A/N: This chapter and the next are my favorites, I think, but there is still so much more that has to happen! Thank you for all your support for Trigonometry so far; it really has meant a lot to me.
Jane sat on a dusty corner of cement board in a completely unfinished house, the studs of the wall standing between her and the bathtub on the other side of it. She thanked god that she didn't have to lay tile in the massive home, as she had done with her father before, but still. Her jeans were covered in PVC dust from cutting and installing the gas line, which had started in Tommy nearly blowing them to pieces. She had cursed, used her work boot to shove his ass once she'd recovered from her near heart attack, and now she needed to be alone after fixing his mess. So, she walked back up the stairs from the basement and decided to get started on the main bathroom of the first floor.
Except, the cheap crimping tool that Tommy had inherited second-hand from one of his contractor buddies was sticking. She had the connection on the PEX tubing ready to go, leading from where the shower head would eventually be to the tub fixture, but no way to crimp it in place. "God dammit," she cursed, frustration level rising. This was the fourth time in as many jobs that the tool had crapped out on her. To make it worse, it never seemed to malfunction on her brother.
See, the Alberti house had been a resounding success. And while Andrew and Carina Alberti couldn't stop telling the neighborhood what great work the Rizzolis had done, and while that was stellar for Tommy's reputation as an up-and-coming plumber, it meant more jobs, bigger jobs that Tommy dragged Jane to because he didn't have a crew. So here she was, on a Wednesday night, having taken three of her own days off to help him finish, and his tools betrayed her.
She heard footsteps from behind, her brother's heavy tread, and sighed. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. Even if she had her back to him. "It's a piece of shit, I know," he said anyway, stopping behind her. He sensed the irritability wafting off her back.
"You need better tools if you're gonna do this long term," Jane snapped, and released one of the springs in the crimper by hand in order to jar it loose. That worked long enough to get her two more tight connections to the copper.
Tommy huffed. "Yeah, I know."
"You shoulda had better tools already," Jane continued. She stood up and winced at the sharp pain in her back from sitting for so long. "This job woulda taken half the time it has."
"I'm not exactly made of money, you know? This job is big, yeah, but it's gonna be enough income for me to go out and get some better equipment. Up until this point, I haven't been able to afford it. I haven't been outta prison that long, Janie," Tommy defended himself, but Jane heard the little boy in his voice.
It softened her. Not entirely, but enough for her to turn around and pat his shoulder. "I'm sorry. But this thing is fucking awful," she held up the crimper and they both laughed, more for release of tension than anything else. "You should have told me. I could've taken you to buy some stuff."
"I don't want your money," Tommy said. He crossed his arms, blushing at his sister's kindness and his own insecurity both.
"It wouldn't have been free," said Jane, an expert in preserving Rizzoli pride. "I would have made you pay me back after this job."
Tommy lightened up. "Yeah well, too late now. So let's just get this place done and then we can go out for pizza and wings or somethin'," he said. He threw a coil of PEX tube over his shoulder so that he could get started on the opposite end of the home.
"Yes," said Jane, pointing to him emphatically in agreement. She settled back into her current task, pulling out placeholders and nailing them in.
They worked in relative silence for the next couple of hours, Jane running pipe from the bathroom to the shut-off, Tommy working on the water line for the sink in the half-bath just off the garage. Jane actually felt productive, confident that she'd accomplished her goal of setting up hot and cold for both the shower and the sink of the main ensuite.
It was when she heard Tommy curse, nearly under his breath, that her mood plummeted and her anxiety grew. "What's wrong?"
She swore she could hear him thinking, determining the best response to her question before he called back to her. "Fuck. Can you come look at this?"
She sighed, clenched her teeth, and pulled all her tiny wisps of resolve together. "Comin'," she said. When she walked over, he was staring at his work, again with his arms crossed. She immediately saw the issue. "Blue for cold is supposed to go on the right, Tom," she said. She didn't look over at him because she knew that she would glare. "Did you do that for all the upstairs, too? Switch the lines?"
