Chapter 4: Ma

Saturday Morning

Maura

Maura groaned as the group finished regaling them with the story leading up to the wedding. Vague memories of the early shots were returning to her. More than anything, she was just embarrassed about her behavior.

"I'm sorry," Maura said as she buried her face in her hands with her elbows on the table. She felt Jane reach over and rub her back, which she found comforting. She sat up again and looked at Nina and Frankie. "And I'm really sorry that we did this during what was supposed to be a weekend all about the two of you," she said as realization hit her.

Nina waved her off. "Seriously, don't worry about that," she said, and Frankie nodded, his hand around Nina's shoulders. "Honestly, you've already made this weekend so much better than we ever could have imagined with the entire trip."

"Paying for the rooms doesn't give me the excuse to behave terribly," Maura said with a frown.

"No, you're right, but it's really not about that," Nina said. "We're having fun – all of us together. That's what I care about."

"Plus," Frankie added, "this is going to be a great family story for years to come."

Maura glanced at Jane who was rolling her eyes.

"And, Janie, now I have something to hold over your head for the rest of your life," Frankie said, laughing. "Remember that time you tried to one up me and Nina during our bachelor party weekend by getting married?!" he teased.

Nina swatted Frankie. "Stop!" she said, but she too was laughing. "You're making Maura feel bad, too."

"I do feel bad," Maura said emphatically, "but not because of what Frankie said. What we did was really inappropriate."

"Look, Maura, yeah, maybe it wasn't the most appropriate thing to do, but one…" Nina held up one finger as she spoke, "…I'm not the kinda bride who needs every moment of the wedding festivities to be focused on me. Frankie's the same way. And two, more importantly, you guys didn't do this to hurt us or to take away from our weekend, okay? Don't let the fact that this was supposed to be our weekend be a concern."

"Nina's right, as always," Frankie said. "Personally, I find it more refreshing than anything else that we can all stop pretending the two of you don't have feelings for each other."

Frost snorted. "Shoulda put that on your registry," he teased. "Although now that you mention pretending, I think my favorite part of all of this is that when Jane said, 'Let's get married,' literally no one hesitated or questioned who she was talking about."

"Ha, yeah, Maura was just like, 'hell, yes!'" Cailin said. "For two people who claimed you didn't know the other returned their feelings, you were pretty in sync last night."

Maura blushed deep red, and when Jane leaned towards her, wrapped her arm around Maura's shoulders, pulled Maura towards her, and kissed her cheek, heat flooded Maura's body. She was still embarrassed, but maybe in this case, the embarrassment would be worth it.

"Well, thank you guys for being so understanding," Jane said genuinely. "Because as much as I like to give you a hard time, little brother, the last thing I want is to ruin any of your wedding stuff."

"By the way, I have your paperwork," Nina said. "And your receipts."

"Yeah, if your heads weren't attached to your bodies, you prolly woulda lost those, so there was no way anyone was trusting you with that stuff," Tommy said.

"Thank you," Maura told Nina.

They quickly finished their breakfast before deciding they wanted to have a relaxing day before the big evening they had planned.

"Let's hand out on the terrace," Nina suggested. "It's so beautiful."

"Good idea," Frankie replied. "Maybe we can hit the pool this afternoon."

"Yeah, I think our parents will want to come to the pool too, so maybe we can go when they get back," Nina suggested.

Jane

When they got back to their suite, Maura announced, "I'm going to change into something more casual."

Jane glanced at the rest of their group before focusing her attention on Maura. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Maura stepped back towards Jane with a smile. "Yes, I am," she said. She gave Jane a soft kiss. "Mostly because I get to do that now. But really, Jane, I'm okay. I just want to put something lighter on."

"Okay," Jane replied. She gave Maura another kiss. "I like that we get to do that now, too," she said.

They shared one more kiss before Maura gently pushed her away and went to their bedroom to change. Jane joined everyone out on the terrace. The terrace had two small pools as well as a couple of seating areas. They all gathered in the largest seating area between the two pools. Jane sat on one of the chaise lounge-chairs across from Nina and Frankie. Cailin was in the chair between the lounge-chairs, and Tommy and Frost had decided to take a dip in the pool.

