Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your reviews. I enjoy reading them. I'm also trying to manage how I update. I know they're short chapters, but it does make it easier on me. But anyway, I'm really glad you all like it. I've got lots of ideas for this story.
Maura had walked to her mother's from the BPD and packed her things. She enjoyed living with Constance, but she wanted to go home. On the walk from her mother's house to her house, she has time to think. It's the time that lets everything settle from the day's earlier events. Maura had expected anger, but… the change in her friend she did not. She pulls her single bag of luggage along the sidewalk, the soft clicking sound breaking the city's normal noise. She sees the familiar building and remembers that she had offered to let Angela stay there. The doctor isn't sure that she wants to see her, not after the previous encounter with her daughter. She raps her knuckles against the door softly and footsteps approach it. The door opens.
"Hello," Angela says with a smile before it sinks in that this is her other daughter, or close enough. "Maura, it's so good to see you!" she exclaims, pulling the blonde into an embrace she can't escape. Maura doesn't hug back, but she doesn't fight it either. Mrs. Rizzoli opens the door and lets the doctor in with her bag trailing closely behind her. The house isn't different, to Isles's surprise. "I knew you'd come home sometime, so I tried to keep everything the same for when you finally returned." That makes one of us.
"Thank you, Angela." She isn't sure what else she can say.
"Now what were you doing staying gone for two and a half years, young lady?"
"I was travelling with Ian. We went quite a few places but… we had a… a falling out.." Maura nibbles on the inside of her bottom lip. "I decided to come home." Home is such an interesting word, but it's appropriate.
"Have you seen Jane yet?" The blonde gives her a look; it's a mix of hurt and shame. Angela knows right there that it's a yes. "Jane hasn't been the same since you left. And when you stopped contacting her…" she pauses, knowing that it goes without words that it was hard for the detective.
"I'm sorry," Isles whispers, fighting back the twinges of guilt.
"Don't tell me, hun, tell her." Mrs. Rizzoli gives a warm smile to the blonde. "But for now, go put your things up and I'll get you something to eat and put on some tea." Maura does as she is told and takes her luggage to her room, sitting on the bed for a few moments. This bed, how she had missed it so.
Jane is heading back to headquarters after making the arrest of their suspect. Korsak catches up with her and grabs her shoulder roughly; that isn't like him at all. Her eyes fall on him in confusion.
"I'm fed up with your attitude, Jane. You hardly even talk to me or Frost anymore. You run off ahead of everyone; do I need to remind you of Hoyt and what happened when you ran ahead?" he hates using that as a point, but he feels it necessary to make her see what she's become, "And now that Dr. Isles is back, you're treating her like she was never your friend in the first place." Vince has had enough of her trying to make up for the loss she experienced. He knows her better than most, and this isn't her.
"You're going to say the incident with Hoyt is my fault now?" She shrugs her shoulder from his grip. She knows he doesn't mean it like that, but it's another wall of defense, and one part of her takes insult to that comment. Jane's eyes connect with his. "And all this about Maura being my friend. If she was ever my friend, she wouldn't have left." Her gaze drops to the pavement they're walking on before turning back up to him. "Don't try to tell me how to live my life, Korsak." She walks away from him, jaw set tight in place. Instead of the Boston Police Department, she walks straight home to her apartment. The thought of her mother at Maura's causes her to wonder how that went. Rizzoli figures that Maura got her mother to side with her about the incident in the basement and sighs. Just what she doesn't need, her mother against her in all of this.
Why did you come back? Why now? Why, after all this time and nothing between us, did you come back? She closes her eyes, fighting the tears. No one knows. No one knows. Why now, Maura? I needed you.