"Next thing we do together is gonna be somethin' fun. Like a Spinners game. Or a brewery tour. Or some peace and quiet on the couch," Jane, dressed in a leather jacket, fitted slacks and tall black heels, griped her way into Maura's home.
"You did get a convertible satchel," Maura observed, as though the bag weren't something she had had to convince Jane to buy, or as though one purchase excused two hours on Newbury Street in the height of Saturday morning foot traffic.
"And blisters," mumbled Jane, kicking her shoes off immediately. She stopped short of entering the living room, her intended destination for a night full of NBA basketball, when she saw wall-to-wall baby paraphernalia. "Maura, is there something you wanna tell me?"
"Huh?" Maura asked distractedly as she sorted her bags to be put away by category later.
"The baby shit!" Jane whispered harshly, gesticulating to the crib, car seats, mobiles, and stuffed animals littered across Maura's floor.
"Oh!" Maura exclaimed softly when she finally turned to see it all. "It's not mine."
"You sure? Even after all that freezing your eggs talk?" Jane raised her eyebrow.
"Jane, that was two days ago. Of course I haven't done it since then," Maura said in reply, shaking her head.
"You're freezing your eggs?" Angela's head popped up from behind a pile of diaper bags, eyes wide and shiny. She looked right at Maura as she asked her question.
"Angela," was all that Maura said, all that she could bring herself to say.
"My mother's too old to have a baby," Jane snarked, turning to Angela.
"I could be a very young grandmother, though," Angela reasoned, turning towards Jane and quickly trotting over to her to take her into her arms.
Jane held her own arm out to stop her. "Uh uh. No crazy ideas. We are not having a baby. What is all this stuff?"
Angela sighed. "I'm throwing a little baby shower for Lydia."
"Lydia?" Jane shouted.
"I hope it's ok," Angela asked, ignoring Jane and looking at Maura.
"No, that's not ok," Jane answered anyway.
"I'm not asking you, Jane," Angela rebutted.
Maura swallowed audibly. "Um, sure, yes," she agreed uncomfortably.
"What?" Jane, exasperated, turned to Maura in disbelief. "What happened to your seething jealousy?"
Maura just shrugged her shoulders helplessly as Angela went back to her post amongst the gifts.
"Janie, you've got your father's hands, come help me put this swing together," she ordered, and Jane followed despite her anger. "And, you know," Angela continued, "all of your girlfriends who have children gave me all their used baby stuff."
"Ma, Lydia's a stranger, ok? She ran into your car. The only thing you know about her is that she's a bad driver," said Jane, screwdriver already at work in her hand.
"She needs help. She's a sweet girl."
"Yeah well, her mother should be doin' this."
"She was raised by a single mother, and she's just not reliable," Angela whispered.
Jane's head shot up from her task. "Why are you lowering your voice?" She looked over at Maura fixing tea in the kitchen, who put her hands up as if to say she knew nothing. "Is she in the guesthouse, Ma?"
"Where is she registered?" Maura asked, in an attempt to be kind, but Jane was already stomping towards her.
"'Where is she registered'? Moochers-r-us!"
Angela had never answered Jane's question about Lydia in the guesthouse, because of course Lydia was in the guesthouse. Whether she was just over for breakfast, or whether she had stayed the night, Jane and Maura would never know, but when Lydia called out for Angela in the courtyard, Jane's fears were confirmed.
"Oh no. She can't come in here now and see all this stuff!" Angela said, running over to the back door just as it opened to reveal Lydia in a Penny Saver uniform. "Hello, Lydia!" she greeted, maneuvering Lydia artfully away from the scene just a few feet away.
"Hi," Lydia answered. "I-I was wondering if you could do-"
"Wondering what?" she was interrupted by Jane, who held a strong hand out for her to take.
"Oh sorry. I was just leaving," Lydia said demurely when faced with Jane, all draped in leather and crowned by wavy black hair down past her shoulders. The handshake was strong and warm.
