Chapter 7

"I made some space for your clothes in my closet!" Maura tried to suppress the excitement in her voice as she followed Jane upstairs. Jane was carrying a box containing all of her things that had still been at Frankie's, which meant she was officially moving in at Maura's.

"In your closet? I thought you'd have me put my stuff in the guest room closet."

Maura frowned. That did make a lot more sense for a roommate, didn't it? "Oh. Well, you can use that closet if you want. I just thought…since you've been sleeping in my room…"

Jane stopped in the hallway and turned around to face Maura. "I guess that's something we haven't talked about. Do you want me to keep sleeping in your room for now, or should I move up to the guest room?"

Maura bit her lip. "Well, I want you to be wherever you're most comfortable."

"Before this, I was sleeping in a tiny bed in my brother's storage closet. Anything in your house is insanely comfortable compared to that."

"Well, I do feel…safer, when you're next to me. I sleep a lot better."

Jane nodded. "I sleep a little better too, knowing you're safe. If I go up to the third floor, I won't be able to hear what's going on downstairs, and I'll probably lie awake all night."

"Maybe you should stay in my room then, at least until this is over. I really don't want anything like what happened before to happen again."

"Well, nobody's going to touch you as long as I'm there to stop them." Jane decisively carried the box into Maura's bedroom. "So, how did you go about making room in your closet?"

"Oh, I just donated a bunch of things I hardly wear to charity."

Jane did a double take. "You got rid of a bunch of your clothes? On your own?"

"Well, yes. I wanted you to be comfortable. You live here now, you're not just staying here, so I don't want you living out of bags or trying to cram your things in where they don't really fit. I want you to feel at home."

Jane smiled a little, her eyes tender. "Maura…how do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Keep thinking about other people when you're kind of going through hell."

"You're what keeps me going," Maura admitted. "Come on, I'll show you where to hang your things." She led Jane into her closet, and Jane followed, grabbing her bag of clothes.

"I left the hangers for you," Maura told her. "From the things I got rid of."

"Wow, I think you made more room than I need. I don't have that many clothes."

"Well, I was thinking maybe I could take you shopping soon, so you could build your wardrobe back up. I need to go shopping too, for maternity clothes. I'm nearing the end of my first trimester, so I may be needing them soon."

Jane gave her an unreadable look. "It's kind of crazy how much both of our lives have been changed by one sick bastard, isn't it?"

Maura nodded. "But life can only be lived forwards, so I'm trying to make the most I can out of the changes in my own life, and I'm trying to make it easier for you to do that as well."

"I'll be able to make the most of things when the sick bastard is put away, or better, dead. I'm not gonna be able to rest as long as whoever did this to you is still out there."

"I know you won't," said Maura softly.

~R&I~

It turned out to be a very long day.

They were called to investigate a man who'd been blown up in the woods, and they soon realized they were standing in a field of land mines. They had to hold very still while the bomb squad came out to clear the area. At first the danger didn't sink in with Maura and all she could think about was how badly she needed to pee. Later, when she found out Korsak had actually been standing on a bomb the whole time, it hit her how close she'd come to being killed, or receiving an injury that might have caused her to lose the baby. Worst of all, she could have lost Jane. But everyone made it out all right, and they threw themselves into solving the case as quickly as possible. In the middle of that, Nina found Rhonda Hearn, the cousin of the hacker who'd gotten into Jane's bank accounts. Rhonda had served time in Framingham prison, the same prison the arsonist had been in. The same prison where Joe Harris had worked. Maura was working in her lab while this was going on, but she found out later that Jane had lost her temper with Rhonda when she was unable to get information out of her.

They still had more to go on than they did before, however. Now they knew they were looking for someone connected to Framingham, someone who must have known the arsonist, the hacker's cousin, and Joe Harris. Jane insisted on staying late at the office to go through records of Framingham's inmates to try to find a connection, and Maura insisted on staying to help her, even though Jane wanted her to go home and rest.

Eventually, Maura began to find it difficult to keep her eyes open, though she was determined to keep going as long as Jane was there. She was not going home to an empty house or leaving Jane to take a cab home. After a while, though, Jane noticed her sleepiness and put an end to the whole thing.

