When Maura walked in the door to her house at 8 PM, she had wanted to see Jane. She got Tommy instead. He was picking up the living room, baby paraphernalia stuffed under his arms as he milled about in his black crew socks. "Hi, Tommy," she said politely, sighing as she put her purse on the table in the front hall and walked into the kitchen.
"Hey Maura," he said, and put Mario's things down at the sight of her. "How you doin'? Long day? Besides the obvious, I mean." He nodded cheekily to the toys and the bottles on the counter.
She waited until she filled her wine glass on the counter before answering. "I'm ok. It has been a very long day, and Jane is… well."
"Jane's what?" he asked, interest piqued. He slid over to her on his socks in the exact way his sister liked to do.
It made her frown, as if she wanted to cry. "She's missing. Well, not missing, per se, she's just… she called and now I don't know if she's coming home."
"What'd she say?" Tommy asked, and god bless him, even though his baby had just been taken from him earlier in the day, he was trying to cheer Maura up. He looked like he had stepped in front of a Mack truck and somehow lived to tell the tale, and she mused that she probably did not look far better.
"Not much," she sighed. Jane had been missing for hours: three, to be exact. She had clocked out right at five, according to Korsak, who called Maura a few hours before. No word since. "She said not to worry…"
"But she needed alone time? Don't call her, right?" he finished for her cheekily. He had dark circles and no gel in his hair, and he was in the morning's shorts and long sleeve tee. He still looked so handsome to her when he talked about Jane that way.
"I think that may be verbatim what she said. How do you do that?" Maura said with her fingertips on her temple and her other hand crossed under her elbow.
"Lack of boundaries. We lived practically on top of each other. I've memorized every Jane and Frankie line in the book," he said as he shoved his long feet into the New Balance runners at the front door. "Speakin' of, I know where she is. C'mon. I'll drive ya."
Maura shook out of her reverie. "Wait, what? Just like that? Tommy, what's going on?"
"Janie's pissed, Maura. And when she says she needs alone time, she's doin' the same thing that she's always done for the past twenty years."
"But… I don't want to cross a line. If this is a line for her and she wants to be alone, then I need to respect that," Maura said nervously. She fiddled with the hem of her blouse, unsure where all this sudden second-guessing came from.
"You been a mess ever since you walked in the door," Tommy scoffed. "C'mon. Let's go for a drive. Let me show you somethin' about Jane you don't already know. Trust me. It's gonna be important, you know, for down the road."
Maura regarded him silently for a few seconds, the way he shrugged on his Carhartt jacket like he already knew her answer, and she decided that she shouldn't pretend he didn't. "Alright," she agreed, and he held out her black cashmere coat for her. They made quite the pair: the working class man in ruffled comfortwear and the Boston Brahmin doctor in all designer.
He held the door open for her and she nodded to him when they stepped into the courtyard. Their breath puffed out in wispy pockets of heat against the chill of mid-December, and Maura pulled her coat tight around her body. She tried not to gape at Tommy, whose only sign of cold, even with his bare legs exposed to the air, was the occasional loud sniff.
"Fair warning, car just got heat. Rondo helped me repair it and I haven't had a chance to test it yet, so we could be roughin' it til we get to where we're goin'," Tommy said, jogging out across the street and to his car. He opened the passenger door for her.
"A 1977 Camaro," Maura breathed, enamored with the vehicle even with its stripped paint and beat up interior.
"You know your cars!" Tommy said excitedly. "This is what I was savin' up my money for before I found out about Mario, just doin' a little bit to it at a time. Seats are cracked, but clean. New ones are comin' in Monday, sorry."
"I can't wait to see them," she said, swatting away his embarrassment. She slid into the bucket seat and buckled her seatbelt. The cab smelled like pine scented air freshener, motor oil, and Tommy. It was comforting as they pulled away. "So, where are we going?"
"You'll see," he said with his eyes on the road and one hand on the heat lever. "Ah ha! The heater lives!"