"Now that I'm thinkin' about it, I might've," he said. She would have respected his naked honesty if it didn't mean most of the work he'd done on his own the day before was a waste. A fucking waste.
"Shit," Jane said, the initial sound of it harsh and hissing. "Shit, Tommy. I told you to use the blue tape I brought! Why didn't you? It's fucking simple. You put it on just above each copper piece where cold goes, and then shit like this doesn't happen!"
As soon as she said simple Tommy flew past annoyed and into angry. "Go ahead and say it, Janie, huh? Tell me I'm too stupid to do this. I know it's what you're thinkin'!"
"What?" Jane looked at him in confusion and annoyance. "Who the fuck said that?"
"You want to. You've never thought I was good enough to amount to anything. So why don't you just spit it out? I fucked this up like I fuck up everything else!"
"You need to calm down. No one said anything about you bein' a screw up, a'right? And if you keep puttin' words in my mouth, I'm gonna get even more pissed than I am now, so stop. You think I would be takin' precious time off work, sweatin' my ass off in the summer heat in this fuckin' matchbox, if I didn't think you were good enough? Huh?" Jane was poking her finger in his shoulder and he hated it.
When her words should have soothed him, her pushing and his own hurt riled him up. "Oh yeah? Then why'd you tell Ma I wasn't good enough for Maura?"
Jane pulled back, then, her brow narrow and her mouth slightly open in shock. "Excuse me? I haven't talked to Ma about you and Maura at all." That was... mostly true.
"Oh yeah? Then why did she try to make me back off? She doesn't think I'm good enough for her, either," Tommy stepped closer when she stepped away, unwilling to let her go.
"Did she say that? Did she say those exact words?" pushed Jane. Her tone was severe. When he didn't answer, she continued. "Again, you need to stop saying that people said things they didn't say. None of us are tryin' to stand in the way of some great romance, if that's what you think you and Maura have, a'right? So what does it matter what any of us think?"
"But you do. You think that. You think I'm not good enough for her," Tommy was in her face now, and it was his turn to shove her shoulder when she didn't talk.
She pushed him back, hard. "No. I don't think you're good enough for her," she barked. He was about to rage, but she went on. "I don't think any of us are fucking good enough for her."
Tommy backed down when he saw the flash of hurt in Jane's eyes that he wasn't even sure she knew was there. "Listen, Jane, I-"
She cut him off. "Just do me a favor and leave me alone. Fix this shit and I'll start on the mess upstairs."
She walked off before he could finish, and he didn't run after her. They worked until it was dark out and then Jane left in her own car without a word to her brother.
Maura squinted when she pulled open the stills of her students' histological analyses - her iMac screen was large, the biggest model, in fact. But this was a poor replacement for being behind the microscope herself, for making the discovery on her own, for manipulating the stain of tissue in real time. She got up and turned off the light in hopes that would bring pinks, reds, purples and yellows into relief, and help her make more sense of what she was seeing. She glanced up at the wall clock in her office just above the door. She'd placed it there once she started at BCU, seeing as she now spent inordinate amounts of hours here: praising, dissecting, critiquing student work. It read 8:48 PM.
Sigh. Perhaps that was the reason. She worked twelve hours, ate a simple dinner of protein, a complex carb, and a vegetable, and then ran right up here to work some more. She wasn't teaching classes at the moment, but rather helping to run the research project at the pathology lab, and she sometimes wondered if teaching would have been less work. Either way, her eyes needed a break. She closed them, rubbed them, and rolled her neck.
She froze mid-motion when she heard her front door open. She smiled. It could have been any Rizzoli, though Angela was least likely since she had her guesthouse. Frankie was also unlikely, because he was pulling a midnight. That left Jane or Tommy, or both, since they had been working a job together. She silently hoped for the former, and decided that a distraction from all this brain tissue was in order.
