Maura Isles pokes her head around her desktop computer to make sure the coast is clear right outside her office. It's a precaution born of paranoia, really, because her monitor already faces away from either doorway and it has a privacy screen to protect personal information, but she can't help it. As the late afternoon sun juts through the window above her, sending shards of light against her face like it's trying to illuminate all her deep dark secrets, she gulps.
She's doing something that she knows she shouldn't be. She reminds herself as she takes a deep breath that the murder victim lying on her slab had two children with the help of fertility clinics, and thus the fact that the website for Boston IVF was open on her browser wasn't so odd. She writes down several notes on a legal pad as her eyes dart back and forth.
She also reminds herself that she had told Jane only months ago that she wanted to freeze her eggs, to preserve her options. And when the Chief Medical Examiner routinely spends between ten and twelve hours at work everyday, she has every right to research all those options in the place she finds herself the most. When else am I supposed to do it? She thinks to placate herself.
All these reminders don't lessen her anxiety, however, because those aren't the reasons she's anxious and feeling a little silly. Preserving her options is not why she's looking at all the ways you could get pregnant without sleeping with someone who can impregnate you. Neither is context for understanding the woman she just sewed back together after methodically dismantling her piece by piece.
Maura is researching IVF because she wants a baby. And she supposes, as she runs a hand through perfect blonde-brown hair cascading down the back of her white doctor's coat, that in and of itself is not shameful. In fact, it's probably admirable. A high-powered medical professional, choosing to start a family on her own terms, with no partner and no intention of giving up her job? She would be the picture of the modern woman and all that that woman could achieve - yet another feather in her already decorated hat.
It's just that Maura wants a baby for a very pointed and specific reason that isn't acclaim or accomplishment. As flashes of Hope and Paddy run through her mind, her stomach turns a little bit and she, for the first time in her life, curses biology. Specifically her biology - how could someone who believes so much in family and all that it means, all that it could give a child, be saddled with such unfamilial assholes for parents? All four of them? Not to mention the way her sister hates her. Maura wants to set things right and participate in a lineage. Properly. And there it is, at its core - Maura, as an Isles, and maybe as a Doyle, too, wants pedigree. Pedigree done right: superior nature to go with superior nurture - and that requires the family she's found, not the family that founded her.
Maura wants a Rizzoli baby, is what she means. And maybe that shouldn't be so hefty an admission, so mortifying either, since she spends so much time with them. She loves them, and they love her. Maybe it would almost be natural for her to want to belong to them not just by claim but by flesh and blood grown inside of her own body. She contemplates Frankie and Tommy and how they would climb over each other to volunteer to be the father of her child, and how that might actually be the most domestic thing to happen to her. Again, objectively a good thing. But, Maura doesn't want that. She doesn't want to marry them and have kids with them. Either of them.
Maura wants to deliver the Rizzoli firstborn an heir.
It goes back to pedigree, she tells herself - she sees the Rizzolis, though they are of common and hearty Sicilian stock, as a one-of-a-kind genetic pool when it comes to compassion, kindness, and intimacy. Maura, too, is all those things, in addition to intellectually gifted, supremely intellectually gifted - she is also her parents' first. And so, Maura wants those things in double, and she also wants all the power, the respect for her baby that comes with bloodlines and birth order. She looks at Jane and sees prime progenitor material in a way that the Rizzoli brothers could never be. Of course there are similarities between the three of them - but neither Frankie or Tommy touch her like Jane does. They don't drum fingers along the small of her back when she walks through doors they've opened for her. They don't hold an arm out for her when she walks through rugged terrain in heels. They don't run their open palms up and down her shirts when they hug her, like they want to take it off. They'd never get the chance - Jane would never let them. And she wants Jane to give her a child. She wants it so bad.
They are not together, and that makes it a uniquely awkward desire to have. She can't exactly come right out and say Hi Jane, come over. Let me cook you a nice dinner and make your favorite dessert so you'll be pliant when I ask you to give me your children. Not because she's sure of Jane's answer, but because she's unsure, and she simply doesn't do uncertainty. So, Maura has a plan. It is a wild plan - and she needs to be armed with all possible scenarios and procedures before executing this reckless plot.
