Jane suppressed a jitter as she stomped into the Division One Cafe, flanked by Korsak and Frost, all of them earlier than usual. Quite a bit earlier. She had been so early, in fact, that now she had to roll her shoulder to adjust the twist in her undershirt from getting dressed in the dark. With a final retuck of her blue t-shirt to make everything at least appear more put together, she turned the corner to see her mother chopping herbs and putting them into a bowl. "Ok, I'm dyin' to know why Cavanaugh brought us all in early," she grumbled.
"Me too," Frost said, looking decidedly sharper than her in his suit and pressed shirt, "can't be good news, right?"
"Maybe Angelina Jolie is playing a homicide cop and wants to do a ride-along," Korsak quipped as they made their way to the coffee station.
"Yeah, we can only hope," Jane snarked, intent to start off the day in a shitty mood, until she saw Maura with a mug of tea in her hands and a bright smile on her face. "Hey," she said in the voice only Maura got to hear, and touched her forearm gently.
"Hi," Maura continued to smile as she joined them, "and don't think that I didn't hear the Angelina Jolie comment. Is that why you stayed at your place last night?"
"To sleep with Angelina Jolie?" teased Jane, "no. Not my type." She snatched a coffee cup from just behind the carafes on the counter, and hissed when no coffee came out as she pushed down on the lever. "No coffee? What the hell?"
Maura stifled a laugh at Jane's strangled whine. "Try some green tea," she offered, "only fifteen milligrams of caffeine."
Jane peeked over the lip of Maura's mug in disdain. Angela appeared beside her, a bowl full of what she had been chopping just moments before. "Anybody want fresh mint for their tea?"
"Oh excellent, thank you," Maura replied, taking the tongs off of Angela's bowl and dropping several mint leaves into her hot beverage.
Jane snapped. "No, we want caffeine," she barked at her mother, holding her empty cup out expectantly.
"I'm not allowed to serve coffee today," said Angela.
"Said who?" Jane needed to know so that she could murder them herself.
"Him," was all that Angela had in response. She let her eyes rake over the broad shoulders of Lieutenant Cavanaugh as he strolled into the cafe with several uniforms at his back. He nodded to Angela with a crooked half-smile.
"Morning," he said, as brightly as a middle-aged man from South Boston could, "I'm sure you're all wondering why I asked you in early today."
"Actually, we were wondering where the coffee is, sir," Jane answered, only containing the stamp of her foot because she was talking to her boss.
"I'm glad you asked," Cavanaugh smirked as he talked. "Cause the homicide squad is taking part in the citywide 'week of health' initiative."
Maura raised her hand immediately as if they were all back in school and Jane blushed for her. "Are you raising your hand?" Jane asked under her breath. Maura ignored her.
"Dr. Isles?" Cavanaugh called.
"I'm happy to do whatever I can to support this program. It has tremendous benefits. I know one of the physicians on the committee," said Maura. "All of our personnel could stand to learn something."
"And why is that?" Cavanaugh said, taking his cue from her. "Is it because seventy percent of all medical costs are related to smoking, physical inactivity, poor food choices, and stress?"
A growing number of annoyed cops looked on as he and Maura volleyed back and forth. "Well, yes. Which leads to higher-than-average mortality rates for cancer, suicide, and heart disease."
"Maybe because somebody took their coffee away," Jane grumbled, and Maura only shook her head while the other officers and detectives laughed.
"On average, police officers only live two to five years after retiring," she said, making eye contact with several others in the room, who gasped. "And," she turned only to Jane now, "I won't have you dying just short of sixty. Looking for a new mate that late in life would not be ideal."
Jane smiled at Maura's playful glare, basking in the implication of her assertion.
"And I'm not standing by and letting my people drop dead," Cavanaugh said sternly.
"Well what do we do?" Frost asked, all but convinced.
"I'd like to ask Mrs. Rizzoli and Detective Rizzoli to join Dr. Isles as our Wellness Captains for this week," their boss replied.
The looks on Maura's and Angela's faces were joyful, but the one on Jane's was sour. "What?" she scoffed.
Korsak smiled wickedly in her direction. "How about a nice, big round of applause for our new Wellness Captains?" he said to the rest of the room, and while Maura and Angela clapped along with everyone else, Jane glowered at him. Frost and Cavanaugh stifled laughter.
"Ok so listen up: Mrs. Rizzoli will provide meals, Dr. Isles will guide us in meditation, and Detective Rizzoli will lead us in physical activity breaks."
