"I was gonna take her to the beach."
Maura looks up, away from studying the whorl of Maddie's fingertips. She seems a little surprised to have heard Jane speak. Hesitates before she can formulate an answer.
"I was going to teach her Russian ballet."
"She would've hated that."
"Maybe."
Jane clasps her hands together. It's still strange. Feeling her fingers press together without the metal of her ring interrupting. She'd taken it off last night after weeks of seeing Maura's without hers.
"I was gonna scare the crap outta anyone she ever dated. No way I was ever gonna let anyone treat her bad."
It isn't right. Talking about their daughter like she's already gone when her sleeping form rests between them.
But then, Maura looks up, and she almost smiles.
"Badly."
It is the most wonderful thing she has heard all year.
The fights broke out two months into Maddie's treatment.
She supposes, looking back, Maura had done nothing wrong. She had simply been there for their daughter. She had used her money to get her the best treatment, the best doctors, the best hospital. They had almost become strangers in the process. Two people who spoke of nothing but sickness and – for the most part – Jane thinks she had resented Maura. But Maura had understood it all. She could look through medical journals and understand the processes, what was going on inside their daughter's body. And though she tried, Jane could not wholly fathom it. She was no doctor. She was Maddie's mom. But that hadn't been enough.
They'd arrive home from another round of Maddie's chemo. By that point, their daughter was completely bald, no traces of her honey blonde hair to be seen. Just four years old and already there was something so aged about her. The weariness that tugged around her eyes, the thinness of her skin.
And Maddie would sleep. And sleep. And she'd cry and she'd throw up and Maura would handle it. Because she knew what she was doing. And Jane would sit in the hallway with her elbows on her knees, staring fixedly at the same spot on Maddie's doorframe. The places they'd marked her height. And then, by the time Maura had helped Maddie and let her rest again, Jane could no longer hold back the foul words that left her mouth.
Maura had recoiled, at first. It had been the first time she had seen any sort of suffering since Maddie's diagnosis.
"So now you care, do you?" She'd snarled, even as Maura turned away, headed away from Maddie's room. She'd chased after her. "Queen Of The Dead, is that it? Is that what you want to be for our daughter? You'd rather she'd be dead so you could understand her? I bet you're enjoying all of this, aren't you?"
It happened so quickly. Even now, she cannot remember Maura turning, or the stretch of her hand to her cheek. There had simply been the sharp stinging radiating after she had been slapped. The almighty shock of it that sent remorse flooding through her.
Yet, still, Maura had said nothing.
Jane had slept alone in their bed that night.
Maura had slept on the floor beside Maddie.
When she wakes, Jane spends almost an hour staring at her calendar. It used to be filled with trivial things. Dentist appt 2pm. Korsak's Anniversary. Now, she counts the days. Thirty-five days until Maddie's birthday. Thirty-five days she won't have.
She has nothing written on that date.
Pulling the calendar down and off its hook, Jane grabs a pen and sits on the couch, staring. May eleventh. She grabs the notebook she has been using to deal with things – a trick she had learned from Maura long ago.
We would get her two huskies, she writes. They'd adore her. Keep her safe. Protect her. Just like us.
Jane pauses, feeling the sharp burn of tears press against her eyes, an aching forming along the bridge of her nose. She wipes at her cheeks hastily. Her handwriting is shaky from that moment onwards. Almost illegible.
In the days she doesn't have, she would have a baby brother. She would be very, very happy and she would be loved. We would be together.
She writes one last sentence before snapping the lid back onto the pen, abandoning it and reaching for her jacket before she leaves for the hospital. The pages flutter as she closes the door behind her.
We would name him Max.
For Maddie's fourth birthday, she had woken them up before the sun had even risen. Jane had groaned and pulled the covers up and over her head. Beside her, Maura had laughed softly, trying to coax Madison into lying with them and being quiet. It had worked, eventually, their daughter squashed between the two of them. Her bony elbows had dug into Jane's ribs a couple times and her hair caught up in her mouth. But when she complained, she had been met with two identical sets of eyes watching her with amusement.
