A/N: Hi! I wanna thank all of you who took your time to let me know your thoughts about how the story was going and how you wanted it to keep going. This chapter is for you guys! Hope it can compensate for the lack of Maura and Rizzles from the last chapters.

A/N-2: I end this chapter with an ask I wanted you guys to answer in your reviews. So, lemme know!

Chapter Fourteen –

Jane froze.

Shit.

There was no way she could get out of this one without telling a big, fat lie. And she wasn't so sure she wanted to lie, anyway.

She could, of course. It wasn't like she got hives or stuttered or had a vasoginal or whatever it was episode. She lied to people all the time.

But she never lied to Maura. She couldn't. She couldn't look into her eyes, eyes that borrowed into her soul, and lie the same way she lied to her mother when she was seventeen and she wanted to know if she had slept with Casey already.

She had lied to her mother then, saying she and Casey hadn't slept together the night of the prom. But she was never able to lie to Maura like that.

And now, looking into all three pairs of blue eyes that held that same look those hazel green eyes had, she knew she couldn't lie either. It would feel like she was lying to Maura and that was one of the few things she couldn't do.

So, she took a deep breath. And said what she was almost certain everybody in the room already knew.

"Yes," she said, "The kid's still alive."

The Detective prepared herself for the stunned silence, that deep, heavy one that made its presence known before. She wasn't prepared, however, for the torrent of question that filled the room.

"It's a boy or a girl?"

"Do you know where they live?"

"Do they know about all of this?"

"Do you know them at all?"

"Why aren't they here?"

"Hey!" Jane yelled and whistled, prompting everyone to silence, "One person at a time," she said low and slowly, trying to calm everything down.

She saw Arizona and Timothy looking at each other as if communicating and then they looked at the Colonel, who spoke up first.

"It's a boy or a girl?" he spoke softly, like it was hard for him to form that thought inside to say it out loud.

Jane pictured Maura's perfect smiley face in her and she couldn't help the smile that graced her face, "It's a girl."

There was a faint gasp, she didn't knew where it came from; but Daniel paled considerably, Timothy had an even more stunned look on his face and Arizona had a vice grip on Callie's forearm, who therefore had a soft smile on her face. Jane didn't knew why, though.

"That means…" the Detective knew what the Marine wanted to ask. He wanted to know if he had another daughter.

She was going to say yes. She wanted to say yes, so badly. It would make so much sense, Maura had so much in common not only with the Colonel, but also with Timothy and Arizona. But then she could hear Korsak's voice clearly in her mind:

"Korsak, what are you saying? You're saying," she couldn't even bring herself to say that out loud, "You're saying you think Paddy Doyle is Maura's biological father?" she whispered, looking at Cavanaugh's door kind of expecting Colonel Robbins to pop in and ruin their quest.

"All I'm saying is that is a possibility," the old man shrugged, "It all adds up, Janie."

She couldn't bring herself to say something she wasn't a hundred per cent sure. Damn Maura and all of her bad influence on her.

"I don't know, Sir," she sighed, averting his piercing eyes.

"You don't know?" Arizona asked sounding disappointed, "How come?"

"I, uh…" the Detective started out, grimacing s if she was in pain, like considering this other hypothesis made her sick to her stomach, "Right after you went back, Hope and Paddy got back together too. Fairly quickly, considering what we know."

The Colonel's face went dark with this new information, "So you're saying that…"

"With all due respect, Sir, the only thing I'm saying is that I don't know," Jane interrupted firmly.

She didn't wanted to consider this possibility, but it wasn't like she could ignore it either.

And there it was: that heavy, oppressing silence they had been so good at avoiding before. How she hated it.

"So…" Callie spoke for the first time since arriving, trying to dissipate the bad moment, "This girl… where is she now?"

