It's a long climb to the top of mission hill, especially in heels. Especially with two coffees and a couple of donuts. She is not afraid that she has chosen the incorrect location, she is only afraid that by the time she reaches her destination the coffee will be cold.
She's not out of breath when she gets to the top, not really, but she pauses to reorient herself, turning to face the bench where she knows the detective will be sitting. It is late September, almost too cold for this particular haunt, and Maura pulls her coat a little tighter around herself and makes her way over to the bench.
"Hello, Jane," she says quietly.
Jane doesn't make any real acknowledgement that she's heard, but she takes the offered coffee with a nod.
The bench that Jane has chosen has the best view of Boston, but Maura doesn't think that Jane even notices the landscape. When it becomes too cold, Jane will switch to the coffee shop six blocks from the hospital. And then to the unlocked auditorium of the high school on days when there are no games.
Maura will find her. Wherever she is.
"Mags has invited Elena to her birthday party," Maura says conversationally. "Lily asked if she thought the older girls would make fun of her, and she said that if they did they weren't invited to her house anymore."
She doesn't expect an answer.
"I stopped by the clinic on my way here, Lou wanted me to talk to a teenager heading from remission to maintenance. That place really has come such a long way in the past eight months. I know she was hesitant about asking for donations, but it's worked out very well. She's so kind to everyone who comes there."
Jane sips her coffee, but still says nothing.
Maura isn't bothered. This has been their routine for the past three months, since the hospital admitted Elena for her last and most aggressive round of Chemotherapy. Yesterday, when Maura and Lily brought Mags to see Elena in the hospital, they found Jane and her daughter standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, making angry faces at their reflections.
"What are you doing?" Mags asked, coming to stand with them.
"It's the four quarter," Elena said in her adorable Spanish accent that never seemed to fade. "It's the four quarter and we're gonna scare that cancer so bad!"
Mags had contemplated the two faces in the mirror. "Can I do it too?" She'd asked.
"Si, the more is best!" Elena had said, not missing a beat.
Jane had turned from the mirror then, to smile at Maura, but her eyes looked dull.
"I brought you a donut," Maura says now, taking the liberty of reaching over to do the top button on Jane's overcoat. "I even went so far as to ask the man for the one with sprinkles on top of this absurd pink frosting, so you have to eat the entire thing."
Jane's mouth twitches, just the tiniest bit, and she turns her head to look at Maura. "Rainbow sprinkles?" she asks quietly.
Maura pretends to look disapproving. "Like they would put any other kind on," she replies, pulling it out of the paper bag. "Here."
Jane takes a bite, and her smile gets a little wider. "Mags is sweet," she says, falling backwards in the conversation.
Maura doesn't miss a step. "She used to beg Lily and me for a little sister. I think this is her dream come true."
Jane takes another, bigger bite of her donut. "Where's Wyatt?"
"Lily has him. I didn't want to bring him out in this cold."
Jane nods. "Thank you."
They sit for another couple of minutes in silence, and Maura waits until the donut has disappeared to ask the difficult questions. She takes Jane's hand in hers before she does.
Always.
"Are you sleeping enough?"
"I...have dreams."
"Would you like to discuss them?"
"They make me cry so hard my chest hurts. What if it doesn't work?"
"We won't think about that until we have to. For now we will focus on the present, and the things we can say for sure."
"What are those?"
"You and Louisa are doing everything you can. Elena is in good spirits. She's a fighter. She isn't scared."
"I'm scared."
"You are not giving her your fear."
"Maura?"
"Yes?"
"What time is it? How long until I have to be at work?"
"Sixty seven minutes."
"Can I put my head on your shoulder?"
"Of course you can. Of course you can."
…
…...
"Hi, Dr. Isles, I'm so sorry to barge in on you like this. I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Not at all. It's a nice surprise. What can I do for you Dr. Delgado?"
Louisa hesitates on in the front hall of Maura's house, looking around. "Is your family home?"
"Mags and Lily are at gymnastics. Is that alright with you?"
"It's perfect actually, I was hoping to speak to you alone."
Maura leads the way into the kitchen, gesturing that Lou should sit down. "Well that's certainly a little frightening," she says, trying to keep her tone light. "Can I offer you something to eat or drink first?"
Lou shakes her head, and she waits for Maura to sit down across from her before speaking again.
"I wanted to speak to you about Jane," she says.
"That's all that I had gathered," Maura says. "Is she alright?"
Lou makes a hopeless movement with her hands. "I honestly don't know," she says finally. "If she's not, she'd never let me know. Not while Elena is…" she trails off, unable to say it, and already Maura can see tears in her eyes.
"So, you think she's hiding her true feelings from you?" Maura asks.
"No," Lou says, wiping her eyes with two fingers. "No. I know how she's feeling. She's scared and upset, and angry." Louisa lets her fingers drift to her temple. "Somehow, she's able to have all of those feelings, and still sit by Elena's bed all night when she's having a stomach ache, and still show up on time to work, and still take care of Wyatt, and show up to Marc's basketball games…" she trails off, looking to Maura to see if she understands.
Maura does not. "You...don't think she's being honest with you about her feelings?"
"I don't know how she's handling it. She's not going to tell me." Louisa puts her hands in her hands. "I don't know if I want to know. God, is that horrible?"
"No," Maura says. "No...It's an extremely stressful time for both of you."
"Can you check on her?" Lou asks it quickly, ducking her head like this is a betrayal. "Can you...talk to her?"
Maura is speechless for a long moment. The answer, of course, is yes, but a dozen other questions are sliding into place in her brain, each vying for priority.