"Hmm, Jane Rizzoli. Met you when you were passed out on Maura's couch," Jane's face, however, was comically bright, her eyes exaggeratedly nice, as though facial features themselves could be sarcastic.
"Oh, right," Lydia said. "I remember you two."
Maura stepped in to save Lydia from any more wrath that might come her way. "Is your gestational diabetes under control?"
"I guess," Lydia mused, "I mean, except when my sugars are high or low. When they're out of whack I get like, moody and stuff. Sweaty and dizzy."
Jane shot Maura a look as if to say can you believe this? Fortunately, both of their phones rang for work before their conversation could derail. "Well, gotta go. We have work."
"That is so sad that people have to get murdered," Lydia replied with a miserable look on her face. Then she brightened considerably. "But I'm off to work, too!"
"Yeah," Angela butted in, "Lydia got a big job at the penny saver discount bazaar."
"Yeah, I'm like, an assistant to, like, this cashier-in-training."
"Wow, like, that is big. Congrats," Jane mocked her. Maura snatched her by the elbow before any more verbal damage could be done, handed her her shoes and the on-call duffle that had made its home in one of the front hall totes, and then they were off to their scene.
Jane and Maura arrived on the street that had been blocked off in either direction, in between two old high-rise apartment buildings. The area was known as a hotspot for buying and selling drugs downtown, most usually crack cocaine, and also for its vibrant nightlife. Jane had worked it often, both as a DCU detective and as a homicide detective. Which meant that, Maura, too, knew it well. "You know, this Lydia shit has got to stop," Jane said as she pulled a pair of gloves over her long fingers. She had changed into her work suit and the black button up tucked into gray slacks felt much more comfortable than the outfit she had found herself in that morning.
"Then let's tell your mother," Maura goaded, smirking when Jane's eyes went wide.
"Oh yeah, let's tell my mother that the bun in Lydia's oven was either put there by my father or by my brother," Jane scoffed.
"I agree that it's not… positive news, but the more we hide it, the worse it'll be, I think. Trust me. I have experience, remember?" said Maura in return. She watched Jane morph into Detective Rizzoli as she swaggered several steps ahead to meet Korsak and Frost.
Frost, however, was not his usual upbeat self when he put his arm out to Jane. "Jane," he said softly, "have you heard?"
"No, what?" Jane replied, scanning the area for tragedy. As she did, she landed right on Frankie, crying openly just beyond the body of their victim. "What's wrong with Frankie?"
"The victim was a friend of his," said Frost.
"Shit, what? Who? Who is it?" Jane was back, Detective Rizzoli gone as soon as she came, when she bounded over to her brother.
Maura watched the scene unfold in pain and curiosity, her stomach suddenly heavy at the way the Rizzoli siblings gathered each other up in their arms, clearly upset. "It's Shane," Frankie cried. "It's Shane."
"Shane Finnegan?" Jane asked, and when Frankie nodded, she kissed the side of his head, telling him to stay put.
Korsak stood closer to Maura while she examined the body's wounds. Frost did, too. "He's the leader of a pretty famous boy band," said Frost, "the Channel Street Boys. Frankie grew up with him."
"Oh no," Maura responded sincerely.
Just then, Jane approached, sniffling. "How uh, how many times was he shot?"
Korsak answered. "Shooter fired five times, hit him four times. Entry wounds in each thigh, right shoulder and forehead. Fifth bullet was fired into the ground."
Maura, seeing Jane's discomfort, her sadness, cradled her with science. "Copper shrapnel embedded in the zygomatic arch and orbital margin." Information, specifically information that could help Jane solve who murdered Shane Finnegan, was therefore as precious a gift as she could give to the woman she cared about.
Jane nodded to her in thanks. "Copper shards are from the casing. What the hell was he doin' down here in the combat zone?"
"Might have been down here to score drugs," Korsak posited, pulling out his notebook.
"No way!" Frankie, now close by, growled at the sergeant.