For a moment, his exhilaration made her forget about her worry for Jane, and she caught the positivity in the air. His calloused right hand maneuvered the gear shift with ease, and the muscles of his thighs flexed in practiced precision as he punched the gas. He and Jane had the same legs and Maura felt at home. She saw him then, as himself and as an extension of Jane, the anxiety of the past twenty-four hours bending him in places he shouldn't bend at thirty-two years old. "How are you doing? With all of this?"
"What, you mean with Mario?" He said, glancing at her briefly, "I'm hangin' in there. I miss him already, you know? I feel like, well, I was fuckin' up big time this morning, but at least we were gettin' to know each other."
"You weren't fucking up," Maura assured him, patting his knuckles. "Babies fall all the time. He fell onto a pillow."
"Yeah, I'm just not ready. But that doesn't really matter, does it? He's here now and I gotta man up if I want him around. I already started researching custody lawyers if Lydia doesn't bring him back."
"Tell that to your siblings. They're falling apart," Maura said quietly under the orange glow of the street lights as they drove from Beacon Hill to the North End. "And he's not even their baby."
"Meh. He kinda is. They know I can't do this alone. They got attached - they get attached." When they pulled into the parking lot of a little league compound, the stadium lights flooding the icy grass and making it shine, Maura heard the fluid ping of an aluminum bat, unmistakable as it punished a ball. Tommy inched them forward slowly, until they were just a few feet from the chain link fence and people came into view. "She's not alone, not really. As you can see." He said as he put it in park and cut the engine.
Jane stood on the left side of the plate, hacking with violence each time the machine near the mound spit out a softball. Frankie Jr. roamed left field, catching each fly ball as it died right at the rim of the track. The harbor sang with life behind them, beyond the walkway just past the fence, the crest of black waves and jingle of boat bells oblivious to the shit being worked out at home.
"She's going to rupture an oblique!" Maura gasped, grasping for the door handle.
Tommy touched her forearm. "Whoa whoa whoa. Slow down, Maura. She'll be fine. Just watch for a little bit, will ya?" He assured her, and the confidence in his grin convinced her. Barely.
"What am I looking at, Tommy?" she asked. He continued to smile and held up his hand to her, now that it wasn't shifting gears. She took it and it was warm. He squeezed hers, small and delicate in his palm, and the familial show of affection slowed her heart rate.
"Janie's white whale," he said. "You see what she's doin'?"
"Swinging out of her shoes?"
"Yeah," Tommy laughed. "Definitely that. You ever watch her play before?"
"Yes. We play together for the work league."
"You ever see her hit a home run?"
"Often."
"Where to?"
"What?" Maura felt as though he were about to delve into a foreign language.
"What field? Where does she usually hit 'em?"
"Oh," she nodded. This she could answer. "To right field. Sometimes to center field. Oh," she said again, this time in epiphany as she heard Jane's yell when another softball blistered against the fence, missing going over by about six inches. Frankie whistled, no doubt feeling lucky to still have a head on his shoulders. "She is attempting to hit a home run to left field."
"You got it," Tommy said. "Janie's never been able to go oppo-taco on purpose. She's done it, and this is an exact number, five times since she started playin' in high school."
"Oppo-taco?" Now Maura was sure he was speaking a different tongue.
"Opposite field home run," he clarified.
"Ah. So she does this when she's upset? She needs to change her launch angle."
Tommy looked at her, clearly pleased. He squeezed her fingers again. "You know your baseball, too. But nah. She needs to gain about fifteen pounds. She's too skinny to muscle it out."
"She's very strong," Maura said, a tad more defensively than she meant.
"Sure she is," Tommy conceded. "But remember Hoyt? Her reaction time is just a tick slower since him. Her bat speed isn't what it was at 20 or 25, either. The extra weight would compensate for that and she could just drive it out."
"So why doesn't she do that?" Maura kicked off her heels and set them to the side of the floor as she tucked her feet under her thighs.
"When she played for BCC she did, but it's too hard for her to keep it on. The Rizzoli metabolism is a curse for athletes. It's why I picked basketball; skinny legs don't matter as long as they hold up. I mean, when she was serious, it was six meals a day and boatloads of white rice and chicken. I never want to smell that shit ever again. Makes me nauseous just thinkin' about it. Not to mention three hours a day on weights. So, she'll do this instead, and take it out on Frankie when she's mad."