"A PE teacher, really?" Jane groaned. She turned to her mother. "Why didn't you give me a heads up? I could have stopped at Boston Joe's!"
"Oh, this aggressive behavior proves you're a caffeine addict," Angela said seriously.
Jane felt her muscles twitching of their own volition. She nearly crushed the empty cup in her hands.
Maura touched her forearm, rubbing with a thumb. "Well, let's just take a moment and celebrate the fact that the Lieutenant wants us to be Captains."
"He wants us to be hall monitors, Maura," said Jane.
With her bubble sufficiently burst, Maura frowned for the first time that morning. "Oh."
Just then, all of their phones buzzed with an incoming text from dispatch. "Ok, we gotta go. We got a high profile suicide," said Frost.
"Great!" Jane said just a little too enthusiastically, "Come on, we can stop and get some coffee."
Maura stood at the shoulder of the body of Ethan Slater, the suspicious death that they had been called to investigate. He apparently had written one of the best selling books of the decade so far, a memoir about his own mental illness and struggles with addiction called Suicide Boy. Even she, the empiricist that she was, thought that the irony of him hanging himself after the success of the book was too perfect, even for a writer - something just wasn't right about his injuries. "There's a sticky substance alongside the ligature marks on his neck. I'll have trace run tests."
Jane, her conversational partner and very fidgety lover, bounced across from her, deep in thought. "Ok thanks. Any news on the BAC?"
"Not yet," Maura answered. "I thought you stopped for coffee," she said as she catalogued all the ways Jane's body threatened to unravel. The dark circles just under Jane's eyes tugged at her heart.
"Line was too long. Go figure. And now I'm back in coffee jail for the foreseeable future," Jane pouted.
Maura smiled despite herself. She loved the handsome way Jane made even her displeasures known. It involved so much corporeal grace, barely bridled physical passion, and it drew Maura out. However, as she got lost in the image of Jane, her phone chimed and then her own voice filled the autopsy suite. It's time for your five minute meditation, said the recording.
Jane actually recoiled. "Turn that off, please."
Maura shook her head and chuckled. "Meditating lowers stress. It improves focus." She waited for Jane to head toward the office so that they could begin. When it became clear that Jane had no intention of meditating, she altered tactics. "I don't want to have to report you."
Jane gasped. "Report me? You are gonna report me? I thought we were closer than that."
"Well I have to. Lieutenant Cavanaugh insisted," Maura said with a shrug of her slender shoulders.
"Ok," Jane said, crossing the table to stand next to Maura, "Fifty push-ups." Maura looked terrified. "Now, babe. I don't want to be forced to report you."
"It's hardly fair if I'm the only one doing the physical activity," Maura murmured, switching things up again. She put her chart down and took Jane's hand. She relished how warm it felt. "Tell you what. You meditate with me, and I will brew you a giant mug of organic black coffee. I have that bag of Subtle Earth beans in my office. It'll be your reward, and no one will have to know."
"You would let me break the Wellness rules?" Jane asked suspiciously.
"Technically, no," Maura sighed. "Organic coffee is one of the best forms of energy enhancement, as long as there isn't any dairy or syrup in it."
"That sounds like heaven," Jane finally nodded. "It sounds worth the torture of meditation."
It was not to be realized, however, because Susie Chang burst into the suite at that moment, carrying a hefty file folder. "The victim's blood alcohol level results are back," she said.
Jane's eyes lit up with a different kind of energy. "Excellent."
Susie handed Maura the file and made her exit just as swiftly as she came. "He was pretty intoxicated," said Maura. "Point one eight."
Jane winced. "Poor guy was out of it when he killed himself."
"I'm not so sure he killed himself, Jane. Fractures indicate asphyxiation, not forceful hyperextension due to hanging."
"So… strangled, then hanged."
"I'd say that's a fair conclusion, yes."
"Ok. I gotta let the guys know. Thanks Maura. For the info and the offer of contraband coffee, even if I can't take you up on it," Jane's grin was sincere, and her hands on her belt very becoming, Maura thought.
"I'm sorry I can't make you some. But you should come by tonight. Let me teach you how to meditate the right way. I promise you'll feel better when you do it," she pleaded. "You really should try to mitigate the stress in your life somehow."
Jane pretended to really weigh her options. "A'right. If dinner's part of the bargain, I'll do it. Last night I ate three scoops of peanut butter."
Maura laughed. "See why you should move in? At least you would eat something resembling a meal every night if you lived with me."
Jane blushed. "I said I would. Things have just been crazy here and with Lydia that I haven't really had time to pack. Or tell anyone."