Jane's eyes found Maura the second she walked out onto the terrace. They smiled shyly at each other as Maura walked straight to Jane. She seemed to hesitate for only a moment before deciding to sit with Jane. Jane had started to turn so that Maura could sit next to her, but Maura stopped her.

Maura bit her lip adorably as she sat sideways on Jane's lap. Jane could tell that Maura was more nervous than she was letting on that Jane wouldn't be comfortable with her move, but the truth was, Jane loved that they could be openly affectionate now. And more importantly, she loved that Maura seemed to want it as much as she did.

Jane instantly wrapped her arm around Maura and pulled her closer. Maura brought her legs up and tucked her feet under Jane's legs. She was still on Jane's lap, but she was resting some of her weight on the back of the couch. When Jane pulled her closer, Maura let herself snuggle into the crook of Jane's arm with her head resting on Jane's shoulder.

"Oh my god, you two are so fucking adorable," Cailin cooed playfully.

Frankie and Nina laughed loudly.

"See, I told you siblings are the worst," Jane teased, throwing the loose pillow next to her at Cailin. Maura laughed, but she didn't move from her spot in Jane's arms, which made Jane happier than she was willing to admit. She felt slightly nervous about the intimacy of the position so out in the open, but she knew that was more a side-effect of years of hiding her feelings than actual embarrassment.

Jane's fingers played with Maura's hair while she listened to the conversation going on around them. She rested her other hand on Maura's thigh, just above her knee. She could feel Maura's body relaxing more against her as Maura's own anxiety started to leave her body. She loved the feeling of Maura's fingers playing with the hem of her shirt.

They heard when Angela, Catherine, Hope, Korsak, and Kiki return, but Jane was no longer thinking about the position they were in. Unsurprisingly, Angela's eyes found Jane and Maura first. Jane's eyes locked with her mother's the moment comprehension dawned on her face.

Maura started to sit up, but Angela was on top of them before she could move very far. "Please tell me this means what I think it means?" she squealed as she threw both of her arms around them.

"That they got their heads outta their asses?" Tommy quipped, having come over from the pool to watch the scene.

"Language, Thomas," Angela scolded, barely turning to look at her youngest before turning back to Maura and Jane. Angela took one of each of their hands in her own.

"Okay, yeah, ma, but we need to…" Jane started, but her mother cut her off.

Having run her thumbs across their knuckles, Angela immediately noticed the ring on Maura's finger. "And you got engaged?" she asked in disbelief.

Before anyone could say anything, Tommy interjected, "No, they got married."

Angela looked between Jane and Maura, Tommy, and the rest of the group a few times. Everyone was waiting in silence with bated breath for her reaction.

"Ma…" Jane started, but that was enough confirmation for Angela, who pushed herself away from their chair, stood up, stomped back into the suite, and slammed the door to her bedroom.

"Shit," Jane said under her breath. Without her having to ask, Maura got off of Jane's lap. Jane squeezed her hand, whispering, "I'll be right back," before she started to follow her mom inside, but Maura didn't let go of her hand.

"I'm going with you," Maura said, ignoring the watching eyes around them.

Jane looked back at Maura. Her first instinct was to tell Maura that she was okay alone, but she realized quickly that Maura wasn't going to let her go alone nor would that have been the right response. Instead, she just nodded, and they walked together back into the suite. Their hands remained linked as Jane knocked on the bedroom door.

"Ma," Jane called through the door when her mother didn't respond to her knocking. She glanced at Maura for a moment before trying again. "Ma, we're coming in," she said with another knock. She waited a few seconds before she opened the door. Her heart dropped when she saw her mother sitting on the side of her bed, pretending to busy herself with what looked like a stack of ads and menus.

Maura closed the door behind them as Jane walked over to her mother and sat next to her. Maura joined them, sitting on the edge of Nina's mom's bed directly across from Jane and Angela.

When Jane opened her mouth to speak, her mother choked out, "How long?" Jane could hear the pain and hurt in her voice, and it broke her heart.

"Ma, it wasn't like that," Jane tried, but Angela scoffed at her.

"Really?" Angela said angrily. "You hate me so much that you hide your relationship with Maura from me."

"No," Maura said, but Angela ignored her and plowed on.

"You think I'm so small-minded that I can't see how the two of you feel about each other, that I can't be happy for you guys, that I can't see that you two are perfect for each other. I know what the church says, and I know what your father said to you growing up, but I thought I'd made it clear to you that not only do I accept you for who you are, but I'm happy for you – happy that you found someone like Maura.

