Chapter 1: Definitions

A/N: GOOOO BLUEEEEE! OMG, yesterday was so much fun! As a life-long Michigan fan, it's been a long (too many to admit) few years – I mean, come on, I'm also a Detroit Tigers fan and a Lions fan…ugh SE Michigan sports. So anyway, YAYAYAYAY!

But also, I'm super exhausted. I 110% need to work on my dissertation proposal today, but that requires actual brain power, so after nearly 5 unproductive hours, I gave up. I'm too tired to work on any of my on-going stories (because brain), so now I'm writing random Rizzles stuff (and also, stuff does not feel like the right word there, so we can all just imagine how this story is going to play out). I wanted to write something emotional/angsty to make you guys cry, but then I ran across this prompt (included at the end of the story) on Tumblr…and well, we all know I'm better at fluff.

"It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters. It's who's around it."

– Charlie Brown

"Maaaa, no!" Jane whined dramatically. "This list is way too long."

Angela sighed as she looked down at the paper in front of her. Angela and Jane were sitting at the kitchen table in Maura's main house trying to agree on whom should be invited for this year's Christmas Eve party.

"But if we invite Carla and Tony, we have to invite Tina and Marco, which means we have to invite Giovanni…"

"No, ma!" Jane cut in upon hearing the name Giovanni. It's not that she didn't like him. It was more so that she didn't like the way he looked at, talked to, literally did anything around her best friend.

Jane gestured violently at the list on which Angela had been writing names and cross them out for over an hour. "I know Maura said that you could host the Christmas party here this year, but you can't…you can't invite all those people. You can't take advantage of her like that."

"I want you to have your traditional holiday experiences," Maura called from the kitchen, and Jane knew that her friend meant it.

"See," Angela said emphatically before deflating. She knew Jane was right. She also wasn't sure she really wanted to host all of these people. Angela's life had changed significantly over the past few months. At first, she thought Frank leaving her was the worst thing to happen to her, but now that he was gone, she was starting to see how toxic their marriage had become. She didn't love that she had shifted from relying on one family member to survive to relying on others, but she was incredibly grateful for what she had.

"Alright, fine," Angela conceded. "How about just family? And Carla and Tony Talucci? But that means…" Angela trailed off as she started looking at her list again.

"No, ma, really? How many times do we need to go through this?" Jane groaned as she dropped her hands dramatically onto the table.

"I know, I know," Angela huffed. "Fine, fine, fine, just family?"

"What exactly do you mean by family?" Jane asked skeptically, knowing that in Italian communities like the one she grew up in, family often described a lot of people.

Angela sigh, and the resignation in her voice hurt Jane's heart.

"Ma, what do you actually want? Forget for a moment about what you think you're supposed to want or what you think you're supposed to do? What do you want?" Jane questioned.

"Just us," Angela admitted. "I don't want all this." Angela waved her hand over the list in front of her. "Not for Christmas. Christmas is about family. I just want a family Christmas. All of us together, and only us."

Jane smiled at her mother as feelings of relief and sadness passed through her (although, the relief greatly outweighed the sadness). "Okay, then. Just our family," she said gently.

Angela pulled the paper from the notepad and crumbled it into a ball. "Just our family," she said, smiling at her daughter.

They both missed the disappointed reaction by the third person in the room.

"Oh my god! It smells amazing in here!" Jane called out as she let herself into Maura's house using her key.

"In here!" Angela called back unnecessarily. Jane rolled her eyes before making her way to the kitchen where her mom and Maura were working together on what promised to be a delicious Christmas Eve dinner.

Jane placed her keys on the key hook and made sure to lock her gun in the safe Maura had had installed. She gave her mom and Maura a side-hug as she swiped a cracker from the charcuterie board that Maura was putting together.

"Jane!" Maura scolded, playfully slapping her hand away. "These are for later! If you're that hungry, there are some cut vegetable in the fridge."

"Veggies? Really? On Christmas Eve?"

"Trust me, you will have plenty of calories later," Maura countered.

"Can I at least dip them in ranch?"

Maura chuckled. "Fine, but you better eat the vegetables and not just use them as a spoon for the ranch," she said with a smirk.

