A/N: This entire story was inspired by the scene in 3x01 when Jane looks at Paddy's drawing in Maura's dining room and says "This is cheery," in that East Coast accent. This chapter is the crux of that story.
"Maura here?" Jane sneaked through the back door of Maura's Beacon Hill home to find her mother making tea by the kitchen island.
Angela looked as haggard as Jane felt. She held her cardigan tight to her body and scrunched a tissue in her hand either from crying or from allergies. In mid-October, they both could be the culprit. Her long brown hair fell forward as she placed the kettle on the tray, obscuring her from view until Jane spoke. "No. Why are we whispering?" Angela asked her daughter, who then slunk in to stand right by the refrigerator.
Jane made a face that was supposed to look silly and convey an annoyed displeasure, but she couldn't hide the frown or the crinkled eyes near tears. "She wouldn't want me here, Ma. I did somethin' stupid."
"She'll get over it. She knows, deep down, that he's a bad man. She knows you did what you had to do to keep you and your partner safe," Angela shook her head. Jane could be so morose sometimes.
"No," Jane said, and the simplicity, the finality of it, scared Angela. "No, I said some things… some things I shouldn't have said, in the moment. I left her holding the bag."
"Well, why? When I had talked to her this afternoon, all she wanted to do was make up with you. Why didn't you make up?" Angela narrowed her brows in Jane's direction.
"I- I don't know. I got pissed. I got pissed that she was asking me to apologize for something I've been trained to do. And I was already mad from our argument and then IA being on my ass and-"
"Janie, Janie. Stop," Angela ordered when Jane started to go down the rabbit hole, "you're freakin' out."
Jane took a calming breath; it came out noisy and rickety through her nostrils when she exhaled. "It's just been a long day, huh? A real long day. And what's the point of going through a long day if Maura doesn't want me around at the end of it?"
Angela sighed. Dense – all of her children so dense. "You know, you're just like your father. You say grand, sweeping, romantic nonsense, but given the first chance to act on it, you both become raging assholes."
"Ma!"
"No, listen to me. You've put me through enough crap that I've earned at least that. All you had to do was tell Maura you're sorry," Angela shook her finger in Jane's face.
Jane took a step back. "But I'm not sorry! I just said that!" she shouted, an about-face from her timidity moments before.
"So lie!" Angela said through gritted teeth. "Would it kill you to just lie to make her feel better? I swear, that girl thinks the world of you – she thinks you're pretty and funny and smart and that you walk on water. Where she gets the notion, I don't know. All she wants you to do is take care of her. How hard is that?"
Jane turned dour again, scrunching up her face with a mix of stubbornness, pride, and loss. "Hard?" she winced.
"Ugh," Angela groaned. "You remember when you thought you and Becky Zisti were never gonna be friends again?"
Jane blinked, trying to recall. "I didn't shoot Becky Zisti's father, Ma," she said when she did.
Angela shook her head. Apparently nothing was sinking in tonight. She'd try sustenance instead. "You want some tea? It's from the Szechuan province. It gets its flavor from pandas."
Jane turned incredulous. "How does it get its flavor from pandas?"
"Maura says that the pandas fertilize the tea plants."
"That means they grow it in panda poop, Ma," Jane smirked, just because she loved to watch her mother squirm, happy for the distraction.
Angela did and then quickly switched gears again. "Oh – oh. You uh, you want me to fix you something? What do you feel like eating?"
Jane's eyes softened at Angela's attempt to cheer her up. And just about any other time, she would have picked food to do it. Today she just didn't feel like eating. "Nothin'."
Angela, moved, went in for the embrace. "Come on. It's gonna be ok."
"No no," Jane protested as she swooped left, "I don't want a hug."
"Alright, alright," Angela stepped back, "you better hug Maura when she comes home, though. I'm not letting you off the hook for that one."
Jane smiled sadly to herself at her mother's words as they both moved to the couch. Jane sat first, keyring still on her finger, knees bouncing and arms crossed over her chest.
Angela's heart ached to see her hurricane of a daughter so distraught. "Is it ok if I just pat your knee?"