She reads up on all there is to know about reciprocal IVF: how the donating mother is screened mercilessly, how she is pumped full of hormones before the ova are extracted, how the carrying mother must align her cycle with her partner's in order to mirror the lining of her uterine wall so that the embryo takes. All very clinical, dry stuff. However, knowing all that clinical, dry stuff, is going to make her feel more prepared for the onslaught of questions she knows will come her way when she…. when she goes to Angela.
At first, she dismissed the thought as insane. Talk to Jane's mother about how she wants to have Jane's child? Before they're together? Before she talks to Jane? Crazy. But then… the idea became more preferable over time in comparison to attempting this talk with the one she loves. Quite simply, she needs allies. And who better than Angela, baby-crazy Angela, to fight alongside her in convincing Jane to make Maura's dreams a reality?
Maura shuts down her computer and grabs her bag on the way out the door. She has a dinner date.
"When you called me for dinner I thought something terrible had happened," Angela confesses, fingers fiddling with the pendant on her chest. She's wearing a button up pink shirt and skinny jeans, and Maura takes note of how good she looks for a woman nearing sixty. She wonders if that's heritable.
Maura herself wears her best - an embellished, short crepe couture Valentino, black with a black floral design that stretches from her ribs to her conservative neckline. The fabric of the garment reaches mid thigh and communicates everything she wants to: Black is serious, and all Rizzolis love her in black. What she wants to say is going to require that Angela both love her and take her seriously. The dress also shows enough of her tan legs ending in Louboutin heels and Maura can't decide if that part just makes her feel confident, or if there's some nebulous message about her fertility buried within the way her calves tighten and her ass firms up as she walks.
Either way it can only help. "What? Why?" She feigns relaxation well enough when she takes a sip of red wine at her dining table. She has made a filet with an asparagus salad that looks as complex as it tastes, it melts in the mouth, bursts with flavor when they sip the Cabernet that she has poured for them. It's a fancy meal that Angela would never make, that showcases her talents in the kitchen, and she chose it for a reason - to prove unequivocally that she can be a spouse that is not Jane's mother. Maybe that part's more for Jane than for Angela, who'd probably want all her children to marry someone like her.
"Because you sounded so serious," Angela laughs, "god this is good, Maura."
"Thank you," Maura dips her head demurely, and for a moment she is only having dinner with the woman who's been the truest mother to her.. "You deserve for someone to make you a nice meal every once in a while, Angela. You do it so often for everyone else."
Ok, maybe she's laying it on too thick, she thinks as she sees Angela's eyes start to dance in the light. She knows that dance, one equal parts mischief and deduction, the one she sees in Jane everyday. "Well," Angela begins as though she is formulating what she wants to say. She crosses her legs, leans back in her chair and apparently decides on a statement. "At least one of my kids thinks so."
Maura gulps. She knew before today that their relationship would make this easy, but also very hard. The stakes are high, of course. Angela could take this one of two ways: she could be elated, eager to help Maura, or she could recoil in misunderstanding and judgment. Maura doesn't think she can handle the latter, so she puts all her eggs in the basket of the former, and plans for every variable in order to raise the chances of success. "I know Jane thinks so, too."
Angela guffaws. "But she shouldn't be left in any kitchen unsupervised," she says. She takes another big gulp of wine and then takes Maura's hands in her own. "I appreciate you. I appreciate this. But why are we here? I know it's not just because you think I should get off my feet for a little while," those dancing eyes are on Maura again and they hold the doctor in place.
Maura's cheeks redden and her heartbeat quickens. Her body is alive with nervousness, but also with security in this moment because she knows that Angela won't let her fall. "I want to discuss something with you."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
"I have a proposition that I believe would be in our mutual interest to achieve."
Maura shivers at the loss of contact when Angela lets her hands go and shifts her elbows to rest on the table instead. "Hmm. I'm definitely interested. Go on," Angela replies.
"If…" Maura begins, steadies herself, runs her thumb and forefinger around the stem of her wine glass, "If Lydia ends up having Frank's child and not Tommy's…"
"God, what a disgrace to our family," Angela groans, and Maura can tell that this truly hurts her, that the wound is still fresh. "I still can't believe he did this to us. Shamed us this way after all the good years we gave him."