Jane laughed as she opened the fridge and rooted around for her snacks. She brought them to the kitchen island where she could watch her mother and Maura at work. They worked so well together, and it warmed Jane's heart. Jane had been concerned about Maura in recent weeks. They had both had a lot of extra work as people took time off for the holidays, and they had just closed an especially difficult case involving a child victim. However, on top of the expected exhaustion, Maura had also seemed withdrawn, but Maura was so good at hiding her feelings. As well as she knew Maura, Jane was having a hard time telling the two emotions apart – although, that could also have something to do with Jane's own exhaustion.

But now wasn't the time to talk to Maura. Tonight was for enjoying family time, and as much as Jane complained about her family, she cherished this time. She knew Maura did too, and she wasn't going to ruin that for her friend.

Maura slipped upstairs as quietly as possible. She didn't want to cause a scene, and she really didn't want anyone to see the tears that she was struggling to keep inside.

Maura had been so excited at the prospect of Angela hosting their Christmas Eve party at her house. She had heard Jane, Angela, and the rest of their family and friends talk about the past Christmas parties. They were large events, and it seemed that everyone the Rizzolis knew were invited. Never before in her life had Maura been certain that she was going to be invited out to a party because people wanted her there. Of course, she had been invited to many parties out of obligation or because of her name, but this was different. It was supposed to be different.

As soon as she had heard Angela's disappointed tone while she discussed not being able to host the annual Rizzoli Christmas Eve party that she had hosted since Jane was small, Maura didn't hesitate to offer her home for Angela to continue the tradition. Besides, this was Angela's home now too, and Maura wanted her to feel at home.

But more than anything, she wanted Jane, Angela, Frankie, and Tommy to have the Christmas they all deserved. They had had a difficult year with Frank leaving, and Maura would do anything to make the remaining Rizzolis' lives a little brighter.

Except, Jane and Angela had decided to keep this year's Christmas Eve party strictly family. At first, a very, very small part of Maura had hoped that they might include a few friends like her, Korsak, and Frost, but then, Jane had clarified – only family.

And no matter how much Maura felt like the Rizzolis were her family, the reality was, they weren't. Not biologically and not legally.

Maura leaned her back against her bedroom door and sunk to the floor. This shouldn't hurt this much. She was being ridiculous. Celebrating the holidays with your family was what was supposed to happen. Just because Maura's parents couldn't care less if they spent the holidays together didn't mean that other families had any obligation to include her. Plus, with everything they had been through this year, the Rizzolis absolutely deserved family time.

So why did it hurt so damn much?

"Come on," Tommy protested. "I'm starving!"

"We're not starting without Maura," Jane countered despite the fact that she too was getting impatient.

"Are you sure she's okay?" Angela asked Jane, her voice full of concern. "We don't mind waiting…" she paused to glare at her youngest son before continuing, "…but it's unlike Maura to just disappear, especially when she knew that dinner was almost ready."

"She didn't say anything," Jane said, unsure. "I'll go check."

Angela, Frankie, and Tommy fell back into conversation as Jane bounded up the stairs. Maura's bedroom door was closed.

Jane knocked on the door. "Maur? What are you doing?" she whined in the poutiest tone she could muster. "The food's getting cold, and I'm starrrrrrrrvvvviiiinnnnnggggg!"

Jane's concern grew significantly when Maura didn't answer, and her voice turned serious as she called again, "Maura?"

What Jane didn't know but was about to find out was that Maura wasn't answering because she was frantically trying to pull herself together. She didn't want Jane to hear the pain in her voice if she responded verbally, nor did she want Jane to see the tears that had smudged her make-up.

Except, Jane was never known for her patience. "Maura?" Jane said again, knocking a few more times. "Maura, are you okay? I'm coming in!"

"No!" Maura called out when Jane told her that she was coming in, but the tone of Maura's voice only increased Jane's concern.

"Oh my god, Maura, what happened?" Jane said. She shut the door behind her and hurried over to where her best friend was crying on the edge of the bed. "Did you get a call? Are your parents okay? What…oh, Maura." Jane pulled Maura into a bone-crushing hug, unable to look at the sadness in her friend's features for another second.

But Maura remained tense in Jane's embrace. "Nothing happened," Maura mumbled, pushing Jane away. "You should go back to your family Christmas dinner. I'm just having a bad reaction to something," she obfuscated.

"What? Did you eat something you're allergic to? I thought your only allergy was ibuprofen," she said, panicking as she frantically looked at Maura's arms, chest, neck, and face for signs of an allergic reaction.

"No," Maura said, pulling her hands away from Jane and hiding her face behind them. "Please, Jane, go back to your family dinner."

