Disclaimer: All original property is not owned by us and we do not infer that any characters, creations or the concept of 'Rizzoli & Isles' are our property and the following fan fiction has been written purely for entertainment purposes only.

China Teacup: Part Seven

"Jane!"

The moment Jane came out of the elevator towards the main reception Hope waved almost as if somehow the tall brunette would miss her in the nearly empty reception to the precinct. The idea was made even more ridiculous by the fact the woman as always as perfectly made up, her designer dress and expensive trench coat not typical for the precinct.

"I got your message and was in the area, you said it was serious, what on earth is wrong? I've been out of town the last few days on a conference, I just got in early this morning." Hope pressed immediately.

"Let's... grab a coffee..." Jane directed the older woman towards the cafe trying hard to play down the waves of anxiety that were being thrown around, thankful when she managed to get the other woman seated in the quieter room. "Three days ago Maura was injured in a hit and run incident while jogging." She began her explanation, her voice low.

"She was? Oh my... how badly? What hospital is she in?" Hope face instantly went pale.

"She was actually relatively lucky, she has a fractured wrist and a bad concussion, as well as being scratched and bruised up." Jane gave the brief run down. "She's home, my mother is looking after her." She explained further.

"Poor Maura." Hope continued to fret. "Is there anything I can do?" She asked immediately. "I was just running errands today, I can go right over and see her, check on her." She began to outline a plan.

"I think she would like that." Jane admitted with a smile. "She's just like any little girl I'd wager who's got a boo-boo." She offered the slightly un-Jane phrase. "A little mom love would work wonders."

"Then I'll head straight over to her house, thank you so much for calling me Jane." Hope acknowledged with a soft smile.

"Hope before you go..." Jane pushed up as the older woman had. "There is something else you should know..." She added. "Apparently it's common but..." She licked her lips, looking away as she continued. "Maura's memories are a little... jumbled..." She offered. "She doesn't remember the accident and..." She paused again. "She... she believes that her and I are..." She rubbed her hands on her thighs nervously for a moment before meeting Hope's eyes again. "Maura believes the two of us are a couple."

Hope made a small noise and then sunk back into her chair watching Jane match this move as well.

"She..." Hope began and blinked. "It is quite common if a concussion is serious enough, I assume her head injury has been fully investigated and this... jumble..." She used Jane's word. "Is just a side effect rather than a symptom of a more serious injury?"

"We insisted on having a double set of scans done to totally cover all bases." Jane nodded. "Dr. Bester seems convinced it's just a side effect." She nervously played with her hands. "We've been... playing along so that she's not having to worry about something else as well as having to focus on getting better..." She offered. "That is..." Jane countered herself hating how her words sounded, especially due to the reality of how she herself felt about the blonde and the revelations the whole situation had brought to the surface. "She doesn't know we're not."

"Maura believes that you and she are in a committed relationship and you haven't told her the truth?" Hope's framing of it didn't immediately give away her acceptance or dislike of the approach.

"The truth is that I love Maura." Jane pointed out. "And we might not be in the committed relationship she believes we are in, but I am committed to her, as committed to her as I have ever been to anyone."

Hope put her hand up to her forehead massaging it for a moment before she let out a soft sigh.

"As a doctor, I can't say I agree with this decision." She began softly lowering her hand and looking at Jane with another sigh. "When I first met you both..." The noise changed into a odd laugh. "I thought you were dating."

"Oh." Jane made the small noise as she looked from the doctor to the floor. "Well, it's been pointed out to me that I can be... protective and territorial when it comes to Maura."

"You shot Paddy Doyle because you thought he would shoot her." Hope pointed out with a soft smile. "I think protective and territorial is a small understatement Jane." She outlined gently. "So... how long have you been together then? How serious is it? I'm hoping some of these details would have been shared with me."

Jane smiled slightly relaxing.

"I'm not sure Maura's brain has filled in any of those details." She admitted. "Probably a couple of months..." She worked out logically in her own brain and aloud at the same time as her dark eyes came to meet with Hopes. "Because of the baby." She said quietly

"Baby?" Hope's face changed again to a look of shock. "Maura's pregnant?"

"No, I am." Jane made a small noise.

"How on earth are you playing this ruse with the father of your baby Jane?" Hope asked clearly worried by the scenario. "I understand that you don't want to cause Maura any unnecessary emotional stress with what she's gone through but is this really a ruse that you can continue? Has it occurred to you that she may never 'awaken' from the fantasy that this concussion has created?" She put forward tentatively.