She pushed a strand of hairs out of her face and stretched her back as she got up. Yoga pants and a long-sleeve, breathable tee made it easy. She padded out of the office and down the stairs, quite pleased with what she saw when she arrived.
Jane, hair now down and around her shoulders, still with little streaks of white dust in it, waited at the microwave with a fork in her hand and three tupperware containers on the kitchen island. One hand leaned on the counter space next to the microwave, while the other tapped the prongs of the fork against her bottom lip. Maura smiled and her chest felt warm. She waited for Jane to pull the plate out of the microwave and sit at the kitchen table before saying anything. "I see you found my leftovers," she teased, putting lids back on food and placing it in the refrigerator again.
Jane smiled in that grimacing way she did when something bothered her. "Yeah," she said. She took a bite of chicken, then scooped her fork into the sweet potato and kale like a tractor - swift and with a lot on the end of it. She was moody.
Maura knew things were different between them when that moodiness pulled at her heart and made her want Jane close. Normally, she would have stayed her distance: Jane lashed out often, even at people who hadn't wronged her, and she'd done it to Maura more than once. But Jane was here - Jane chose to come and spend time, even when she was clearly upset. Or, at least to eat, knowing that Maura could show up at any moment, since it was her house. So Maura banished normally from her mind and went to her. She walked over to Jane's right and crawled into her lap, legs draped across her dirty work jeans, shifting until she was comfortable with the way that Jane's arm touched her back. "What's wrong?" she asked, her own arms around Jane's shoulders, one hand coming up to run fingers through the hair on the side of Jane's head.
Jane didn't say anything for a little while, just rubbed Maura's back and took another bite. "Me and Tommy fought," she admitted finally, quietly, gruffly.
Maura stifled laughter at the grumpy sight. "Oh? At the job site?"
Jane sighed. Closed her eyes at how good it felt for Maura to be touching her, to be on her. "Yeah, it was dumb."
"Hmm," Maura thought, humming the process aloud. "You two seem to do that often."
"I guess," Jane said reluctantly. But then she shrugged. What was the point in denying it? She took another bite and spoke with her mouth full. "We do. You're right."
Maura paused before she asked her next question, knowing she would need to tread lightly. She bolstered Jane for the conversation with a series of short, loud kisses to her temple, where again, those few gray hairs poked through. Maura counted herself lucky to be close enough to see them, not once or twice, but several times now. "Can I ask what you fought about?"
Jane stiffened under her, but it was fleeting. "Started off about tools. I was annoyed that his tools are old and cheap so I barked at him about it, not thinking about how it would feel to him, since he doesn't have the money for new ones right now."
"I see. So you fought about money," Maura goaded.
"Sort of. Then after that he screwed up the placement of the cold water line in one of the bathrooms, and realized he'd actually done it to half the rooms upstairs," Jane said, sheepishly shoveling food to keep from saying more.
Maura didn't care. "That made you upset. Mistakes make you upset," she said.
"Yeah, they do," Jane affirmed. There was no use in hiding if Maura knew her so well. "But that morphed into him thinking I said he wasn't good enough. Which turned into a fight about you."
"About me?"
"Yeah. He said I don't think he's good enough for you," said Jane. She put her fork down and rubbed her left hand over Maura's knee. "I told him I don't think any of us are."
"That's not true," Maura said firmly. When Jane only looked down at her plate, she grabbed Jane's face and turned it towards her. "Jane, that's not true. You know how much I love you. How much I love your whole family."
Jane accepted the kiss that was given to her, and took a few more. Her eyes were glossy, unsure when she pulled back just a little bit. "I know. But am I good enough?" she asked, a tremor taking over her words, just slight enough to hear.