"Maura! What the hell is going on?" Jane said exasperatedly, trying to figure out what could have changed so drastically in the past half an hour.

"Jane! Please stop!" Maura bit back, but despite her raised voice, it came out more sad than angry.

"Maura, you know there's no way in hell that I'm going to leave you like this," Jane countered with a hint of finality in her voice. "If you won't tell me why you're so upset, then I'm just going to sit here with you until you feel better."

"I'm…I'm just upset…" Maura tried. "It's nothing. I just wish my parents cared, I suppose."

Jane's heart shattered into a million pieces, and she pulled Maura back into another hug. "I'm so sorry, Maura. You deserve so much better. I'll never understand why your parents are the way they are, and if I could, I would do everything in my power to make them see sense," Jane said. "I know that we're not a replacement for your own family, but at least you'll never have to spend a holiday or a birthday alone." Jane snort laughed without releasing her hold on Maura before continuing, "In fact, you rarely get anytime alone when you're part of this family."

"But I'm not," Maura muttered as she successfully pulled out of Jane's hug and stood up, wrapping her arms protectively around herself as she stood with her back to Jane.

Jane felt a moment of hurt at Maura's words before realization hit her. Jane stood up quickly, spinning Maura to force her to look at her. "You. Are. Family." Jane said, emphasizing every word as she held Maura's gaze, her hands firmly holding Maura's shoulders so that she couldn't pull away again.

Maura blinked and broke eye contact as tears threatened to overwhelm her again. "I don't need your pity," Maura mumbled, but her heart wasn't in it.

"Seriously?" Jane said in disbelief, stepping back from Maura as though she literally needed a wider perspective of her friend to understand. "I don't even know how to respond to that!"

"Just your family," Maura said defensively. "I was standing right there when you and Angela decided that you wanted only family for Christmas. Now, you realize that I'm pathetically alone for the holidays, and you…"

"You're not alone for the holidays!" Jane yelled back, unsure of why she was yelling other than her utter disbelief. "I can't believe…I really can't believe you ever thought that you weren't invited. Invited isn't even the right word. You're part of this family, whether you like it or not. And trust me, sometimes you're not gonna like it, but you're stuck.

"Literally, no part of tonight was about pity. You were always a part of this. It didn't even occur to us – to any of us – that you didn't know that, and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry, Maura. I'm sorry that we haven't done a better job of letting you know just how much you're loved. And it's not just me or ma. For all four of us, there was never any question that you were going to be a part of tonight's dinner, that you're always going to be a part of Rizzoli family events. Whether you were going to be included was no more a conversation than whether Tommy or Frankie were going to be included. I…I thought you knew that," Jane lost steam as she said the last part. She hated this. She hated all of it. She hated that so many people in Maura's past had left her out that she would just assume she wasn't meant to be part of their family Christmas. She hated that Maura's parents weren't fighting for Maura to spend Christmas with them instead of with Jane (and it would be a fight because Jane wasn't missing the holiday with her friend easily…unless it truly made Maura happy). But most of all, she hated that she had hurt Maura. She hated that Maura had doubted Jane's love for her.

"JANE?! MAURA?!" Tommy called up the stairs. "Are you guys coming? We're hungry!"

"See!" Jane said smugly as she pointed her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the door. For once in his life, Tommy had good timing. "They're waiting for both of us."

"I…I…" Maura stuttered.

"Two minutes," Jane yelled back to Tommy before looking back at Maura. She stepped back into Maura's space and hugged her tightly. "We'll finish this conversation later," Jane whispered into Maura's hair. "But let's go enjoy our family dinner."

Maura nodded against Jane's shoulder, finally returning her embrace. "I'm sorry," she said, muffled, into Jane's shoulder.

"Nothing to be sorry for," Jane said as she stepped back, leaving a soft kiss on Maura's cheek. "But unless you want to experience one of those times you won't like being a part of this family, you might wanna clean up. Otherwise, ma is going to interrogate and mother you until you decide you want to move across the country to get away."

Maura smiled and tried to wipe away the tears. "You should go back down," she said, clearing her throat. "I'll be there in a moment. Please tell everyone to start eating though."

"I'll go down, but only because if I don't, ma is going to be knocking at your door soon, but we're waiting for everyone to be there before we start dinner. It's the rule," Jane said, flashing Maura with a classic Rizzoli smile before leaving Maura's bedroom without waiting for the other woman to respond.

Three-shot (~5,000 words).

Also, I only write Rizzles.