They walk up to the porch together. Maura's entire body is consumed and throbbing with nerves. She's desperate to see Kylie again – to hold her, to see that she's safe, to hear her little voice. She's afraid to meet Tommy and Lydia, afraid that she'll hate them for getting to be with Ky every day. She's nervous about walking into family dynamics she doesn't understand. She's afraid of being in an unfamiliar house.
She's afraid that Kylie won't need her anymore. Won't be happy to see her. Won't love her.
Jane knocks on the door before Maura's quite ready. Jane waits for the pitter-patter of tiny feet that she's come to expect on the other side of this door, but nothing happens. She tries the knob and it turns under her hand. "Not safe," she mutters, as she steps through. She looks over her shoulder to make sure Maura's behind her.
As Maura closes the door behind herself, a woman barrels into the narrow hallway. "Janie!"
"Oof! Ma, okay." Jane's voice is strangled from inside the woman's embrace. Her mother finally pulls back, still holding tightly to Jane's arms.
"Oh, baby, I'm just so happy!"
"I know, Ma. Me too."
The woman looks behind Jane and sees Maura. Knowing exactly who she is, the woman starts to push past Jane to get to her. Maura tenses immediately. But Jane throws out a straight arm, catching her mother in the stomach and pushing her back into the house.
"No touching." She doesn't say it in a cruel way, but it's firm.
The woman looks at Jane for a second, and then nods quickly. "Oh, of course." A small part of Maura swoons, and the rest relaxes, just a little.
Jane drops her arm. "Ma, this is Maura. Maura, my mother, Angela."
Maura bobs her head politely. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Rizzoli."
Angela waves her hand around, dramatically shooing off Maura's formality. "Call me Angela. Maura, honey, you're the savior of our entire family. You brought us our baby back, safe and sound. That makes you a part of this family now."
Maura starts to protest but Angela talks over her, loud and serious, making firm eye contact. "I mean it, honey. Anytime you ever need anything – a place to stay, a home cooked meal, somewhere to go for the holidays, a ride to the airport – you come to me now. You're family. You understand?"
Maura's overwhelmed. All she can do is nod and blink back tears. Jane mercifully changes the subject, ushering all of them out of the hallway and into the kitchen. "Ma, what's going on? How's Ky?"
Angela leads them from the cramped hallway into the small living room. It's cluttered and the furniture has definitely seen better days, but everything is clean and it smells like fresh baked cookies and Italian cooking. Maura realizes that it actually looks like a room where people do their living, in a way hers never has.
Jane is bobbing her head in silent agreement as Angela rambles on about how happy she is to have Kylie back at home. Maura follows them into a tiny kitchen where a couple pots are simmering on the stove, releasing an absolutely heavenly smell. Maura's stomach pings—even though she just ate recently, her body hasn't figured out that she has nonstop access to food now, that she doesn't need to stop what she's doing immediately to take advantage of food that might not show back up for days. Maura resolutely shoves the feeling back down, willing herself to focus back on what Angela is saying.
But just at that moment, a young man pokes his head into the kitchen. Even if she hadn't been at Jane's brother's house, Maura would have known this man was her brother. He looks just like her and like Frankie: black hair, strong features, tall, muscular, attractive. And, like the two of them, completely exhausted.
"Hey, Janie," he says, his voice rough and soft. Jane eels around her mother and makes her way to him, putting her arms around him and rubbing his back a little bit.
"Hey, little brother. How are you doing?"
He pulls away and shrugs again, and Maura's chest tightens with fury. She tries to damp down the unkind feelings that rush up in her, but she can't. He should be fucking radiant to have this child back with him. How dare he look tired or sad. He has Kylie back, he gets to see her every god damned day. How dare he be anything but fucking thrilled.
Jane claps him on the shoulder and leaves her hand there. "Why don't we go into the living room and talk about it."