"Knock yaself out," Jane said, in a totally unguarded moment of North End bravado. Angela secretly loved her children like this, talking like the people she grew up around. When Jane hid her accent to get ahead in the academy, to make detective, and then get promoted to homicide, it hurt Angela, though she'd never let Jane know. Jane bled New England red, and her real voice sounded like the coast, like Boston, like Angela's iron-worker father. Not many Jane had met after turning 16 heard it, and Angela tried to take a little comfort in being one of the few that knew how Jane actually talked.
She wondered if Maura knew, too. "You know," she started thoughtfully, "your father and I went to see a marriage counselor once."
Jane perked up. "Oh yeah?" she asked, her 'yeah' pinched and Italian-American.
"Mmhmm," Angela confirmed.
"Well, that was money well spent," snarked Jane.
Angela swatted her shoulder. "There was one thing that Dr. Becker made us do that worked for a little bit."
"S'that when you had Tommy?" Jane's smile was brilliant and wily. Angela blushed.
"For heaven's sake, Jane. We already had Tommy," she said. "Dr. Becker made us tell him the story about how we met."
Angela watched Jane struggle with emotion again, warring between the humor that so often shielded her from pain, the anger she clearly still harbored, and the sadness threatening to shine through. "M-Maura and I aren't a couple, Ma," said Jane finally, looking Angela in the eye, her face so debonair and dark when she felt things, when she cracked herself open to show how much she truly felt.
Angela took Jane's face in her hands and couldn't stop herself from kissing a sharp cheekbone. "Do you know why you've always been a heartbreaker? Why people love you so much?"
Jane looked confused. "What're you talkin' about, Ma." It should have been a question, but it was a statement, a warning.
Angela pushed through anyway. "Because you care so damn much. And you have this raging Italian temper. It's hard to resist, Jane. And when you talk like that it makes it even harder."
"Talk like what?"
"Like Boston," Angela said, with an exaggerated second kiss. "You need to fix things when you mess them up."
Jane pulled away. "Maura doesn't know what I sound like," she felt the need to clarify. "And why do I gotta be the one to apologize all the time?" Suddenly she was engulfed in a hard hug. "Ma, stop! Basta!"
"I'm not gonna stop hugging you until you tell me the story!" Angela yelped.
"Ok ok ok, get off," Jane waved at her. "I was in the drug unit-"
"I was so frightened when you were doing that work," Angela butted in, her voice quivering. Dramatic.
"If you interrupt, or hug, I'm done," said Jane. "So, when you're a girl doin' buy busts, you gotta be a hooker-"
"Mother of mercy, you didn't have to do that," Angela pleaded, as though Jane could go back in time and change it.
"Ma no, c'mon. I told you it was just my cover," Jane whined.
"Ok, ok."
"So I don't have any I.D., I don't have any money, I'm starvin'," started Jane, "and I'm tellin' Stanley that I'm good for it, right? And he sees it as his shot to get under my skin, pretend he doesn't know who I am. Treat me like shit for being a hooker, you know?"
"He's a jerk."
"A big one. So anyway, I'm standin' there in full getup, leather skirt and all, beggin' Stanley for day old coffee and stale donuts. I get my shots in, as I do-"
"As you do."
"Ma!"
"Sorry."
"He goes," at this, Jane readied her body to imitate Stanley by bringing her arms forward and taking on an absurdly deep voice, "'I don't know anything about you, Tiffany.' So then, tryin' to be reasonable, you know, I tell him that I'll pick him up after my shift. This fucker-"
"Jane!"
"Sorry, this guy has the nerve to say 'you think you'll make that much?' And I'm just about ready to put the malocchiu on him when Maura, sweet innocent Maura, bumps all these grizzled cops out of line to hand me a twenty. She put latex gloves on before she does it, mind you, but-"
"No she didn't!" Angela exclaimed, roaring with laughter.
Jane chuckled, too. "Oh yes, she did. So she's handing me the twenty and I bite her head off."
"Janie."
"I know, I know. I didn't know what was comin'. I tell her she can wait in line for her non-fat latte for a minute and she says," Jane paused for effect again, a master Italian storyteller in the tradition of her mother, her grandmother, her uncles, and her brothers. For Maura, she reserved a hyper-American accent and clean, crisp articulation. "'No, it's for you. And given the vitamin D deficiency likely from your night work, you're better off with some plain yogurt and some leafy greens.' And of course I'm shittin' on Stanley's psoriasis and she's tellin' me the cause of it and all that so I go at her again with 'is rudeness contagious, too?' And she's like 'I was simply trying to be nice.'"