"I think you're the best person I know," Maura said honestly. "But you need to believe that of yourself. And when you do, think of all that you could have." It was the first time since Maura saw what resided in Jane for her that they even danced around the issue. Even put words to it, to the real estate around it. But Jane had started it, and Maura wanted to show her that there wasn't any need to be afraid.
"What's that?" Jane asked. She started eating again just to occupy herself. She felt exposed and raw, and needed something to do. Maura knew that Jane knew the answer. But she needed to hear it, so Maura would say it.
"This-" she attempted to explain, but they were both interrupted by the back door swinging open.
Tommy stood there, also in his work clothes, with a pile of mail in his hand. Maura didn't move, but the both of them stared at him as he waited awkwardly in the doorway. "I uh, was grabbin' Ma's mail and I thought I'd drop yours off, Maura," he said, walking it to the counter and then heading back towards the door. His crestfallen features and quietness told them all they needed to know about him having seen them tangled up together. "You two, you have a good night."
It was Jane who spoke up first. "No, Tom, wait. It's alright," she said, "you hungry?" Maura rubbed her thumb over the top of Jane's chest, just on the collar of her t-shirt, in a silent sort of praise. It's good of you to be nice to him. Bury the hatchet, it said, without saying anything.
Tommy smiled bashfully. "Uh… a little," he said.
"Help yourself, Tommy," said Maura, moving off of Jane's lap and waving him toward the kitchen. "The leftovers are in the fridge. I'll get you a plate for them."
"Thanks, Maura," he said, following. He took the plate, piled on as much food as his sister had, and copied her previous waiting game at the microwave. Maura poured some warm water for herself from the kettle she'd started for her work upstairs, and took a cup of tea to the table just as Tommy finished. They each took a side next to Jane, who was at the head.
"Listen, Jane, I'm-" he tried.
She interrupted him. "No, Tommy, I'm sorry, a'right? I didn't mean to make you feel bad. You know I love you." Jane wiggled her leg with anxiety as she apologized. Maura watched with mirth.
Tommy flushed pink. "Yeah I know. And I'm sorry I flew off the handle. I get insecure sometimes. And I shouldn't put that on you."
"Yeah well, I'll work on not blowing my top if you work on that," said Jane.
"Deal," he replied. Then he took a massive bite of food.
"And this weekend, I'm taking you to get some new tools. I swear to god I'm not doin' another day with you if I gotta work with the Ronald McDonald play set," she pointed at him in mock-seriousness.
He chuckled. "I won't say no to that. Soon as I'm done with the 6th street house, you'll see your money."
"I expect to," said Jane.
"You two are very sweet together," said Maura. She smiled when they both rolled their eyes. "You are! Now tell me how it's going. Besides the very obvious hiccup today."
"Well, should be just one more day since Janie managed to rework my mistakes before she left," Tommy said. "Thanks, by the way."
"You're welcome. The house is big, so it's been a pain in the ass. But it's comin' along," added Jane.
"I'm glad to hear that." Maura sipped her tea. "It's a nice change of pace from the death discussions I've been having this week."
Jane laughed. "But you love those!" she teased.
"I do. Doesn't mean they're not draining," said Maura. She watched how Tommy looked at her, perhaps with some awakening affection, definitely with growing sweetness. But she felt how Jane's body called out to her own, how Jane looked at her and the rest of the room fell away. She just wondered if Jane realized it, held herself back so that Jane could own it without feeling handled.
"Well, I'm back in the saddle tomorrow, so you'll have an interesting conversation partner. Or at least one that's alive," Jane snarked, oblivious to Maura's thoughts. When Maura smacked her arm, she recoiled. "Ow!"
"She got you, sis," Tommy said, laughing. Then he smacked her, too, and she whipped her head around to glare at him. She got him with a quick right hand, and soon, they were trading good-natured insults and kicks under the table, their fight completely forgotten.
Maura giggled and nursed her drink, content to watch them enjoy each other's company for the rest of the evening. She could think about Jane and all her tempestuous feelings another day.