Later, at a semi-reasonable time, they'd all rolled out of bed. Maddie had danced around them as Maura ran an understanding hand down Jane's back and nudged a mug of coffee into her hands. Their daughter had only been distracted from the thought of opening her presents by making pancakes with Maura, their hands and their hair covered in flour by the end of it, the majority of the pancakes burnt.
Still, Maddie had been as happy as ever. The girl rarely cried. So she sat and ate her burnt pancakes while eyeing her presents and waiting for Jane to finish her coffee.
"Oh, wow, mommies," she'd whispered once she'd opened her present, little fingers pressing against the certificate. "You bought me a star?"
Maura nodded, smiling. Maddie grinned, dropping the certificate and practically throwing herself into Jane's lap, little arms locked a little too tightly around her neck.
"Thank you, mommy!" She practically yelled, kissing her cheek, before throwing herself at Maura to do the same.
She almost fainted on the spot when she opened her extra present and found a telescope. The day couldn't have passed any slower for Maddie from that point onwards. Consistently checking at the windows to see whether it had turned dark yet and if the stars were out. Even when the Rizzoli clan arrived to celebrate, she'd steal away for a few moments, always checking.
By the time the festivities were over and the night sky really had emerged, Maddie had been dancing on the spot. She practically wrenched the certificate with the co-ordinates for her star out of Maura's hands with an insistent I can do it, momma, before setting the telescope in the right direction. Her small hands had pressed against her own cheeks comically once she had spotted it.
"Oh, mommy. Come see," she'd insisted, tugging on her hand.
Jane had set Maddie in her lap, peering over her shoulder and through the telescope to see the star. She felt something in her chest; that fierceness she always did when she thought of her wife, of their daughter. That love. In that moment, she had been exactly where she'd always wanted to be.
"Happy birthday, baby," she'd murmured, pressing a kiss against Maddie's hair as Maura took her turn to look.
Maddie smiled.
It is only after she has been sitting and watching Maddie sleep for twenty minutes that she realises, distantly, she can hear crying. Frowning, Jane stands. It's not unusual to hear crying in this ward. This is not a ward full of hopefuls. It is, instead, where the children are moved for their last few weeks. It is the place where they all wait. But the crying never normally sounds so… close. She cocks her head, listening for a moment, before she realises that she recognises the sound. She brushes a kiss against Maddie's forehead before she heads for the ensuite, pushing the door open to find Maura huddled in the bathtub Maddie used to be strong enough to use.
"Go away," she croaks, turning her blotchy face away from Jane.
Jane closes the door behind her quietly, making sure not to disturb Maddie. Maura draws the curtain around the bathtub. Normally, before, she would pull it back, cup her cheeks in her palms, kiss the problems away. Now she does not. Instead, she sits, resting her back against the ceramic tub, feeling the strange material of the curtain brush against her hair. Every twenty seconds or so, Maura takes a sharp breath among the tears.
"I hear you've taken leave from work," Jane says into the silence, picking at a thread on her pants.
Maura hesitates before answering thickly. "An indefinite amount, yes. I have a lot of vacation time owed."
"Cavanaugh tried to force me to take some time off. After he heard you were. But I… I can't."
Maura gives a bitter laugh. A little wave of anger, purely born from her stubbornness, rolls through her. She breathes through it. After all they have been through, she will not let them yell at each other in this cramped bathroom while their daughter is dying next door.
She turns, resting an elbow against the tub. Through the curtain, she can see the shadowy outline of Maura.
"Without my work to distract me, I – I don't know who the hell I'd be, Maura. I know I've not been who I used to be. Not anymore. But the person I would've become without that band-aid would've been a monster. When it happens, Maura, when she's gone, it's going to be all I have. I sure as hell don't have you."