Espresso colored eyes fixed themselves on each other. Same color, so much alike, both just so expressive. Callie's just showed polite curiosity, the kind that said 'I'm just asking because my girlfriend wants to know' while Jane's showed both fear and protectiveness, saying 'I'm not sure if I should answer you so I'll just stay quiet'.

She didn't had to decide on an answer, though, because the shrieking sound of her mother's ringtone disrupted her train of thought.

She took her phone out, ready to hit the ignore button, but then she remembered she had last left her mother in charge of Maura. Maura, she thought, What if something happened to her?

"Excuse me, I have to take this," she said, frowning and left the room before anyone could stop her.

There was no way she was going to leave Maura hanging to tomes in a row.

#########################################

After Detective Jane Rizzoli left the room, the silence remained, although not as thick as it was. Everybody left was just taking it in all the events of an eventful day.

Piper was the first one to break the silence, not able to hold her exclamation inside any longer.

"Holy shit," the Homeland Security agent sighed.

"You got that right," Callie sighed too, feeling her girlfriend's squeeze on her hand diminish.

The three members of the Robbins family were silent, though. As able as they were to communicate silent, their train of thought was too jumbled to make something out of it.

Daniel was in a limbo place. When Detective Rizzoli told them that Hope's daughter was still alive, it was like everything had finally clicked, like it all made sense again.

He loved his kids. To death. And he loved his wife. More than anything.

But he had been very fond of Hope. She was a fun, charming distraction from his demons and his lost love. She had an inner strength that made him feel like he could trust her with his worries because she was used to it. She could handle it.

And she did. She helped him get over it, enough so he could come back and live with the love of his life for forty plus years now.

And to have a daughter to come out of that? He would, by no means, regret it. He would cherish it. He wanted to cherish them.

Paddy Doyle frustrated his plans, though. The fact that he was feeling so frustrated over this made him feel guilty, like he was cheating on his kids, his real kids and the life he and Barbara had built together.

Timothy wasn't understanding his father's frustration. He couldn't see where it came from, especially because he was only hearing about this part of his past now and it made it hard for him to accept it.

It was weird enough to think about his father with another woman that wasn't his mother. And to have a kid come out of it? Another sister that wasn't his little sister? It was all freaking him out, a lot.

Arizona was torn. So, deeply torn. She wanted to feel jealous of her father's apparent sadness of losing a potential daughter. It was apparent, especially for her who had always been daddy's little girl.

She wanted to burst out of there and go back to smashing old casts in a supply room. She wanted to give time to her mind so it could adjust to all this new information.

She turned to find soulful brown eyes looking back at her, then it finally hit her.

She understood, more than she knew, her father's agony. She had been faced with it not too long ago when her dream – a dream she didn't even knew she had before it had been modified to unchangeable ways – of having kids with the woman she loves was invaded by her manwhore of a best friend and now she was deep into a co-parenting situation that was never her dream.

It made her fearful every day that she would lose this kid. That one day Callie would wake up and decide three parents were too much and she would leave her for Mark. Or that Mark would deem her unfit to raise his kid and made her leave.

Or even the baby, this sweet, little nugget she already loved with all of her heart would one day question why she was there, a second mother she didn't wanted nor needed.

It was something that petrified her.

But she had had months to deal with her questions and doubts and feelings. To experience it all in a short five minute span was unfathomable to her.

Her father was the strongest person she knew. But she was aware that not even his strength made him immune to the kind of feelings they both felt.

She could completely understand the lost and emptiness her father was feeling and she could never hate him for feeling it. Not when she was feeling the same way towards the little person growing inside her girlfriend's womb right now.

"Dad," she croaked out, making all eyes turn to her, except the ones she wanted to.

She could see Callie's smile out of the corner of her eyes and she knew her girlfriend understood her.

"Yes, Butterfly?" the Colonel asked, avoiding eye contact.

He didn't want to see the hate or the sadness he thought he could see in her daughter's eyes.

"Dad," she called out again, prompting him to finally look at her.