Maura looked at their intertwined fingers on the console, his keeping hers warm as they talked. Then she looked at Jane, committing murder in the batter's box, both on the ball and her own body. "She really is going to hurt herself if she doesn't stop, Tommy."
Tommy nodded. "Don't worry about it. Depending on what time they started, I bet you she's gonna get even madder and switch to pullin' the ball real soon. Give her three more swings."
And sure enough, Tommy was right. Jane said fuck! louder than Maura had ever heard her say it before, and then she adjusted the velcro of her batting gloves six, seven, eight times each, knob of the bat nestled against the inside of her thighs. Despite the near freezing temperatures outside, sweat soaked through the armpits of her hoodie, forming rims of black against faded Red Sox navy. She bent the brim of her hat, also full of sweat. Then, she picked the bat back up, assumed her stance, and tattooed a ball to the moon in right field. Just after, in a show of dominance and rancor, she shuffled the huge mound of… something in her mouth from her right cheek to her left and spit on the ground inches from her foot.
Maura was half-awed and half-mortified. "Is that tobacco?!" She tried exiting again.
Tommy guffawed. "Relax. It's Big League Chew." When she continued to stare at him, mouth agape, he said, "Gum. Just gum." Frankie didn't bother jogging out to right, and Jane launched three more softballs into orbit. Maura watched one disappear into the inky sky, only to see it plunk into the water of the harbor. Tommy whistled at that one, smirking wickedly as Maura watched. "She's good, huh?"
"Very," was all that Maura could manage.
Tommy chuckled again. "Whenever she tells you that she needs to be alone, don't believe her. She's usually with Frankie. They're practically twins, and this is what they're usually doin'. They get sad together, Maura. They have each other but sometimes they spiral. I need ya to help me pull 'em outta that tonight, ok? Don't let her push you away. Things with Mario are bad right now, yeah. But I have faith we're gonna pull it together. As a family."
Maura agreed with him by the way she pulled the back of his hand to her cheek. She sighed, content to luxuriate in the moment.
"What?" Tommy asked with a blush and a smile.
"You're all just so dreamy," she explained, meeting his gaze. "Do you know that? Do the three of you know that?"
"Well I don't know about dreamy, but we must be doin' somethin' right if someone as classy as you keeps hangin' around," he said, just as enamored with her as she was with him and his siblings. "Hey. I could stand to blow off some steam. What about you?" He took his hand out of her own and rummaged around in the backseat until he pulled out a Bluetooth speaker. He brandished it with pride and tossed his head in the direction of the field.
Maura hesitated. "Should we really interrupt them? They seem to want to be left alone."
Tommy was already out of the car. He leaned back in to say, "Spiraling, remember? You and me are gonna stop the cycle. Let's go."
"Alright, alright," Maura finally acquiesced, running a hand through her hair, pushing it toward her back. "Just let me put on my shoes."
Soon they were ambling toward the third base line. "Hey Rizzolis! Need some company?" Tommy shouted, arms out wide with his speaker in his hands.
"The hell are you - Maura?" Jane, who had paused to crack open one of the beer cans that Frankie handed to her, led with anger but dissolved in relief at seeing Maura approach.
She and Tommy entered the slim opening of the fencing of the visitors' dugout, finally making it to Jane and Frankie. "When you said beer and batting practice, you weren't kidding, were you?" She asked, the hint of a twinkle in her eye, but she was still timid.
Jane shrugged. "Nope. Thought I told you I wanted to be alone."
"I would buy that, but Frankie's here."
"Frankie doesn't count. He's like my shadow."
Maura nodded. "He goes where you go."
Jane cooled a bit, stepped closer to Maura and nodded back. "Somethin' like that."
Maura smelled sweat and alcohol and lavender as Jane entered her space. A heady combination that gave her gumption. "Come here, all of you, please," she said, motioning for the two Rizzoli brothers to join them from their side conversation several yards away. They obeyed immediately. "Tommy said something very poignant to me on the way over here."
"Tommy said somethin' poignant?" Frankie asked. "Shit."
Jane cracked a smile and stifled a laugh, her only one since mid morning. "There's a first time for everything," she responded.