"I'm not with the baby's father, I wasn't with him when I found out about the pregnancy. He's serving in Afghanistan." Jane shook her head. "Hope." She looked at the older woman. "I love Maura." She dropped her voice a little. "I wouldn't care if she never 'woke' up." She admitted. "Other than the fact that I want this to be real."

"So what you're trying to confess to me Jane is that you are in love with my daughter?" Hope blinked at her trying to keep up.

"No, what I'm telling you now is that your daughter has been hurt in a serious incident and she needs you." Jane pointed out. "As a side bar I might be pointing out that as I result of this I might have worked out that I've realized just how amazing she is and the feelings I've always had for her go much deeper than I realized they did."

"Then let me point out that I want to help her in anyway I can Jane." Hope outlined with a soft smile. "And... that... honestly... I couldn't be happier to know that you've had this realization. I know it might be tainted by who he is but love is a very precious emotion to feel, it is complicated and challenging but a life without it is empty."

Jane pulled in a breath and nodded.

"You wouldn't have objections to us being together then?" She asked looking at the other woman.

"No." Hope let her off the hook quickly. "Jane..." She continue to smile softly. "I can't admit that I have always understood your relationship with my daughter but the one thing I didn't doubt is that the person that Maura trusts most in this world, looks to as her compass in situations where she feels uneasy or scared, is you. Why do you think I came to you all those times when I didn't know how to approach her?"

"Because I'm so easy going and approachable?" Jane smirked, knowing she was neither of those things.

"Clearly." Hope agreed with a laugh but then sobered. "I have to remind you however Jane, this is a slightly dangerous game you are playing. I have attended to many severe concussions in my career, disruptions in memory can disappear as quickly as they arrived, sometimes they don't ever dissipate and sometimes they evolve into other things. You need to be prepared for the emotional blow back that may come if she gets part or all of her memories back."

Jane sobered and frowned.

"What should I do? Tell her? Won't that just isolate her?"

"Right now yes it would, and since you've already accepted the misinterpreted memories simply telling her will cause a great deal of emotional trauma as well. For her right now simply telling her isn't going to just snap her out of it, it's likely to isolate her, make her feel the exact emotions of a break up but with the added stresser of being someone who is normally in tight control of her faculties but is now out of control." Hope had to agree. "Is she showing any other symptoms or side effects Jane?"

"Nightmares." Jane offered as a possibility. "Should I take her back to the hospital?"

"No." Hope shook her head immediately. "Nightmares are very common just after an accident let alone with that kind of trauma. Symptoms that would have me advise you to bring her back to the hospital immediately would be the obvious ones like loss of consciousness, seizures, inability to wake her from sleep, extreme changes in emotional expression such as aggressive outbursts or uncontrollable crying." She tried to reassure Jane. "That she has manifested a false set of memories isn't as uncommon as you would think, especially not with the patients I've dealt with. Trauma can have very unexpected effects on the human brain." She went on a little more. "I'm sure you've thought of this already but there is likely the reason that Maura's brain has jumped to the idea of this relationship is because she has had feelings for you for some time." She broached the next subject softly.

"I don't know what to think about that...I..." Jane stopped. "Go see her." She changed the subject with a quick shake of her head. "I really need to get to work." She admitted. "Call me later, tell me how your visit went, or stay for the day if you can or want to, I don't know how late I'll be here."

"I will head right over there." Hope agreed with a nod seeing Jane's sudden discomfort. "And I will make an assessment and call you." She offered knowing her training wouldn't let her do anything but. "Just Jane..." She pressed up as Jane tried to back away. "Thank you for telling me." She alluded to both the information about Maura being hurt and Jane's revelation.

Jane nodded and began to back up a little.

"Hope..." She stopped. "I'll do whatever is best for Maura, I always will."

"I know you will Jane." Hope gave her a confident nod. "I've never doubted that."

-x-

"Don't you just love it when a plan comes together." Frankie watched the uniform officers escort their suspect out of his apartment as he looked at his sister as she stood in front of the literal wall of computers Dustin Severn had in his apartment. The hit and run for profit mastermind had been sitting at the desk chair when they'd loudly knocked on his door and almost stupidly he'd come and answered it probably thinking there was no way for anyone to trace things back to him. The look on his face when he'd seen the group of officers was priceless enough. "Jane..." He saw that his sister hadn't taken her eyes off the screens and for a moment he waited for her to answer before he watched her slip into the chair and slip on a glove before she reached out for the mouse. "Jane, what the hell are you doing, CSU is on its way." He watched her start to move the mouse to file with the date of Maura's accident on it at the top of an open list. "Jane, you don't need to see that." He moved to put his hand on her arm.