"Poor baby," Angela pouted exaggeratedly. Part of the tradition is for the listener to participate, too, so she did.
Jane got energy from it and continued loudly. "I know. She didn't deserve it. But she got my ass back. I say to her, seriously, 'not every hooker has a heart of gold, a'right sistah?' Real masshole. And she says, 'apparently not, sister.'"
"She did get your ass good!" Angela guffawed again, literally slapping her knee. Jane's smile was wide again, eyes closed in mirth and the chance to get lost in the past.
Maura thought about Detective Rizzoli all the way home. She thought about how all the detectives on scene were just doing their jobs, and how she wanted to believe that of Jane, too, but she needed to ask. She needed to hear from Detective Rizzoli's mouth all the protocols, the possibilities, the decision-making that all coalesced around the clearly inevitable tragedy of her father lying face up and unable to move in a burned-down factory.
Ironically, as she squeezed and turned her grip on her steering wheel, Maura realized that driving a car was the closest she would ever come to the power and the burden of having someone else's life in your hands. She'd never point a government-issue firearm at the suspect of a crime and have to choose whether or not to blow them away. All she would do is make tiny choices along each street to follow the arbitrary rules of the road and not crash her multi-thousand-pound machine into someone else.
She could not know what choices her colleagues had to make, what had to run through their heads, every time they decided to take that shot. So, as she maneuvered her Prius slowly, measuredly, through the streets of Beacon Hill, she resolved to get answers. She would pick the brain of Detective Rizzoli in order to understand why Doyle had to end up paralyzed. Why was there no other way? The only thing Maura knew was that Detective Rizzoli made no mistakes - not when it came to situations like this. She was brash and she reacted poorly to incompetence, but she was lightning on her feet. Faced with the entrance of an unknown variable like Agent Dean into the fray, she would bounce back quickly enough for none of them to notice she had been off-kilter. Maura resonated with this, the competence and the professionalism.
In contrast, Jane was someone Maura could not understand: a best friend who betrayed Maura's family secrets for a man and who refused to comfort her when she needed it most. Jane could go to hell. But Detective Rizzoli dealt with plans and consequences and could compartmentalize. Detective Rizzoli could explain the rationale behind the chaos. She could illuminate what felt so murky and unknowable to Maura.
So, when she saw Detective Rizzoli at work next, they would be discussing it.
It wasn't for long that Jane and Angela would smile together because the front door opened and closed in the midst of their shared laugh.
Maura walked in. She seemed tired, too, just like Jane and Angela, but her face turned cold when she saw the two of them so warm and relaxed on her couch. "You shouldn't be here, not while they're investigating."
"Why? What did you say to Connors?" Jane asked, "because it's none of his business where I spend my evenings."
Maura shook her head in sarcastic gravity, as though she was seriously considering what she could and could not say to her best friend. To Jane. "I… well, you know I can't say anything," Maura said to get Jane back, to get under her skin, revenge for the lack of arms around her. Jane hated to be left out of the loop. And after all she had done to keep Maura in the loop regarding Doyle and his whereabouts over the past two years, when he would be in town, Maura knew that she deserved to know what Connors knew. That is, Detective Rizzoli deserved to know. Jane did not. So she'd keep it to herself.
"Ma, get your stuff," Jane commanded, suddenly all ire.
"Jane Clementine Rizzoli," Angela warned.
Jane's face opened up in mortification. She looked from Angela to Maura then back again.
Maura asked, "wait - your middle name is Clementine?" It was a rare moment that broke the hostility, but not for long.
"Thank you, thank you very much for that," Jane chastised in a throaty Bostonian, uncaring what the ramifications would be for her audience of two. She stayed in her home accent for the rest of her statement, too. "Ya not stayin' here anymore."
Maura and Angela both whipped their heads toward Jane in disbelief. "What? This isn't necessary," argued Maura.