A beat passes, and then Maura pulls the curtain back so that they are face to face. Her eyes are sunken, rimmed red. The spaces beneath them almost look blistered from all of her crying. She sniffs, dabbing at them with tissue and wincing.
"Maura… you have a little girl in that that loves you. She thinks the absolute world of you. You're her hero."
Maura shakes her head, tendrils of hair falling and catching in her eyelashes.
"No. That was always you," she rasps. "She got sick, and I fussed. I became her doctor, not her mother. And you came home with stories of all the bad guys you'd helped put away that day. It's a wonder she can even stand to be in the same room as me when you're around."
"Don't you dare," she says sharply. Her hand reaches out without thinking. She catches herself before she can take Maura's hand, instead retracts her own. "Maur, I didn't know how to help her. You did. I hid in my work."
"I hid in science."
A few fresh tears roll down her cheeks and a low, strangled moan rips its way out of her throat again.
"I don't know who I'm gonna be without her either, Jane," Maura cries. "She's – she's – "
Jane no longer hesitates. Instead, she lifts, climbing into the tub with Maura. She pulls her close. Even after five months without her, she still knows how to hold her, and Maura folds against her easily. Jane closes her eyes and clenches her jaw as her wife trembles against her with every sob. The nurses will be doing rounds soon. Maybe they will hear. She hopes like hell that Maddie doesn't. Let her sleep on and rest. Let her believe that, in her last days, nothing has changed. That her moms love her and each other and want nothing more than for them all to be together without a time limit.
Maura grips her a little tighter. She finally lets herself cry too.
The day before she had left Maura, Maddie had been admitted to hospital.
They had been nothing more than two strangers sharing a bed for months. They hardly spoke a word to each other, unless they were around Maddie. Then they'd keep up appearances. But the moment Maddie had been out of earshot, they returned to maintaining their distance from one another.
The chemo hadn't worked. Clinical trials hadn't worked. The disease spread. Maddie's Doctor sat down three days before and told them there was nothing left to do. No other path to journey together and hope for the best. And then, Maddie had caught a cold, which lead to an infection, which lead to her admittance to the hospital.
The room, for a hospital, was large. Spacious. Wallpaper with giraffes and elephants on it. An ensuite for Maddie to have privacy. Two chairs and an optional extra cot if they ever had to stay overnight. All of this bought with Maura's money. All of it things that she herself could not provide.
Eventually, exhausted, Maura had fallen asleep. Jane had snuck out of the hospital room and headed home, packing her things immediately.
As she packed, she thought that she should have felt some sense of remorse. It only came when she stood, suitcase beside her, in the doorway to Maddie's empty room. They'd managed to grab some of her things before she had been admitted. Her favourite books. Her stuffed husky doll. Apart from those few items, Maddie's room was almost unchanged. She'd turned away from it with a heavy heart. Already, she'd known, her daughter would never go back to that room. She would live the last of her days being monitored in a hospital bed.
"So that's it, then? You're just going to leave?"
Jane had jumped, turning to find Maura standing and watching her from the stairs.
"I don't have a reason to stay."
She'd ignored the way Maura had flinched. Instead she had pushed past her, dragging her suitcase down the stairs. Maura had always hated the sound. The thump of each step. She'd always lecture her to simply pick the case up and carry it down. But that time, Jane made sure to drag it with force, making every thump echo loudly through the house.
"So this whole time," Maura said behind her, so quietly she almost missed it. "You've only been with me for her?"
Jane had sighed, turning agitatedly.
"Maura. You know it, I know it – we don't love each other anymore."
Maura had taken a step back. "We don't?"
Jane laughed bitterly. Almost outraged. She stared at her wife in disbelief.
"Does that really come as such a shock, Maura? Jeez, I know your social skills are a little skewed, but I thought you'd notice that we don't exactly behave like married couples do anymore."
