Jane stood in the doorway to Maura's office, silently taking in the sight of her beautiful wife who was hunched over her laptop, looking highly focused. She softly knocked and her heart warmed to the sight of the smile spreading on her wife's face.

"Jane, what a surprise." The blonde said as she made her way around her desk to let the brunette wrap her into a hug. The brunette breathed in Maura's decent perfume and rubbed the blondes back. "Hello stranger." She whispered; the smile evident in her voice.

They had talked about it. That they might not see each other much with Janes studies and Maura's work. But Jane had been surprised at how she missed seeing Maura already after one day. Therefore, she had decided to visit her wife at work, bringing some lunch. After having spent some time at the precinct's gym during the summer, most of the officers knew her and let her pass. Despite trying hard to find out whose doing this was, she still wasn't sure if she should thank Maura or Korsak or both.

"Have you eaten something yet?" Jane asked as she gently pulled away from the hug. She wasn't surprised when Maura tilted her head to say no. Sometimes there was so much work, that the blonde simply forgot to eat. A sly smile tugged at the corners of her mouth when she pulled the paper bag from behind her back.

"I know that you are probably busy, but eating is very important. Therefore, I brought us lunch."

"Oh Jane. That's sweet, but this isn't necessary. I made myself some lunch this morning."

Jane wrinkled her nose and snorted. "I bet its only salad, and am I right to assume that you keep it in the death people fridge?"

The blonde bit her lip and Jane could see that she wanted to laugh at her joke, but instead Maura stated very seriously that there was nothing wrong with either of it.

"No, its not. But I noticed that you lost a bit of weight over the stress from the last weeks. I need you, babe. And you need to eat." The irony of the situation didn't escape Jane, as she took some food containers out of the bag and placed them together with some cutlery onto Maura's desk. She knew very well that Maura wasn't fond of most of the things Jane ate, even though the blonde almost never said a word. So, usually it was Maura trying to make her eat healthy, while Jane now made her eat unhealthily. This was their way of taking care of each other and it was fine.

The blonde smirked when seeing the burgers and fries but dug in nonetheless while Jane went to fetch the salad. The brunette knew that Maura liked the greasy food and smiled when her wife hummed after taking her first bite.

They talked about Janes first day at the academy and the BCU and Jane told Maura about Amber. Jane also learned about the incredible high amount of bodies which were flooding the morgue right now. It turned out, that it was less a matter of full moon than a gang war.

"Well, if they continue at this pace, there will be no work left for the detectives by tomorrow." Jane joked, trying to ignore how Maura shoveled some salad into her mouth. And she even tried to ignore harder where the salad had been over the last few hours.

After 30 minutes, Jane cleaned of the mess from lunch and was on her way to the BCU. This was what live was going to be like for the next months she thought as she turned her car into their driveway around 6 pm, happy to find Maura's Prius already parked there.

She let herself in and heard some classical music, which after sharing a life with Maura for a while now she recognized as Vivaldi's four seasons. She knew by now, that this meant that the blonde was still stressed.

Jane found Maura in the kitchen, cooking gnocchi's and she softly smiled when she found flour all over the blonde. "There was an accident with the flour." Maura mumbled as Jane walked over to embrace her, not caring if the flower would make her dirty too. She softly pressed her lips onto the blondes one and let them linger. She found her wife just adorable.

Only when it started to smell burnt she let go of Maura reluctantly. Jane took a beer out of the fridge, settling on a stool at the counter, watching the blonde stir the ragout. "Your mother gave me her secret family recipe." Maura beamed. "I found it on the counter when I came home." Jane took the piece of paper which was offered to her by flour-stained hands and started to read.

Dear Maura,

I know I have welcomed you to the family a thousand times. But I won't apologize for feeling happy about the fact that you are part of my family now. I think its time to give you nonna Raffaelas recipe for Janes favorite gnocchi's and ragout. (If you give it to someone else, Uncle Rosario is going to find you and kill you. So, you must keep it to yourself because I don't want to see you dead!)

I also added some of the ingredients from my garden, in case you want to surprise my Janie tonight with it.

Love,

Angela

Jane didn't know if she should smirk or chuckle. So, she snorted, despite feeling touched by Angela's gesture. She knew that it meant the world for Maura to be embraced by her family, after her own family had let her down and she silently thanked her mother, for repeating that Maura was like a daughter to her until the blonde would finally believe that she was worth a family and none of what had happened to her while growing up had something to do with her.

"This smell delicious." She said, happy about the smile on Maura's face. "I know you have problems with your ma, but I do really love her." The blonde suddenly said, her eyes still focused on the pot.

"Ma can be pretty unnerving sometimes. But she is an Angel, and I love her too." Jane replied truthfully and Maura nodded.

After enjoying dinner in a comfortable silence, they made themselves comfortable on the couch, watching a documentary about forensic science. One of Janes teachers had recommended it to his students today and Maura who loved documentaries had clapped her hands in excitement when Jane had mentioned that she wanted to watch it.

"I had it on my list for a long time now. Its supposed one of the best documentaries about that subject." The blonde had explained to her, while Jane had prepared some snacks for later. The brunette had to admit that the documentary was quite interesting indeed, and reached for a word pad, to take notes here and there.