"Ah what - because your family is so screwed up that now ya need mine?" Jane was unleashed now. She stood in the living room fully herself - unbridled and enraged. She looked for the thing that would sting Maura the most. "What?" she prodded when she saw Angela shaking her head, "You're the one who always says that blood is thicker than water so - choose."
Angela closed her eyes in shame, shame that her daughter could be so cruel. That Jane would wrest everything from Maura that she needed in this moment - a stable home, a loving family - shocked her.
"Hello," Jane snarked when Angela just pursed her lips to Maura in contrition and didn't answer. "That's water," she said, pointing to Maura, "I'm blood." When Angela stood still, she threw up her hands in defeat. "Ok you know what? Suit yaself. Sit here, together, and drink ya excrement tea." With that she was on her way to the door.
Maura, for a split second, seemed frantic at the loss. That's when Angela knew that she had to follow Jane - she had to get out from between the middle of them, at least for the night, or they were going to do heavy, lasting damage to each other. "Jane," she called after her daughter, "wait." When Jane turned around and crossed her arms, she spoke again. "I'm just uh, gonna get showered and pack a few things," this time she looked at Maura with a quivering lip and a wet voice.
Maura nodded as though she understood. As though to say, I am used to being the second choice.
Angela hated that. She hated the look Maura sometimes got that communicated the constant rejection in her life. She looked up at the drawing mounted on Maura's wall of a woman crying at a grave, and it resonated with her in the moment, the way her heart grieved for all of Maura's missed opportunities for love.
"Angela, wait," Maura said as she took the drawing off the wall. "Take it. I've always hated it. My mother won't notice it's gone, either."
Jane sighed at the moment they were sharing. "Jesus, Ma, hurry it up."
"You're like my daughter, too," Angela whispered to Maura, intentionally ignoring Jane, refusing to show her obstinate daughter the tears running down her cheeks. Maura looked at Angela in confusion and hope when the older woman took her into her arms for a hug. "Come get me in an hour, Jane. Stay here, drive around the block, get something to eat, I don't care. I just need some time to get ready."
Maura nearly collapsed when she felt the intimacy of Angela's hand on her head as they embraced, and it gave her strength as Angela walked away and out the door to her guesthouse. Jane stood open and angry in the living room behind her and flinched when Maura spun around to direct a glare her way. "You and me. Upstairs. Now. We need to talk."
"The hell we do," Jane's lip curled in a very ancient show of aggression. "I'm gonna go wait in the car for Ma," she said and turned on her heels.
Maura caught her right arm and yanked her back. "Now," she reiterated.
Jane couldn't resist the insistence in Maura's touch as she tugged her blazer sleeve toward the stairs. The pull was hard and uncompromising. It bent her spine low enough that her head was level with Maura, and she stumbled up the first couple of stairs. It was easiest to just pull her arm down to lace her fingers roughly with Maura's, and that gave her her height back.
Maura felt Jane's erect shadow rise behind her as they ascended the stairs now hand in hand, Jane's eyes only on the high slit of her skirt. And then, suddenly Maura was acutely aware that the ghost of Detective Rizzoli had entered the room, the way her gaze attempted to deduct and to unravel the mystery of Maura's legs - she was haunting even in her diminished, off-the-clock form. Commanding, unyielding. With that information, Maura realized that she could interrogate her now, and not have to wait for the next morning in the office. She made the very conscious decision not to break the physical bond that had formed between them until they had reached the privacy of her bedroom.
"I'm going to ask you some questions and you need to listen to me," Maura instructed, their hands now apart, the door now closed.
"Listen Maura," Jane replied, and then she was Jane again with her slumped shoulders and the darkness around her eyes. "I'm tired. It's been a long-ass day. I know I fucked up at the hospital but I don't think I have the-"
"Shh, stop," Maura whispered harshly.
This irked Jane. "Did you just shush me? After you told me we needed to talk? Really?"
"I also said you needed to listen to me first. I don't care what your excuse is or how long of a day you had because mine has been worse, I guarantee you."
"Just because you're… rightly upset doesn't mean I-"
"And I don't have the capacity for that conversation either right now," Maura barreled right over Jane, unwilling to cede any ground. Unwilling to hear anything Jane might have to say to soften her heart. "So we're not going to talk about it. I need you to walk me through what happened."