Maura had blinked rapidly. "It's – it's a rough patch, we'll – "
"A rough patch?" Jane repeated incredulously. "Our daughter is dying, Maura. She is going to die. What, does the rough patch finish when she's dead, is that it? Then we can go back to being a happy family now that she's out of the way?"
Maura took a sharp breath. "I didn't mean – "
"Oh, I think you did. I think you have no idea what this feels like. You look at her the way a doctor looks at a patient. Well guess what, Maura, she's not your patient!"
"You don't think I know?" Maura had thrown back. Tears formed in her eyes. "I carried her for nine months, Jane. I gave birth to her."
"That does not make her any more yours than it makes her mine."
"I didn't – that's not what I meant – " Maura groaned, rubbing a hand across her eyes. "I never should've had her."
Everything in the room stopped. Maura's hand fell away from her face. The eyes that she revealed were exhausted; tired, Jane supposed, from all of these months of looking after Maddie. But she could not feel any level of sympathy. All she felt was bile rising up in her chest, higher, higher, to her throat, until she actually thought she might vomit then and there. This was not the woman she had married. The woman that she had decided to start a family with. That woman was warm and cried over the idea of having a blood relation. That woman would never regret her child.
"If you think that," Jane said lowly. "Then you do not deserve to be her mother."
Maura's eyes glittered with tears. "I suppose not."
Jane found herself stuck to her spot. Where was Maura's fight? Where was the denial? When had her strength dissipated, replaced with this horrible, regretful human stood before her? Maura sighed, her heels the only source of noise in the room as she took a step towards Jane.
"I shouldn't have been the one to carry her. I don't know my biological family's history. I know that my half-sister needed my kidney just to stay alive. I know nothing about Doyle's family. I don't know if cancer runs in the family. If there are any other diseases that she could've inherited," Maura had said softly. "If you had been the one to have her, you'd know. You'd know there's no history in your family of any diseases and that she would be perfectly healthy. Because of me, because of my selfish delusions that blood would give me some sort of connection I have missed out on, she has cancer."
Jane had taken a deep breath. "If I'd had her, the child we would've had wouldn't be Madison. It would have been a different kid. It wouldn't be her, Maura."
Maura smiled bitterly. "And she never would've had to suffer."
Jane gawked. "Why don't you just fucking appreciate what you have? Appreciate all of the time we have been able to spend with her?"
"So you're telling me you're selfish enough to feel her suffering – so much suffering, Jane – is worth it, because it meant that you had her for a little while?"
Jane stared at Maura, eyes wide. The woman in front of her was not Maura. She was… she was sleep deprived, or maybe she was beginning to crack, all of the guilt finally becoming too much to hold steadily anymore.
She turned and slammed the door behind her.
She pretended not to hear the way Maura sobbed as she left.
Jane runs a hand through her hair, sighing, as she ends the call with her Ma. It's just another one of her relationships that has suffered since Maddie's diagnosis. She had been too crowding, too suffocating, for Jane to be able to handle it. She knows, logically, her mother is only trying to help. Still, now, she's like an outsider. Her mother will visit and fawn over Maddie and speak with Maura and Jane will sit, watching, wondering what parts of her family she has left – even when it happens, she knows she's being melodramatic. Her ma loves her. But she loves Maura too. And there is no question about her love for Maddie.
She just misses her family. She has been disconnected from them for so long.
As she tucks her phone into her pocket and heads down the hall, she doesn't look down this time. She passes doors and windows to rooms with other sick little kids, all wearing the same battered, exhausted expression as Maddie does despite the hopeful naivety shining in their eyes. All of these kids have their families with them. Siblings taking their hands or just a father sat vigil by their sleeping body.
Jane stops when she reaches Maddie's door. She does not go inside. Instead, she steps to the side, peering through the half-drawn blinds. What kind of family will she find inside? There's Maura, sitting by Maddie, as always, clasping their daughter's hand. Almost as if she can sense her, Maura looks over, frowning a little when she spots her simply watching them, unmoving. Jane feels her throat constrict when Maura leans over to kiss Maddie's forehead before moving away, joining Jane in the hallway.