As soon as they're out of the confines of the kitchen (which was clearly made for 1.5 people maximum), Jane gestures for Maura. "Tommy, this is Maura. Maura, Tommy." Tommy reaches a hand out to shake, but Jane smoothly intercepts it, pushing it back down to his side with a little shake of her head. Tommy doesn't get it quite as quickly as Angela; Jane has to say "no touching" with a little aggression in her eyes before he finally nods.
Maybe it's because of this that when he finally says "hey," it sounds a little off. He scuffs his foot on the ground. "Thanks, for, you know, bringin' her back."
Maura blinks back tears that she doesn't understand. She nods back to him, completely unsure of what to say. Nothing in her upbringing has prepared her for small talk in this particular situation.
"T," Jane says from the couch, "come sit and tell us what's going on."
Tommy sits heavily next to her on the couch. Angela sits on his other side, and Jane nods at Maura to take the armchair off to the side.
"It's…I mean, it's so amazing to have her back, you know? To know she's okay, that she's back. But like, I don't know." He rubs his hands through his hair and Maura starts to feel badly for how angry she is at him. "I guess I always thought that if we got her back things would just like go back to normal, you know? Like, maybe that was stupid or whatever, but I thought we'd just go back to bein', like, regular. But she's like…she's different." He looks up at Jane, pleadingly. "And I know that makes sense, that like, she's seen some shit that she shouldn't ever have had to see, but like…fuck, I don't know."
He rubs his head more aggressively and it clicks for Maura that this has been a really terrible day for him too. That having Kylie back has been really hard. That all of the changes Maura saw in the house—how much Kylie learned and grew, how much wiser and less carefree she is—must make her barely recognizable to everyone who wasn't in that basement. That maybe Tommy misses the Kylie he knew just as much as Maura misses hers.
"She's barely happy to see us, and she's been fightin' us on every little thing. No, she won't eat this, no she won't wear that, no she won't lay down here, no she won't nap, no she won't drink water, nothing. And we just thought like, okay, it'll pass, you know? We won't push it. But now she hasn't slept or eaten or even like had water, and, so, like, what do we do?" He turns his face to Jane again and his expression is so pleading, so horribly young, that it hurts Maura's heart. Poor Tommy, reunited with a child he barely recognizes. Poor Jane, saddled with taking care of them all.
"Janie? What happened to my kid? Where did she go?"
Their conversation is interrupted by a slight blonde woman walking into the living room. Her hair is a little curly, and a lot disheveled. Her large eyes are sunken into their sockets, surrounded by dark rings. God, Maura thinks, Ky looks just like her.
"Tommy," she says, her voice higher in pitch than Maura expected, "can't you help for once? She's under the bed again."
Tommy, clearly frustrated, opens his mouth to argue back, but Jane beats him to it.
"Hey Lydia." Lydia's head snaps over. "This is Maura. Mind if she and I give it a shot?"
Maura follows Jane past the kitchen, down the narrow hallway into a small bedroom on the right. Maura's eyes are a little dazzled by all the pink—the paint, the toys, the dresser, the bed—but is grounded by the Red Sox hat and Patriots foam finger hung on the back of the closet. She's seen the same ones in Jane's living room.
Jane strides over to the bed, grabs two things off of it, and crouches down. "Incoming!" She calls softly, and tosses them, one after another, under the bed.
A little giggle trickles out.
"Hey, critter bug. Whatcha doing under there?" Jane's voice is casual, like she isn't nearly doing a handstand just to be able to see her terrified conversation partner who is currently hiding underneath a hot pink canopy bed.
"Jus' hiding." The tiny little voice goes straight to Maura's heart and she just aches to be with her.
"Oh, that's cool. Wanna come out and say hi to me?"
"No fank you." Maura stifles a snort. At least she's polite about it.
"Okay then," Jane says, keeping up her casual optimism. "I guess Maura and I will just go back out to the living room then." Jane winks over at Maura, and she smiles a little back.