"If you let me call movers, this would be over already."
"No, I can box and move my own stuff, Maura. Movers are a waste of money, especially when there are three able-bodied Rizzoli siblings available to do the work."
"We're not going to talk about how I don't think you're as able-bodied as you say you are," Maura retorted. When Jane went to counter, she held up her finger. "Go give this information to your partners. I will see you tonight."
Jane shocked herself on her lunch hour, swiveling in her desk chair and absentmindedly popping beet chips into her mouth. They tasted like ass, but her mother refused to make anything for lunch but vegan quinoa wraps so… at least she didn't have to go downstairs to eat the chips.
Frost sat across from her, valiantly attempting his own wrap, chewing around the lettuce and grainy quinoa. Frankie grimaced in the chair next to Jane as he pulled from a bottle of fresh-pressed green juice. Korsak flouted his seniority in front of all of them by eating his favorite turkey on rye from the deli down the street.
"Yuck, ugh," Frankie groaned, "have you tried this shit? It tastes like sweat and rotten celery." He screwed the bottle back on the cap with malice.
"Stop drinking it," Frost said, "and stop drinkin' your own sweat, too. Here," he pulled out two bottles of gatorade from his desk drawer and handed one to Frankie.
"Oh, hey, with the sugary drinks?" Jane whipped her feet off their perch on her desk and tried to snatch the bottle from her partner's hand, but he was too quick. "I already told Ma about the contraband donut this morning."
Frost feigned betrayal. "You wellness snitch," he gasped.
Frankie laughed and took a big swig of his gatorade. "So listen. Somethin's goin' on with Ma."
"Is that why you're here? Maybe she ate too many chia seeds," Jane joked as she crossed her arms.
"Ha ha," he snarked. "Janie, she's growin' herbs."
Jane shook her head. "Uh oh. Did you spot cannabis between the basil and the rosemary?"
Frankie socked her arm. "She hasn't gardened since Pop left. You know this."
"Oh no, I hope she's not enjoying her life again," Jane said sarcastically.
"Ok, look. She's suddenly interested in lip balm, and she asked me if the pants she was wearing made her look fat," Frankie said, rolling his eyes at his sister.
Jane leaned forward. "Well shit. That is bad. No, that's a bad sign."
"I told you," said Frankie, vindicated.
"Do you still think it's her and Cavanaugh?" asked Jane, peering dramatically around the corner to make sure their boss was nowhere in sight.
Frankie did the same. "I don't know. They haven't been as chatty around Ma's work, but Cavanaugh's been burnin' the midnight oil with that thing from the Governor's office goin' down, so maybe they just haven't had the chance."
"God, gross," Jane said. "How do we find out?"
"You could just ask her," Frost said. He looked at them as if this were the most obvious course of action.
"You're not gonna get any answers that way," Korsak finally popped in. "Sean is notoriously hush hush about his love life. He's probably had your mother sign an NDA if they are together," he chuckled.
"Christ," Jane and Frankie said, heads thrown back in stress.
"You're both lookin' a little tense," Frost said, beaming, "maybe you should try some meditation."
"Shut up, Frost," said Jane, tossing a pencil at his head.
That evening, inside of Maura's admittedly very zen bedroom, incense burned forgotten, and yoga mats lay undisturbed on the floor. The robes she had put out for she and Jane to wear during their introduction to meditation had fluttered to the bench at the foot of the bed, and instead of quiet, regulated breaths, or restful chants, her and Jane's twin panting filled the space. Things had gone very unaccording to plan, but Maura couldn't be bothered with frustration as her body slacked with recent release and she put her hand on the side of Jane's face, which was puffing ragged breaths against her sternum.
"I don't know how meditating turned into you coming inside me," Maura laughed as Jane tried to slow her own lungs.
"'M sorry," mumbled Jane, and Maura could feel the teeth of her smile against her chest.
"Don't be, Wellness Coach," she teased. "I got mine, you got yours. I'd say it was a very successful session."
Jane, having brought enough oxygen back to her bloodstream to act, resumed her wet trail of kisses along Maura's chin, jawline, neck. "Well then, if that's the case... meditatin', baby-makin', I'm not really seein' a difference."
Maura was ignited by the featherlight strokes inside of her when Jane slipped in again, and she writhed in time to them, slow and rhythmic with her hands on Jane's behind to keep her close. "Mmm," she half-moaned, half-replied, "are you saying you want to make a baby with me?"