"I want to see it." Her voice was steely and cold.

"Fine, but do it quick, this isn't the thing I want to lose our badges over." He grumbled turning to check where the other officers were.

Jane double clicked on the small file and then locked her jaw as she was faced with three different files, obviously unedited. She moved the pointer to the first movie file and opened it, her eyes never leaving the screen.

The file opened and was filled with the sounds of a car and two male voices, both of them making jokes and laughing as they traveled down the road. Then suddenly the driver announced that he'd seen the one, and the camera at that exact moment panned up and focused in on a figure Jane would know anywhere even though she was at least a few hundred feet away. She listened with gritted teeth as the driver explained he was going to wait until she crossed the road and clip her on the other side. The whole event playing out almost like clockwork, Maura jogged to the other side of the pedestrian walk out of the park and as her foot came onto the curb raised her arm to check the time just a moment before the car hit her.

She barely heard the sick noise that Frankie made behind her as she watched the impact buckle Maura first for a split second around the car and then send her flying off. As Jane had predicted the blonde put her left arm out to try and stop her fall, the limb not able to take the impact as then her body skidded further along the tarmac already limp and doll like.

Closing the file silently, Jane shut down the file and left the computer how she had found it, slipping away from the desk, her jaw still tightly locked.

"I need some air."

"I'll keep everything secure." Frankie nodded that he understood. "Just remember Jane, she's okay." He called after her.

-x-

"Jane, you're home." Maura was sitting on the couch, Angela having moved into the kitchen to get them both a cup of tea after a short argument that the blonde could get it for herself. She's only just awoken after a short nap, the visit from Hope having been unexpected and reassuring but still draining. She was completely surprised when the usually stoic detective didn't say a word but came straight across from the door to the couch where she was sitting, sunk down onto the cushion next to her and then pulled the blonde into her taller body.

It wasn't that the move was unwelcome or unpleasant but the small show did make her question what must be wrong with her girlfriend. She lightly closed her cast covered arm around the brunette as her good one was stuck between them.

"I love you." Jane eased briefly back smoothing one hand over blonde hair before moving right back to pull Maura close again.

"I love you too, Jane what's wrong?" Maura had managed to get her arm free in the second press and closed it around Jane's back holding her close.

"Janie, what is wrong?" Angela came over from the kitchen having gotten as bad a feeling from Jane's entrance as Maura had.

"Bad day." Jane made the rare admittance, her breathing slightly ragged as she just focused on the feeling of holding Maura in her arms, facing the fact that the blonde was alive and had survived the horror that replayed itself over and over in her head.

"I'm making tea but let me get you a beer." Angela pointed back to the fridge and began to move.

"Bad day?" Maura asked from her place waiting until Jane's grip loosened a bit to lean back enough to find dark eyes. "What happened?" She asked softly.

Feeling Maura move Jane did her best to pull herself together and moved back actually pushing herself back against the arm of the couch releasing her grip on the blonde altogether.

"It's okay, I'm okay." She withdrew into herself worried she'd been too extreme already. "I'll get a shower." She put her hand on the couch arm to push up off it.

"Jane no." Maura reached out stopping her from moving with a hand gripped around her forearm. "Talk to me." She urged her softly. "Please." She added in a soft voice.

"We got the guy who did this." Jane stopped herself from pushing up, managing instead to turn her head to look at the blonde.

"You did?" Maura had almost expected anything else to come out of Jane's mouth, a tale about a horrible triple homicide, probably that involved children, some of the hardest cases to work. "I... how? What did he do to upset you?" She found her brain extrapolating that something must have happened to have put Jane in this state.

Jane pressed her hand to her temple as she turned in her place focusing on the blonde, her face fixed in a grimace.

"You're the sixteenth person he's done this to." Jane looked into hazel eyes. "Him and his 'partner' do it for fun, for profit, they pick a vic, video the hit and then post the whole thing on the web to get hits, hits mean money. Taking the victims money and ID was just an add on that they decided on because Severn's partner knew a couple who had connections on the street with fences." She pulled in a breath. "One of their 'video stars' wasn't as lucky as you Maur, it's how I was able to be brought into it as a homicide case." She brought her up to speed a little.

