Full disclaimers in Chapter 1
ALERT: If you have not watched the show yet, there might be spoilers.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.
I am not a native English speaker, and I don't have a beta. So all mistakes are 100% mine.
Enough of disclaimers and warnings – read at your own risk. Reviews are always welcome!
Season 3 – Episode 4 – "Welcome to the Dollhouse"
"I don't know that I can make that promise. She's my friend."
"If you're her friend, you won't tell her."
Those two sentences had been replaying in Maura's mind since she left Casey in the veterans' center. She sighed. Life was never easy, was it? Things could be simple, straightforward. But life had a way to tweak them.
Not that Maura agreed with Casey's approach. She could admit that, in his own twisted way, he was trying to protect Jane. Maura even had to admit to herself that, if she was in his position, she probably would do the same – at least if she was deciding using her rational mind. With the medical knowledge she had, she knew the chances of recovery for that type of injury were minimal. If Jane and Casey had been in a relationship, he might consider things different. But she could understand his logic of, if they never really started a real relationship, they could stop before they started and nobody else got hurt.
What Casey didn't know was that his twisted way was hurting Jane, a lot. Because Casey ignored something Maura knew all too well. Jane was loyal. To a fault. She seemed to make light of things, and if you only looked at the surface you might be fooled. But Maura had learned long ago Jane didn't take things lightly. When Jane was in, she was in for the long run. It was just the way she was.
Maura still thought Jane loved more the ideal of Casey than Casey himself, given she had not had even a chance to properly be exposed to Casey. But still, Jane loved him or the ideal of him, and thinking she had been neglected or rejected was hurting her.
Maura had failed to get Jane to go to the gym. Or to the Dirty Robber. Jane had not even accepted her company for wallowing in her apartment. She was worried about Jane. Really worried. It was not like her always self-confident best friend to be in that shape.
So when she was with Angela, and Angela said how worried she was about Jane, Maura took a decision she might come to regret.
…
"Your mother is a dead woman." Maura said, seeing the note.
"Is a dead woman. Yeah." Jane completed at the same time.
Both laughed, Jane among her tears.
Maura regretted having trusted in Angela. Although it had led to this meeting and some clarification, the awkwardness could have been completely avoided.
"I wonder how my mother even knew about his condition. And how did she come with this crazy idea of setting up a mysterious encounter. She completely baffles me…"
Maura knew she needed to come clean. More lies would not help. Maura knew if Jane thought really hard, she would have realized Maura haven't seem surprised at all by seeing Casey on crutches by the door of the Dirty Robber.
"Jane…"
Jane raised her eyes to look at Maura. "Hmmm."
"There is something I need to tell you…"
"What is it, Maura?" Jane knotted her eyebrows, suddenly noticing Maura's discomfort.
"I knew about Casey's condition since yesterday." Maura blurted.
"You what?" Jane's eyes went wide as saucers.
"Please hear me out before you bite my head, please, please?" Maura pleaded, tears in her eyes, urgency in her voice.
"You better have a very good justification." Jane sighed, sniffling, motioning her to proceed.
"I will start from the beginning. When Korsak realized that the dog he had found belonged to the veterans' center, I thought that would be the perfect opportunity of an excuse for me to have a private conversation with Casey. I was angry for the way he treated you, and I confess I was looking for an opportunity to give him a piece of my brain."
"It is a piece of your mind, Maura." Jane chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Should I be concerned?"
Jane was surprised. Maura was not someone who would proactively engage in an argument. But she also knew Maura had seen how this was impacting Jane. And they were very protective of each other. Specially after they had been separated by the rift in the warehouse, their renewed bonds were stronger than ever.
"I told Korsak I would spare him having to say goodbye to the dog, and went to the veteran's center myself. That was when I saw Casey moving around with the utmost difficulty. It caught me completely off guard, I must say. I confronted him with the diagnosis. He confirmed he was hit by a roadside bomb and was partially paralyzed. I immediately offered to put him in contact with a colleague of mine who is heading the Boston clinical trials for a new spinal regeneration technique, and he said he was already on the waiting list."
Jane was looking at her intently.
"Then I told him he should tell you. And he said he wouldn't, and made me promise that I also wouldn't, ever."
"And did you promise him?"
"I told him that I didn't know if I could make that promise because you are my friend… He went about that exactly because I was your friend I needed to make the promise. I tried to argue with him that a lot of couples cope with very serious war injuries, but he said that he sees those couple in the vet center every day and he knows the toll that has to girlfriends, wives, families."
Maura was observing Jane looking at her, assessing how much trouble she was into. But she would not hide anything from Jane. Casey had done enough of that for both of them.
"Jane, I told him it was mean not to tell you, that this truth was easier than whatever you were imagining. Because this truth was something you could work out together. What you were imagining meant there was nothing you could even do. But he cut me off, and I left."
"And you didn't tell me?" Jane sounded hurt.
"I tried to find an opening. I invited you to a run, to the gym, to the Dirty Robber. But you were wallowing and not having any of me around even for your five stages of junk food. I arrived home, and your mom was all worried about you… So I made her swear over Gray's Anatomy she would never tell you or anyone what I was going to tell her."
"Wait. Did you say Gray's Anatomy?"
"I don't believe in God, thus a Bible holds no value to me."
"Well, the opposite is true to my mother. She believes in God, so unless she swore over a bible, it had not real value to her."
"Damn." Maura muttered. "I should have thought of it…"
"So yeah, in a way, she didn't tell anyone. But she did the next best thing she could think off, she set you both in a blind date. I never suspected her when you said you had gotten a text from Casey."
"I thought we had agreed after your tagging adventure that you would not go gossiping with my mother. And again it was about Casey." Jane admonished.
"That time was not gossiping. She distracted me with cannoncini alla crema pasticcera, and caught me on a slip of my tongue, blackmailing me into telling her about the way Casey treated you. This time it was also not gossiping. I was sharing a concern, and under a sworn oath. Your mother disregard for any oaths is appalling."
Jane chuckled, shaking her head. "The only oath my mother abides too is the oath to protect her litter at any cost, Maura. You've been on the receiving end of it when she used her devices to try to get us back to being friends."
"Can you forgive me?"
"As long as Casey can forgive me for inviting him to go rollerblading or running, I can forgive you for not telling me before."
"I am so sorry, Jane…" Maura shook her head, and Jane knew Maura was sincere in her apologies, as she always was.
"It is fine, Maura. At least we got to talk, and he said he does want to see me, but asked me to give him some time…" Jane sounded hopeful.
"Sounds promising… But, for clarity, was this before or after the rollerblading and running invitation?" Maura felt mortified by the thought.
"After…" Jane chuckled. "We are good."