"I don't see it as a disgrace," Maura says, and revises when Angela scoffs, "I mean, it doesn't make me think less of you, or your children. They are still as passionate, and proud, and kind as ever. They would never do what he did."
"They're good kids. Even when Tommy could be the father of Lydia's baby, they're good," Angela concedes.
"That's what I wanted to speak to you about," Maura chokes out, a little discombobulated by emotion.
"My kids?" Angela asks, "they love you, you know, Maura. All of them do."
Maura nods. She knows this to be true. "If it's Frank's," she reiterates, "I want to have your first grandchild."
Angela is floored. Tears shine over her eyes, unshed. She tries to resist a hopeful smile, but a small one comes anyway. "What?" Maura knows that this is probably the first time one of the four of them has ever willingly brought up grandchildren.
Maura sees her happiness and is emboldened. "Even if it isn't Frank's… I'd give you a second one."
"You…"
"I want to… this sounds strange, I know," Maura pushes forward, "I want to have a baby and I want it to be a Rizzoli."
"Which one?" After a few seconds of silence, Angela finally gathers some words, "It's Tommy, isn't it?"
Maura shakes her head. "No."
"Frankie?"
"Neither," Maura says and meets her gaze with intent.
"You're not with either of them? You haven't been with either of them?"
"No," Maura says, "I want a certain place for my child in the line of succession, so to speak. I want them to have certain birthrights, even if only in principle."
"I'm not following," Angela purses her lips in thought and sniffles as if she is following.
"I want to share my child with your firstborn," this is as bluntly as Maura can put it. "I want my child to inherit all the privileges and honor that would come from being Jane's."
Angela's giddy smile is back again, though unrestrained this time. "You want Jane's baby," she whispers, as a statement and not a question.
Maura answers as if it were one anyway. "Yes, I do. Her… your genes are ideal. All of your children are healthy, strong. But more than that, they are the kindest, most genuine people I've ever met. And Jane is all of those things, plus this family's matriarch. No offense."
"No, no," Angela chuckles and waves her off, "she takes care of all of us. There are ways?" she asks, and Maura senses her hesitation, as if she should know that yes, there are ways.
"Yes," Maura says, "they can be a little painful for the egg donor. But it involves putting her ovum inside of me, along with a whole host of hormone cocktails. I want this child to be mine, too."
"So, do you want… more? Jane is a traditional girl, Maura. I don't think she's going to go for just-"
"Oh god, yes. Yes I want more," Maura nearly laughs at the thought that she would be using Jane only for her sex cells.
"Have you told her that?" Angela raises a brow.
"No, and that's why I need your help. She doesn't know and it's just too big of a risk to-"
"Hey Maura, I forgot that case file here last night and if Cavanaugh finds out I took it home-" Jane pushes through the front door then, keys jingling, announced only by the raspy boom of her evening voice, and Maura nearly chokes on her own saliva. She barely saves herself. The mortification itself could be enough, however, to kill her all on its own. Of course Jane is here. "Did I uh, miss a dinner text?" Jane asks as she scrutinizes Maura and Angela together, steak half-eaten, clearly mid-conversation.
"No, Maura made dinner just for me," Angela says, an indulgent, decadent look on her face. Maura sees it as smug and she knows Jane does, too. "She said sometimes someone should cook for me, because I deserve it."
Jane walks over slowly, gingerly, sensing a trap. Maura feels as though she's the one who can't escape when she remembers that Jane is wearing the navy suit and black tee that she loves her in so much. "You do, Ma. You deserve to put your feet up and be doted on every once in a while."
Jane's smile is warm, close-lipped, her eyes crinkle on the sides and Maura is wet. It's as if her body is saying this is what you wanted, right? She crosses her legs, doesn't get up from her seat.
"And yet you and your brothers never do," Angela chastises, "she's a good one, Janie. Too good for you."
Maura blushes and so does Jane. "I-I know," Jane says, stuttering. Her features turn serious and she nods.
"Don't screw it up." Angela rises from the table and takes one more hearty gulp of wine. "You two have something very important to discuss."
"We do?" asks Jane, "what kind of thing?"
Maura's spine turns cold with the sweat against it. This is definitely not how she pictured achieving her goal.