Tommy glared. "You guys are real chuckleheads, you know that?"
Maura cleared her throat. "As I was saying, Tommy said something very poignant in the car. And that was that we are all in this together. We all want Mario in our lives-"
"TJ," Jane cut her off.
"The baby," Maura returned, diplomacy abounding. "We want the baby in our lives. And yes, Lydia took him. She has rights. But if we work together, I'm sure we will find a solution that fits for everyone. But you two," she paused, pointing between Jane and Frankie, "can't sulk like this. You can't disappear for an entire evening and shut us out. That's not going to help the cause; it's just going to put everybody on edge."
Frankie looked at his shoes and Jane scoffed.
"Got it?" Maura tried more firmly, and finally the both of them nodded. "Good."
"See? I can be deep," Tommy added, and they shared a laugh together. "Ten bucks says I can take you deep, too, big bro."
Jane shook her head. "He's gonna embarrass you, Tom. Don't do this," she warned, but couldn't help the smile that crept all the way to her eyes.
"Bullshit, Janie," said Tommy, turning on his speaker and cranking a song with a trap beat. "Let me get some practice hacks in first and then I'm riding it all the way out to the harbor."
"You're on," said Frankie, stretching his pitching arm, the one with the long scar on the inside of his elbow.
Jane looked over at Maura in three inch heels and her heart fluttered. "Frankie's gonna blow everything right by him," she said.
Maura turned and met Jane's gaze. "I would imagine so. Let them have fun anyway," she said as the boys' whoops and hollers carried over the music.
"Thanks for comin'," said Jane. "I'm happy to see you."
"Thank your brother. I had no idea where you were," Maura said sternly.
Jane nodded. "I'm sorry I was an ass."
"I'm sorry you're hurting," Maura shot back, cutting through the fat of it all. "But don't shut me out."
"You're right," Jane sighed. "I'm tryin'. But when Lydia took that baby and we didn't even have a chance to say goodbye… that fucked me up a little bit, Maura."
Maura put her hands on Jane's cold cheeks. "I think it fucked us all up a little bit. But Tommy's right, Jane. We'll get what we want, in the end. We just have to fight for it. And lean on each other."
"He always had that unflinching positivity," said Jane as she looked to Tommy wistfully. "I hope he gets this right."
"I think he will," Maura assured her. After a few seconds of relaxed silence, she spoke again. "I told him I thought the three of you were dreamy."
"What?! When? How the hell did that happen?" Asked Jane as her eyes blew open.
Maura smirked. "Just now, in the car. He was being very sweet. And then I was watching you attack those softballs and…"
"You had feelings?" Jane guessed grumpily.
Maura smushed Jane's face between her hands and kissed the scrunched lips with passion. "Definitely. Of affection for him, of… something else entirely for you."
"Oh yeah? Like what else?" Jane murmured around her bunched mouth.
"Like love," Maura pondered sarcastically.
"Uh huh. I love you too," Jane goaded.
"And admiration."
"Anything else?"
"Respect, for sure."
"Maura!" Jane whined, and Maura finally laughed aloud.
"And lust. Something about these sweat stains and the way you swallow with a wad of gum the size of a basketball in your mouth should be repulsive. But it's really doing it for me. All of it," she purred, stepping into Jane's chest to allow herself to be held.
Jane wrapped her arms around her. "Well that's good, because this is the most me I'll ever be."
"I know," Maura said against her neck, "I think that's why. I want you to use all of that torque on me." She pressed their fronts together slowly, almost imperceptibly, to prove her point. "Then when we're good and tired I'm going to run you a model on the appropriate launch angle for a woman of your size and talent to hit a ball over the left field fence."
"Easy, tiger," Jane chuckled, placing stilling hands on Maura's hips, then freezing when the last part of Maura's statement registered. "Wait. You figured it out?"
"It's basic geometry, Jane," Maura looked up by pulling her head away.
"How about you show me that now and if I hit it out, I'll torque you til the sun comes up?" Jane asked, all exhilarated and determined.
Maura scoffed. "You are unbelievably crass, but also, so on. I guarantee that if you do what I say, it'll take twenty, thirty swings, tops."