"It wasn't an accident?" Maura focused on the unbelievable first fact but then her mouth pulled into an even deeper frown. "They killed someone doing this?" She put her hand up to her chest, her brain honestly going a mile a minute as the sketchy facts began to settle into her head. "Jane..." She stopped everything as one fact cleared in her head. "Did you... see the video?" Her eyes went wider.

"Oh God no Janie." Angela gasped from behind the couch where she stood holding the brunette's beer.

"I've seen all of them." Jane barely restrained the shiver that crawled up her spine.

"Oh Jane." Maura was the one that pushed forward this time, almost forgetting the pain in her own body as she moved both her arms as best as she could around the brunette and hugged them together. She didn't say anything else, not even able to imagine what it would be like to see person after person targeted and hit by a pair of internet obsessed thrill seekers. She couldn't even get her head around the idea that there was a video of her, that people, strangers would have been encouraged to watch it for their momentary shock or to share in the thrill of the perpetrators. More than that, she couldn't comprehend how Jane must be coping with watching that moment unfold in front of her on a screen. It was one thing to see something like this live, but to watch it second hand after living with the consequences must be unthinkable. "I'm alive." She said the words into Jane's ear and then pressed her lips to Jane's temple. "Do you hear me talking to you? Holding you? No matter what you saw I'm alive, right here with my arms around you."

Fat tears pooled at the corners of Jane's deep brown eyes and the slid down her cheeks as she held onto Maura desperately.

"I could have lost you." Her voice was broken and choked. "I so nearly lost you." Her body began to shake.

"But you didn't." Maura corrected her softly, reaching up with her good hand to stoke over dark hair. "I'm a little bruised but I'm right here." She leaned back enough so that she could press kisses against the streams of tears on Jane's cheeks.

"I'm sorry." Jane's voice was a whisper.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, you caught the sick people that did this to me, that did this to all the innocent people they targeted." Maura reminded her. "And more than that... the first thing I remember is you Jane, you there touching my face in the hospital, your voice asking me to open my eyes, you... do you know what that means to me?"

Jane silently just shook her head, honestly at this moment not capable of much more.

"Jane, it means everything to me. You are the only person in my life who has never tried to change me, who has excepted every one of my idiosyncrasies, who has understood my emotional walls and respected my boundaries, you are the only person who has loved me so unconditionally that no matter what is going on I know that I have you, Jane Rizzoli in my corner and that you will fight kicking and screaming for me against even the biggest monsters like Hoyt." She said the name she rarely let grace her lips in direct relation to the two of them. "You are the woman I love, who I love unconditionally back, or at least I try to, the woman I try to love bravely and honestly because that is what she deserves." She took a soft breath. "And there is no one in the world I would rather have seen at that moment when I opened my eyes than you, because no matter how much I hurt and things didn't make sense, I knew if you were there I was safe, nothing could hurt me any more. You would never let them."

"I couldn't be this without you." Jane admitted.

"You are Jane without help from anyone." Maura shook her head and reached up to brush away a new tear. "But I like to think that you're a slightly better Jane because of me. I know I'm a much better version of myself with you, one filled not just with a drive for my work but with love and mirth and enjoyment of the things in life I never stopped to pay attention to before."

Jane just held on to the blonde for a moment, almost forgetting that her mother was actually still in the house let alone in the room.

"You could have lived without ever experiencing football season or reheated pizza." She pulled back slightly and smirked lovingly at Maura.

"Not now that I know both are things that bring almost unexplained joy to your face." Maura shook her head softly. "They are both integral to the tapestry that is our lives. Just like you suffering through Kale and post modernist art."

"One of those things I find tolerable by now." Jane felt herself relax even more, she reached up and tucked blonde hair behind Maura's ear. "I love you." She dropped her voice to a whisper before pressing her lips to the blonde's.

It was clear that if Maura hadn't of been too busy kissing her back that the doctor would have said the three important words back but considering the connection between them it could wait a moment or two.

-x-

"Was it horrible?" Angela asked softly as she finished cleaning up from dinner, Maura having gone upstairs to rest already or else it would have been impossible to keep her from 'helping' as the older Rizzoli had pointed out shooing her up the stairs.

"Yeah." Jane confirmed somewhat unnecessarily. "It was as bad as you can imagine it was." She sighed as she helped her mother mechanically. "I really don't want to talk about it Ma." She admitted with a frown. "It's just..." She shook her head. "How was Hope?" She changed the subject. "Did everything go okay with the visit?"