"Hey, why don't you let me take you home so you can sleep?" she said.

"Are you coming too?"

"Yeah, of course. Maybe I can bring some of these files to look at while you sleep…"

"No. Leave them here. You need to sleep too. We can go through them more tomorrow, and Nina's looking at records too. We can wait one more day to find out who's doing this."

"Okay," Jane grumbled. "Let's go find you something better to eat. Half a cup of noodles isn't enough to feed two."

"I'm not sure it can even feed one," Maura agreed, gratefully getting up.

After they had eaten, they went straight to bed, but they still didn't sleep. Jane was wound tight as a drum from being so close to finding out who was after her, and Maura was now seeing Joe Harris's face in her mind after reading his name so many times. That was the goal, of course – she was looking for women who had seen Joe Harris while in prison – but it was still hard having to think about him so much. It was also nagging at her that they were forced to look at female suspects. Was it possible that a woman had ordered her rape? How could a woman do that to another woman?

"I've never done this before," he had said. "I know this won't be pleasant for you, but it's not personal. It's what I was told to do."

He reached for her belt, and Maura began to panic. She tried to turn her body away from him, but he was stronger than her, and she felt helpless with her hands chained to the headboard. He unfastened her belt and began to undo her pants.

"Please, you don't have to do this," she begged. "You don't have to be part of this."

"But I'm already part of it. I promised I'd do this, and I'm a man of my word." She kicked ferociously and he smacked her hard, hitting her every time her foot made contact with him. "I can do this all day if that's what you want," he hissed, grabbing a handful of her hair and pulling until she cried out. "I'm trying not to hurt you any more than I have to, but I'm not going to let you hurt me."

Her tears began to spill over and she heard that awful squeaking noise in her throat, the one she made sometimes when she cried.

"You sound very pitiful when you cry," he observed, pulling her pants down as she continued to struggle. "I'm sure that's worked in your favor in the past, but it's not going to work on me." He eased her shoes off so he could remove her pants completely, dropping them onto the floor. She was terrified that the little piece of metal she'd tucked into her pocket the previous day would fall out, leaving her again with no defense, not that she'd had a chance to use it yet anyway. But what would he do to her if he saw it?

It seemed to stay in her pocket, though, and then he reached for her underwear.

"No, please! You don't have to really do it. We can just stage a picture, you can say you did it, I'll play along." Jane would panic, of course she would panic, if she thought Maura had been raped, but Maura could tell her it hadn't really happened when they were finally reunited.

"Don't worry, Dr. Isles, you'll be dead in a few days and none of this will matter, to you." He yanked her underwear off and got onto the bed, leaning over her. She pressed her legs tightly together, frantically trying to think of a way to stop him.

"Please, I told you I can get you money, I can get you anything. You can start over someplace new, you don't have to keep taking orders—"

"I've already told you, I'd have your money if I wanted it. Now, I've never done this with an unwilling participant, so let's hope I can—" He forced her legs apart, looking down at her. "No, this won't be a problem." He undid his pants.

"No! Please, no! Don't do this, please!"

"Oh, honey, you really can't stop me," he said, and apparently she couldn't, because he did it. It seemed to take forever, and she cried loudly the whole time, but it had no effect on him. He looked her right in the eyes, so she covered her face. When he was done he insisted on taking her shirt off for the pictures, just to make her look more pitiful. He covered her with the blanket he'd brought, and she hid her face as he snapped picture after picture.

"Detective Rizzoli should have gotten the picture I took yesterday by now," he said conversationally. "I'm sure she'll love today's pictures even more."

Maura was afraid to even think of Jane's reaction to these pictures. She became furious if someone so much as made a lewd comment towards Maura. She went out of her mind if anyone hurt her even a little bit. She might become unhinged if she saw the way Maura had been hurt now, especially knowing that it was being done just to taunt her. Maura wished there was a way to keep her from getting the pictures.