Jane turned her back to her brother, stood directly behind Maura. "Maura, the sores on his lips, could those be from a crack pipe?"
"I'll have to take tissue samples," said Maura. "I can't be sure until I do."
That was all Jane needed. "C'mon Frankie, he was using again."
"He was clean," Frankie argued, "he went through rehab." His love for Shane and his need for respect from the Homicide division warred within him; his voice was quiet and tremulous.
Korsak shook his head. "He wouldn't be the first to fall out of rehab, kid."
"Look, you should not be working this case." Jane jabbed her finger into Frankie's chest.
"No, Janie. I have to. I gotta do somethin'," Frankie begged.
"Then go search the perimeter, a'right? Go look for the gun. Go on," ordered Jane.
"Come on, Frankie," Frost put his arm around Frankie's shoulders, patted his chest. "Come on, I'll go with you."
"Poor Frankie," Maura commiserated. She stood, held up a vial. "I think this could be cocaine hydrochloride in a freebase form."
"Somebody shot him four times over crack?" Jane questioned.
"First two shots came from there," Korsak pointed across the alley. "Both to the legs. Shooter didn't want him running."
"Who does that belong to?" Jane followed his finger, and saw the beat up oldsmobile abandoned just off to the side. It looked conspicuous.
"Registered to Shane," said Korsak, shrugging when Jane shot a look of confusion at him. "Maybe he drove a crappy car down here so he wasn't recognized?"
"Yeah," Jane agreed. It was possible. "A'right, well, let's get it back to headquarters, get it processed. God, what a damn shame," she cursed, words raspy and broken as she drew close to Shane again.
"I'm so sorry, Jane," Maura said sincerely. She hovered, respectfully distanced between Shane and Jane.
Jane shook her head, pursed her lips. "It's alright. Just wait for me at the station, ok? I uh, gotta go break it to his brothers before they read about it on Twitter, then tell Ma," she paused, kissed Maura quickly before her departure, unbothered by the audience of cops around. "God. She loved that kid."
Jane's mournful voice rang out as she walked back towards her cruiser, her purpose set. Maura looked around her, Vince Korsak milling about as though nothing had happened, cataloguing evidence and building a timeline, Frankie and Frost looking for anything that could help their case. Life had gone on around them as they shared a small show of public affection - Jane's life had gone on. Even more than that, Jane had initiated, had reached out because she needed it. Needed something to ground her and to comfort her on a day that had started so simply and had ended up in a maelstrom.
Maura prided herself in being that for Jane, once she recovered from the initial shock of the gesture. It made her feel strong. It made her feel needed. She carried that confidence with her through the rest of her inspection, and then in the passenger side of Korsak's unmarked as they rode back to BPD.
Maura, having never heard of the Channel Street Boys, decided to play a youtube compilation of their most popular music videos while she honored Shane the best way she knew how: an exhaustive autopsy. She did not know him in life, but because he had been important to Jane, he deserved it. She bopped along to Pure Boston Beauty as she finished the perfect baseball stitch of his Y-Incision - Fenway ready and MLB-approved. She made everything about her work on him as distinctly Boston as possible - for him, in love with his own city, and for Jane, in love with it the same.
"I love that song," Jane's husky burr was strained, and she struggled to be heard over the music as she walked into the autopsy suite. She smiled, downcast, when she caught Maura's gaze.
"Sorry!" Maura said when she noticed Jane standing there. "I'd never heard of Channel Street Boys before. They're very good."
"Yeah, Shane was a star, for sure," Jane said wistfully as she looked at Shane's placid face on Maura's table.
"How's your mother?" Maura asked as she removed her gloves and protective eyewear and stepped into Jane's space.
"Bawling," said Jane matter-of-factly. Her hands hung limply at her sides, face looking down at Maura in a plea - as though she were testing something, the reliability of it, or if Maura would come through.
"I'm so sorry," sighed Maura, and then she pulled Jane into a sturdy, warm embrace. Jane crumbled, assured that her gamble had paid off, and let a tiny sob escape when she hugged Maura back.