"Hope was lovely, she brought flowers." Angela motioned over her shoulder to the large bouquet. "I told Maura she should have them up in her room but she wanted them down here to encourage her to spend time out of bed." She recounted the conversation. "I think it's good that you warned her, Maura was particularly vocal about you when Hope made mention of it, and clearly her birth mother has enough sense to know my Janie is a catch." She bumped her hip into Jane's.

"Do I even want to know the kind of things that were said?" Jane groaned.

"Only if you want to hear how much she gushes about you, about how proud she of you, about how you transformed the hospital room into a home away from home, how you stayed right by her side all night..." Angela began with a smirk. "Though I'm not sure that Hope had thought ahead to realize that this makes her a Grandmother to be." She smirked more.

Jane groaned and rolled her eyes.

"I bet she didn't." The dark haired beauty admitted the omission the other doctor had likely made. "How has Maura been? Better today?"

"Yes, she's going to be fine Jane." Angela reassured her daughter. "You're not going to lose her." She added in a softer loving voice.

"I might not lose her from her injuries Ma, but we don't know what's going to happen when, if, her memories sort themselves out." Jane's face didn't even out remaining ultimately somber.

"Janie do you have to be the consummate pessimist?" Angela sighed softly. "Because if she gets her memory back and she's unsure about what is happening between you two, I'm going to be the first one to tell her about how beautiful you two are together, and remind what she felt on that couch holding you." She pointed. "Because what I saw was breathtaking." She leaned and without warning hugged her daughter.

"I love her so much." The brunette admitted. "But come on Ma, when do we ever get what we want?"

"You get it all the time baby." Angela smiled at her. "You wanted to be a cop, you became a cop, you wanted to get your detective shield, you got it, you wanted to be the youngest cop promoted to homicide, you were." She reminded her. "Now you want Maura, and you're going to get her." She urged her daughter. "Speaking of which, go see how she is, I can put away the dishes and leave her in your capable hands for the rest of the night. If you get called into work, call me."

"Okay." It was Jane that moved and briefly hugged her mother. "Love you." She added before she slipped away and made quick work of jogging to the bedroom, lingering in the doorway when she got there, just looking at Maura. "Hey, miss me?"

"Yes." Maura looked up at her with a soft smile that melted into a confused look. "When did we tell Hope?" She asked blinking at Jane.

"About what happened? Today, I called her like we discussed." Jane frowned as she moved into the room.

"No, not about that about us, about the baby." Maura blinked at her again.

"I don't know... maybe you told her in a call, you call her at least once every couple of weeks." Jane shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"It matters because I can't remember telling her, didn't I discuss it with you?" Maura grew a little more tense. "Telling her was a big step, I must have been nervous... how can I not remember such an important conversation Jane?" She put her hand up to the healthy side of her forehead. "How can I not remember? Have I told my mother? I can't remember telling her but does that mean I have or I haven't? Am I waiting to tell her in person? Have we talked about this?"

Jane put her hand up to the side of her head almost mirroring the blonde's positioning as she walked away from the side of the bed where Maura was sitting, her mind in total turmoil as to how on earth she should deal with this. Pulling in a breath Jane moved back to the side of the bed and then crouched down, moving to look at the ME keeping the eye contact that Maura instantly looked for.

"You can't remember telling Hope because I told her, I told her this morning." Jane explained. "I told her about the baby and about us."

"You did?" Maura blinked at her for another moment and then breathed out a long breath of relief. "That's why I can't remember." She seemed to calm with the idea. "She only found out today... how was she when you told her?" She seemed to fret in a typical Maura way about another angle.

"Maur, stop." Jane reached out and took hold of both of the blonde's hands.

"I... okay." Maura seemed to take a slow few breaths and held Jane's hands back, assuming Jane was trying to get her to focus on the fact that clearly from their interaction this afternoon Hope was fine, happy no less about the development.

The brunette let her tongue pass over her lips as she brought her head up to once again focus on the blonde again making sure not to lessen the light grip she had on her hands.

"Maur there is a reason, a good reason that things aren't making sense, that you're getting confused and that..." Jane stopped again. "Us, you and I..." She frowned again. "We're not...there is no us." She didn't release the ME's hands. "You can't remember details, specifics because they aren't there to remember or forget." She pointed out.

"Jane, what are you talking about?" Maura pulled her hands back almost shockingly fast as the brunette's odd admission tried to settle in her mind. "What do you mean there is no us... but..." Her hand moved up to lips.