Jane blushed and latched onto an earlobe with her teeth. She used her hips to brush up against Maura's favorite spot so that she wouldn't have to answer that question. "It's a figure of speech. Did you hear that? Outside?" She tried a verbal distraction as well, biting back a moan of her own, when Maura pulled her legs forward, knees now near Jane's shoulders, opening up everything so much deeper. The sound of them together changed, got louder, and thrusts became more intentional when Jane heard it.
"Hmm," Maura hummed against Jane's temple, pretending to seriously consider an answer, "try not to attach to the ambient noise. Makes it easier to quiet your mind."
"My mind's been runnin' a mile a minute since you just opened it up for me. My heart, too," Jane said, all throaty vowels and raspy sound waves.
Maura's hands were all over her in the way that drove her wild - in that sexy, domestic way, with palms against her cheeks to hold her face while they kissed, with fingers sliding down the length of her back, up and down and in calming circles, just to let her know that Maura was there, that she was enjoying herself, that she would take care of Jane both inside of their bed and out. "Feel mine," said Maura to her, smirking when she took Jane's hand from the mattress beside them and placed it in between her breasts. "At least you're not alone," she reasoned.
Candlelight, also intended for Maura's quite innocent lesson for Jane on meditation and mental health, now cast the shadow of their union on the wall behind them. They kissed deeply and evenly, the sounds of the repeated meeting of their lips almost covering up the way they both had started to whimper at the pleasure building between them again.
... Until there was a pretty unambiguous thud in the courtyard just below the bedroom window.
"Ok, ok, shush for a second," Jane insisted for real this time. "You had to have heard that."
Maura, for one, didn't want to pay any mind to it. "Your mother must have dropped something," she reasoned between kisses to Jane's very handsome cheekbone, "don't stop." But then, a female voice sounding a lot like Angela's screamed her name in distress. Jane shot up in bed, raising up the entire top half of her body, trying her damnedest to get a peek out of the window with her hands planted on the mattress. Maura rubbed her shoulders. "Ok pull out, out. That sounded serious."
Jane didn't need to be told twice. She flew out of bed, dropping the straps from her hips and hopping into the closest clothes she could find - a pair of sweats with her boyshorts still inside and a baggy BPD t-shirt.
Somehow, Maura had thrown on a matching nightgown and robe combination even faster than she did, and was halfway down the stairs by the time Jane caught up. Maura stopped mid-runner's stride when Angela threw open the back door in her slip and with a terrified look on her face.
"Maura, he fell," she explained out of breath and near tears, "you have to help him - hurry!"
Maura was already out the door, and when Jane ran to help her, Angela blocked her way. "No, not you," she said hastily before slamming it in Jane's face.
"What the hell?" Jane whispered to herself when she yanked it open anyway, and when she saw her lieutenant lying on the ground in nothing but his boxers and an undershirt, she shouted it. "What the hell?! Is that Cavanaugh?"
Angela ignored her. "Sean? Sean!" she called out to Cavanaugh, her hand on his chest. Maura palpated his torso for injuries, and then cradled his head to check for depressions or blood. He had regained consciousness, but there was a large gash on his forehead from where he had hit the bench outside Angela's guest house on the way down.
"Jane, call 911," Maura ordered, and Jane obeyed, running back towards the house.
"No! No!" Cavanaugh shouted. He pointed at her menacingly and she stopped.
"No?" she asked, suspended between his embarrassment and Maura's MD.
"I said no. That's an order, Rizzoli," he replied, his voice shaky but his words final.
Angela rolled her eyes. "You need to do what the doctor tells you, Sean," she said.
Maura looked up to Jane again, her eyes softer this time. "Get me a towel, please?"
Jane nodded. "And Ma, get his pants while we're at it," she said just as she went into the main house.
Angela and Maura were able to help Cavanaugh stand, and he walked under his own power to the couch. Jane handed Maura the towel and her medical bag, careful not to make eye contact with her boss, or consider how similarly dressed her mother and her girlfriend were.
Maura pulled her stethoscope out of her bag and listened to Cavanaugh's heart as it returned to a normal rhythm. Jane curled up on the arm chair to the right of the couch, long legs perched on the cushion and shielding the rest of her body.
"What the hell happened to me?" Cavanaugh asked, pulling the towel away to see how much blood had come from his head. It was a lot.
"It appears you experienced a vasovagal episode," Maura said, frowning as she continued to listen to his chest.
"I uh, I went out to… I had to get some air," he muttered, still flabbergasted that this was happening to him.
"You live in Dorchester," Jane snarked.
"I got lightheaded is all," he said, ignoring her.