Two pairs of ocean blue eyes fixed on each other and the Colonel knew he had nothing to be afraid of.

"It's okay."

#########################################

When she left the room, Jane finally hit the accept button on her phone and answered rather hastily, "Ma! What happened?"

"Janie!" Angela hollered from the other end of the line, "Where are you?"

At the same time, the Detective heard a voice coming through the speaker and, although muffled, she would recognize it anywhere, "Angela, you really shouldn't drive like that."

"Can you help me, Maura?" the brunette's mother ignored her and there was a flurry of activity on the background that only served to unnerve her more.

"MA!" she yelled, now a bit angry, "What the hell is going on?"

"Janie, you don't have to yell, you're on speaker!" her mother's voice was slightly more distant, "Maura and I are driving to you. Where are you?"

"What?" Jane asked with a strangled voice, wanting to double check and see if she had heard it right.

"Maura and I are driving to you, dear," Angela spoke slowly as if her daughter was mentally challenged, "Now, why does Maura's phone says you're near Fenway? Weren't you supposed to be at work, young lady?"

The accusing tone on her mother's voice passed unnoticed because the Detective was having a very hard time focusing.

This was turning out to be a very strange, information-filled day and she was having a bit of a hard time catching up.

"Uh…" was the only sound she was capable of making in such short notice.

Noticing the brunette's difficult, Maura took a deep breath and said, "Jane," she was proud of herself for her non-trembling voice, "I wanted to see you and your mother was kind enough to offer me a ride."

"You shouldn't drive this short on sleep, honey," the elder Rizzoli said, a honk cutting through their call.

There was a pause before Jane spoke, her voice huskier than usual, the way it was when she was trying to deal with her emotions.

"Maur," the way she spoke, both women trembled, "Wh… why would you wanna see me?"

Angela was focusing on the road, but she did noticed out of the corner of her eyes the ME fidgeting with the ring on her finger and biting down her bottom lip before speaking up.

"To talk to you, Jane," the blonde said softly as if she barely had the courage to express her wish out loud.

The Detective didn't knew if she should feel happy or worried about this talk. Mostly, she was just overwhelmingly relieved that her best friend wanted to talk to her after everything that had happened. They had so much to talk about.

But not here.

She dreaded having Maura come here and inadvertently meeting one of the Robbins.

"Where are you guys? I'll go and meet ya in a few," Jane said, trying to get them out of coming.

"Oh, there's no need, honey, Maura's phone says we're close," her mother said, making her groan to herself.

After Maura had been abducted by Dennis, Jane made Frost download to both of their phones the best tracking device there was so they could know where she was. The only way they could get the honey blonde to agree to it was if this was a two ways street and she could track one of their phones too.

Stupid of her to agree. She should have known it would come and bite her in the ass sometime.

"Fine," she agreed, "I'm at Boston Hotel Buckminster, in Fenway Kenmore. Meet me outside," she disconnected the call before she could change her mind about this stupid idea.

They must really have been close because not full five minutes after the ended call, she spotted her mother's car pulling up at the other side of the road and her and Maura exiting it to cross the street.

At the sight of the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Jane felt her pulse quicken and her breath become ragged; the always pristine Dr. Maura Isles prided herself in always dressing in her finest, but to the brunette there was no better sight than the honey blonde in jeans – designer jeans, yes, but that made her look casual, nonetheless – and a hoodie.

It wasn't just any hoodie, though; it was an old Jane's hoodie, a Boston Red Sox one that made Maura look almost dwarfed in it. Her hair was tucked neatly away in a high ponytail and she was wearing simple white sneakers, making her look even smaller than Jane because of the lack of high heels.

In a word, adorable, making it hard for the Detective to avert her gaze.

When they finally reached the other woman, Maura felt herself blushing under her best friend's intense gaze. Jane was never a woman of many words because she had a tendency of putting her foot in her mouth and saying the wrong thing.