"But I love you." Jane hurriedly added. "Which is probably not what I should be saying." She frowned at herself more than anything. "And I should have told you instantly but you were hurt and there was nothing 'bad' about being together. I didn't want to tell you, I didn't want to cause you any more pain, and I thought we could deal with the flash back when it happened." She forged on regardless of the pain that filled her own heart at that moment.

"I... I don't understand." Maura's brow crumpled in confusion despite her injury. "We're not together? This is all... a lie? Something my brain made up because of my concussion?"

"Because of the concussion your brain put you and I together." Jane said the words slowly. "But all of this is not a lie." She said the phrase with firm confidence. "Everything I have said, done and been to you in the last 48 hours, I have meant, with all of my heart." She pulled in a deep slightly staggered breath. "None of that was forced, faked or a lie." She shook her head very slightly.

"But... before I was hit... we weren't together? We were just friends?" Maura clarified and she watched Jane nod. "But when I woke up and thought we were together, you didn't want to hurt my feelings?"

"Honestly? When you woke up and thought we were together I was terrified that there was something really seriously wrong with you, because why would you want me?" Jane admitted with an eye roll.

"Jane, don't say that." Maura shook her head immediately to the negative assessment. "I just... I don't understand what you're saying. I trust you... you know I trust you and you're telling me one thing, but my brain, my heart is telling me another, even if there are huge holes in my memory."

"What is your heart telling you?" Jane reached behind her and pulled the laundry basket close enough to perch on.

"That I love you Jane, isn't that obvious?" Maura tried to arrange herself on the bed as she reached out to grab a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. "Some sick man hit me with his car to make a video and when I woke up all I knew was that the woman who I loved, who loved me, was there, having somehow guessed I was in trouble, because that is what she does."

"All of that is true." Jane's voice softened. "What I'm saying is, before the accident you and I hadn't taken the step to bring us together, we were all the things we are to each other, without the element of sexuality." She named the big point.

"I made you give me a sponge bath!" Maura put her hand over her mouth in shock and with a deep blush of shame coming to her cheeks.

"Actually I came up with that brilliant idea." Jane arched her eyebrow in guilt. "And Maura...please I need you to understand something I didn't until this happened. You didn't force any kiss, any touch, any contact that happened, if anyone did, I did... because I needed it, I needed the touch, the connection, because I wish my heart had been brave enough to decide what yours did."

"Come here please." Maura had let a few beats of silence come into the room before she held out her good hand to the Detective waiting to see if she'd take it.

Pushing up from the laundry bin Jane reached out, her hand shaking as she slipped it into the blonde's, shuffling forward slightly.

"My head hurts, my heart is confused." Maura admitted holding tightly to it. "I feel like I don't know up from down... I can't trust my mind right now and it is usually the thing that I have an unwavering belief in." She continued blinking hazel eyes at Jane. "You want this, you need this?" She ran her thumb across the back of Jane's hand, purposefully making sure to skim over the scar there knowing it was in its own way a test.

"I want and need you." Jane kept her hand completely still in Maura's not even flinching when fingertips grazed over the sensitive skin but nodded her head as she kept her eyes locked on hazel ones.

"Do you believe that the concussion made up everything I'm feeling?" Maura moved up onto her knees, ignoring the pain it caused in her lower body. She didn't stop moving until she was literally nose to nose with Jane, taking in every nuance of her reaction.

Tears sprang to dark brown eyes.

"I hope not." She replied, her lip trembling.

"When you came in today, when you said you realized that you could have lost me, you meant all of this didn't you?" Maura's voice was just as soft as she touched the tip of their noses together.

Jane nodded rubbing the tips against each other as a tear slipped from her eye onto her cheek.

"I love you Jane, if this is all made up by my head hitting the pavement I don't want it to ever fix itself again because I don't want to go back to a place where I don't know this feeling." Maura slipped her hand out of Jane's to cup it against the brunette's cheek. "The last two days no matter how much pain I felt, no matter how much confusion was in my brain, I had you, loving me, protecting me, making me feel perfect and cherished."

Jane couldn't help but lean ever so slightly into the soft touch on her cheek, her eyes closing briefly as she let herself press into the touch.

