Maura is sitting cross legged on the couch in the living room, catching up on work e-mails when she receives one that makes her stomach drop.
"Oh…no," she says out loud, and across the room, Lily looks up from her case file.
"That sounds worse than your usual plagiarism sigh," her wife remarks. "Something you want to share?"
Maura touches two fingers briefly to her forehead. "One of my students…former students…her younger brother's financial aid has been revoked."
Lily closes the file on her lap, eyes widening a little. "That sounds serious," she says. "What did he do to earn that punishment?"
Maura is still scanning the email, as though it will tell her details on the feelings of those involved, and not just the facts. "He…was arrested for breaking and entering," she says. "And robbery."
"Yikes," Lily says mildly. It takes a fair amount of drama to upset her in any real way. Her steady, calculating nature is one of the reasons Maura loves her. "Arrested arrested? Like BPD?"
"Yes," Maura confirms. "Oh, his sister must feel awful."
"Is there anything I can do?" Lily asks. She stands and comes to sit down next to Maura, looking at the email over her shoulder. "It's not my department, but a couple guys I know just transferred to booking and I can see if he's…Ah." She stops short, and when Maura looks around at her, she finds Lily looking back with a bemused look.
"What?" Maura asks, though she already knows.
"Rizzoli," Lily says, just a hint of teasing in her voice. "Of course."
Maura rolls her eyes. "I would be just as upset about any other student's sibling," she says firmly.
Lily studies her for a moment. "You're not scratching, so you must believe that," she says with a faint smile. "But it isn't the truth."
Maura opens her mouth to protest, but Lily continues over her. "I'm not picking on you, love. I think it's sweet that she's found someone to confide in, and that you've found a worthy mentee. But you can't deny that you favor her over your other students."
Maura frowns. She doesn't like to be contradicted, especially when she's on the losing end of a fight. "She's not currently one of my students. And I'm helping several seniors with their college applications, not just Jane."
Lily laughs, a quiet, unassuming sound that makes Maura smile, despite herself. "Methinks she doth protest too much," Lily says, definitely teasing now. She wraps her arms around Maura and kisses the side of her head. "Seriously though, Maura, be careful, okay?"
Maura nods into the embrace. "Yes. I've already promised."
"I know. But kids can be capricious and really…fuckin' shitty sometimes. Sorry," Lily ducks Maura's halfhearted swat. "Especially when they're scared or cornered."
"I'm not cornering Jane," Maura says. "We haven't even spoken since she submitted her last application two weeks ago. And as far as I know, she's still allowing that immoral, manipulative boy to hang around her."
"Jealousy," Lily says. "The first warning sign that your wife is going to leave you for a younger woman."
Maura scoffs, burrowing deeper into Lily's arms. "I don't want a romantic relationship with Jane Rizzoli," she asserts. "If anything, I want…to adopt her. I can't imagine how hard this is on her."
"Yes you can," Lily says, kissing the crown of her head. "That's why you care so much. I just want you to be careful. It's 2002, but the world still has its bigots."
Maura wiggles around so that she can kiss her wife on the lips. "Yes, Detective Rush. Thank you, Detective Rush."
Lily laughs into their kiss, but pulls up short, pointing as Maura's African spurred tortoise trundles into the room from the kitchen.
"Turn Bass around," Lily says. "I don't want him to see what I'm about to do to his mother."
Maura snorts. "He doesn't have the ability to process human intimacy, Lil," she says, but she gets off the couch and gently redirects him.
"You're the one who's always telling me how smart he is!" Lily says reasonably, but when Maura turns back to the couch, Lily opens her arms, signaling that she does not want an argument, and Maura happily sinks back into her favorite position.
"I love you, Doctor," Lily says softly. "No more work, now. Okay?"
And Maura hums in agreement, sliding her hands under her wife's shirt.
…
….
Maura takes Lily's advice, and does not seek Jane out on Monday, and so it's not until Wednesday that Maura sees her again.
She is leaving early, heading out of the main exit towards the faculty parking lot, when she sees a cluster of kids hanging out buy the bus port. She realizes with a jolt that the girl at the center of the group is Jane.
She is sitting on the bench, hunched over with her elbows on her knees and her hair through her face.
Next to her is a Junior that Maura recognizes from her AP Biology class, Barold Frost. There are a couple others that Maura doesn't recognize, and as she draws closer, a big yellow school bus rumbles around the corner and heads towards the bus port.
