Disclaimer: I don't own Rizzoli & Isles; we all know who they belong to. I'm just using them for my own personal entertainment while I await the summer finale. It is sure to be a tragic couple of months after that. I may have to borrow these characters a few (dozen) more times.
. . . . . .
"Did you know the term 'bat-shit crazy' originated from that of 'bats in the belfry' when abandoned and timeworn churches no longer sounded their bells, the development of a bat's sense of hearing being far too sensitive to withstand that of a loud chime—"
Jane rubbed her hand down the side of her face, "Maura, I said he was 'bat-shit crazy' because the murderer has a longstanding 'relationship' with his baseball bat that he used to bash in the heads of our victims. And we still can't find this bastard." Her frustrated hands now on her hips while realization flashed over the rest of her body. "You just said shit!"
Maura poised her frame as if to ward off mockery from the detective, squaring her shoulders, straightening her perfect posture even more, and tilting her chin as if she was the subject of a painting. "As a means to further explicate the reason how this colloquialism derived its true meaning."
Jane snorted a laugh, "you said shit." She raised her eyes to revel in the fluorescent lighting of justice, "Dr. Maura Isles, Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, cussin' up storm in the morgue."
The ME tortured her lips into pout when trying to hide the faintest little smirk, "coffee?" She asked, well aware Jane saw the smile playing on her face.
Without even as much as a nod they were already headed to the district café, their bodies moved in unison like a perfectly choreographed dance down the long hallway all until the elevator.
With the java steaming from their cups they approached the counter waiting for Angela to ring them up. "That will be four dollars and fifty-two cents, ma'am," she addressed her daughter.
Jane raised her eyebrows and looked to Maura to make sure she wasn't hearing things. The medical examiner echoed her puzzled expression and they turned to Angela. "Ma, did you have a stroke?"
Angela leaned over the cash register so to not be overheard, "Mr. Stanley told me he doesn't appreciate the way I interact with my family during work hours."
The detective merely rolled her eyes and pushed Maura's hand away when she went to pay for the coffee. She dug into her own slacks and tossed a five on the counter before walking away, opting out of participating in the pettiness. Rizzoli checked her phone habitually, "oh, I have to run up to brick real quick."
"Oh, I'll come along." Maura followed her friend back onto the elevator.
"You forgot your lotion on my desk again didn't you?" The detective pressed the illuminating number for her floor and leaned her head against the wall.
The doctor fidgeted with the lid to her paper coffee cup, "I may have…" she trailed away from the thought at hand. Jane looked at her from the corner of her eye and cracked a smile in her direction.
Finally reaching their selected level, the elevator doors dinged open and a flood of officers and detectives stormed down the hall simultaneously. The detective instinctively held Maura behind her so to not be stampeded and their heads whipped side to side like a tennis match on speed.
When the parade was over after a few quick seconds they hurried into the office positioned just right across the hall, "Korsak, what the hell just happened?"
The Sergeant Detective dropped his glasses to the pad of paper in front of him, "DCU had a major bust, everyone in the unit has been ordered to the field."
Rizzoli nodded and silently prayed for their safety as she and Maura continued through the doors and to the detective's desk. The doctor immediately began dispensing the lotion into her hands and smoothed it into her palms. She looked up in time to see Jane staring down at her and Maura winked a grin in her direction. Neither Frost nor Korsak missed a second of their exchange but chose to ignore it as this was just how they interacted with one another.
"Is today Thursday?" Jane sat down and sipped her coffee, peering at the ceiling while Maura continued to massage the lotion into her skin.
"All day, Rizzoli, why—got a hot date tonight?" Frost fired at her from the row of printers near the wall furthest from her desk.
She nearly spit her coffee out, "damn it, it's Stromboli night; I have to get home in time so I get the dough to rise for at least three hours."
"If you intend on making it from scratch I insist you begin…" Maura checked her designer watch, "an hour ago."
Jane darted her eyes at the medical examiner, "great, now you're helping me." She jumped up and grabbed Maura's arm the process, "Frost, call my phone if anything comes up okay? I want to bag this baseball wielding son of a bitch before dessert."
Maura tailed behind the detective who was still ushering her out the door by her arm, "oh, what are we having for dessert?"
Jane shook her head before retreating to the elevator once more.
. . . . . .
"Maur, do you have any idea how many laws you broke on the way over here?" Jane hopped out of her car and approached the doctor's Prius right in front of her in the driveway.
The medical examiner rolled her eyes at the detective. "How many, officer?"
"None! That's how slow you went! I even tried to pass you but you just putt, putt, putted right in front of me. I promised Ma I would have dinner started over an hour ago!"
Maura was laughing in a disdainful tone toward the door. "You try speeding when you've already been written up for defacing public property and the added notion of an unmarked police cruiser tailgating you."
The door unlocked and opened, Jane entered to a familiar scent in the air. She paused in foyer to adjust her senses while Maura was already leading them to the kitchen. "Maur…" she hesitated at the living entrance, keys dangling from her hand.
"About four hours ago during lunch when you were interrogating a suspect," she winked in Jane's general direction.
The detective surveyed the kitchen to see the dough to the Stromboli had raised perfectly, the contents to their meal fully prepared for cooking, and the table set for the Rizzoli family that had adopted Maura as their own. "It's all…" Jane's thoughts barely had time to adjust, "done?"
"You can thank me later," Maura was already knotting an apron around her waist, "hand me the Genoa, we don't have much time for questions, your mother's shift ends at 6, about an hour. She should be here by 6:30."