Her eyes, though, they said so much. Loudly. Clearly. The ME was surprised she had never noticed it before. Perhaps she had always written off as wishful thinking of her part, but after talking with Angela and mulling over said conversation for the better part of their car ride, her genius brain had finally hit a conclusion.

Jane loved her. Everything she ever did was because she loved her. Even when she stood up to Constance in a place she wasn't even comfortable at, she was doing it out of love for her.

Yeah, it could be out of best friend's love, most people would say and was what she had thought most of the time. But her eyes said differently, as they were saying right now.

I love you. Please, forgive me.

And how could she not? She loved this woman too, after all.

"Hey," Jane said softly, a hint of smile ghosting her lips when they approached.

"Hey," Maura said back just as softly, holding the intense gaze of espresso colored eyes.

"What are you doing here, Janie? Weren't you supposed be working? The Sox aren't even playing!" Angela bolstered, breaking their moment apart.

"Ma, I'm working!" the brunette said with a roll of her eyes, blushing at having been caught staring, "What are you doing here?"

"I told you, I drove Maura over because it's no good driving on little sleep," her mother retorted almost petulantly.

"Yeah, well, she's here," the Detective smirked, already sensing her victory; her mother had walked herself into that one, "You can go now."

Maura was going to interrupt, saying it wasn't necessary for anybody to leave, but she had been around the Rizzoli's for almost five years now and she knew better than interrupt the matriarch and her daughter in the midst of a heated argument.

Angela narrowed her eyes in her best 'don't-you-use-that-tone-with-me-young-lady' scowl, "She needs to be driven back."

"I'll drive her back," the Detective shrugged, seemingly unfazed by her mother's scowl, "I'm almost done here anyway."

The elder woman looked at the doctor for some support, but when she noticed the honey blonde looking at her nervously, almost fidgeting again, she decided against it.

"Fine," she grumbled, "You don't need me anyway. You never need me," she said dramatically, turning to go back.

Now chuckling at her mother's antics, the brunette yelled, "I love you, Ma!"

It was a bit far away, where they were standing near the hotel from where Angela's car was, but they both thought they had seen the other woman grin widely before she got in and drove away.

Almost immediately, they both look at each other again and, although Maura got more and more reassured of her resolution to apologize to Jane and tell her exactly what she was feeling, Jane got exponentially more worried of how badly her best friend would react when she learned what she had done.

"Jane," "Maura," they both said in unison.

Unable to hide her dimpled smile, the ME said, "May I go first?"

"Sure," the Detective agreed, sounding slightly relieved.

"Jane," she sighed, stepping forward and grabbing her best friend's scarred hands, needing a contact to ground her, made her feel not so exposed at discussing her feelings, "I'm so, so sorry."

"You're sorry?" the other woman frowned, "Why?"

"I'm so sorry by the way I reacted to you this morning," the honey blonde continued, her hazel green eyes tearing up, "You were right, the way my mother raised me wasn't the best but saying it out loud makes me sound ungrateful for everything she's done to me and that's not right," she held the hands in hers more securely at the Italian's attempt to interrupt her, "No, let me finish," she took a deep breath to steady herself, resuming their eye contact, "I'm very grateful for the way my mother and father raised me because it made me appreciate you so much more," she said softly, spurred to continue by the blush coloring the other woman's cheeks, "When you waltzed yourself into my life, because I had never had anything like it before, it opened my eyes to things I've never thought I was missing out on."

"The way you befriended me, shared your family with me, protected me… Loved me, Jane, nobody has ever done it for me before and I'm so much better because you did. It's the main reason why I'm so in love with you, you make it seem so effortless to fit me in your life that you would think I was never not there from the beginning."

"It's because I wish you were," Jane said with her deep, husky voice, emotions threatening to spill from her heart directly down her face, "It is effortless to bring you in my life, Maur, because you make it so much better. You make my life happier, eventful, healthier…." the grin she received at this was definitely heart-stoppable, "It's one of the main reason why I'm in love with you," she added boldly.

