made detective?" Frankie nodded.

"Yep. And even by then she had made a name for herself. But the name didn't come easy. Not for Jane." Maura tilted her head in contemplation.

"Because she's a woman." The blonde gestured them towards the living room couch onto which she settled. Frankie chose to stand, his hands in his pockets.

"Kinda," he responded, shrugging. "And, because she's Jane. She always needed to prove herself."

"Even at the cost of her own personal safety." Maura grinned feebly.

"Right. She was in and outta the hospital. Sometimes, she'd have three ER visits done and over with before Ma found out about one of 'em. She was reckless in all of the most heroic ways. And it cost her big time." Both Maura's and Frankie's gazes locked in silent understanding of just how much her recklessness had cost her that night in the basement.

"We have talked about this, in regards to Tommy, so—" Even as Maura began to gesture with her hands, a decidedly Jane habit, Frankie interrupted her.

"But she has changed." He made an open gesture with his hands. "She's not that cop anymore. The whole precinct knows it. She won't take the three a.m. call just to add the close to her department stats. She won't 'forget' the flack jacket." Maura didn't know how to respond. Frankie collected her keys from the table by the door and waved them at her. "I'm gonna take your car back to the precinct. Can Jane drive you in tomorrow?"

"Yes, that will be convenient." She rose to embrace him, placing a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you for helping me get home, Frankie." The young Rizzoli smiled.

"Think about what I said," he spoke quietly, the door open a few inches. "My sister's changed a lot—when she met you, when she married you." He placed one hand on Maura's stomach for a moment. "Because of Hannah." He looked her square in the face. "You should take better care of yourself."

Then, he was out the door and the blonde watched as he climbed into his car. His words echoed in her mind as she suddenly understood what he was getting at. As he backed out of her driveway and drove down the street, she closed the door and let the wave of guilt sweep over her.

"Oh, love," she whispered to Hannah who pressed a limb against the taut skin of her growing abdomen. "I am sorry."

. . .

When Jane arrived home that night, she found Maura asleep on the couch in their living room, one hand curled under the pillow and the other wrapped securely around the baby bump that was Hannah. The tall detective stripped off her gun and badge, locking them in the safe at the top of the closet, then shed her blazer and button up shirt, letting them fall in a puddle on top of her boots. Kneeling quietly beside the couch, she pressed a palm and her lips against Hannah, then another kiss to Maura's forehead.

"Hey, baby," she murmured into blonde hair. "Wake up, love." Hazel eyes flickered once, then twice.

"Jane?" The blonde's voice was muddled and sleepy, making Jane grin.

"Yeah, baby, it's me. What are you doing on the couch?" Maura stretched out slightly and blinked away the last dredges of sleep. Jane kissed her slowly, and the medical examiner's hands wound themselves into her thick hair.

"I just fell asleep," Maura responded, sheepish and apologetic. Jane tilted her head to one side and pondered her wife.

"You okay?" The guilt returned in full force, stinging Maura's eyes with fresh tears. She reached out and pulled Jane towards her, wanting her wife on the couch alongside her. The brunette acquiesced, stretching her long body along the length of the couch and pressing tightly against her wife so as not to fall off.

Maura clung to Jane with an unusual sense of desperation, snaking one arm under her wife's rib cage and the other around her waist until she could bury her face in a tank top-covered chest. Jane didn't question her, though she wanted to, and simply pulled Maura's shoulders and lower back towards her in response. Hannah was pressed between them snuggly, sharing the warmth of both of her mothers' bodies. Jane thanked the higher powers that they were only in the midst of Week Thirty One, so they still fit on the couch together.

Pressing kisses into blonde hair, Jane repeated quiet statements of love and care, not understanding why her wife was so upset, but hoping against all hope that she could fix whatever it was. Maura wasn't exactly crying yet, but her body was tense and her forehead creased. Finally, Jane couldn't take it anymore.

"Maura, baby," she started softly, pulling her wife to her even more tightly. "What happened? What's wrong?"