"Is something wrong with your mother?" She asks, immediately concerned, and Jane feels another part of her heart melt away.
"No, no – she's fine. Annoying, but fine," Jane answers, making Maura laugh a little. She blinks rapidly against the sudden tears that almost make it to her eyes. She does not know the last time she heard Maura laugh.
"Then what is it?"
Jane props her hip against the wall and studies Maura. She looks tired. Really, really tired. Exhausted, down to the bone kind of tired. And yet, here she is, reaching out to help despite how many times Jane has lashed out at her these past few months.
"I miss you," she whispers. Maura flinches. "I miss our home. I want to come home, Maura. I want Maddie to come home as well."
"We don't have the medical – "
"Maura," she murmurs, stepping forward. Maura watches her carefully, almost analysing, as though she is prey and Jane is the predator. She simply takes her hand. "Maddie is going to die. You know it. I think you knew long before I did, before I could ever accept it. It is no longer a question of if. I think it only matters where."
Maura does not grip Jane's hand in return. Instead hers sits, limp and heavy, in the cradle of Jane's.
"You want her to die in her bed?"
"I think she deserves the choice. And, given that choice, I think Maddie would always choose to come home. She'd want to be back in her own bed, surrounded by her own things. And us."
Maura takes a moment to accept this. She bites her lower lip slightly, eyes darting down to their hands.
"I don't know how I'm going to… how I'll cope, if we do that. Because I'll lose her, and then you'll leave again, too."
Oh.
Jane blinks. She releases Maura's hand, heart pausing for a moment when Maura sighs, as if she had expected this, as if she's simply going to leave again. Instead, Jane reaches into the inside pocket of her blazer, pulling out of her ring. Maura stares at it in the palm of her hand before she reaches for the neckline of her blouse, pulling a chain with her wedding ring out between them. They smile at each other shyly, until Jane steps forward, pressing her wedding band in Maura's palm and pulling Maura's off of her chain.
"What are you – "
Jane shakes her head. Maura falls silent, watching curiously. Jane takes Maura's left hand and slides the ring back where it should be.
"There are a million and one things we have to talk about," Jane murmurs. Maura looks up, eyes still guarded, even as her fingers close around Jane's ring in her palm. "This isn't the time. But we'll talk about them. We'll get through it."
Maura's eyes fill with tears.
Yeah. There are things they should discuss. Maura had been too distant during Maddie's sickness. Jane had been unwilling to share her hurt. Maura had not included her, sometimes; but Jane had not pushed, she had not demanded to be let in. Maura had provided Maddie with everything Jane could not – the expensive medical equipment, the clinical trials, the hospital room. The jealousy had overcome her, as if they had been competing. They'd lost sight of each other at some point.
She can see clearly now.
"You promise?"
Jane smiles. "Cross my heart, hope to – "
"Don't," Maura beseeches softly.
She takes Jane's left hand, sliding her ring on too. It fits snugly on her fingers. Where it belongs.
Jane watches as Maura takes a steadying breath. She looks up, frowning a little. They're the only two people in this empty hospital hallway. It is this fact that seems to spur Maura on. Places her hand on Jane's shoulder and pushes up on her toes to kiss her.
It is soft and short and chaste and it is enough.
When they part, she rests her forehead against Maura's, smiling. In the corner of her eye, she sees Maddie watching them, smiling too.
Their first night in the hospital with Maddie had been a good one. She had not been sick or broken a bone or caught a bug. She had been five hours old and Maura had slept, exhausted from labour, when Maddie woke and began to fuss.
"Hey, hey," Jane murmured, lifting the wriggling form of her daughter from her cot. "None of that. Let your momma rest."
She walked to the window, so that they could see out over the city. The buildings and the people and all of the wonderful, eccentric things unique to Boston. Rocked Maddie back and forth in her arms and hushed her until her cries began to slow. The angry red that flushed her skin began to disappear, until she was silent, watching Jane carefully. She'd known that babies couldn't see, not really, but she still nodded out to the window.