"I thought you just weren't ready yet. But no, you've been hiding your relationship from me. I thought…I thought you both knew how much I loved you. What; was this whole weekend a ploy for the two of you to elope with your siblings there but not your mothers? Am I really that bad of a mother? Do you really hate me that much?"

Maura recovered from her shock at Angela's monologue first. "Angela no!" she said forcefully, moving to kneel in front of Angela. "It wasn't like that at all. This wasn't planned, and we didn't hide anything from you. We haven't been dating. We…"

"But you got married?" Angela interrupted.

"Well, yes," Maura said slowly. "We…we were drunk. We would never plan a wedding and not want you there. We would never purposely hurt you." Jane could hear the tears Maura was trying to hold back. "We do love each other," Maura continued, holding Angela's hands in her own. "We just…we didn't know that the other felt the same. The truth is, neither of us even remember the wedding," she admitted embarrassedly.

At that point, there was another knock on the door and Frankie and Tommy stepped into the room.

"You two let your sisters get married while drunk in Vegas?!" she screeched, and Jane had to stifle her laughter behind her hand as her mother stood up, walked over to her brothers, and smacked both of them on the arm.

"Hey! They were the ones who did it!" Tommy said defensively. "And we tried to stop them!"

"We did try!" Frankie said. "But we couldn't convince them not to, and the place was threatening to have us removed if we didn't stop arguing. We didn't really want to get arrested because it took getting blackout drunk for them to admit their feelings."

Maura had moved to sit next to Jane on the bed.

Angela looked back and forth between the four of them. "And this is legal?" she asked eventually. "Even though you were that drunk?"

"Yes," Maura replied. "I mean, we could probably get an annulment under the argument that we weren't legally capable of consenting to marriage due to intoxication, but we don't really want to…" Maura trailed off nervously.

Jane couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips at Maura's words, but when she looked back at her mother, her smile faltered slightly. Jane squeezed Maura's hand before standing up and walking over to her mother.

"Ma, I'm really sorry that we hurt you, but you have to know, that was never our intention," Jane said. "We didn't plan this, and it's not the wedding either of us wanted. I know I complain about you a lot, but I have always wanted you at my wedding. I know Maura feels the same way. But we do want to be together. We are in love. Everything just happened last night and this morning. We're still figuring out what this means.

"I think…well, we haven't discussed this yet…" Jane paused to glance at Maura, who smiled softly. "When we're ready, we'll do this right, with a real wedding."

Maura stood up and joined them, allowing her hand to trail across Jane's back before she stepped into Angela's space and pulled her into a hug. "Angela, I'm sorry," she said. "We're both sorry. When the time comes, I promise you that not only do we want you there, but we'll want you to help with the planning and everything."

"But Maura gets final say," Jane interjected, pointing at her mother playfully to make her point. This finally got Angela to laugh.

"I suppose I can live with that," Angela said. "Come here, girls," she said, holding out both arms to pull Jane and Maura into a hug. "I love you both so much."

"We love you too, ma," Jane said.

When the hug finished, Angela added, "And I suppose it doesn't make sense to get a divorce or an annulment only to get remarried."

"We'll find out all of the legal implications when we get back to Boston," Maura said. "In the meantime, we're enjoying this new step in our relationship." Maura turned to smile at Jane just as Jane wrapped her arm around Maura's waist. Maura leaned her head against Jane's shoulder.

"Well, this isn't the way I wanted or expected you guys to get together, but I have to admit that I'm so happy that you finally are!" Angela's voice rose in her excitement.

"Trust me," Frankie said. "We all are!"

Jane punched her brother's arm as they all laughed.

"Should we get back out there?" Tommy asked, pointing over his shoulder towards the terrace.

"Yeah," Jane answered, but as everyone else started to walk out, she grabbed her mom again. She pulled her mom into a tight hug and whispered, "I'm really sorry, ma."

"It's okay, baby," Angela whispered back. "I understand that you weren't purposely excluding me, and I mean it when I say that I'm really happy for you and Maura. Don't think this gets you outta a real wedding," she added teasingly as they left the room. Jane just laughed.

A/N: Check out my new Rizzles one-shot "Dancing in the Rain"! The last scene of that story is one of my favorites!