All of the kids crowd towards the place where the doors will open to let them on, except for Jane, Barold, and another boy who Maura identifies as Jane's middle brother, Francesco Jr.
The doors to the bus slide open, and the kids clamber aboard, Maura makes her decision to call out. Jane has not moved.
"Everything okay over there?" she calls.
Barold and Francesco turn to look at her, and after a glance at each other, Barold jogs over to her. "Hi Dr. Isles," he says with a weak smile.
"Mr. Frost," she says. "Is everything alright?"
"Uh…It's just Frost," he says, which is his usual greeting. "And yeah, we're good."
"Miss Rizzoli seems to be in pain," Maura says carefully. "Are you sure?"
Frost looks torn, and then supremely relieved when Jane's brother calls his name. He gives Maura a guilty look, and then turns and jogs back to the others. For a moment, the two boys seem to be debating something, and Maura sees Jane lift her head to add something to the conversation. But then, the school bus driver honks his horn, and with swift, backward glances, both boys turn and board the bus, leaving Jane behind.
Maura watches as the vehicle pulls back, and out of the parking space, and then she calls out for the second time.
"Jane?"
Jane turns to look at her, and though her eyes seem a little bloodshot, she is not crying. Not really.
"Are you alright?" Maura moves closer, and Jane stands, pushing her hair out of her face with both hands.
"Yeah," says unconvincingly. "Hey, Doctor." She looks at the pavement for a while, and Maura is about to walk away when she speaks again. "We made it into the Regional championships, did you hear?"
"The basketball team!" Maura nods. "Yes, I did. Congratulations!" Something occurs to her, and she glances down at her watch. "Wait a moment…Isn't that…"
"Yeah," Jane says. "That was the fan bus going to cheer them on."
Maura didn't think it was possible to feel so upset over a sports event that has nothing to do with her. "Would you like to tell me why you're not in attendance?"
Jane looks at her sharply, as though she is unsure if this is a joke. "You want me to tell you?"
Maura nods. "If you'd like to. You seemed particularly distressed and sometimes discussing the source can help."
Jane has been watching her as she speaks, and as Maura finishes her explanation, the teenager sighs. "I guess I'm overreacting," she says.
"Sports are important to you," Maura says, trying to keep her voice neutral.
"I couldn't afford to go," Jane says quietly, eyes dropping back to the ground. "My brother…Tommy, not Frankie, he got in more trouble." Jane pauses, like she expects Maura to ask what the trouble is, and when Maura doesn't, Jane looks at her curiously, continuing on.
"My parents had to spend the money they put aside to send me to Regionals on him," she says slowly. "And there was only enough left over for one of us to go on the fan bus…so I let Frankie go."
Maura finalizes her decision to never have children right then and there. She can barely handle Jane's look of dejection and resignation, she doesn't want to think about what a similar look would do to her when coming from her own flesh and blood.
"I'm very sorry," Maura says, stepping closer. "It must have been hard to hear that you couldn't go."
Jane nods, but doesn't seem able to respond immediately. Finally she takes a deep breath. "Thanks," she mumbles.
"And letting your brother go in your place was extremely selfless."
Jane manages a weak smile. She nods jerkily. "I hope we win anyway," she says gruffly. "I'd really like for there to be a trophy with my name on it that was in the case forever, you know?"
Maura makes a noncommittal sound, and Jane grins at her. "Like, it would be proof that I was here. That I really belonged and helped change something here."
"You belong at this school, Jane," Maura says, taken aback.
Jane shrugs. "I mean like more than a charity case," she says quietly, and Maura doesn't know what to say to this. She doesn't know how to comfort a type displacement that she has never felt.
So what she says is "Lily – my wife – she used to have a hard time believing that she deserved certain things as well."
Jane is picking at her cuticles again, but she nods to show that she is listening. "She went through some very difficult things as a child, and it was hard for her to believe in herself. Or to believe that anyone would see her as something other than a person who deserves pity.
This makes Jane look up suddenly. "Yeah!" she says eagerly. "Like, I don't want people to think because we're poor that we're not worth anything. I don't want people to think Tommy's a bad kid. He's not a bad kid, he just hangs out with the wrong guys, you know?" She doesn't wait for Maura to answer. "That's why I don't want to, like, upset everyone. It'll just give people another reason to pity me."