"Is that how your pants fell off?" She pushed, and both Maura and Angela glared at her.
"Jane, don't embarrass him," Angela snapped, whipping her head around to shush her daughter.
"Him?" Jane whispered harshly, "I've never been so embarrassed in my life!"
"Well," Maura said, contemplating all his possible diagnoses, "your dizziness could have been caused by sexual arousal and the sudden rush of blood to your genitals." Her authoritative explanation did nothing to assuage Jane's shame.
In fact, it exacerbated it. "Oh my god. Oh my fucking god," she bemoaned her fate. "This isn't happening."
"Ok ok. We weren't making love, we were just making out," Angela said, turning from Maura to Jane.
"Well, we were doin' both! Huh? So imagine my mortification at havin' to picture my mother and my boss doin' the same thing at the same time! I'm gonna have a vasovagal episode if you don't stop," Jane waved her fist.
Maura shook her head at the side fight happening just to her right when the man next to her wasn't out of the woods yet. "You should go to the hospital, Lieutenant," she attempted to convince him.
"No!" he answered, and clearly, the hospital wasn't going to happen.
"Maybe you could just stitch his head up?" asked Angela, "he really doesn't want to go."
"Well, we need to know what caused this," said Maura. "When was the last time you ate?"
"He got his meals at the cafe, same as you two," Angela answered for him, and Jane snorted.
"I might have skipped lunch… and dinner," Cavanaugh admitted.
Angela gasped. "You said my healthy food was sensational and delicious!"
"He meant your healthy food was silent and deadly," said Jane.
Maura sighed, accepting her bystander position in the battle unfolding in front of her. "Well… a butterfly bandage might close this up," she offered reluctantly, marveling at the exponential amounts of blue collar Boston stubbornness filling the air. She tied her robe around her midsection and had Angela go to the kitchen to get Cavanaugh more water before she rummaged through her bag for the appropriate bandage.
Jane wouldn't let Angela off that easy, however. She leapt up from her chair and slid on the waxed hardwood floors to catch her mother before she walked back to the couch. "Uh uh, Ma," she said, her long, toned arms spread wide to stop Angela from ducking away. "So how long have you and my boss been seeing each other?"
"We," Angela paused, pointing between herself and Jane, "are not going there."
"Too late. You're in a slip, and my boss is on my girlfriend's couch in his underwear! What do you have to say for yourself?" Jane griped.
"Oh yeah?" Angela met her, blow for blow. "Look at the two of you. I'd reserve judgment if I were you."
"I didn't call you in the house to save my... " Jane stopped, waving wildly at Cavanaugh and searching for a word that wouldn't want to make her vomit, "person from fainting! I was in my own bed minding my own damn business."
Angela shook her head and grabbed Jane's jaw in her hands. "Let me be a person, Janie." Then she took a glass of water back to Cavanaugh.
Maura put her stethoscope away and zipped up her bag. "I still think you need to be seen in the ER, Lieutenant," she said.
"No," he reiterated. "Look, no one else can know about this incident. You know what? I'm just gonna get in my car and go home." He pushed up with his knuckles on the couch cushion under him and stood up.
Angela sighed, resigned. "Alright. At least let me drive you home, make sure you're ok," she said, ushering him out of the house. "Thanks, Maura," she called out as she shut the back door.
Jane was frozen near the kitchen island when Maura finally walked over, covering her mouth to keep from laughing. "That was…" was all that Maura could manage before having to stifle a chuckle again.
"Please tell me I'm asleep and that was a dream," Jane pouted, jutting her bottom lip out for emphasis.
"Oh you poor thing," Maura teased, taking Jane into her arms anyway. After a few moments of simply holding one another, she said, "who do you think was more embarrassed, you or Cavanaugh?"
"Maura!" Jane complained as Maura laughed unfettered now, "that isn't funny."
"I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Come to bed; it's late," Maura offered, taking Jane's hand as she walked towards the stairs again.
Jane followed, suddenly exhausted. She tried not to think about Angela and Cavanaugh together as she rubbed her eyes vigorously.
The next morning, Frankie Jr. accepted a mug from his mother in the cafe reluctantly, seeing the tell-tale tag of green tea hanging off of its side. He scrunched up his face at it, but took a sip anyway. "When are we getting coffee back, Ma?"
Angela chuckled. "You'll thank me when you're old."
"I'm not interested in getting old if all I get to drink is green tea," he whined. He walked over to the coffee station to doctor up the tea as best he could when he saw Lieutenant Cavanaugh enter the cafe like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. "Hello," he said softly when he approached Angela at the counter.