Angela keeps it vague and saves her at least some embarrassment. "You just need to. And you better think long and hard about your answer because I'll kill you if you give her the wrong one." She points to Jane and then to Maura in her couture trappings. With as menacing a stare as she could muster, Angela watches Jane as she retreats, back first, toward the door to the courtyard.
When the door slams, Maura jumps. Then they are alone.
"Hi," says Jane, taking her mother's spot. She immediately starts cutting through the filet that Angela didn't finish.
"Hi," Maura says back, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Long day?"
Jane takes the wine bottle across from her and pours herself a full glass. "What the hell was that all about?" she ignores the question with one of her own.
"Like your mother said," Maura shrugs, "I wanted to do something nice for her."
"She doesn't want me to analyze your culinary choices with you, Maura," Jane says, and there is an edge of warning in her voice. Maura knows that she is being warned against making Jane vulnerable.
"Are you sure?" Maura plays with Jane instead and uncrosses her legs. She leans in and offers Jane humor to make her more at ease.
"When she said she would kill me I could tell she meant it," Jane replies and pushes through. Maura is nervous and Jane sees it. She puts a hand on Maura's thigh. She's not looking at her fingers on Maura's skin, but she's not moving them either, not when she takes a bite of salad and not when Maura covers her hand with her own.
"I asked for her help with something," Maura whispers, undone by the lazy intimacy of Jane's touch and the way it's setting her on fire. "I asked for her help with something regarding you."
She loves and hates the way Jane stiffens - hates that it means Jane's heart might be retreating, loves the way the rigidity feels near her body. Their hands do not move as Jane continues to eat. "You conspirin' with my mother?" Jane asks.
"Yes," Maura admits shamelessly, "I tried to, anyway. Before you walked in. It was wrong of me, but I don't regret it."
"No? You should," Jane's voice drops on 'should,' into threat territory. When Maura sees the light in her eyes, however, she knows it's a salacious threat. "I don't like being manipulated," Jane finishes quietly.
"I know you don't. But I am afraid, Jane, and you know that Angela is always in my corner. I went to her because I felt like I could," Maura says.
"Why are you afraid? You know you can come to me with anything," Jane assures Maura as she removes her hand from her thigh and cuts off another piece of dinner.
"I'm afraid because I want it so bad - and it involves you," Maura replies. "And if I ask you, you're going to be afraid, too."
Now Jane is visibly nervous - her knee shakes, she sniffs noisily. "Did you tell her that we've been having sex?"
Ah, yes. That small detail. Maura hesitates even to factor it into the equation because it is the one thing that gives her hope, the way her best friend has been settling between her legs every night to banish the tension of the day. Her conundrum rears its head full force again when she wonders how to convince her best friend to become even more than so much more. "No, she doesn't know," Maura says.
"Then what's so bad that you have to go to Ma before you can come to me? You wanna stop having sex?" Jane starts in indignance and unravels into panic by the end of her interrogation and up until that point, Maura hadn't known that the sound of a broken heart could be so titillating.
She reaches behind Jane to rub a thumb across the nape of her neck in comfort, attempting to soothe her. "No, definitely not. You promise just to listen to me? Keep an open mind?"
Jane is unsure, that much Maura can sense, but she manages to nod in assent. "Yeah," says Jane.
Maura steadies herself and then breathes out a meditative breath. A conscious one. Like she always does before she takes a giant leap. "I… I know I told you I was planning on freezing my eggs. But, I'm ready now - I want a baby," she whispers, beginning to cry. Jane hates when Maura cries, and Maura feels a little bit manipulative, but she can't help it. A few tears spill over of their own accord.
Jane's features take on a sumptuous melancholia as she pats her mouth with a napkin, nods in a slow, measured tempo. She is in agony and it makes her look adult, beautiful. "We uh, we never said we were exclusive, Maura. If you need to find someone who can give that to you, a guy who can treat you right, or at least be a, a cooperative sperm donor, then I'm not going to stand in the way of that." Jane is speaking into her mother's now nearly finished food.
Maura sees how upset Jane is under all that maturity and her skin sings with heat in response. She slides her plate in front of Jane so she can eat that, too. "I want a Rizzoli baby. I want your baby." Her confidence grows when Jane's fork clatters against the plate in surprise.
Jane's eyes are on her instantly. "Me?"
"Yes, you," Maura smiles crookedly. "Would you rather it be one of your brothers?"