"I want it to fix itself because I hate the idea of you being a little messed up in there but..." She opened her eyes and focused again on the blonde. "If we don't want to lose this, then we won't." She shifted her freed hand but rather than touching the other woman as Maura might have expected her to, the brunette awkwardly pressed her hand into her pant pocket. "This isn't how I planned this..." She stopped. "Obviously because who would plan this like this, but.." She eased out of it a small obviously old black velvet box. "This is how much I don't want to lose this feeling Maur." She held the small box out towards the blonde.

"Jane." The blonde's repetition of the brunette's name came out in almost a squeak, after all her head might have had an unfortunate meeting with the pavement but she still knew a ring box when she saw one and she still knew what a ring box usually meant. She very slowly moved her hand down to Jane's letting the brunette keep a hold of it as she lifted the lid and revealed the antique gold and enameled band with its diamond solitaire within. Her eyes stayed on the ring for a long moment, studying every detail of it before they moved back to hold the detective's dark ones. "A woman with a concussion could find herself guessing what this is for." She gave a tiny smile as she rewarded the detective with the word 'guess'.

Jane's lips pulled into a similar smile at the turn of the phrase.

"Well you know I would normally die to hear you guess but I just can't risk you coming up with the wrong answer..." She scrunched up her nose slightly as she shook her head. "It's gold, and enamel, it's was made in Ireland in 1875, give or take a year or ten, the solitaire is 2.5 karats, and yes, we should insure it." Jane's smile evened to just a broad typical Jane one. "And it's an engagement ring Maura Dorothea Isles."

"And..." Maura made the small whispered prompt not yet daring to move to take the ring. "In less than forty eight hours you've realized that you want to marry me?" At first Jane just nodded.

"I knew before then that I couldn't picture my life without you in it, we'd already made plans about the baby, that you would raise her or him if anything happened to me, you were already everything to me just not..." She stopped herself from continuing with just a breath. "So yes, in just that time I realized that I had been an idiot and had the thing that made me happiest right beside me all the time." She nodded. "It's not sized." She added. "I only picked it up from the antique dealer today I was going to get a ring from your jewelry box tonight, take it to that jewelers you love get them to size it and clean it before I did any of this but..." She stopped again as she wiggled the ring free from its velvet cushion. "Will you marry me?"

"Yes Jane." Maura didn't make her wait, not caring about the uncertainty about her own sanity that the brunette's revelation had brought into her mind. This moment just felt so right, so perfect and it filled her with so much love she didn't need to process anything further than this was Jane and she knew Jane wouldn't do this if she didn't think it was the best thing for both of them. She moved to hold up her left hand and then realized suddenly again that it was in a cast giving a soft laugh. "I know I shouldn't have a ring on this hand but can we try it just for a minute."

"Of course." Jane nodded and with care she slipped the ring down over Maura's ring finger. It was a little loose but looked stunning with the contrast of bright gold and black enamel, contrasting with the sparkle of the brilliant diamond. "You could wear it on the other hand after I get it sized."

"I'm not taking it off now." Maura shook her head and looked down at it, somehow the picture perfect even with the black cast on her arm. "Oh Jane." She leaned forward and pressed her lips impatiently to the brunette's.

Letting the antique box slip from her hand Jane caught the blonde up in her arms and held her close pressing her lips back against the blonde's kissing her back with all the passion and emotion she could.

For the first time since she'd woken up in the hospital, nothing hurt and she didn't care about a single instruction from a doctor about what she wouldn't do. She let herself melt into the kiss, feeling how with all of the 'truth' on the table Jane was losing herself in the connection and before she knew it they had ended up on the bed with the brunette underneath her.

Jane wrapped both of her arms around Maura's body one hand staying low on the blonde's back, the other reaching high, almost between the ME's shoulders, as she angled her head to Maura's, kissing her far deeper than they ever had, her tongue lost in the other woman's mouth, winding around its partners as, her long fingers splayed out between the blonde's shoulder blades and pressed into the fabric of her top.

The blonde met the kiss with equal desire and urgency, feeling the arousal that had seemed sparked under the surface suddenly burning like a wild fire. She was aware of her cast only because it impossible for her to use both of her hands, and letting her light frame rest on Jane's as she let her good hand snake up over the front of Jane's stomach and side. She kept her left hand as tightly as she could, feeling the press of the ring into her skin that made all of this so real and surreal at the same time. A dream had come true, one she believed until Jane's revelation that she had had forever. But one thing she did believe in her confusion was that if in 48hrs Jane could come to this kind of 'epiphany' then it was more than probably that her head injury had helped her do the same thing.

