Parenting is hard
"Maur!" Jane called out as she climbed off the bed, holding their daughter. She didn't even bother covering herself up as she walked down the hall top-less, just having finished feeding their four-month-old daughters.
"In the girls' room," Maura called back.
"Elena ate well," Jane said. "I burped her, but I have to get in the shower or I'm gonna be late to work," she added as she laid the squirming girl in her crib. Elena immediately started fussing as Jane hurried out of the room.
"Jane, wait, can you just…" Maura started.
"I really can't," Jane said regrettably. "I can't go to work without showering, and if I'm late again, Cavanaugh is gonna have my ass." She was sticky from the breastmilk and baby spit, and her hair was a mess. There was absolutely no way that she could get away with going to work without a shower again, and she's already been late numerous times in the five-and-a-half weeks since she'd gone back to work.
"Fine, go," Maura huffed, and Jane hated the frustration she heard in her wife's voice. She hated even more having to turn away from an annoyed and frustrated Maura, but the last thing any of them needed was for Jane to waste the little bit of leeway Cavanaugh allowed her when they would likely need that for more important things that came up with young kids.
Jane sighed and sprinted to the shower. She didn't even wait for the water to warm up before she jumped in. Twenty minutes later, (mostly) clean, dressed, and with her wet hair thrown into a French braid, Jane flew down the stairs. She cringed as she realized that Maura was now dealing with two infants crying at the top of their lungs in the kitchen.
Jane entered the kitchen to see Maura holding Lucia as she tried to comfort Elena in her bassinet. Jane grabbed a protein bar from the cupboard, and the sound alerted Maura to Jane's presence.
"Jane," Maura said, her voice full of relief and gratitude, instantly breaking Jane's heart. Her face scrunched in concern, she added, "I don't know what's wrong. I can't get either one of them to stop crying."
Jane stepped next to Maura and picked up Elena, holding her close to her chest. Elena instantly quieted down.
"Can you take Luchi, too?" Maura asked, handing Jane their other daughter without waiting for an answer. "I have to use the bathroom."
"Okay, but then I have to go to work," Jane said somewhat desperately before turning her attention to the babies in her arms. "Are you guys giving mommy a hard time today? Shhh. You're okay," she continued to speak softly to them as she swayed gently.
"Oh, thank god," Maura whispered as she returned to find the girls quiet, but as soon as Jane passed them back to Maura, they started crying again.
"I'm sorry. I gotta go," Jane groaned, her voice full of regret. She kissed Maura's cheek before heading to the door.
"Jane, they want you!" Maura called after her, the frustration now tinged with a hint of anger.
"I know. I'm sorry. I have to go to work," Jane pleaded, walking backwards towards the front door.
"Fine, go," Maura acquiesced.
"I love you, Maur. I love all three of you. I'll be home as soon as I can," Jane said, but Maura either didn't hear her over the crying or ignored her. It took every ounce of self-control Jane had to force herself to walk away from Maura, Elena, and Lucia in that moment, but she knew that they were going to be okay. Jane knew that despite Maura's frustration, Maura wasn't actually annoyed at her. They knew it wouldn't always be easy when they decided that Jane would go back to work three months after the girls were born while Maura would stay home with them up to one year.
Jane was no running late, so she drove to the precinct faster than she should have. Not only had she already been late numerous times, but today, she and her team had a meeting with an FBI team that had just arrived in Boston.
Luckily, even though she was technically late for the start of her shift at 8:30am, Jane made it to the precinct before the 9am meeting. She decided to shoot her mom a quick text asking her to stop by to help Maura if she had any free time today (and to definitely not tell Maura that Jane had suggested it).
"Coffee?" Will Cade, the junior detective on her team, asked, holding out a to-go cup from Boston Joe's.
"Dear god, you are my new favorite person in the entire world," Jane said over-dramatically.
"Cade sucking up?" the senior detective on Jane's team, Javier Garza, interjected.
Jane laughed into her coffee cup. "Yeah, and it's workin'. What you got?"
"Psht," Garza laughed. "I gotta case file."
"Oh, gimme!" Jane said, holding out her hand for the file.
"Here's what I know," Garza continued as the three of them fell into professional mode. "The FBI has been chasing a suspected trafficking ring based in New York City."
"So why are they here?" Cade asked.
"They suspect that they have found a stopover location used by the ring here in Boston. They're going to brief us this morning, but it sounds like they're planning to raid the compound," Garza said.
"What do they need us for then?" Jane asked without taking her eyes off of the file in front of her. It included descriptions of the known members of the trafficking ring as well as known and suspected past and current victims.
"Dunno," was all Garza had time to say before Cavanaugh and three men Jane didn't know entered the conference room.
After introductions and a repeated of the information Garza had just told them, the team lead Jack Noble finally got to what Jane wanted to know most.
"Our team is already on the ground at the target location. We're planning to breach at 10:35am," Noble said.
"Okay, and what do you need us for?" Jane asked, trying not to sound disrespectful.
"The target location is an apartment in North End," Noble said.
"Shit," Jane said under her breath, instantly knowing how many innocent individuals would be close to the target location. Not only was an apartment building already densely populated, but North End was known for its narrow streets and crowded areas.
Noble nodded in understanding at Jane's sentiment before continuing, "The six-story complex houses 218 individual apartments. Four-hundred-ninety-nine individuals live there, and we have no idea how many of them will be home at the time of the raid. We specifically chose to breach mid-morning, mid-workweek in the hope of minimizing the number of civilians at risk. We do know that six employees are going to be in the building at that time. The management is fully aware of today's raid and have minimized the number of employees working this morning."
"Are you sure none of them are aware of the ring or even in on it?" Jane asked quickly, sitting up in her seat. "How can you be sure one of them hasn't notified the suspects?"
"Unfortunately, we can't be entirely sure. However, we ran extensive background searches on both the individuals in upper management that we communicated with directly as well as the employees they selected to work today. We tried to minimize this risk, but we decided that the need to minimize the number of individuals that could potentially be in danger, we needed to alert the property managers," the man to Noble's left said, and Jane just nodded.
They spent the rest of the meeting reviewing the detailed raid plan. Jane and Sam Granger, another sergeant from BPD, would join the FBI's raid team that included six agents, including agent Noble. Cade and Garza as well as the two detectives who worked with Granger would work with the FBI's on-the-ground support team, providing surveillance around the building.
After the meeting ended, they immediately headed over to the FBI's temporary base of operations near the apartment complex. Everything happened so fast that Jane hadn't had a chance to text Maura to let her know she was going on a raid (something she had promised to always do whenever possible when she returned to BPD after her stint at the FBI academy).
The raid team breached apartment 523 at exactly 10:35am. Jane was the fifth person through the door, and she immediately followed the agent in front of her into the second bedroom to clear it. They knew instantly that something was wrong. The two-bedroom apartment was completely empty. But they still went through the process of clearing the entire space. Jane had just dropped her arm after hearing the all-clear and turned to the other agent in the same room when it happened.
And their entire world exploded around them.