There's a rustling sound, and then a loud thud. Kylie's blonde little head emerges, eyes wide and excited. "Mo?!" She rubs the top of her head, explaining the thud, as she looks around the room. When her eyes find Maura, she launches herself out from under the bed, slamming herself into Maura and throwing her arms around Maura's neck. "Mo!"
For the first time, Maura isn't afraid anymore. For this one moment, she wraps her arms around this tiny body, kisses the top of her head, and just lets herself feel good. "Hi tiny girl," she says softly.
After a couple minutes of quiet cuddling, Maura sits back against the wall, crossing her legs and settling Kylie on her lap. Kylie leans into her, resting her head on Maura's collarbone. Maura's entire body is killing her, but she doesn't care. Jane comes and settles next to her on her right side, sitting so she can see Kylie's face.
"So Ky," Jane says, still casual. "Wanna tell me why you were under the bed?"
Kylie shakes her head, looking down at Maura's elbow. Jane rolls her eyes, sending up a silent apology for all the times she pulled that particular move on her own mother.
"How come you didn't want to sleep up on the top of your bed?"
Kylie finally looks up at Jane, but just narrows her eyes. "Get Hoppy an' Flappy," she demands.
"Excuse me?" Jane's eyebrows hit her hair, and Maura works hard to stifle her laugh. This kid. She settles for poking Kylie in the side.
"Excuse me, tiny girl, is that how you ask your Aunt for things? What do you say?"
"Pah-lease, Aunnie Jay, can you get me Hoppy an' Flappy?"
Jane rolls her eyes again but crawls across the room and reaches under the bed, groaning loudly the entire way. Maura realizes Hoppy and Flappy must have been what Jane threw under to get Kylie's attention when they first came in. Her hand explores everything she can reach, but comes up empty. With a loud huff, and a muttered "Jesus Fucking Christ, kid," she flops down on her stomach and edges her way under the bed. The groans continue as she scoots under, until all they can see is one arm and one leg. Kylie is giggling hysterically and Maura tries to remember everything about this moment. This simple pleasure.
Jane finally makes a loud sound of triumph and then, in a louder fashion than Maura would have thought humanly possible, flumps her way out from under the bed, two soft washcloths clutched in her hand. She crawls back over to her spot on the wall, flops herself down, and tosses the two cloths onto Kylie's lap.
"Here ya go, kid. Oof, I am too old for that."
Maura reaches down and snatches up both washcloths to try to get the dust off before Kylie does something ridiculous like put them in her mouth. "It's your own fault for throwing them under there," she mutters, as she cleans off the gray one. Flipping it over, she sees that it has a bunny head on it. "So," she says to Kylie. "This must be Flappy?"
"No!" Kylie cries, laughing. "This Hoppy! Hoppy a rabbit, see!?" She holds him up, basically inside Maura's eyeballs, and Maura melts even further.
"Ohhh," she says, "that makes sense." Picking a final dust bunny off the purple one, she asks, "And so this must be Flappy. Is he a…fish?"
"NOOO!" Kylie and Maura have matching expressions now: shining eyes, huge grins. "He's a pawwot!"
Maura looks over at Jane, confused. Jane immediately helps out. "Yeah kid, he's a parrot. You stumped the doctor, 100 points for you."
Kylie snuggles back into Maura's chest, happily toying with Hoppy and Flappy.
About an hour later, Maura and Jane come back into the living room. The other three are eating bowls of pasta from their spots in the living room, and, from the looks of it, making pretty serious inroads into a bottle of red wine.
"Hey," Jane says, plopping onto the arm of Angela's chair and motioning for Maura to sit in the unoccupied straight-back chair near the corner. "She's asleep."
"Alright." Tommy stands. "Lemme just go close her door and then we can talk."
"No." Heads snap over to Maura; she realizes it's the first time she's spoken to Tommy or Lydia. She clears her throat nervously, but continues. "She's scared of closed doors. She's forgotten that a door can be closed but not locked, I think. We promised her it would stay open."
"Ah, uh, okay." Tommy sits, nervously.
