Wheeeee I haven't watched R&I in a while. :l got any spare time you kind folks could give me?


Dinner with the Rizzolis was never boring, to say the least. It couldn't be helped - especially not now, when they sat across the table from Tommy and Frankie; the former locked in a bristling glare with Jane as dishes of meats and salads were passed around. She'd deduced it to be the nature of large Italian families at first; complete opposites of the quiet, colorless dining she'd been raised around - a parent on either side of an excessively long table, and the quiet murmurs of maids and butlers and dull talks of their days.

Maura loved dinner with the Rizzolis…when she wasn't burning out of her skin from Jane's touches.

It was maddening.

She couldn't explain why (yes she could) each touch, each look - each subtle graze of the detective's lean arm against hers, and the brush of their fingertips on casserole dishes made her skin bristle like fire in her veins. The way Jane glanced at her sidelong with that crooked curve of her mouth and the low burn of her gaze just before she lit into her youngest brother.

She could feel every last grate of Jane's words scraping against her spine.

"It doesn't matter about if she wanted it too, Tommy! What matters is that she's skipped town, and you're Wy's father, whether you like it or not." Jane bore her teeth at the man sitting across from her, nearly snarling in Tommy's sputtering face when her brother began to wail about them treating him unfairly.

"What d'you want me to do, Janie!" he cried, staring incredulously at where his mother and brother flanked him; sitting wordlessly, unfeeling towards his plight. Frankie's eyes glared at him, face tight, but the man said nothing even as Tommy stared at him for support, and found the same from his mother - the one he'd hoped most would come to his aid. "Ma, why're you lettin' her rip at me like this?!"

He gestured to Jane, jolting back in his seat like a terrified child when Jane growled at him. "I didn't do nothin'!"

Maura reached out, instinctive, and urged by the way she could feel Jane's muscles coiling beside her. She grasped the woman's arm before she could attack again, squeezed tight enough to turn the fuming detective's attention away from her cowering brother. A quiet gasp was swallowed in her throat when Jane turned her blazing gaze to her; the thrill that rushed through her at the low growl that vibrated through the Italian woman's throat, but Jane did little else as Maura squeezed her arm again. The way the woman's thin fingers pressed into her skin, and the sharp way Maura's eyes bore into hers - Jane felt the anger melt away, and another kind of fire began to blaze.

She couldn't understand why.

"You're not making this any better, Jane," Maura murmured quietly, glancing at where Angela was doing her best to temper her son's loud outbursts - and then to where Wyatt slept blissfully in his seat by her chair. "There's nothing we can gain from yelling at Tommy like this. We should try seeing what he wants to do about it - and if not, then what we want to do about it."

Jane held her gaze for a long, stubborn moment, but eventually the taller woman couldn't deny the truth. Maura watched as Jane's shoulders sagged, and slipped her hand along the woman's wrist soothingly. "Guess so," Jane mumbled, and Maura let their fingers twine for only a moment, and then rose from the table.

Jane felt her fingers curl into a fist, yearning.

"Excuse me," Maura announced to the others, smiling politely as Jane eyed her warily. "I should probably have Wyatt's bottle prepared before he wakes up for dinner." She gestured vaguely from Jane to Angela, lifting Wyatt into her arms as she did so. "Please - I'm sure you have things to discuss."

"You're supposed to be here when we talk about it, Maur." Jane glared at her venomlessly, forcing a smile at Angela as she reached out, wrapped a hand into Maura's arm gently, rose to her feet too to meet the blonde's gaze. "Y'not runnin' away from this," she mumbled around her mouth, and Maura saw the corner of the brunette's lips curve. "You're family too, Maur. Wy's gonna be livin' with you."

The flare of heat rising from her neck to her cheeks nearly stunned Maura speechless, but eventually the good doctor found her voice again, lowering her gaze shyly. "Technically, Wyatt will be boarding with me; until we figure out what to do," she murmured quietly, tucking Wyatt close to her chest.

Jane's brow arched. "You're not some kind of Bed and Breakfast to us, babe," she drawled, mouth twitching as she stroked the soft skin of the blonde's arm under her thumb; registering vaguely the goosebumps rising there. She gave Maura a soft smile, urging her back into her seat. "Sit down, Maura. Talk. I'll get Wy's bottle."

"Sit down, the both of you," Angela said then, rising from her seat sternly. "I'll get him settled; you two sit down and talk to your brother, Janie." She cast a hard look between all of her children, and then a polite smile at Maura. "Give the little fella to me, Maura, and you sit down and make nice with Jane for me, okay?" She swept Wyatt out of the woman's arms before Maura could protest.

She heard Jane sigh beside her, watched as the detective leaned down to take her wineglass in hand. "Well I guess that's settled."

"So what'd you wanna do, Jane?" Frankie's low drawl brought the women back to the table, where the older of the Rizzoli boys was glancing pointedly at his little brother. "I mean - what's gonna stop Lydia from comin' back in here and takin' Wy from us if Tommy really is the father?"

"I won't let her!" Tommy exclaimed defiantly, though the righteous indignation he'd felt rising in his chest was now quickly deflating under the dark, low gaze of his sister. "S-She can't take him from me, can she?" he asked nervously, glancing at his siblings. "I-I mean - I'm the father! I got a right to say where he goes!"