When Maura doesn't answer, Jane looks as though she thinks she's offended her. "I don't mean that you or Lily – oh, my God, I mean Mrs…Isles? – That sounds so weird. I mean, not bad weird. Just like…you're the only Isles I know and you're a doctor. So calling any Isles Mrs. is…" she catches herself before her speech tumbles off a cliff. "I don't mean that you or her should be pitied."
Maura chuckles, "I appreciate that."
Jane smiles sheepishly. She turns and sits back down on the bench, dipping her head so her hair falls through her face again, and after a moment, Maura joins her, crossing her feet at the ankle.
She realizes Jane is crying too late to get up and leave her alone, which is probably what she would have wanted. But after a couple minutes of silence, Jane sniffs.
"I really wanted to go," she says softly.
"I know," Maura replies. She puts her hand on Jane's shoulder without really thinking about it.
"It felt like…you know…the only thing I was looking forward to. Basketball is the only place where I feel like myself. Like I don't have to be...pretending all the time." she takes another deep breath. "And hanging out with you."
"I...thank you. That means a great deal to me." Maura does not know what else to say. She feels woefully inadequate in the face of this.
"Was school hard for you?" Jane tilts her head to look up at Maura.
Maura nods, rubbing Jane's shoulder absently. "It was torture," she says softly.
"But you got through it," Jane says, like a reminder.
Maura nods. "I got through it."
They sit for a moment longer, and Maura watches a car pull out of the faculty parking lot and head for the main road. Jane sighs next her her, and Maura suddenly remembers Lily's warning from the other day, and quickly, the optics of sitting alone on a bench with her hand on the shoulder a crying student make her almost jump her to her feet. "I have to go."
Jane looks around at her, startled.
"I'm sorry," Maura says, and though she knows immediately that she has chosen the incorrect way to handle the moment, but she cannot change it now. "I just realized that I'm late." She is, but not for anything in particular, and she can tell by Jane's expression that she is disappointed at the abrupt end to their conversation. Maura hopes she doesn't blame herself.
Jane doesn't stand, but she nods, looking away. "It's cool," she says, trying for casual.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Jane, okay?"
Jane nods again, not looking around. "Kay," she says.
Maura doesn't see Jane the next day, or the day after that, and she is under the impression that she's being given 'the cold shoulder' until she overhears a math teacher in Faculty lounge say that Jane Rizzoli fell asleep during his test.
"Between the part time job she says she's got, and that little thug she's running around after since we expelled him? It's not all that surprising," she hears him say.
Maura stirs her coffee, and does not offer anything to the conversation.
…
…
Parents' Night at Boston Prep is Maura's second least favorite time of year. She hates the first day of school the most, with its new people and re-establishing of rules. On the day in September when the new school year starts, Maura is usually as loathe to get out of bed as the average teenager, and she spends a longer time in front of the mirror, preparing, than any other day.
But Parent's Night is a close second on the list of horrible things. It is one of two times every year when parents are invited to come into the school and converse with their children's teachers.
"Well," Maura remembers telling Lily, early on in their relationship, "The administration calls it conversing. I would call something more accurate…like interrogating."
She arrives early, and has just enough time to drink one plastic cup of the awful red punch served at functions like this, before the parents begin to file into the auditorium in groups.
Maura sees several parents of her current students, mostly those of her good students. She doubts the two juniors who are failing her class even told their parents there was a night when they could come and talk to all of the teachers. She supposes that would be akin to some sort of teenage suicide.
Maura has decided to go back to the refreshment table for one of the bland looking cookies, when a woman taps her on the shoulder.
"Are you Mrs. Isles?" the woman asks tentatively.
"Doctor, actually," She says with a smile, holding out her hand. "Yes, I am."
The woman's face breaks open into a wide grin, and in the moment when her eyes crinkle at the corners, Maura knows exactly who she is. "Dr. Isles!" the woman cries. "I'm Angela Rizzoli, It's so nice to finally meet you!"
"It's nice to meet you as well," Maura says, forcing herself to believe this so that she will not come out in hives.
Angela looks over her shoulder, and gestures at a man who must be her husband. "Frank!" She calls, "I found her!" She turns back to Maura with a smile. "It's the first time in four years Frank and I were able to make it to Parent's Night," she says a little breathlessly. "We always had something else going on, wouldn't you know it. But this year, I said to Frank that we were going to make it no matter what. I mean. It's not every year that you have a kid who's graduating, you know?"
Frank has come to stand beside his wife, and as he catches the tail end of her sentence, he snorts. "Feels like it, though, with the commotion they cause. Frankie'll be a senior before we know it, and we'll have another one of these things."