"That's what we wanted to talk to you two about." Jane picks up the conversation seamlessly. "I know things have been really hard these past 24 hours – hell, these past two weeks. But I think you just need to make some adjustments. I brought Maura over so she could help explain that kind of thing, like the doors, that Kylie may be scared by or freaking out from or whatever, and just doesn't know how to tell you."
"I don't need some stranger telling me how to take care of my own daughter," Lydia snaps, eyes flashing with anger.
Jane and Angela both open their mouths to respond, but Tommy beats them to it. "Lyd," he says, his voice completely exhausted, "just let her help."
Lydia shakes her head, but doesn't say anything else.
The next half hour is one of the most painful of Maura's life. Having to tell this family about everything Kylie went through, everything that horrible person did to her, is agony. Angela starts crying after about 2 minutes, and Jane spends the rest of the time rubbing her back. Tommy grates his teeth and seethes. Lydia won't even make eye contact with any of them. Maura hates herself for having to be the one to tell them this, but it's important. It's important that they know.
Jane is great: summarizing things, repeating important notes, asking questions to get to things Maura has forgotten to mention. At the end, it's Jane who says, "Okay, Maura, if there are three things we all need to remember, what would those be?"
"First, any sign of confinement will feel like she's back in the basement. So, no closed doors, not even to the bathroom for a little while. She may even be scared of her car seat, so I'd recommend not going in the car until that gets better. Second, it's going to be very hard for her to believe that he's not coming back to get her. Anytime she's scared, the best thing to tell her is that the badman is gone and he can't hurt her anymore. And third…" Maura swallows. What she wants to say, what she really believes Kylie needs to know, can't possibly be said. Remember that I love you, remember how much I love you, remember how I always kept you safe. Maura blinks back her tears and swallows again, hard. She hopes only Jane notices. But because she's trying so hard not to say what's in her heart, what's in her medical training pops out of her mouth without any filter. "And third, you need to take her to a therapist. She's going to need professional help to cope with this."
Tommy, Lydia, and Angela all immediately start to disagree but, again, it's Jane who silences them. "It's not a failing." Her voice is strong and commanding. "It's just true. There's someone the department recommends. I'll set it up."
The drive back to Jane's house is quiet. Dinner is quiet. Watching the Red Sox game is quiet. It isn't until they're brushing their teeth that Jane turns to Maura and asks what she's thinking about.
Maura pulls the cheap toothbrush out of her mouth and surprises herself with the truth. "I'm wondering if loving her will ever not hurt."
Maura sits up in the bed, knees tucked into her chest. She doesn't know that she's ever felt so small, so vulnerable. In the house she had Kylie to protect, she had an escape to plan, she had horrible dehumanizing experiences to endure. She felt huge, in that basement, like she was just going to expand and expand and then it would explode from her presence. She knew, somehow, that she was going to get that little girl out. Even though she was trapped, assaulted, degraded, hurt, starved, terrified, she was also invincible.
And now, she is nothing but a small skinny little woman with no family, no friends, no hope. She has never been so small, so insignificant. So damaged.
She wraps her arms around herself and cries as quietly as she can. The "don't close any doors" rule seems to have been applied in this home too, and she doesn't want Jane to hear her. She doesn't want to seem ungrateful. She doesn't want to seem like she's not getting better.
But Jane has to pee, and that brings her close enough to bedroom to realize what's going on. She softly walks into the room, sits down on the bed next to Maura and gently strokes her hair.
Maura sniffles loudly. "I'm sorry," her small voice muffled by her knees. "I wish I could stop crying. It's just—it's just that my amygdala and lacrimal gland have a connection I can't really control."
Jane chuckles and encourages Maura to lie down. After a few deep breaths, Maura realizes that Jane is lying down with her too. She blinks, twice, trying to keep herself from feeling too comforted. "Are we having a sleepover or is this your way of telling me it's my night for the couch?"
Jane chuckles again, low and deep.