"Yeah, me too," she said once she had recovered enough to do so. "You know, all I could think about on my way back is that I should let my mother comfort me, that I could fall apart with her because of how close we all were with Shane and his brothers. But I just wanted to be with you. I wanted it to be you."
Maura held her closer, sliding the heel of her hand back and forth between Jane's shoulder blades, somewhat surprised that she knew exactly how the detective wanted to be touched, to be soothed. She let autopilot be the balm to Jane's wide-open wound. "I'd want it to be you, too. It's been you, for me."
"Agh," Jane cleared her throat and sniffed, pulling away from Maura and her moment of vulnerability. They kissed quickly as they parted, and then Jane was ready to work again. "Well, what'd ya find?"
"He has a very pretty face," said Maura, leaning back over him, examining his features in the harsh glow of her ring light. "Teen idols often have these symmetrical features and a distinguished brow."
"Yeah," Jane said, "he was even prettier in life. He was so sweet and soulful. His family, this city, shit on him his whole life, and he still loved Boston with all his heart."
"Just like you," Maura noted, pleased by the way Jane's New England timbre washed over her. She used the forceps in her hand to point to the abrasion on Shane's face. "There are fibers embedded in the shrapnel wounds."
"Maybe from the hoodie?" Jane asked, leaning forward, too.
"I have to-"
"Run some tests, right. Ok." Jane finished for Maura. "His father made him the meal ticket of the family. They went from a cold-water flat to stardom just like that," she snapped her fingers.
"Did Frankie and Shane stay friends?" asked Maura, accepting Jane's oscillation between the personal and the professional.
"No. I mean, Frankie would, ya know, see him whenever the band played in Boston. But I think he knew Shane was into drugs, so…"
"Hmm. Probably a dopamine dysfunction," Maura explained, "it's associated with substance-related disorders, particularly with people who become celebrities as children or teenagers."
Jane shook her head. "And here I thought fame was the drug."
"I think it is. It's the drug that leads to other drugs," said Maura.
Just as Jane was about to offer another smart remark, Susie Chang walked in with a fat file folder in her hands. "Tox screen results are back," she said, handing the folder to Maura. When Maura accepted it, she walked back out.
"Hmm," Maura hummed, surveying the results, confused by them given all the circumstantial evidence around Shane's death.
"What's the 'hmm' for?" Jane said for like fah, so quiet and lax, and Maura felt like she was being shown something sacred all over again. Jane's family had moved to their house in South Boston when she was thirteen, Maura knew that, but until then, their family had lived in a three bedroom apartment on Prince street in the North End and Jane had absorbed every sight, sound, and smell into her DNA.
Maura was compelled to answer by affection alone. "Shane didn't have any drugs in his system," she said.
"Well, that's probably why he was down there buying more crack," Jane snarked.
"No, I had Susie take hair samples. He hasn't had drugs in his system for at least six months, my love. The test is definitive and exhaustive."
"That doesn't make any sense. Then what was he doing down there?"
"That's your purview," Maura answered simply, patting her hand flat against Jane's chest. "I trust you'll figure it out."
Jane sat at her desk at midday, sweaty and frustrated by the lack of leads. Shane had been dead for nearly twelve hours now, and she was no closer to illuminating what happened to him than when it happened.
Not to mention, she had done a deceptive thing when comforting her mother just moments ago. She had been doing lots of deceptive things to her mother lately, all revolving around Lydia and the child she carried in her belly, and Jane's catholic guilt sat on her shoulders like a barbell she knew she couldn't lift, at least not for long.
Angela had begged her to go to Lydia's shower that evening, told her that Lydia needed the influence of strong women like her and Maura in her life. They had battled back and forth, Angela waxing and Jane waning, until customers in the cafe had complained about the slow service and Angela had shoved her cellphone in Jane's face, saying something about texting Lydia that Jane would be there at the shower.