It was Jane that breathlessly pulled her lips off from the blonde's, blinking literally glittering brown eyes at her as she brought her into true focus.

"Oh no, we can't do this..." She tried hard to stop the almost rhythm constriction of her hands against Maura's back. "No... strenuous... activity..." She said between peppering kisses against Maura's neck.

"I'll write me a note if you want a doctor's okay." Maura grinned leaning her neck so that there was more available for Jane to reach as the feel of the brunette's lips on her skin made her boldly press her hand up under the edge of Jane's shirt and start to glide her hand over warm skin.

Jane left a soft moan slip from her lips, her skin literally feeling a trail of fire following Maura's hand.

"Maur..." The blonde's name fell from her lips in a tone the blonde had never heard Jane use before, it was thick and honeyed, deep and rich, spiced with heavy arousal as with just the touch the lithe brunette arched under her into the touch.

"Jane." Maura repeated her name back in a similar thick and aroused tone, feeling empowered by the feel of the ring on her finger and all the emotions she'd witnessed in the brunette to press her hand up higher to cup around the practical cotton bra that the detective was wearing, a soft groan timed to match as her hand squeezed to its tightest point and then contracted again.

At the blonde touch Jane instantly meshed their lips back together, sliding her hand higher up Maura's back, to cup the back of her neck lightly, pressing her tongue deep into the blonde's mouth, arching her back pushing her pert breast into the ME's hand.

Instantly Maura pressed herself into the kiss just as instantly, arching her hips down into Jane's at first the move was nothing but pleasure as she began to push her hand at the same time past the soft cotton barrier but despite all that she wanted, despite her commitment to what they were doing the flex of muscles and skin sent a sudden flare of pain down her side that she just couldn't ignore. Her body hitched in the arch, staggering against Jane's as her had stopped its movement abruptly and the same time she was forced to pull her mouth back from Jane's to keep herself from gasping in pain against her fiancee's mouth.

"Sorry..." She had meant to return instantly to the kiss, but as she tried to straighten out of her body it resisted, as did her leg that she had leaned some of her weight on that now protested holding her aloft.

"No, no..." Jane shook her head, instantly changing the hold she had on the blonde to a more supportive one, and in the next moment she had turned them on the bed and Maura found herself against the mattress, carefully cradled against the soft sheets and a pillow, Jane was more beside her than on top of her and though one of the detective's arm was around her back, the other was not across her body, but instead stroking gently over her stomach. "There, this is better, you, laying down, like you should be." She pointed out, her voice a little strained in its control. "Me, being good, like I should be." She offered the blonde a loving smile. "Tea cup." Her smile melted into a fuller one. "Though..." She arched her eyebrows high. "You are... hawt." She grinned.

"So are you." Maura grinned back at her. "I..." She was about to tell Jane how she was sorry that clearly though she wanted to, so very much, to be intimate with the brunette her injuries weren't exactly healed enough for that to be 'advisable' just yet. "As soon as some of this heals, I'm going to show you how hawt you are." The slang word sounded even more comical coming from Maura.

Jane grinned brightly and moved her hand carefully from behind Maura's back and lightly took Maura's cast covered hand, bringing it to her lips, lightly kissing the ring that adorned Maura's finger.

"Believe me, I can hardly wait."

"Jane..." Maura's voice sobered softly for a moment as she watched Jane slowly draw her lips back from the ring on her finger. "If..." She felt a thread of fear overtake her suddenly. "If something happens because of the concussion and I wake up not remembering any of this, tell me it all again, remind me why I wear this, tell me about how much you know I love you and the baby, tell me about how you figured out that you love me and want to spend the rest of our lives together."

Jane nodded softly in a silent promise but then licked her lips.

"I promise." She whispered before taking the blonde's injured hand and lightly placing against her stomach. "You ready to be a mommy?" She blinked soft brown eyes at her.

"Yes." Maura's lip actually quivered as the reality that this came along with the idea of marrying Jane cleared in her head. "Do you really want to share her with me?"

Jane nodded instantly.

"I couldn't do it without you." She admitted without hesitation. "Mrs. Rizzoli." She whispered the phrase.

"I love you Mrs. Rizzoli." Maura leaned the short distance to kiss her in a feather light meeting of their lips but still the contact made a roll of pleasure go through her that made her release a content sigh.

-x-

… thank you so very much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. Not sure yet if we're going to go any further with it but we felt good about getting the truth in the open for Maura and letting Jane make her case about what she was feeling.