Jane actually hopped before jogging back out to the plate. "Ok boys, change of plans. Out of my way, Maura's gonna show me somethin'."
Frankie and Tommy griped their displeasure, but Jane could be oh-so-persuasive when on the hunt. And sure enough, with a little bit of luck and a flick of the wrist just in the way Maura described, her third softball sailed over the fence all the way out to left field.
The four of them cheered raucously.
The Rizzoli siblings, along with Maura, spilled into her house in a decidedly better mood than when they all had left it. "Shoes, off. Right here, before you track all that dirt in my house," said Maura on the tail end of light laughter.
"Yeah, yeah," Jane hopped around in the foyer as she kicked off her sneakers and her brothers did the same. "You two wanna stay for-"
"Where have the four of you been?! Don't you check your phones?!" Angela, seated at the kitchen island, turned from her almost-empty glass of Irish whisky as soon as she heard them. "And you're filthy!"
Jane pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket and turned it on. It pinged with at least a dozen missed calls between her mother, Maura, and Tommy. "Shit, Ma. I'm really sorry." She, Frankie, and Tommy approached Angela, flanking her side and patting her knees. Maura went around to the other side and refilled her glass.
"Thank you," Angela whispered to her. She surveyed her children, Tommy now seated on the stool behind her with his hand on her shoulder, Jane on the one across from her, and Frankie standing next to her. She was surrounded. "You smell. And Janie's sweating like she ran a marathon. What the hell were you doing?"
"Takin' some batting practice is all, Ma. We just lost track of time," Tommy said, taking the heat for all of them, something he knew how to do quite well.
"Well, while you've been out having fun, I've been here, alone, worrying myself sick. I just don't understand. We can't walk away from that baby. How can you all just move on, play sports like nothing happened?" Angela asked all of them.
Jane leaned her elbows on her thighs and smiled contritely at her mother. "I know you've never really got it, Ma, but that is how we worry ourselves sick. Or, well, you know, deal with the worry. We're just as broken up."
Tommy once again broke through the tension and the silence that soon bubbled up. "I uh, I talked to Lydia today. After Maura told me that the baby was mine."
Jane looked up hopefully. "Is she gonna share custody?"
"No, she says she can't forgive herself for abandoning Mario," said Tommy.
"Mario? You named him Mario?" Angela stared daggers at him.
"Ma!" Frankie chided her, but with a small smile.
Tommy chuckled. "Doesn't matter. Lydia named him Thomas Sparks, Jr. so I guess that's his name."
"TJ," Jane smiled to herself, too, feeling a little victorious.
"Ha ha!" Frankie cheered. "Tommy's a senior!"
"I don't know, guys, I mean… I-I told you what I did. I can't be a father to him. He almost got killed," Tommy, who had been the picture of positivity all night, finally showed a little bit of his insecurity.
"Oh, Tommy. He rolled off your chest," Angela shrugged, turning her chair to face him. "I dropped you once."
"Oh my god," Tommy gasped.
"Is that what happened to him?" Frankie asked, and Maura stifled a chuckle.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Tommy replied.
"I was rocking him and I fell asleep. You were fine. You uh, you bumped your lip," said Angela, touching Tommy's upper lip gently. "I cried, you cried. And look, it's all ok."
Jane got up and went to her baby brother, taking his head in her hands and kissing the side of it wetly. "Tommy, it's alright, ok? Like you said. We'll all help you."
Tommy blushed. "Ma's right. You do smell," he said, pushing her in the side and smirking when she glared at him.
Frankie rolled his eyes. "Come on, Tommy. You gotta man up. Lydia's mom says they're coming after you for child support, too."
"Well I'm gonna pay child support. I'm no deadbeat Dad," Tommy argued seriously.
"Ok, good," said Jane.
"But I don't have a steady job and Lydia and I aren't a couple." He stated the obvious, their obstacles.
"Tommy, we want TJ in our lives," Angela cried, holding her son's face in both of her hands.
"So do I," Tommy said.
"A'right, so you fight for joint custody," Jane offered, already gearing up for a battle.
Angela shook her head. She looked Tommy full in the face. "There's another way to do this. A better way."