"The test results came back on those fibers in Shane's facial abrasions, Jane," the Brahmin cadence of Maura Isles' voice broke Jane's worried introspection, however, as she marched toward the bullpen in those black heels and form-hugging gray slacks. "It's denim."
Jane swiveled toward her. "I did a bad thing." she'd worked herself into a frenzy and the new evidence flew right over her head.
Maura stopped short, file in hand, and cocked her head to the side. "What bad thing?"
"C'mere," Jane waved her forward roughly, impatient and guilty. "I may have hijacked Ma's phone and sent a text to Lydia."
"You did what?" Maura raised an eyebrow. She sat on the edge of Jane's desk and scouted for eavesdroppers.
"Well, hijacked is a strong word. But I sent her a text from Ma's phone sayin' we would meet her at the Robber in half an hour."
"We?" Maura asked a little more loudly, starting to comprehend the mess she found herself in. "We as in you and I?"
"No Maura, we as in me and Frost - of course you and I! We're gonna go there and tell her that she cannot, under any circumstances, tell Ma what she did."
"Absolutely not! I can't be a part of this!" Maura gasped. "How did you even get your mother's phone to do this?"
"She handed it to me to finish a text because she was busy - that's not the point. And you are so a part of this! 'Where is she registered?'" Jane imitated in a sultry, crisp accent.
"I was being polite!" Maura argued, her whisper sharp and desperate.
"Well, then you can be 'polite' cop and I'll be 'I'll beat ya face in if ya tell my mother you slept with her husband and her son cop', huh?" Jane said with aggression. Maura actually flinched. "But you're comin' either way."
"I suppose I am," Maura said resignedly, "are we leaving now?"
"We should. I'll drive," Jane said, getting up, leaving her blazer behind and tapping the fingertips of her left hand against the two dimples in Maura's lower back. "I'll pay for lunch."
"Well, I had a delicious spread of kale, quinoa, and yam packed for lunch today, but since you've thrown a wrench in those plans, I suppose it's the least you could do," Maura teased Jane, tugging a scarred hand in her own as they made their way down the elevator and through the main lobby of the building. Jane accepted the affection easily, fingers loosely scooped between Maura's, keys in her other hand jingling.
Maura's test had paid off. Jane was usually as allergic to public displays of affection as she was talking about her feelings or waiting for test results, but this she accommodated willingly. Eagerly, despite the bustle around them. She even held Maura's hand until they reached her unmarked a block away. She let Maura swipe a thumb across her knuckles absentmindedly as she drove, too.
When they parked at the Robber, lucky to find a spot out front, Jane allowed Maura to pull her right hand up to her lips and kiss it, even with its perennial cuts and small calluses, before they stepped out. All she said when Maura set her hand back down was, "let's get a booth. More private."
The Dirty Robber, being an establishment more suited to nighttime and the activities associated with it, was all but empty just after the lunch hour. Jane chose a booth towards the back and only ordered a cup of coffee. Maura, sensing that Jane did not want to spend much time, ordered a sandwich to go and her own mug of tea.
Twenty minutes passed after Lydia said she was going to be there, and Maura congratulated herself internally for ordering a cold sandwich. Jane's leg hummed under the table. "Look at that," she said as she waved her watch in front of her own face, "punctual too."
Maura chuckled softly. Her affection for Jane still roared from their step forward just minutes before and her palm itched without Jane's in it. "Pregnancy brain. A woman's brain cell volume decreases in the third trimester."
"Well, Lydia can't really afford to lose any more brain cells," Jane scoffed. "You know what the scariest part is about Lydia and my father?"
"Imagining them having sex?" Maura shrugged, laughing when Jane gagged.
"No! None of us should be imagining any of us having sex. Ever. Family is off limits. I've just been wracking my brain trying to figure out what it is he saw in her," Jane clarified.
"Well, studies show that many men prefer to date less intelligent women," Maura added.
"But why? I can't imagine dating anyone dumber than me. Actually, I don't think I can date anyone who isn't a genius again."