Afterwards, Harris helped her back into her clothes. Maura was shaking so hard that it was difficult to dress her, but he made sure she got everything back on, and, to her relief, that sharp little piece of metal never fell out of her pocket. Sooner or later, she would get the chance to use it, but it had to be at a time when she could run after attacking him, because there was no point so long as she was chained to something. She could get away from the pipe, but not quickly, and that little piece of metal wasn't going to do anything but stun him for a second.

"It couldn't have been all that bad," he told her when he realized she was still crying when he chained her to the pipe again. She didn't say anything back.

"Maura?"

Maura opened her eyes at the sound of Jane's voice and realized she was crying for real, not just in the memory. She turned towards Jane in the darkness and quickly felt herself enveloped in the safety of her arms.

"I was just remembering," she told her.

"Looking at all that stuff triggered you, didn't it?"

Maura nodded. "There were just a lot of mentions of Joe Harris. I knew there would be, so I should have been prepared, but—"

"Don't be silly. There's no way you can prepare for something like that. It just sucks, no matter what you do."

"It's just scary when someone has no regard for you as a human being. But I think the scariest thing about him was that he seemed to understand how it would make me feel, and he didn't care. He didn't care at all."

"The fucker deserved what he got. Actually, he deserved a lot worse. This should never have happened to you." Jane hugged her tighter.

"It should never happen to anyone. It's never fair."

"That's true, but you're my someone. That makes it worse, to me at least."

Maura wiped her eyes. "You wanna know the weird thing?"

"What's that?"

"I just…all of a sudden I want s'mores. I've only eaten them once, when you made them for me a few years ago, but I just…suddenly I need them."

Jane pulled back a little. "Are you having a pregnancy craving?"

Maura frowned. "I guess I am. It's my first one."

"It's a milestone." Jane kissed her head. "Come on, I'll make you some."

"Do we have the ingredients?"

"Think so. I've been shopping."

Maura smiled. Having Jane live here meant she was going to have a lot of things in her kitchen she would never buy herself. Of course, even before Jane moved in, she'd snuck things like instant coffee into Maura's cabinets, and Maura had started keeping Jane's favorite beer in her fridge. She was happy to keep anything around that made Jane more comfortable, anything that made her want to stay longer. And now, here she was, officially living here. It made Maura happy, but she also felt a certain sadness. It was so close to what she really wanted, the closest she would probably ever get, and yet it wasn't quite there.

But she was more than happy to take Jane's hand and let the taller woman pull her out of bed and lead her downstairs. Once in the kitchen, Jane began pulling out everything they needed: graham crackers, chocolate, and big, fluffy marshmallows. The she turned on the stove, put some marshmallows at the end of a carving fork, and started toasting them.

"I think we did this over the fireplace before, but it's late, so the stove will have to do," Jane said. "You can go ahead and put your chocolate on your graham cracker."

"I had hoped when the cravings hit that it would be for something healthy," Maura sighed as she broke off a piece of chocolate and carefully set it in the middle of her graham cracker.

"Well, this baby wants junk food."

"It's not really the baby. She won't be able to taste it anyway."

"Maybe she wants her mommy to enjoy junk food every now and then."

Maura smiled a little. Mommy. That was what she was going to be.

The marshmallows caught fire and Jane quickly blew them out. "Give me your cracker," she said. Maura quickly held up her chocolate-laden graham cracker and Jane pulled a marshmallow off the fork and stuck it on top. "Now put the other cracker on, quick, and squish it so the chocolate melts."

Maura obeyed, watching as the heat from the marshmallow melted the chocolate. When everything was nice and gooey, she began to eat it, and Jane did the same with hers.

"Mmm. I hope this becomes your big pregnancy craving, because I wouldn't mind eating these more often," said Jane, talking with her mouth full.

"I hope I switch to craving something healthy, like prunes."

Jane nearly choked on her s'more. "Maura, nobody craves prunes."

"Well, it's common for women to become constipated during pregnancy, so it would be a helpful craving."

"Ew. I know I said I'd help with the pregnancy, but I didn't mean bathroom stuff."

"You followed me into the bathroom when I was throwing up a lot."