They began another choreograph dance around the kitchen without as much as "mmm" said between them until the arrival of the family. Their moves were graceful, elegant, and fluid with one another. Upon a long glance in their direction, one would have assumed this was a daily ritual. Every few moments they caught sight of another and would grin considerably while dicing, chopping, or handling oven mitts. There were even several instances when the medical examiner would stop their dance briefly so the detective could work double duty as a taste tester. Each time she fed her straight from the tip of the spoon and nursed her cheek through the tasting so to determine her taste bud's approval. And each time, she tasted directly after, the remnants of Jane still on the utensil.
Their well-composed dance carried on through delivering the dishes to the table and igniting the candles. Maura had made it a point to create a seamless low-lit evening as if they were in an exclusive dining hall like one she had grown up with. It was silly, as she thought, but fun all the same.
"We have approximately twenty minutes their arrivals," the ME announced once the table had been dressed to her specifications.
"Perfect," Jane remarked while spinning Maura in her direction and untying her apron. Her rushed hands were fumbling knot that was made as she piloted her friend's hips closer. "This… damn… thing…" she mumbled.
"Jane," the medical examiner twirled around, "calm down." She finished unraveling the tie herself as she practically stood nose-to-nose with the detective never taking her eyes off the chocolate fountains for irises in front of hers.
A brief, almost imaginable, moment passed between them where Jane's hands remained on her hips and the ME's forehead collided softly with that of the detective's jawline—each of them pretending like that moment hadn't occurred.
"Let's have a short glass of wine so we can unwind before they arrive," Maura offered as she already moved to the decanters, dispensing their drinks.
Jane took a long, steady sip without removing her eyes from her friend. "Thank you," she thoughtfully took in her surroundings, "for everything."
The doctor brushed off her recognition, "it really wasn't a big deal. I recalled you mentioning your mother's instructions for the Stromboli and her strict recipe and knew with this 'bats in the belfry' crazy-man's case you would not have the appropriate time to prepare such a meal."
In between each word Jane had assumed a spot closer to her friend, touched by her words and actions, "you're wonderful, Maur…" she devoured another sip of wine for courage. The detective barely even had time to realize that since the knot-in-the-apron fiasco she had yet to remove one hand from the medical examiner's waist. In the silence that followed the gratitude, Maura herself slowly began to realize the placement of her friend's hand.
What felt like seconds had become minutes. "It smells amazing in here!" Angela exclaimed from the front foyer. "Janie, you outdid yourself."
Her daughter's hands and eyes dropped immediately from the doctor's, "actually, Ma— "
"She did a lovely job, Angela. That recipe you created was nearly impossible to devastate." Maura continued, cutting Jane off while never losing her eye contact.
Dinner passed as mouth-watering as it intended to be. The detective and doctor exchanged numerous winks and looks back and forth upon their forkfuls of bites. Angela and Frankie Jr. alike enjoyed every last bite. The meal slicked by with generous compliments and easy communication between "yummy" noises belly rubbing. Jane checked her phone routinely throughout the feast and dessert to assure Frost had not tried to contact her; she also made a note that each time she perused her cellphone super-glued to hip, Maura paid close attention to her friend's reactions.
After the cannoli's consumption, everyone retreated from the table dropping empty plates and dishes in the sink for an easy clean up. Frankie left rather quickly to catch a few hours of sleep before patrol and Angela mentioned being exhausted from her busy shift at the café that afternoon. Upon her departure, Jane immediately sent a text message toward her partner, Detective Frost to get an update. Awaiting his response, she helped her friend and head-chef place all the used dinnerware in the dishwasher for an easier clean up. When the shelves were full and the kitchen was scrubbed back to it's flawlessness, Jane caught Maura's attention.
"Maur… Thank you. You can't imagine what all of this means to me," she dawdled off, wiping a small bead of sweat from the medical examiner's temple with her dish towel.
"You can't imagine what it means to be an outsider all your life and suddenly part of a heartwarming family," she closed the distance between them with her hand catching Jane's arm, "it is truly a gift, and I've nothing to reciprocate but my home," she continued, tracing her fingertips down to her friend's wrist.
As luck would have it, her text message alert sounded, breaking the budding tension between them. Jane dropped her stare from their closeness to her phone on the counter across the island in the kitchen. It sounded once more, indicated two messages. And then again, indicating three. Her body immediately jumped into Detective Rizzoli mode.
Frost: Warehouse.
Frost: Docks.
Frost: Pier 14.
The only words she received. She regarded these seriously and asked for Maura's help in driving so she would have a better chance of running. "Please, disobey every law, I promise not to write you up," was the only sentence she muttered on the twenty-five minute drive to the harbor.
"Park behind that trailer, do not, I repeat, do not move this car." The detective spoke vehemently to her friend while readying her gun for firing upon exiting the vehicle.
She paced quickly and in the fifteen or so yards from the Prius to the pier entrance, aiming her weapon as a threat to the empty lot around her.
Finally reaching the large overhead door, Jane entered with trepidation building on her trigger finger. "Frost?" She whispered and took five steps forth. "Frost?" And now three steps. "Frost!?" She loudly uttered into the air within two steps.
A faint noise of metal chains clanking together sounded only meters away from her position, she prompted her firearm.
"Detective Rizzoli, I presume," were the last words she heard before the butt end of a baseball bat greeted the side of head.