Maura smiled brightly. "Why is that?"
"Too many perks," Jane said, "you know everything and you keep up with me when my brain is going ten different directions. You know how hard that is to find?"
"Mmm. I could say the same about you. But men are different. You and I, we have our own lives, big jobs, each other. We don't make men our priority, but women like Lydia do. Men like to be prioritized."
"Barf," said Jane. They settled into a few seconds of companionable silence, each other's company welcome in the day full of alternating bouts of sadness and anxiety.
However, it was not to be for much longer, because Lydia walked through the Robber's front door, sweaty and smiling as she waved to Jane, who faced the front of the restaurant. "Sorry I'm late," she huffed, "I ran out of gas on Sudbury Street."
Maura gasped. "You walked?"
"Uh-huh," she barely acknowledged Maura's concern, staring straight at Jane. "Can I sit down? She pointed to the minimal space next to Jane on that side of the booth, already moving for it even though she wouldn't fit, "Oh, my feet are killing me."
Jane didn't budge and Maura sent a glare Lydia's way. "Right here," she said, scooting and patting her seat.
"Ok," Lydia complied. "So, where's your Ma?" she asked Jane.
"Drink some water," Maura ordered before Jane could say something mean or revelatory, "dehydration isn't good for pregnant women."
"Ok." Lydia took the glass offered to her and began scooping out the ice with her hand, putting into the bowl of peanuts on the table. Jane looked at her like she had grown a second head. "Oh, I don't like ice," she explained. "Too cold."
"Yes…" Jane said incredulously, "ice is cold." She glanced at Maura, who just shrugged. "Uh Lydia, listen. Ok, the reason that we wanted to talk to you-"
"I don't know," Lydia interrupted her.
"But we haven't told you yet."
"I don't know who the father is. I mean, isn't that why you wanted to talk to me?" Jane's face dropped open and suddenly Lydia wasn't so sure. "But it's either your father's baby or Tommy's."
"Oh my god," was all that Jane could muster.
"I, I thought you knew!"
"You thought I knew?"
"Well, Jane, you did know," Maura added.
Jane growled. "I did not know. I do not know. How do you not know?" She asked, pointing an accusing finger at Lydia's belly.
"Well, me and Tommy were just havin' fun, hangin' out, and then he introduced me to Frank and I mean… Frank was so nice…" Lydia reminisced, her eyes there but not really as she pictured the past.
"Ok," Jane waved her off, "can you please just get to the part where you know which one… did that."
"Well, that's just it," Lydia cried, "I-I don't know. I have to come clean with Angela."
"No!" both Maura and Jane shouted, and Lydia flinched.
"She's the nicest, best mother ever. That's why I wanted to bump into her," she said.
Maura felt a surge of protective rage at the notion of anyone manipulating Angela, or any of the Rizzolis for that matter. "You meant to rear end her car?" she asked angrily, accusation and contempt not seen since her fight with Jane roaring to the surface. Jane watched, content to let Maura lead this little inquisition.
"Oh no! That part was just an accident," Lydia said, and just like that, all the anger in Maura dissipated. How could she verbally assault someone so stupid? Even if it was someone so stupid who had somehow procured eternal fixation within the Rizzoli family by carrying the baby inside her, in a way that Maura never could. "But Frank said-"
"Please stop calling him Frank," Jane interrupted this time.
"Well your dad said-"
"Go back to Frank, Jesus Christ."
"Um, well, he said that Angela was the best mom. And I want to learn from her," said Lydia resolutely, happily, as though this were some achievable thing.
"Learn what? Frank left her," Jane barked, leaning forward.
Lydia leaned back. "He left me, too," she said in a daze, "When I told him I was pregnant."
"You cannot tell my mother what you did, a'right? You just cannot. Pop's been an asshole to you for the past seven months, but he's been an asshole to her for the past thirty years. So she kind of deserves to sit this one out," Jane said, voice softening with pity for both her mother and Lydia.