"Hi Sean," she answered, happy to see him, but concerned by his tone. She handed him his breakfast for the day and he smiled.
"Thanks, Mrs. Rizzoli."
"I, uh, I gave you potatoes instead of quinoa. You said you missed your potatoes."
"I don't deserve the special treatment." His self-flagellation reminded Angela of Jane.
She shook her head. "Yeah, you do." She figured she could be speaking to either of them.
"Look, Angela," said Cavanaugh, and at this, Frankie strained his ear to hear them without turning around, "you're a wonderful lady."
"But?"
"But I got a job to do here," he replied. "And I never should have started this. I'm sorry."
"Oh," Angela nodded, struck into silence. He smiled at her sadly, and left before she could gather herself to reply to him.
Immediately, Frankie took his place on the other side of the counter. "Ma. Please tell me that you and Cavanaugh…" at Angela's helpless look, her lack of denial, he scoffed. "You are my mother! What are you doin'?"
Angela sniffled noisily and grabbed his boyish face in both of her hands. "Like I told Jane last night, honey, before I was your mother, I was a person," she lamented. "And what's so wrong with wanting to be a person again?" She let a few tears fall and then retreated toward the back of the kitchen before she could make herself feel more like a fool.
"Ma, c'mon," Frankie put his hands out, stricken by his mother's sadness. "You want me to punch his lights out?" he offered.
Angela melted at his boorish loyalty, so much like her brothers and her father. "No," she said to him, and then disappeared.
Frankie sighed, feeling like an ass. He made his way to the two big glass doors that led to the BPD lobby, and froze when he saw Lydia, purse strap in her hands, facing him with pleading eyes.
"Frankie did good with this one," said Jane, watching Maura examine the new body on her table. "Had the idea of tracking him by the final GPS coordinates on his phone. Can't believe Ethan Slater's psychiatrist committed suicide, too. It seems weird."
"Well, I'm not so sure he did, either, Jane," said Maura. "There was a similar residue on his hand to the one I found on Slater's neck."
"Hmm," Jane hummed as a placeholder for her thoughts. "Could be from the killer's gloves. If neither of them killed themselves, that is."
Maura nodded. It was plausible, but the evidence was nowhere near conclusive. "Do you know which occupation has the highest suicide rate?"
Jane smirked. "Homicide detectives waiting for trace evidence results?"
Maura smiled warmly. "No. Physicians. Our suicide rate is nearly double the national average. It's even higher than dentists."
Jane's eyes got sad before they returned to playful. "Maura, is this some kind of cry for help?"
"Yes," Maura said, putting her clipboard to the side and stripping off her gloves, "if you meditate with me, you will greatly improve the quality of my life."
"Maura!" Jane groaned, "didn't we put that whole meditation thing to bed last night?"
"No, we went to bed last night. Sex isn't a replacement for mental health. Why are you so against wanting to share this with me?" Maura turned stern when Jane brushed her off.
Jane pulled back, surprised by Maura's reaction. "Listen, you have meditating, I have beer and batting practice. We don't need to share everything just because we're together now."
Maura narrowed her eyes. "No, we don't, that's true. But I would like to share this thing. 'Beer and batting practice' is not a proven long-term solution for stress and anxiety. Meditation is. And you have a lot of stress in your life right now. You should learn to manage it."
"Don't knock what works for me, a'right? Don't try to change me. Makes me feel like you don't really want me for me," Jane growled. Her posture was defensive, and so was Maura's. "And I don't want to be you. I wanna have my own stuff, my way."
"I-" Maura began, but then Frankie Jr. burst into the room, out of breath.
"Janie, I need to talk to you," he said. He noticed the icy atmosphere he had just stepped into, but at the moment, it didn't matter. "Shit is, uh, shit is really hittin' the fan upstairs."
Jane acknowledged him and his burly hand hanging on the suite doors. "On my way up."
They both left Maura wringing her hands, angry and confused. What the hell just happened?
Jane followed Frankie out of the elevators and back into the cafe, where Angela stood over a sweaty and groaning Lydia Sparks. "What the hell, Frankie?" Jane asked when she saw.
"She came in because she said she wanted to make things right with Ma," Frankie explained. "Who just got dumped, by the way. But we sat her down for a cup of tea and then she started, uh… I don't know. Doin' that."
"Christ," replied Jane, inching closer despite every part of her wanting to run away.
"Jane! Help!" Angela yelled as soon as she caught sight of Jane. "I think Lydia's going into labor."