Jane scoffed and her mouth was slack with confusion. "What?"
"The procedure. From start to finish. Explain it to me - why your bullet ended up in my father," Maura elaborated, though she seemed loath to do so, like she thought Jane was daft for asking.
"Maura, I-"
"Pretend we're at work. Pretend Dr. Isles has just asked Detective Rizzoli this question about a case with no personal ties. What do you say? Because I'm struggling to understand. But I want to believe that you did the right thing."
They stood near Maura's low and long mahogany dresser, the one Jane had a plethora of things on - extra badge clips, chapsticks, a few pairs of clean socks next to Maura's immaculate collection of expensive jewelry, much to Maura's chagrin. They both turned their gazes to Jane's pile and then back at each other.
Jane saw Maura's annoyance ratchet up even further. Maura had never been this annoyed at Jane. It wrecked her. "Maura, like you said: you want me to apologize for hurting your feelings, not for what I did, so why are we even doin' this?" Jane whined, her pout so close to Maura's lips as they struggled to see each other in the dark.
"Don't bring Jane in here," Maura spat, instantly livid, "fuck Jane. I have some things I need to hash out with Detective Rizzoli. Jane is absurd and immature. At least Detective Rizzoli and I can speak like adults."
Jane grunted in her own anger. She ripped her gun and her badge away from her belt and threw them into an empty dresser drawer. The resulting smack of wood on wood as the drawer slammed shut made them both jump. "Oh fuck Jane, huh? Fuck me? I'll show ya fuckin' Detective Rizzoli. Is that who you want to come out and play?" Jane shouted. She didn't bother to hide her accent and it came out husky, raw.
As Jane grabbed her by both arms, Maura's fear response skyrocketed. Her heart thrummed in her chest and her hands flushed with sweat. Her stomach flipped mercilessly and for a moment, she wondered what Jane was about to do to her, if Jane was about to hurt her.
But it was only a moment. Her ass thudded against the top of the low dresser and Jane was ripping her blouse roughly from its tuck. Then, Jane was kissing her hard enough to feel teeth behind her lips. Jane stunned Maura when she shoved her blazer down her shoulders, and she stayed stunned until Jane's hands grabbed at her hips in frustration.
Maura then took action. She unzipped her skirt and pushed up on her hands so that Jane could tug it away from her body. Somehow she managed to kick off her boots, and when Jane yanked her blouse over her head and she sat there in only her lingerie, she pulled Jane in for another kiss. They groped for each other's tongues, Maura's hands scratching roughly at the sides of Jane's face, her teeth dragging Jane's upper lip between them as if to communicate exactly what she wanted. She put shaky hands on the buckle of Jane's belt and pulled it so hard that Jane lurched forward and yelped. Jane responded by sliding all her fingers through the front of Maura's thong and winding it tight around her right palm, pulling it far from Maura's body and simultaneously bringing Maura closer to her. Maura bucked her legs open and when Jane saw the bare and wet slit between them, she knocked her forehead to Maura's and closed her eyes. The gulp was audible.
"You better fuck me like a cop," Maura threatened Jane, "not like my best friend. Otherwise you'll never see it again."
Jane went hard again with her plunging brow and exposed teeth. "You're real fuckin' audacious, you know that?" She asked Maura, who kicked Jane's slacks down around her ankles with her feet, leaving Jane in only her black boyshorts and a puddle of material around her ankles that were still in boots. From the waist up, she still had on her blazer and her t-shirt, as though she could get called out to work any second. "I'll see it whenever I want."
That made Maura want to scream, the way Jane acted like she owned her, but what pulled the actual scream from her lips were two of Jane's fingers deep inside of her, without notice. Jane pushed her wrist forward with her hips and pulled Maura closer with the makeshift bind of Maura's underwear in her hand.
She crossed her eyes at the way Maura's body squeezed wetly around her fingers, moaned thickly when Maura noticed and then squeezed on purpose. "You like that," Maura stated, confidently, then did it again. The hot pressure brought Jane stumbling forward and into another kiss.
They continued shamelessly in the loud smack of lips against lips and fingers between hips, and Jane loved the sound of them together both above and below. "Put your leg on my shoulder," she demanded, and Maura complied without complaint. Soon Maura realized why they switched positions when her underwear fluttered over her pointed foot and Jane added a third finger inside and a thumb where Maura needed pressure the most.