Lydia nodded, and then started to cry in earnest. Both Jane and Maura handed her a napkin from the dispenser on the table. "I just, I don't feel that it's right not to tell her," she choked out.
Jane's nose twitched up in righteous anger. "What, now you got a conscience after you whore around with half my family?" She shouted, and most of the other patrons in the bar turned to look at them after hearing the salacious facts of the situation.
"Baby," Maura admonished, harshly and quickly. Quietly, too, but her stern eyes and clenched teeth were enough to get her point across. Jane scowled at her hand being proverbially slapped, but the new pet name was enough to keep her mouth quiet. "Listen, Lydia," Maura turned to their companion, smiling professionally. "There's nothing wrong with… having multiple sexual partners. There's nothing wrong with getting pregnant by one of those partners. And, there's nothing wrong with deciding what to do with that pregnancy, whatever you decide. But I think what Jane's trying to say is that the fact that your partners are Angela's son and her ex-husband might… complicate things. Complicate feelings."
"You're gonna dredge up a lot of shit for her," Jane boiled it down to its most essential elements. "You could really hurt her."
"Ok," Lydia, with her head down, finally relented. "Ok. I won't tell her."
Frankie had finally found the gun used to kill Shane at the crime scene and Maura had found blood on the slide, probably from an injury resulting from an improper grip. Jane, however, had nothing to find, nothing to do but wait on DNA from that blood, and so at five o'clock, she decided that she could take a break before some overtime to show her face at Lydia's baby shower.
She weaved lackadaisically through Boston streets in her unmarked, legs wide open to fit in the small cab, left hand tugging at the bottom of the steering wheel in practiced mastery. Shane Finnegan was dead. She let herself think it again, as his one-time friend and not as a cop, and something in her told her she should try to start accepting the unpredictability of life. She should take the good things where she got them and when she got them, because no-one could be sure when it would end or when the bad things were coming. Immediately, she thought of Maura.
Maura's hands on her, Maura's words in her ear, Maura's unyielding loyalty and seemingly endless patience for her. Then, she thought of trading all that in to sleep with a twenty year old she met in a bar. Or some townie that Tommy introduced her to. "Yelck," she vocalized in the empty cabin, shaking her head. The more she tried to understand her father, his choices and his abandonment, the less she did. To be fair, Maura wasn't her wife and they hadn't been together thirty years, but the idea of leaving even what they had built in the last two months or so for a piece of ass with as few brain cells as Lydia made Jane's stomach lurch.
Thinking about it too much, and then thinking back to Shane, made her tired. The kind of tired that made her hands ache and her back curl under the weight of her own shoulders. She remained strong for her mother and for her brothers, but that strength wore thin on days like the one she was having.
When she saw Lydia walking up to the door through Maura's courtyard as she parked, the exhaustion burrowed deeper. She still managed to hustle out of the car, however, and trot over before Lydia could knock. "Lemme open it for ya," she said with a half-smile. She searched in her pocket for her house keys, attached to the fob for her civilian car, and brandished it with a little eyebrow-wag of victory when she found it.
"Maura's lucky to have you guys, Jane," Lydia said seriously. She folded her hands across her belly, leaning into the brick on the side of the house to make herself small. "She's lucky to be a part of your family."
Jane shook her head. "Nah, Lydia. We're lucky to have her. If I had a baby that needed takin' care of, and it wasn't hers, she'd still step up. And my Pop didn't do that for you. So I'm sorry." Lydia nodded vigorously to keep from crying, and Jane pushed the door open. "Now forget about him for a little bit and just have fun at your party, a'right?"
"Jane!" Angela called for her eldest, happy to see her when she stepped into the warm house.
"Hello," she called back, neck stretched as if it were tired from carrying her head. "Look who I found." She pointed backwards to Lydia and bypassed her mother for Maura.
"Hi," Maura greeted her. They kissed hello and she grew warm at the thought that it was becoming their routine. "Your mother made you bacon chocolate."