Afterwards they discussed about it, with Maura explaining a lot about the meaning and development of the forensic science over the last years. Jane especially found the cases intriguing which Maura named during their discussion.

When Maura was ready to get up from the couch, Jane quickly bent over to leave a gentle kiss on her cheek. "Thank you." She whispered and smiled.

"For what?" Maura looked surprised.

"For making this all so interesting and alive to me. You really help me a lot."

A blush showed on Maura's cheeks. "I keep thinking that this must be just boring to you." She said with a small voice. "I get lost in detail a lot, when it comes to this field." She smiled apologetically.

"No, there is no need to be sorry. First, I need it for my class, but I share the interest with you, and at last I want to say that you are just adorable, when you share your big brain with me."

Maura's blush deepened and Jane sighed, feeling sorry and angry for all the people who had hurt her wife to the point where she couldn't see anymore what genius she was. To most of the people this might be intimidating which also might be the reason why they reacted bad to Maura. But Jane was proud to have such a brilliant wife.

"Come here, honey." She whispered, wrapping her arms around the blonde before starting to sway.

"Jane… if you want to dance, we will need some music." The blondes voice said in a stern way.

The brunette chuckled softly, leaving loads of kisses on Maura's forehead and pulled her closer. "Isn't the sound of our heartbeats music enough?" she whispered. "I love you and I feel like the luckiest person in the world to call you my wife. Never let other people doubt yourself. This yesterday… it wasn't your mistake. It doesn't mean that the lab is bad. Its just one person who is the problem. Never forget that."

"I don't know Jane. I'm the chief after all." Soft sobs bounced against Janes firm chest. "I can see people talking, I can see Korsak defending me. They say I'm too young and too unexperienced."

Jane who heard all of this for the first time hitched a breath. "What?" Anger quickly ignited a fire in her. "They have no right to say so!" she said fiercely, pulling Maura impossibly closer. "I'm going to give them a piece of my mind!"

"No, Jane. Don't. Just…."

The brunette softly pulled away to look at Maura. "What?" she gently questioned.

"Just hold me, Jane. That's all I need." The brunette sighed moving back into the embrace. Following an impulse, she lifted Maura off the ground and made her ways upstairs with her protesting wife. By the time she dropped her to the bed, she could see that the blonde's spirits had lifted.

"No one, no single person in the world, has a right to doubt you or make you feel small, do you hear me?" she whispered fiercely, and Maura smiled at her.

"I always used to feel so sorry, when they bullied you in school. Joey and his other awful companions. It hurt me, and at the same time I admired you for staying so calm. You can't even count the times I wanted to yell at them."

Jane took in the sad look on Maura's face and laid down next to her. Their fingers laced as Jane exhaled. "Because you knew what it was like to be bullied. But you acted cool too. And reasonable. I don't know what you said to Joey back then, but he stopped bullying for a while. I think I stayed so calm because you were in my life you know. And I totally flipped with the locker incident because you weren't anymore. But as long as I saw you smiling at me, I was fine. It was enough to know that there was someone who didn't judge me and who loved me unconditionally. A feeling I had never had before. The prospect of getting to see you always gave me strength to make it through the day." Jane said quietly.

Maura rolled to her side, tears running down her cheeks. "I feel the same right now. You have no idea what it meant to me, that you brought me lunch and sat with me for a while. This situation keeps reminding me of my time at school. Back then I used to hide behind my books and ignore the pain. But once you've experienced love and friendship, its hard. And it keeps coming back. It hurts. All the things I ignored and put in a case are staring back at me now. And I just don't know how to handle them. I always wished I had someone like you to help me."

Jane caressed Maura's face with the back of her hand softly. "Oh god. I know how that feels. Its horrible. But im here now, and I wont go away. And we Rizzoli's might be nutballs, but we love you all from the bottom of our hearts."

"You are my nutballs." Maura sniffed and smiled. "And I couldn't imagine some better people in the whole world."

"That's good, because first of all, we need you Dr. Isles and second we tend to hold on to dear people. Its hard to get rid of us." Jane chuckled softly as she cupped Maura's face with her hands to give her a gentle kiss. "And I as your wife are going to hold your hand and walk with you. I will never let go of you. Like you never did with me. okay?"

Maura sniffled more and nodded. "You saved my ass several times when I was in school." Jane rolled her eyes recalling the puking night.

"Because it's a normal thing to do if you like or love someone." Maura said fiercely.

"Exactly!" was all was Jane said and Maura understood. "I need to shower." Maura said after they had been lying in bed next to each other for a while.

"Do you need some assistance?" Jane wiggled her eyebrows. Both were tired from their emotions and days, but they still slipped into the shower together. Jane took her time washing and massaging Maura's head, then she softly distributed the soap onto the soft skin. It was time to spoil her love and it worked. Maura felt much better after leaving the shower.

"Thank you." She whispered when they had found a comfortable position in between the sheets and even though Jane couldn't see her because they were spooned up, she could hear the smile in the blonde's voice.

"You're welcome, babe." Jane breathed into Maura's ears, smiling too.