He laughs, and Maura smiles politely, unsure if there was even a joke in his little speech for her to fail to understand.
"Well," she says. "I adored having Jane in my classes. She has such an inquisitive mind. She was one of my top students."
Angela beams at her. "Did you hear that Frank?"
Frank nods, looking satisfied. "I told you Ange, she's got a hell of a future in front of her."
Maura feels her spirits lift with these words. She nods enthusiastically. "She does!" she agrees. "Though she doesn't always have the most faith in herself. She and I spoke a few times about her plans for next year...and beyond." Maura finishes slowly, realizing that she could be traveling into dangerous territory, but Angela nods, like she is completely in sync with everything Maura is saying.
"Yes," she says. "We know. Jane seemed so nervous when she came to us to talk about it. Like she thought we wouldn't approve."
Maura can feel her smile faltering. "I'm sorry?" she says politely. "Jane talked to you about...her ideas for the future?"
Frank furrows his brow, looking confused. "Yeah," he says. "A couple days ago. Made a big fuss about it...like we didn't already know."
Maura looks from Frank to his wife, wanting to get some confirmation. Angela nods, smile on her face.
"Of course we know," she says. "We're her parents. It's our job, isn't it?"
Maura feels a flood of relief run through her, so overwhelming that for a moment, all she can say is, "oh, thank goodness."
"Jane wouldn't do anything without telling us. She's a good girl," Angela says, and although this seems like an odd thing to say, Maura nods in agreement.
"She's done so well here," Maura says. "We were speaking a few weeks ago about college, and I told her that I thought she had a good chance of getting into all of the places that-"
"Wait wait wait," Frank cuts her off, looking puzzled. "What are you talking about?"
Maura blinks at him. "I…was talking about Jane?" It comes out as a question.
Frank looks just as baffled. "Jane?" He repeats, looking even more confused. "Wait. Jane and college?"
"Yes," Maura says, "I…thought we were talking about how she'll be able to have a more enjoyable college experience than perhaps-"
"College experience?" Angela says, looking shocked. "Jane doesn't want to go to college."
They stare at each other, and Maura feels like she's walked through an unseen door into an alternate reality.
"I…I'm sorry," Maura says, trying to backtrack, "I just thought that-"
"Why would Jane need an 'enjoyable college experience'?" Frank asks. He is looking at her as though she is mildly dangerous, as though Maura has threatened him in some way. "What about her current life isn't enjoyable?"
"I did not mean to imply that Jane is not happy in her current life, not at all."
"I should say not," Frank says, his voice rising. "I mean, we don't have all the fancy things you all have here, but that certainly doesn't mean our kids can't be happy."
Maura shakes her head, looking to Angela for help.
"She said she didn't want to go to college," Angela says again, still looking at Maura with her wide brown eyes. "That's what she said."
Frank puts his arm around her. "Nah," he says, dismissively. "Why would she, Ange? She's got the business to help me with. You don't need to spend a million dollars on that. Makes good money. Learn a trade." He ticks off the pros in Maura's direction, like she's been debating him. "And you can get a pretty full, enjoyable life if you ask me."
Maura vowed after her first Parent Visit Night (after which, she cried for twenty minutes in her car), that she would remain professional and detached. She promised herself that unless a parent or child told her something that she lawfully could not ignore, she would not intervene.
But it is at that moment that Jane enters the room. Maura sees her over Angela's shoulder. She takes three steps into the auditorium, before an arm reaches out from the hallway, and a hand wraps around her shoulder, pulling her back.
It's Casey. Maura sees his smirk, as he pulls Jane back towards him, and the look on Jane's face…
Frank is still talking, still going on about the happy life Jane will have in the family business, and without college, and as Maura looks back to him, he points at her, accusing.
"She doesn't need some upper class, teacher…know-it-all! Who has never done an honest day's work in her life to tell her what to do."
"Frank," Angela says, putting her hand on his arm.
"No, Ange…I want Dr. High 'n mighty here to tell me what our daughter could possibly enjoy more at college than she does at a job with family?"
Maura answers. She hears herself speaking without planning what she is going to say. She is thinking of Jane on the bench watching the bus pull away, and Jane's face three months ago, when they put her applications in the little blue mailbox on the corner by the school.
And Jane's face right now, as she looks up at Casey, and he pulls her toward him.
"She'd be free to explore her sexuality without fear of judgment, or of disappointing you more than she already fears she has!"