"You know, you ever want to stop volunteering for dinners at your place, you just tell me. I'll get Ma off your back," Jane said, standing in Maura's office doorway the next evening with a bouquet of flowers in her hand.
They were festive, a Christmas variety, and they contrasted with the no nonsense of Jane's gray suit and white v-neck underneath. Maura stood in front of Jane with her purse straps in both of her hands. She nodded to her coat on the coat rack near Jane's body, and Jane grabbed it, held it out to her while still holding the flowers. "I wouldn't want to have them anywhere else. This way, I can keep an eye on all of you."
Jane laughed. "Even so, thanks."
Maura finally took the bouquet. "You know, the last time you bought me flowers, we-"
Jane had now crossed her semi-free hands in front of her belt. She twirled her key ring on her index finger and smirked. "Face down, ass up. I remember."
"Yes," said Maura, shivering to herself at the memory. "You know, it's your place, too, now. So if you are uncomfortable with it…"
"Nah. I'm the kid. I don't get to be uncomfortable. I just have to grin and bear it," Jane said.
"I don't think-"
"Grin and bear it, Maura, like a good catholic daughter," she said as she kissed Maura's cheek and nodded towards the elevator that would take them up and to the lobby. "Since I'm not such a good catholic daughter in other ways."
"Because you're living in sin?" Maura asked playfully as they boarded.
"Actually I think Ma doesn't mind that part. As long as she gets grandkids out of the deal in the end," Jane said, careful to avoid Maura's gaze. She opened the front doors of headquarters for Maura, hand on her back, guiding her gently through the six PM chill and toward Jane's civilian vehicle.
"Will she?" Maura asked.
"Will she what?" Jane replied obtusely. She turned the heater dial all the way up and stuck her hands directly on the vents.
"Will she get grandkids out of the deal?" Maura reiterated, unwilling to retreat.
"Maybe, eventually," said Jane, smiling kindly but also conveying the end of that particular avenue of conversation. "If you're good."
Maura scoffed. "You better hurry or I'm going to freeze my eggs."
"Freeze away, baby," Jane said gamely as she pulled away from the curb. "Do you think Lydia chews with her mouth open? I picture her as chewing with her mouth open."
Maura couldn't help but giggle at that. "Jane," she admonished, but her heart wasn't in it. She crossed her legs in her seat as Jane weaved them through city traffic toward Beacon Hill, her vibrant blue trousers the only true pop of color in Jane's all black interior. "You need to at least pretend to be nice tonight. Our seeing TJ might depend on it."
"Yeah yeah, I know," she said. "But if she hits on me or Frankie again, I'm out. Can't do it."
Maura made a face. "I agree. She better not."
Jane smirked proudly and patted Maura's knee with her non-driving right hand. "Her ma's coming, too. She's nuts." Maura had nothing nice to say, so she said nothing. "They don't really seem to get along that well either," noted Jane.
"No, they really don't. I think her mother has experienced a lot of trauma in her life and that's how she deals with it," Maura said sympathetically.
"Speakin' of, you haven't heard from Hope, have you?" Jane asked as the thought popped into her mind.
Maura froze for a split second at the name, but then gathered herself. "No, thankfully. I wouldn't really know what to do if I had to deal with that and this."
They pulled onto Maura's street just then, and Jane cut the engine. "Yeah, that would be a lot. Hang on," she said, and trotted over to the other side. Her hands were rigid, fingers almost unnaturally apart, but she opened Maura's door and held one of them out for her anyway.
Maura took it and rose out of her seat deftly, silently conceiving of a treatment plan for Jane's aching hands as she walked to her own front door. "Now, let's help your mother with the food."
The doorbell rang, and all of the Rizzolis inside the home, even the honorary one, stopped what they were doing to stare at it. Angela took a deep breath and straightened her shirt. She looked at her children and pushed her hands down the imbue all of them with calm. She grasped the handle, and then opened the door slowly. "Hello," she said.
Lydia and her mother stood outside with TJ. "Hi."
Angela turned to the older woman. "Nice to finally meet you in person." They shook hands.
"I don't know how to apologize enough for all that I've put you through," Lydia whispered to Angela, holding TJ tight to her to keep from openly crying.