"I'm so sorry, Jane," was the only reply Maura could choke out into the heat of Jane's skin.

"For what, love?" Jane was almost desperate, torn between holding her wife as tightly as she could and pulling back to take Maura's face in her hands. The blonde heaved in a breath, trying to relax enough to speak, and clutched at Jane's tank top.

"You're so..." Maura shuddered and pressed her forehead against Jane's collarbone. "You're so wonderful and you're safe and you wear a flack jacket, and Frankie-he said," Jane's body tensed at hearing her brother's name but Maura scrunched at her tank top again and Jane stayed quiet. "He said you don't call at four a.m. and I didn't have lunch or a break or granola or my folium supplement and I can't even take care of her now!" Maura was almost hysterical. "I'll never be able to do this, Jane. I'm not cut out to do this!"

Jane was at a complete loss.

"Maura, baby, I need you to calm down. You don't have to explain everything right now. I need you to relax." Her words were soft, repetitive, and anxious, but they began to find their way through the haze of Maura's hysteria and into her ever-logical genius brain. Deep, gulping breaths interspersed with the blonde's repetitions of, "I'm sorry," until her body finally seemed to lose its fight and relax back into the couch. "Now, love, what do you mean, you didn't have lunch? Are you hungry?" Maura shook her head and rolled backwards into the crease of the couch as much as she could, bringing Jane's body with her until the detective was half sprawled on her.

"My autopsy," she began, unable to look at her wife, "ran much longer than I had anticipated. I just… I lost track of time. And then, when I left to shower, I felt dizzy and if Frankie hadn't come down to talk to me, I wouldn't have been able to drive home." Jane's forehead creased.

"Maur, we all get caught up by the job. This case sucks. I'm glad Frankie was there, but you could've called me." The medical examiner shook her head.

"No, you were out with a lead and I should never have let myself become as rained as I did." Fresh tears leaked out of her eyes, but Jane reached up to kiss them away.

"Love, you are ore important than leads. You could have called me." This only seemed to make Maura more upset and she finally locked her eyes on Jane's, one hand reaching out to hold the brunette's face.

"Oh, Jane. I'll never be a good mother, will I?" Jane reeled back in shock, pushing herself up on her forearms.

"What? Of course you will!" The blonde's eyes closed momentarily. "Maura, what is this about? You had a shitty case. We get those. We're gonna get those. You, me, the whole team—we are who we are. That's not gonna make you a bad mother." Maura searched her wife's face for the truth.

"You and Hannah are more important than an autopsy," she finally whispered softly. "But I couldn't even remember to stop for a protein shake or a water bottle." Jane shook her head, emphatic.

"It doesn't matter, Maur. You took care of yourself when you were finished, right? You didn't try to drive home. You ate right away." Jane leaned down to kiss her lover, lips soft and yielding, and familiar. Like home. Maura's body trembled slightly under her, the last vestiges of her crying jag leaving her body slowly, but she returned the kiss.

"I love you," she spoke as they pulled away. Jane grinned.

"I love you, too." Another kiss. "And what's this about Frankie going to see you?" Jane looked caught between hopefulness and anxiety.

"Oh! He said that he understands why we chose Tommy." Jane cocked her head to the side.

"Just understands?" Realizing her arms were growing tired, she settled back down on the couch next to her wife.

"Mmm," Maura murmured, wiggling into a comfortable nest in Jane's arms. "No, he's fine with it. Agrees with us. We talked over lunch." Jane let out a breath she might have been holding for almost a week. "He said he will talk to you soon."

"Okay," Jane breathed out. "That's good. Real' good." There was a pause. "Now we just have to convince Tommy."

A/N This one ran away with me a little bit, and I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with it. Let me know what you think.

Also, give me some feedback on whether or not these pieces should be chapters in a story—I've been thinking about combining them, but I don't want to lose the reviews on the individual stories. Originally, I decided to leave them separate because, unlike chapters in a large story, these can be read individually without much misunderstanding. What do you think?