Maura stepped forward, if only to keep Jane from ripping into Tommy again. "That's exactly why she can," she explained calmly, as they both eased back into their seats. "Because you are in fact, Wyatt's father, Lydia has the same rights as you do to come back and take Wyatt." The tips of her fingers trembled at the thought.

Jane blew out a breath from beside her - her wine glass empty now. "As far as the court's concerned, Tommy, she was just lettin' him visit family." There was a certain way to Jane's words that cut deeper than any of them would've expected - perhaps they saw it in the bitter black gleam of her eyes, the same thought of their own father, "popping by for a visit".

Once more, the good doctor's touch seemed to calm the storm inside her, and Jane glanced to where Maura sat somewhat uncomfortably beside her. Jane glanced down at her arm; Maura's delicate fingers that seemed much too fragile to even be anywhere near her own sinewous, scarred forearm, and let the woman's fingers press gently into her skin.

She sighed again. "What do we know about her mother, hmm? There's gotta be something there we can use against her."


Dinner came and went, and with it, the last of Jane's energy. The woman stumbled into the bedroom after being shooed away from the kitchen; Maura and Angela often did the cleaning up together - 'bonding time', her mother would like to call it, and Jane had no qualms with letting them finish the clearing up this time around.

She collapsed into bed with a hefty sigh of relief, her aching muscles sagging gratefully into the cool Egyptian cotton sheets; she fisted the covers in her hands, felt the ever-present pull of her scars, and buried her nose into the sweet scent of Maura on the sheets.

Wyatt slept noiselessly in the bassinet by her side, she heard his soft and infantile snuffling, and wondered how long did she have before the boy would need attention once more.

Tommy had left with Frankie in a huff, having submitted to his sister's wishes of searching for Lydia, and perhaps learning to care for his son. But the youngest Rizzoli was flighty as ever; Jane did not like the way his eyes would shift continuously at dinner, and knew the signs for what they were, regardless of how much she wished to believe otherwise.

God help her, she loved her brother, truly she did, but Tommy was a hot mess.

It was to this thought that Jane felt herself succumbing to the heavy pull of sleep, her eyelids barely strong enough to hold open to glance at the clock beside her; not quite past midnight, but God if it didn't feel like days had passed. Jane nuzzled her face into the pillows once more, ready to submit herself into the open arms of sleep, before she felt the touch of a gentle hand on her booted feet.

She grunted, annoyed. "Maura -."

"Whine at me all you want; if you want to sleep in my bed, you'll take your shoes off." The ME grasped Jane's heel in her hand gently, unzipping and slipping the boots from the taller woman's feet with little difficulty; though she would've preferred to have Jane up and in the shower, Maura left the woman fully dressed, and changed into her own nightwear.

Jane was beside her and wrapped around her the moment Maura settled herself comfortably in bed - the woman pressed herself into Maura's sweet smelling hair, her arm banded tight to Maura's waist as if she was never allowed to leave the bed. Maura made no protest, but laid her hand gently over Jane's arm, and pressed back into the solid form of her best friend, and together they were lulled into comfortable sleep.


She felt the cold blade of the knife digging into her delicate skin; the bite of the blade when it broke skin on her neck, the whimpering yelp that came unbidden from her throat as she heard the thundering of footsteps coming towards them - Jane.

The arm around her neck clung tighter, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't see through the tears nor speak through the panic welled in her throat, but Maura found the strength to utter one word. "Jane!"

And then she was propelled forward - shoved into the arms of the taller woman, whose own gun-roughened hands had clung to her just as tightly as she did Jane; whose hands had pressed into her hair and at her arms, clutching her tight in an embrace full of tears and shaking words of promise and comfort from husky throats.

"Maura," Jane moaned; such relief, she had never heard before. "Oh god, Maura. Are you okay? Maura?"

"Maura!"

She woke with a quiet gasp, and nothing more save for the white-knuckled clench of her hands in the sheets, and Maura blinked a long moment up at the white of her ceiling. From the corner of her eye, she could see the black mass of hair tangled in sleep, each kink almost as unique as the woman bearing them, and Maura turned her face to Jane.

Jane was sitting up beside her, leaning over her body with dark, sleep-hazed eyes that still clouded with worry at the woman, and spoke with a voice like smoke. "Wha's a matter, babe? You okay?" Jane stroked her thumb gently over Maura's arm, almost too soft to feel. "S'it a nightmare?"

It was only then that Maura realized she'd be crying. The wetness on her cheeks made her start, and Jane's face merely morphed into something like a worried dog over its owner, as she reached up to wipe hastily at the tears there. "I'm fine," Maura choked, although the words that caught in her throat were stuck there more so from sleep than emotion.

It was the tremble in her fingers that came from the memories.

Nevertheless, Jane wrapped herself around the smaller woman, her lips pressed in something too-friendly of a touch by Maura's jaw. "S'alright, babe," she rasped; her fingers were stroking Maura's skin still. It wasn't clear if Jane had even registered the act. "I've got you."

Maura did not sleep much that night, but it was not the nightmares that kept her awake.


Uh?