Jane snarls. "Absolutely not," she responds. "Why me?"
Maura takes a sip. "Your impeccable genes," she answers simply.
"My long bones?" Jane quips, and Maura wants to lick the quirk of her eyebrow, dripping with good humor and sexuality.
"Among other things, yes," Maura says. "But Tommy and Frankie have those, too."
"Stop talking about sleeping with my brothers."
Maura laughs. Dear god she feels lighter with every word that Jane says. "You and I are firsts in line. There are certain responsibilities and rights that come with that, certain burdens, but you more than rise to the challenge. I want my child to be yours because I want them to grow up with you, to grow up knowing you."
"I can be Aunt Jane and still be around every day," Jane tries weakly, as though her accelerated heart rate isn't as obvious as her sly grin.
"Mmm," Maura hums as she nods her head, as though she's considering, "but I want you to be Mom Jane."
Jane is clearly pleased by this because her hand is back on Maura's thigh, and then she shifts her body in her chair so that she can touch the other one. She strokes her thumbs on the tops of Maura's legs now, and Maura opens them just enough for Jane to notice. "What makes me worthy of co-parenting your kid?" Jane is quiet, small, and Maura realizes she's never loved anyone so much.
"It's not just because I want to give you an heir, you know," Maura's voice rumbles with a barely contained moan. "That's part of it. But, I have standards. My baby deserves, will deserve the best. And I've never met anyone better than you. I deserve nothing less than that. They'd be my heir, too."
"You deserve everything you want, Maura," Jane chokes out, eyes between Maura's legs now, though black fabric is in the way. "And I want to give it to you, but I-"
"You need assurances," Maura finishes for her, "your mother said something to that effect. If you don't want to be this baby's parent, I won't have them. But if you do, I want to be more than just your best friend and more than just the person you're dating. I'd demand it."
"You realize we'd be going from friends that have sex sometimes to practically married."
"It's more than just sometimes, Jane," Maura quips. She takes note of the way that Jane's hands squeeze her, of the way Jane finally looks up into her eyes. "Recently it's been all the time."
Jane coughs. "Uh. Maybe I've been wanting a little more from us, too."
Maura is shocked by this, an admission she hadn't considered. "Yeah?"
"I, I'd get this feeling sometimes," Jane releases a shaky breath, "like I wanna get close enough to you that I forget we're two separate people. But lately it's all the time, and the only way I can scratch the itch-"
"Is to be with me?" Maura supplies, speaking in euphemisms so that Jane won't take her hands off her.
"Yeah. And I think if we… if you and I got together, maybe, that would help. I was hoping you'd feel the same eventually, but I can't say I was ready for you to ask me to get you pregnant," says Jane, and they both laugh at her joke.
Maura puts a hand on her chest as she gathers herself. "If only it were that easy. I thought you would walk out on me over this."
Jane turns back to her food, and the tension in her shoulders that Maura wanted to rub away is mostly gone. "Nah. It's a little terrifying," she says, "but I'd give you anything you ask for."
"Anything you want, I can get it," Maura echoes Jane's claim from a few years ago.
"Exactly," Jane affirms. "You really want this?"
Maura considers what she should say. She considers hedging to make sure that Jane agrees. When she sees the sureness in Jane's posture and the openness in her shoulders, however, she realizes that she doesn't need to. "More than anything."
"Well, let's make ourselves a Rizzoli, then."
"Oh Jane," Maura melts; hearing it out loud so satisfying and so arousing, "really?" She is breathless.
"I mean not tomorrow, but, after we hash out details," Jane does hedge, and the fact that she thinks Maura wants it tomorrow is so endearing.
"Months at least," Maura assures her, blushes when Jane fills her glass for her.
"I can do that," Jane releases a sigh that she didn't know she was trapping in her lungs. Then she restores her own self-confidence with a smirk and the way her eyebrows shift up and down, "wanna practice tonight?"
"You're very crass," Maura rolls her eyes, "maybe I should reconsider."
"You're very uptight," Jane chuckles, "but I'm all in."
Maura doesn't know if it's the clothes, or the food, or the way she tried to include Angela that was the most convincing. And she doesn't care.
Her children will be Jane's and Jane's will be hers.
A/N: I wanted fluff so I wrote it.