"A maternity ward's a great place to have a baby, Lydia," said Jane. "Want me to call your ma? Have her meet you there?"
"No no no," Lydia said, taking Jane's hand softly in greeting. When Jane extricated her fingers as softly as she could without being rude, she continued. "My mom hates kids. Especially babies. And there is no way I'm going to a hospital. Ah!"
She screamed as another contraction ripped through her. "She already sent away a team of paramedics," Frankie told his sister with a hand on her elbow. "I left a message for Tommy to tell him to get over here. It's his baby. He has to know."
Jane rolled her eyes. "And what if it's Dad's?"
"Oh he tore up his parent card when he slept with someone younger than us," Frankie said, the both of them flinching when Lydia cried out again.
"I want my baby to be born with his family," she moaned, just before she doubled over in pain.
"Ok, we need to get her to a hospital," Angela said, moving to pull Lydia up by the arm.
"Oh no!" Lydia said as she recoiled, "you cannot make me go there if I don't want to."
"This is not your family!" Jane shouted. "Why did you come here?"
"It's my baby's family!" Lydia countered, "and you're such good people. My little boy didn't do anything wrong."
Just as Jane was about to set Lydia straight, Tommy finally appeared, noticing them immediately and bounding over to them. "Frankie! You pulled me from a job. What's the emergency, huh?" he asked. Then he looked down at the table. "Uh, Lydia. Hey. Good to see you."
Lydia smiled widely at him and his attractive face. Then, her eyes and her mouth relaxed. "Oh, my goodness. It's over," she said, exhaling loudly. "False alarm. Oh, Mrs. Rizzoli, do you think you could forgive me? I just want my baby to be accepted by his family. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."
Jane and Frankie could barely contain their rage, and Angela's hands shook with restraint. "I'm a little conflicted here, ok? You had… intimate relationships with both Tommy and my creep of an ex-husband. And you never bothered to tell me who you were when we met," she said, glaring at both Lydia and Tommy.
"Hey, what did I do?" Tommy asked.
Angela smacked the back of his head and pointed to Lydia's pregnant belly. "That!"
"I didn't do that!" he said defiantly, then deflated as he thought it through. "Did I do that?"
"Maybe," said Lydia sheepishly. "I'm really sorry, Mrs. Rizzoli. But now that I'm bringing a new life into this world, I'm gonna turn over a new leaf."
Angela nodded, and her children were shocked that she accepted it. "And what about you, Thomas?" she asked.
"Well, I'm definitely wearing condoms from now on," he said lamely.
"Ok, as a sign of goodwill, I'm gonna make you both some lunch. But nobody is gonna call me grandma until I know who the father of that baby is."
When Angela had gone back to the kitchen, Jane dragged Tommy to a private corner of the room. "Ow, what?"
"So what's the plan now, huh Dad?" she smacked his head, his second blow that day.
Frankie folded his arms as he waited for Tommy's response.
"Maybe I could get a job painting houses, more permanent, you know?" Tommy said.
"Oh yeah, he's totally ready to become a father," replied Frankie.
Jane glared at both of them. "No more fishing trips, bud. No more basketball retreats and late poker nights for you. Not if you're this baby's father."
Tommy went white. "I mean, Dad could be the father, right? We don't know. I can't just be giving up everything to take care of Lydia's kid. I still have a life."
Jane bit the inside of her cheek with an ugly kind of realization. She hated how her own words sounded coming out of Tommy's mouth. "You gave that up when you decided to sleep with her with no protection. That comes with a price and this is it, dummy." Frankie nodded severely in agreement until she started to walk back towards the elevators.
"Hey, where are you going?" He tried to grab his sister to keep her with them.
"I got two dead guys, ok? I'm going back to my case," she said.
"No, Jane. Jane! Shit," Frankie cursed, left with his shell-shocked brother and his brother's hapless, possible baby mother.
Maura sipped the wine in front of her with less enthusiasm than she usually would have. She had not heard from Jane since their spat in the morgue earlier in the day, not even through text, and that bothered her. Since they decided to enter a relationship, they had spent several nights apart, of course, but they texted constantly, called each other regularly. This silence was the longest since they had fought so bitterly after Paddy's shooting.
"She'll call soon, honey," Angela called from the armchair to the left of the couch, reading Maura's mind, her body and its tension.
"How did you…?" Maura asked incredulously.
Angela finished hooking the last loop of her line on a yellow and white baby blanket before answering. "I know her. And I know you too. You haven't used your phone in the two hours you've been home, and you two are always texting each other, like a couple of teenagers. She said something stupid, didn't she?"