"Ooh. I will definitely be snacking on that later," Jane said truthfully, but with no smile and her palm supporting her weight against the island.
"You're tired," Maura commented. Of course she noticed. "You should turn in early tonight."
"Not if I don't find out who killed Shane, Maura. I owe him that much," said Jane.
"You owe him your best," Maura countered. "And that never includes sleep deprivation."
"I'll crash when it's over, a'right? Right now I just wanna stuff myself with that cake," Jane pulled Maura to her by the nape of her neck and embraced her, placing several loud kisses against the crown of her hair while she attempted not to stick her fingers knuckle deep into the very expensive-looking cake that her mother had gotten for Lydia.
Maura allowed the touch, let herself be half-hidden against the front of Jane's body as she rubbed deeply at the muscles of its back. "Lydia seems like a mess," she said quietly.
"Now or just in general?" quipped Jane, throwing a glance behind her shoulder to watch Lydia and her mother.
"Ah! You have no idea how much I needed to welcome this baby into the world right now!" Angela shouted happily when Lydia finally stood in front of her. She had a broad smile that Jane could hear in her voice and see in the sway of her hands, but Lydia was not so pleased. The tears she had kept in outside fell wetly and rapidly now. "Honey," Angela said, grabbing Lydia's hands, "what's the matter?"
"My baby won't have a Daddy," Lydia mourned in a whisper.
Angela waved her off and put the back of her hand to one of Lydia's cheeks. "Oh, you're better off without that creep. He dumped you because you're pregnant."
"He dumped me when I told him the baby might be Tommy's," Lydia, still whispering, looked shamefully up at Angela with baleful blue eyes.
Maura and Jane met each other's eyes in fear. They trotted over to the other side of the island, just behind Angela's back, and shook their heads at Lydia. Jane even held a finger up to her lips.
"What? Tommy? Tommy who?" Angela asked, knowing already but needing to hear it.
"Uh… Tommy Rizzoli," Lydia admitted.
At first, Angela was elated. "You're carrying Tommy's baby?" she asked with frantic hope.
"Oh, no," Maura couldn't help but say out loud.
Jane put a hand out to quiet her. "Uh, Ma-"
"Frank dumped me," Lydia said.
And then a quiet hell broke loose. "Frank Rizzoli?" whispered Angela, "Frank Rizzoli my husband?"
"Oh god." Jane gulped. "Ma-"
"Did you know?" Angela asked, withering her with a look of sadness and disappointment.
"Just let me explain," Jane pleaded.
"Explain what? That you lied to me?"
"We simply avoided referencing a specific set of facts," Maura stepped in to explain.
Angela was crushed. She was crying now, alongside Lydia. "You knew, too?" She expected Jane to deceive her, at least in this way, because she had been doing it her whole life - telling her mother half-lies to keep her from feeling pain. But Maura, Maura was honest, Maura was true. For her to hide something from Angela hurt. "That was my husband," Angela said to Lydia then, "he was the father of my children. And you come into my house, into my family, and you ask me for my help… after all you've done?"
Jane started to cry, too. The desperation in her raspy voice was so foreign to everyone in the room. "Ma, listen. Please, Ma. Listen to me, ok? Dad did a terrible thing. I just, I didn't know how to tell you. I'm so sorry." She begged her mother to see her, to accept her apology, with her eyes alone. Her handsome Italian face was distorted with guilt and shame and a number of other catholic emotions.
Her mother ignored them all. "I - I was Mrs. Rizzoli for 38 years. I was Frank's wife, and… and now? Now I'm not anybody anymore. Not even to my own kids," Angela said, and then she turned on her heels towards the guesthouse.
"No, Ma c'mon," Jane reached out for Angela. Her fingers ached to touch her arm, her shoulders, anything.
But Angela was broken. Only anger spilled out of her. "Don't touch me!" she screamed, voice watery and despondent.
"Ma! Ma!" Jane shouted, jogging after her until the door slammed in her face. "Please!"
