Autors note: here comes the second part! Comments as usual welcome.
By the time they arrived back at Mauras house in was close to midnight and both felt tired. "Would you like to stay here tonight?" Maura offered "You can stay in the guestroom, if you like." Jane loved her own place but still envied her friend in moments like this for both, the fact to have a guestroom to offer and her discipline to always keep it tidy enough so that at least Jane could sleep over here any time. For being suitable for any non-Rizzoli-person to stay Maura would still demand to clean up the room at least 3 hours. Jane felt complimented by that fact. It meant that Maura was able to relax leave behind all rules of her upper class upbringing in the presence of Jane.
"Thank you, but I think I'd rather sleep at home tonight. I need to get new clothes anyway."
"Oh I just washed your spare clothes."
"Thank you, but I was thinking about something special tomorrow.
"Something sp" Maura didn't manage to finish her sentence before Jane answered the unfinished question.
"You'll see in a couple hours. Just wait. Okay?"
Jane hurried to come home. It was ten hours left until they were supposed to meet again an in her estimation it was less than the half of that reserved to sleep. At least one hour until she would be in her bed, if she skipped every unnecesserity. Then would be coming about 2 hours of musing about what and how to tell Maura, her Ma, Tommy, Frankie and Korsak. This was really worse than shopping Christmas presents. Then she would have about 4, max 5 hours to sleep before it was time to get up again, showering, getting dressed, thinking over her words to her beloved again, panic, and drive back over to her best friends.
It was too bad Jane had refused to accept the offer to stay in her guestroom. Having her here in the morning gave Maura a warm feeling. Even if it sounded weird saying this about her, but coming down to the kitchen and seeing Jane partly trying to really figuring out her coffeemachine, partly thinking about bringing out instant, made her feel home.
Beyond that it would have been a good opportunity to tell Jane her "present". She was sure about she wanted her to know, Jane would be able to handle that in the right way and get it the way she meant it. There were just two ways it could be between them, it always had been. They either understood one another immediately or not at all. But here Maura was sure that there was no chance for misunderstanding. She had observed Jane in several relevant situations and had collected evidences. But still, this was more a thing between the two of them than for the whole family.
Standing in the kitchen and preparing some surprise-Christmas cookies for her guests gave her a special feeling. She knew everyone was counting her as a member of the family but she still felt some differences. None big but she couldn't deny that it felt like this. Like everyone was connected with blue ribbon to the others except for hers, hers were green. Oh and the red one to Jane. It was unclear to herself, why she immediately thought about a red ribbon to Jane but maybe because that color flattered her dark hair. Then the initial chuckle evolved to a loud laughter. All the ribbons in her mind must have gotten too tight around her hippocampus and amygdala when she tried to imagine how it would have looked at her dinner table yesterday if these ribbons would have been real.
She had thought about a proper delivery system for some while in the shower this morning and was sure she had come to a resolution. Now sitting at her desk it took surprisingly a while to find a pair of scissors. It was totally opaque how it could have ended up in the second drawer from below. Who would look for it there? Scissors are supposed to be pencil holder in the spare compartment in the back. How many pieces would she need? And which size would be needed? She herself wouldn't need too many word but how would the others handle the silent change in the ways this day would go by.
Cookies, papers, pencils everything in the right place. After changing 3 times she now had decided to wear her black Camilla Thulin. This was going to be a good Christmas.
There were no expected catastrophes und the Rizzoli universe. Her parents had decided months ago to celebrate in Europe and Maura had preferred not to celebrate with them since she was taking just 5 days off and would never get over 2 jetlag in that short amount of time. But to her the Rizzolis were just as much her family as her parents. At the moment Angela came in there was no time left for any panic. Angela was demanding all her attention, blabbing about her meaningful christmasdreams she have had the last night. Something about oat, rain and children but since there were no evidences about the science behind interpreting dreams Maura was not engaging too much in Angelas hypotheses.
When even Tommy and Frankie were arriving the volume level promptly rose a number of decibel.
Maura got into a discussion with Frankie about the possibility of the perfect murder. Maura felt underestimated by the remark that a murder with no evidences would be possible. Of course she wouldn't deny the statistic probability of that to happen but it was so unlikely that she would never manage to do that many autopsies till she comes to that case. Tommy meanwhile was questioned by his mother how things with Lydia went. And TJ! Mostly TJ since he got a gastric flu and stayed home with Lydia. They trailed the biggest trouble during the last months and even though Lydia insisted on them not getting back together they get got along well.
Just Korsak and Jane were not making it on time.