"Yeah, well you needed somebody to hold your hair back. I don't think I can help you with constipation."

"You could help me by buying me prunes," Maura giggled.

"You're getting chocolate all over your face, do you realize that?" Jane reached out and wiped a trail of melted chocolate and marshmallow from Maura's chin with gentle fingers. A pleasant shiver went down Maura's spine at the touch, and she watched as Jane licked the goo from her fingers. Suddenly she wanted to kiss her, and she watched the brunette's face for some sign that a kiss would be welcome. "I'm gonna make another one. You want another one?" Jane said, turning back to the stove.

Maura's heart sank. She was so silly to think that Jane would ever want to kiss her. "Just one more," she said.

"Coming right up." Jane put two more marshmallows on the carving fork and turned the stove back on, holding the marshmallows close to the flame.

As she watched her, Maura put her hand on her abdomen, over the spot where the baby was. "I don't know how I'm going to explain to her, when she's older, how she got here. I don't know how it will affect her to know she was conceived in such a violent way."

Jane turned the stove off and put the s'mores together, passing one to Maura. "If it were me, I'd make up a story about an anonymous sperm donor. But I know you're not going to do that."

Maura shook her head. "I have to tell her the truth, when she's old enough."

"You just have to make it clear that you love her and you want her, regardless of how she came to be. Tell her she's the one good thing that came out of a horrible situation."

"But what will I say if she's too young to understand rape, but she goes to nursery school and sees other kids with daddies and she asks me where her daddy is?"

"You'll tell her she doesn't have one. Not everyone does. Tell her she has a mommy and a Jane, and that's enough."

Maura smiled slightly. "I hope I can do this. I would have used a sperm donor to have a child sooner if I'd thought I could handle it, but I never felt like I could do it on my own."

"You're not going to do it on your own. You have me."

"But what if you leave?"

"I'm not gonna leave, unless you kick me out. I said I'd help you raise the kid, and I will. I'm gonna love her the same as I would have loved mine if it had lived."

"But what if you meet someone?"

"Do I look like I'm trying to meet someone? The only someone I'm interested in meeting is the one in here." She touched Maura's abdomen, in the same spot where her hand had just been. It felt like warmth radiated outward from Jane's hand.

"I'll talk to my lawyer to make sure you get legal rights," Maura promised. "I want you to be able to make medical decisions for her if I'm not able to, or deal with her school, or whatever you need to do. I'll figure out legal guardianship options."

"I would consider that an honor." Jane pulled her into a hug. "I promise, I'm not going to let you have to do this on your own."

She kissed Maura on the head, which she'd been doing a lot lately. Maura turned her head hopefully, offering up her face in case there was anything else Jane wanted to kiss. Jane looked at her for a moment in puzzlement, and then she started talking about s'mores again and the moment was lost.

~R&I~

Jane caught the bomber the next day, proving once again that she was the greatest detective on the force. She was happy but exhausted and was willing to put off going through more prison records long enough to have dinner at the Dirty Robber. The dinner turned out to be eventful: Korsak and Kiki announced they were getting married as soon as possible, and Angela announced to was going to Paris for the weekend with her boyfriend Ron. While everyone was excited from those two announcements, Maura cleared her throat and said timidly, "I have an announcement as well."

Jane, knowing what she must be about to say, placed a reassuring hand on her thigh. Maura's heart sped up as she saw everyone was looking at her, but she knew she had to just say it.

"As all of you know, I was kidnapped by Joe Harris two and a half months ago," she said bravely. "And some of you know that he raped me."

Angela gasped in horror. "Oh, Maura."

Maura held up a hand. "My announcement is that is that I'm now twelve weeks pregnant. I've had bloodwork done, and as far as we can tell this early in the pregnancy, she appears healthy. She's a little girl, and she's due November 28. While I'm not happy about the circumstances, I've decided to keep her, and I'm looking forward to being a mother."

Everyone looked stunned, but then they began to mutter congratulations.

"Maura, I wish I'd known!" said Angela, pulling her into a hug. "I'm so sorry you're having a baby like this, and all on your own!"