Maura wavered, wondering how much to say. "No, not stupid. It's usually her… delivery."
Angela laughed. "Don't I know it. She is her father's child. And that means she'll call, alright? She just needs time. Just like he used to."
Maura tried not to panic at the comparison of Jane to her volatile father. "I hope so," was all that she could muster.
After a few more sips, the doorbell rang.
"I'm expecting some more yarn," Angela said at the sound, "it's probably Amazon."
Maura found herself smoothing the front of her high-waisted black pencil skirt and straightening the silk of her sleeveless blouse, an outfit she had picked specifically for Jane and was now about to be wasted on the Amazon delivery person. She resented that fact.
When she opened the door, however, she was surprised, and arousal washed over her when it was Jane who stood there, raking eyes unashamedly over her. "Hi," said Maura quietly, eyes sad and skin pink under Jane's appraisal.
Jane pulled her lips back, half-grimacing, half-smiling. "Hey." It was then that Maura noticed the cardboard box in Jane's arms. There were various knick knacks and personal items, but the most important thing, Jane's favorite, ancient, baseball glove, the brown leather discolored and dotted by glove oil and restitched holes, sat atop all of it. "So listen. I was wrong today. I don't have much, definitely not as much as you do. But everything I own, you can have it, ok? It's all yours. I should be so lucky to become more like you. And I was an ass to insinuate otherwise."
Maura let a few tears fall as she smiled so brightly her cheeks hurt. "What is that?" she pointed to the box, knowing full well what it was.
"It's the uh, the first of many boxes of my shit. I was real tired tonight, too tired to bring anything more, but I figured this would be a good start," Jane said timidly, goosebumps emerging on her bare arms as she stood in the cold.
"Come in, please," Maura said, moving aside. "You can continue being romantic in the hall."
Jane smirked and kissed her quickly as she entered. "Love you."
"I love you, too," echoed Maura, "and I don't want you to change. Much."
"Thanks. So, where should I put this?" Jane asked, but then stopped when she saw her mother sitting in Maura's living room. "Uh, hey, Ma."
"Hi baby," Angela smiled into her knitting. "I told Maura not to worry, that you would call, because that's what your father would always do. But you did one better. I'm proud of you."
"Yeah, yeah," Jane said, blushing scarlet.
Maura took the box from her. "I'll put this in the guest room and we can decide what goes where in the morning."
When she disappeared up the stairs, Jane sat on the couch cushion closest to her mother. "Sorry about your shitty day, Ma. Did Lydia and Tommy end up working anything out?"
Angela laughed ruefully. "No. But she started having contractions again after you left. I don't know if they were false or not. Thankfully Tommy convinced her to go to the hospital, but she wouldn't let anyone go with her. I guess she's gone rogue."
Jane put her elbows on her thighs and wrung her hands. "Need me to track her down?"
"You and Frankie, such chivalrous knuckleheads. But, I'm done trying to sway her," Angela sighed. "I figure that baby's gonna be in our lives either way, so I'll just accept him as he is when he comes. But she better get a paternity test before anybody calls me Grandma or calls you Aunt Jane."
"Yeah, no kidding. Just tryin' to figure out how to force her. She seems dead set against it," said Jane.
"You three will charm her somehow," Angela shrugged, "just keep at it."
"Who are you charming?" Maura called as she trotted back down the stairs.
"Lydia," Angela replied.
Jane rolled her eyes. "We're gonna try to get her to get a paternity test for the baby," she said.
Maura had never felt like she belonged more than this moment, in her Beacon Hill home with her Boston-sounding partner and her North End-native quasi-mother-in-law. "That's a must. Come have some wine." She needed Jane near her.
Jane rose with several pops and cracks in her joints, and almost made it to the kitchen when the doorbell rang again.
"Now that must be my yarn," Angela said. "Get that, will you?"
Jane raised her brow at Angela. "God, how much more yarn do you need for that baby blanket? Speaking of, Lydia said she was having a boy today. When did she-" she cut herself short when she saw what had just been dropped off.
"Is it the yarn?" Angela asked, not noticing Jane's sudden silence.
"Jane?" Maura called, watching Jane bend down to pick something off the doorstep.
"It's uh, it's Lydia's baby," said Jane breathlessly. When she turned around, she held a swaddled newborn in blue. "She must have just left him…"
"Oh my god," said Maura, running over to check him.
Angela shot up, just as worried. Jane pulled him close, hoping to imbue him with as much warmth as she could. "Hi baby," she said softly to him, and when he looked up at her, she saw her own eyes.