Smile broadening, not surprised at all at the Detective's last statement, the ME stepped forward, making their fronts flush against each other, "You're in love with me because I make your life healthier?" she couldn't help but ask.

Before she could get a response, she tugged on the brunette's hands and launched her forward too, connecting their lips on a surprisingly soft kiss.

Jane could feel herself wanting to melt against those sweet lips, so she gently untangled their hands so her calloused fingers could take place on the back of her fair neck and on honey blonde tresses so she could take over the kiss.

Maura gasped in surprise at the change and the other woman took it as an invitation and opened hers too, the first meeting of their tongues an experience neither ever wanted to forget.

Unfortunately, oxygen was something both needed if they wanted to continue this on. The kiss came to its natural end, but not their connection.

Still with her eyes closed and breathing heavily, Jane dropped her forehead to meet Maura's, her hands not giving up their places on the other woman either.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting to do that," the Detective said, smiling.

"Probably as long as I have," the ME was still with her eyes closed and smiling too, not wanting to give up the moment any more than the Italian did.

But the brunette finally opened her eyes and the moment was broken when she remembered where and why they were there. There was still something she had to discuss with the blonde.

"Maur," she murmured, leaning away when she leaned for another kiss, but maintaining contact, "Wait. There's something I need to tell you too."

"If you're going to apologize…" Maura warned her, but was interrupted.

"I am," Jane said, "But not for that."

"Good," the sole dimple made its appearance, "Why then?"

Getting nervous once again, the Detective went to fidget with the scars in her hands, but was stopped by fair, doctory hands stopped her, "It's okay, Jane. Just tell me," the ME said softly, hazel eyes filled with understanding.

Reassured by the look in the blonde's eyes, the brunette continued, "I did something."

"What did you do?" Maura prompted.

"I found your biological parents," Jane said, worrying her bottom lip, unable to help herself.

Hazel eyes almost popped out of their eye orbit.

"Y… you what?" she gasped, shocked, which the other woman took as a sign of anger.

"Please, don't be mad," the Detective pleaded, getting anxious, "After you fell asleep, when we left the hospital, I was restless, couldn't sleep, thinking about how this was all affecting you, and how I didn't want it to happen to you again," when the ME frowned, she clarified, "To have a parent reject you again. So I grabbed the pictures I knew Constance had given to you and took them to BPD with me to run them on our facial recognition program."

"I was just going to do a background check with BPD's database, perhaps the FBI if I could get someone on board, some following around, just to know if these people were safe, you know? If they were loving, accepting people who could embrace the long, lost daughter story because I knew you would wanna meet them, Maur, and I couldn't let you go blindsided like you did when you were a baby," she finished, looking guiltily back at the woman in front of her.

To her surprise, the only response she got from the blonde was another kiss, slightly more forceful than the first one, leaving the brunette completely at her mercy.

"You're amazing, you know that?" Maura asked rhetorically, looking up at Jane with a dreamy look on her eyes.

"Uh…" the dazed look on the other woman's face made her giggle, "Thanks?"

"Nobody had ever done anything like this for me," the blonde said as an explanation for her statement.

"I'd do anything for you," the Detective replied, earning herself another kiss, "But my plan kind of backfired."

"What do you mean?" the ME frowned.

"First of, the woman who might be your mom is dead," she winced at the way she said it when she saw the sullen look on the other woman's face, "And the man who might be your dad, well…" where to even start? "There was some problems with his files we were checking and it kind of involved Homeland Security and a crazy Marine on the loose to protect his family and now everybody's in Boston."

"What?" the blonde was utterly confused with all this crazy ramble.

"There's a lot about this story, Maur, but the point is, there's a man up in this hotel who might be your father," Jane said seriously, "What I need to know is… do you wanna go up there and meet him or not?"