"I'm not alone," Maura promised. "I have Jane. She's promised to help."

"Yeah, just think of it as another grandbaby," said Jane. "Your first granddaughter."

"I was pretty upset when you lost that baby," Angela said to Jane. She looked at Maura. "Of course I would love to be a surrogate grandmother for your baby. And I would love to throw your baby shower."

"That's still a long way off," said Maura, cringing inwardly as she thought about all the paper plates and disposable plastic things Angela used every time she threw a party. "But of course I'm grateful for any help I can get. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing."

"I'll babysit any time you need someone," Angela promised.

Maura was relieved. Angela was wonderful with babies, and it would mean a lot to have her assistance.

Just then, Jane got a phone call from Nina: she finally had a suspect, someone she believed could be Jane's stalker. Maura followed Jane as she rushed back to the office to see who it was.

Her name was Alice Sands. She had been in the police academy with Jane, but Jane hardly remembered her. No one knew why she would be after Jane, but she was the only inmate who had some connection to her and who also knew Rhonda Hearn and Joe Harris. Jane was suddenly full of fury, ready to storm to Framingham and confront the woman. Korsak immediately called the prison and was told they would have to wait until the next day, but Jane refused.

"Nina, could you take Maura home?" she asked. "I'm going out there to see this bitch. You need to get some rest," she told Maura. "I'll be home as soon as I've dealt with this."

"Be careful," Maura pleaded, but she willingly went with Nina.

"You missed my big announcement since you were here at the office," Maura said softly in the car. "I'm pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Yeah." Maura looked down. "From Joe Harris."

"Oh, Maura…"

"Please don't say you're sorry. I hate how it happened too, but I've wanted a baby for a long time, so I'm going to have her. And I'm going to love her as much as I would if she'd come to be some other way."

Nina smiled. "Then congratulations," she said. "I'm here if you need anything."

"Thanks. Jane is going to help me raise her. She's very good with kids."

"You're lucky to have Jane. She really loves you."

"Yes," agreed Maura, although she couldn't keep a note of sadness from her voice. "She's a great friend."

Nina pulled up in front of Maura's house. "I could be wrong, but…I think she does love you the way you want her to."

Maura looked up in surprise. "How do you…"

"Please, I heard the rumors before I'd even met both of you. There are some cops who say things, but Frankie always tells them they're wrong. He has no gaydar, though."

"Tell me about it. He didn't even realize Alexandra was gay."

"Alexandra from the firing range?"

"Yes! He had a crush on her once. He never realized she had a wife and kids!"

Nina laughed. "But seriously, Maura, if you two don't get together soon…"

"I just don't want to ruin what we already have."

"What you already have is practically a marriage, with a baby on the way."

"It does feel that way. With all these pregnancy hormones, I may lose all control and kiss her before long."

"Do it!"

Maura smiled. "Thank you for the ride."

She tried to rest, as Jane had instructed, but she found it hard to relax with Jane out at Framingham confronting the woman who had been trying to ruin her life. The woman they believed was responsible for Maura's pregnancy. She tried to read, but couldn't stay focused on the words. She tried watching TV, but nothing caught her interest. Finally, Jane came through the front door, looking defeated.

Maura jumped up. "Did you see her?"

Jane shook her head. "She was released three days ago. No one knows where she is."

Maura's heart sank. "But – that means—"

"It means she can come after us herself now."

Maura shuddered. "Do you really think she's the one behind all this?"

"She's the only person with the right connections. I just wish I knew what I'd done to piss her off. We hardly interacted, I mean she dropped out way before graduation. I don't think I've seen her since then."

"So she's the one who ordered Joe Harris to rape me."

Jane paused. "Yes, it looks like it."

Tears filled Maura's eyes. "How could a woman do that?"

"I don't like to think about it either, but if a woman is fucked up enough, or evil enough…I mean, she wouldn't be the first." She looked at Maura. "Hey, there's nothing else we can do tonight. Why don't we get ready for bed?"

Maura nodded her agreement, but her stomach was clenching. She followed Jane upstairs, dogged by a deep sense of betrayal.