"There's a whole world out there just waiting for you, baby," she whispered. "Me and momma keep it safe so that you can go out there and do whatever you want. Maybe you'll even be a detective like me. That'll give your grandma a heart attack, huh?"
Maddie blinked slowly in response. Jane laughed quietly, checking over her shoulder that Maura was still resting before looking back down at her daughter in her arms.
"Nah. I think you'll be an astronaut. Your momma can teach you all the science and I'll train with you. You'll go to the stars."
She brushed her pinky finger against Maddie's cheek. She fell asleep almost instantly. Carefully, Jane moved away from the window, lowering her back down into the cot. She rest her palm against her small stomach, her palm almost panned her entire torso. Maura stirred in her sleep.
"What a life you'll live," she whispered, smiling.
Before they leave the hospital, Maddie insists that they go up onto the roof, so that she can see the stars properly. Maura hesitates, but follows the two of them regardless, her hand sitting on top of Jane's as she wheels their daughter around.
It is cold and the wind blows Jane's hair in her face when they emerge upstairs. Maddie gasps, surprised. She has not been outside in months. But it is not a painful kind of surprise, even as Maura watches her, concerned. She grins, holding her arms out, as she watches over the city for a minute.
"I'm really going home, mommies?"
"Yeah, kid. I promise."
Maddie sighs happily. She looks up at the stars, squinting a little, before twisting in her wheelchair. She forces them to wheel her over to the other side of the roof. She watches the stars again until she spots something, pointing weakly at the sky.
"Lupus, mommies."
She sees something that Jane cannot. She glances at Maura, noticing her brow furrowed, trying to figure out where it is the constellation lurks too. Maura flushes when she catches Jane watching her.
"I don't want huskies for my birthday anymore. I want a wolf," she tells them. "But two. I don't want it to be lonely when I get too sick. They've gotta be a pack, like us."
Jane crouches down to kiss the side of Maddie's head. "We'll get you them."
Thirty-three days she does not have.
"Momma?"
Maura bends down too, taking Maddie's hand. Their daughter smiles.
"Mommy told me what really happens when I get sick and I go to sleep forever."
Maura controls her reaction incredibly well. If Jane didn't know her so well, she might have missed the way her free hand curled into a fist, her jaw rippling as she fought the need to clench it and the wobbling ache that came with crying. Maddie does not notice.
"What happens, Maddie?"
"Momma, I'm gonna go to the stars."
Everything seems to escape Maura. She catches her eyes and watches the way she fights tears. Her mouth opens, just a little, as if she is going to say something. Instead she looks away, closes her mouth and takes a deep breath before smiling for their daughter.
"I'll visit my one first," Maddie tells them, oblivious. "You can't see it from here. But you can see it from home. So you'll always see me, mommies, even when I'm not with you."
"Yes, we will," Maura agrees. For once, her hives do not flare.
Jane stands, clearing her throat, as Maddie begins to shiver in the cold. They have to go. She lets Maura take the wheelchair handles and presses a soft kiss to her cool skin. Knocks her forehead against hers lightly. It brings something of a real smile bubbling to the surface.
"It's time to go home," Jane murmurs. Maura nods and Maddie claps her hands, excited.
Together, they wheel Maddie back down, and out of the hospital for good. Maddie wriggles free of Maura's grasp and insists on climbing into the car herself. For once, Maura does not insist on sitting in the back with their daughter. Instead she sits beside Jane in the front, resting one hand on her thigh. As they pull away from the hospital and join the rest of Boston, her eyes flicker up to the rear view mirror, watching Maddie, whose pale face is pressed up against the glass of the window, absorbing the world around her.
She can see nothing but the little girl who would run for hours in their garden, chasing after everything, her hair flying out behind her.
Yeah.
They're really going home.
The End