Her mother chuckled nervously. "What about me?" she asked.
"You too," said Lydia, her voice strained and stilted, as if she didn't mean it.
"Ok," said Angela, "let's start fresh." TJ cooed in agreement, it seemed, and then they made their way to where Jane and Tommy stood just inside the living room.
Maura, slicing the cooled lasagna Angela had pulled out of the oven not twenty minutes before, smiled at the two women entering her home. "We are so glad that you could join us for dinner," she said kindly, if a little impersonally.
"Yeah, what are we having?" asked Lydia's mother. "I don't like spicy." Lydia sighed and the Rizzoli family made a collective decision to ignore the comment, communicated only by eye contact and the subtle upturn of their eyebrows. "Think you're gonna like bein' called Grandma?" she said as she looked to Lydia and TJ, correcting course.
"By Tommy Jr.? Yeah, I think I'm gonna like it," Angela admitted breathily, smiling without inhibition at the baby.
"I like getting another shot at this," Lydia's mother agreed, "But I didn't do so bad with Lydia, did I?" she asked her daughter privately.
Angela ducked her head at the tension between them. "This baby provides us an opportunity to, uh… start new," she said to them.
Jane stepped forward, rubbing her sore hands together and looking longingly at TJ. "Yeah. And if you, you get tired or you need to go to bathroom or anything, I'd be happy to hold Tommy Jr.," she said to Lydia.
"Oh, TJ. Here," Lydia offered him already to Jane, "he likes it when you mush him against your breasts."
Jane barely got to indulge in the happiness of holding TJ before she shot a did she just say that? Look to Maura, who only covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.
"I bet he does. I still like that," Tommy said and Frankie groaned.
"Tommy, Jesus," he said, snapping salad tongs at him before tossing them in the salad bowl on the counter.
"What?" Tommy asked. Frankie only shook his head.
"What do you do for a living?" Lydia's mother asked Tommy.
"Uh, lots of things."
"Yeah," she laughed, "that means you don't do nothin'. Oh well, at least your Ma's nice."
"Tommy's a good guy," Frankie said, in defense of the brother he had just chastised.
"Yeah, he is," Angela agreed.
"And I just want to say… I'm here for TJ," Tommy promised, standing with all his Rizzoli height just up against Lydia, who leaned forward to take him in.
"Yeah, we all are," Jane stepped forward, too, completing their triangle with TJ in her arms and gazing intently at Lydia, hoping to convey the entirety of her passion for her nephew and all the loyalty that brought.
It all seemed to have worked because Lydia put a hand to her chest. "Oh, my gosh," she said, overcome and a little shaky between them.
"You said you wanted the baby to be around family. For better or worse, we're family," reiterated Jane, smiling her closed-lip, eyes-crinkled smile, the one that no one she'd met so far had been able to refuse. Her brothers, her girlfriend, and her mother laughed a knowing laugh at her statement, but Lydia didn't. She was too busy trying to soak up all of Jane and Tommy that she could before they had to break.
It was her own mother that ended up ending it. "You're still not gettin' out of child support," she warned Tommy.
"Mom," Lydia scolded her harshly.
Maura, who had let Lydia have her moment, was quite done. "Shall we all sit down and eat?"
Jane took her cue and handed Angela the baby. She trotted over to the kitchen so that she could grab the salad bowl and utensils. "Try not to murder TJ's mom, a'right? Now that he's here and all," she said under her breath. "It's in all of our best interest if she likes us."
Maura banished her darker thoughts of possession and smirked instead. "She only loves you because you make her. Just now, you weren't exactly an innocent bystander."
"Well, that was more about TJ than Lydia. But just think how much fun we're gonna have at Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and New Year's… At least TJ's gonna be a Red Sox fan."
Maura kissed Jane quickly, but softly and for everyone to see. "Oh, I'd like to teach him how to fence."
"Oh hell no," Jane made a face.
"What do you mean? Is it because it's a sport you don't know? I could teach you first."
"It's because it's the bougiest sport there is! Can we just get through this meal?" she pleaded, and then turned to the patchwork family before her, all gathered at the table. "A'right. Who's hungry?"