Jane gave and Maura accepted for long minutes, each moving to keep the pace between them as they hurried Maura to orgasm. Jane's panting so close to her ear when she finally dropped her leg back down drove Maura crazy, made her frenzied for the primal closeness they were building. She could see the ache in Jane's arm as it pleasured her and she grabbed it, rubbing the muscles deeply to encourage their finish. "Almost there," she moaned into the side of Jane's face, kissing her sloppily, openly, right where jawbone met ear, "find that stroke."
Jane, adept at finding the stroke all on her own and needing no encouragement, chuckled. She switched back to two fingers and curled up four, five, six times, all while keeping her thumb pad moving in tight circles, and watched Maura fight climax as long as she could.
"Shit, shit," Maura finally shrieked. She bit hard on Jane's shoulder as she rode out her wave.
"Ow, fuck," said Jane loudly, a mixture of aroused and displeased.
"Sorry," Maura said through a smirk, though clearly not sorry at all. She winced when Jane pulled out but didn't waste any time dismounting her dresser and shoving Jane towards the armchair near the window of her bedroom. Because her pants were still around her ankles, Jane stumbled back until she plopped down into the seat. "Trust me," Maura prefaced, "you're going to want my mouth."
Jane only nodded, Maura clearly in control now. "I do trust you, doctor," she managed to tease, but then her underwear joined her pants and Maura was spreading her knees. A tongue ran through her heat and her arms instantly shot out against the length of the chair, knuckles white from gripping the edges. She slumped down and spread her legs as wide as her slacks would allow, indulging in the wet hot feeling of getting licked to oblivion. "Fuck, Maura," she said, all New England in the way fuck sounded so raw and Maura sounded almost like Mara.
In response, Maura flattened her tongue and moved in broad strokes against the whole length of Jane's sex before she poked her head up. "Is this a bedroom thing? Or is this what you actually sound like?"
Jane was perturbed, distraught. "What're you stoppin' for?" She griped, shoving Maura down by the back of her head. Maura punished her by biting her. Hard. "Ouch, shit!" When Maura's eyes looked up expectantly but her tongue soothed where she had sunk her teeth, Jane melted back into the chair, eyes closed. "You're just getting me, babe. I'm too tired, too keyed up to pretend right now."
Maura softened at the words and she gave Jane over to orgasm as a reward. Jane bucked and groaned, leaning forward and putting both hands on the sides of Maura's head as she finished and then collapsed backwards.
Maura climbed up and straddled Jane soon after, and they kissed long and slow and salacious. "I like the way you talk when you aren't trying to be someone else, Detective."
"Maura," Jane growled, thumbs running over the underside of Maura's lacy bra on her sides, with Maura's hands wound up in the lapel of her jacket, "I'm off the clock. Lemme be me, like you said. I wanna talk about this, about what happened between us."
Maura turned stiff in her hands and broke them apart mid-kiss. "Absolutely not. I told you who you needed to be for me in here. And who was not allowed. Are you ready to talk about why you had to make the decision to shoot Paddy?"
Jane moaned and tried to bury her face in Maura's chest. "No, I just want to take off my clothes and sleep. With you." When she felt Maura trying to extract herself from their entanglement, she changed course. "And apologize for what I said."
"Then you need to get the hell out of my room, Jane," Maura said, appalled that Jane had not listened to her. She got up and went straight for the robe draped across the made bed.
"Wait, really?" Jane, shocked, rubbed her hands over her face, eyes still adjusting to the dark. "Maura, we just-"
"Yes, really. I told you, fuck you. I'm not talking to you about this. You need to leave," Maura ordered as she cinched her robe tight. "Unless you're willing to give me your detective's rationale for all of it, you have to go."
"Jesus," Jane cursed. She got up from the chair and pulled her pants back up as she rose, shoving the tooth of her belt through its hole with vigor. "A'right then. I'm outta here. And I'm taking my mother."
Maura stood firm as Jane got in this last jab and grabbed her gun and badge from the dresser. She waited for Jane to slam the door and trot angrily down the stairs before she began to tremble.