"Why me?" Maura asks, and when Lou looks shocked, she hurries to continue. "I would be happy to. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I mean is, why have you come to ask me, and not Frankie, or Detective Frost?"
Louisa leans back in the chair, and her eyes search Maura's face, like she's trying to find the right words in the doctor's face.
"Do you know about Casey Jones?" she asks finally.
Maura blinks at her. "Yes," she says after a moment of surprised. "I do."
"He's the one who assaulted her, isn't he?"
Maura looks hard at the woman across from her. "Jane doesn't see it that way," she says carefully.
"But you do," Louisa counters.
"I...do," Maura says. "But that doesn't have anything to do with my-"
"She just told me about that yesterday," Lou interrupts. "Last night. She was having...she was having a bad night. She told me about Casey. For the first time."
Maura tries to take this information in. "I'm...sorry," she says, because she believes that's what is needed.
But Lou shakes her off. "No," she says. "That's not it. Jane was telling me this last night. She was telling me how horrible it was, how she felt like she had nowhere in the entire world she felt safe, and she doesn't know what to do. And then, like some sort of lighthouse, you just appear in the story and save the day."
Maura looks at Louisa, trying to keep up. "I - like a - what?"
"She came to talk to you the next day. Like, right after it happened. And I guess you only spoke about some science thing, or a project or something, but you were kind to her. She says you smiled at her, and you talked to her like she was there, and not just taking up space. That's what she said. And she said it made things bearable. She said she was okay."
Maura does not want to cry. There is no reason for her to cry at this moment. "I...didn't know she felt that way," Maura says lowly.
"She did," Lou says. "She does. And I know she loves me. I know she loves Elena, and Marc and Frost and Frankie. But to all of us she is superhuman. I think you are the only one whom she is just...a person."
Maura looks at Louisa. She has aged a bit in the four months Maura has known her. The stress of an infant, a sick child, and a teenager has put a couple of extra pounds on her hips, and added some wrinkles to her forehead. But she is beautiful, and Maura sees the way she and Jane look at each other across the dinner table, and in the waiting room of the hospital. She sees the way Lou holds onto her wife in the kitchen by the dishwasher, when she thinks no one is looking.
How she must have humbled herself, to ask this of another woman.
"I'll talk to her," Maura says. She puts her hand on Lou's, and the other woman squeezes back. "I'll talk to her, and make sure she's doing alright."
Lou lifts Maura's hand to her forehead.
"Thank you."
…
…
This is what it is to have a community. This is what it feels like to have a job that she loves most days, and a family that supports her, and a best friend.
Maura and her wife and daughter spend Thanksgiving in the hospital with Jane and her family. Frost brings the girl that he's seeing, and Frankie shows up, and they watch football on the mounted TV, and the kids make turkeys out of their painted handprints.
When Mags falls asleep next to Elena in the hospital bed, Louisa tells Maura not to wake her. "It's my night to stay," she says, "If you want I can bring her home in the morning."
And Maura looks to Lily, who smiles and leans down to kiss both girls good-bye. Lou looks like she is going to cry, especially when Lily hugs her.
Jane facetimes them at 5:47 the next morning, three times in a row, until Lily wakes Maura up and they dial back with shaking fingers.
But Jane is laughing, holding Wyatt up in front of the screen and poking him in his chubby little belly until he laughs too, and says quite clearly:
"Touchdown!"
His first word.
Not all of the moments are tinged with despair and impending sorrow.
There is Marc presenting Mags with a bouquet of roses after her first ballet recital, while the other little girls looked on with equal parts wistfulness and envy.
There is the haunted house that Lily helps the girls make in Elena's room, a hit with the other children on the floor and all of the nurses.
There are the times in the park on Mission Hill, when Jane is the one to take Maura's hand in hers.
"Do you think it's weird," Maura hears Jane ask Lily one afternoon. "That the four of us are sort of the same?"
"Are we?" Lily asks in the tone that tells Maura she's playing.
"Yeah!" Jane says incredulous. She hasn't heard it. "Doctors and law enforcement." She pauses here, and Maura can imagine Lily's face, the half disinterested, half smirk she wears when someone has taken the bait of her joke. "Maura's like Lou. She's a doctor and…" But Jane trails off here. "Oh, you're joking with me."
"It was too easy. You're supposed to be a detective."
"You're supposed to show compassion for your victims," Jane says, laughing.
Lily and Jane get along without ever saying very much to each other. Each seems to understand something about the other that doesn't need articulation, and this is the closest they've come to a deeper conversation.
There is another little silence, and when Lily speaks again, her voice has gone soft. "It is okay to cry," she says quietly.
"She might die," Jane says thickly. Maura has to cross her arms over her chest to keep herself from going into the dining room where they are.
"You're right," Lily says simply. "She might."
Death does not scare either one of them, Maura knows. It is the aftermath that they are afraid of. The pieces that they will be left with.
"What will I do?" Jane asks. It is not in any way a rhetorical question. Maura listens to the silence. She knows what is coming next, though she would never have expected it of her wife. This is an attempt at connection.
"You will grit your teeth," Lily says. "And you will do whatever it is that must come next, because the alternative is to fall apart."
"I might," Jane says, a confession that she could give to nobody else.
"You won't," Lily says.
No. This is more, Maura realizes. This is a willingness to accept this extended family. A desire to do so.
"How do you know?" Jane is whispering.
"My sister and I," Lily says slowly. "We were…we were like you and Frankie…"
"Okay," Jane says flatly, not needing more of an explanation. Maura turns the similarities over in her mind, siblings who relied on each other for support.
"And when I thought I would lose her, I almost exploded."
"Yeah," Jane says with a nod, but Lily interrupts her, sounding intense.
"No," she says. "I mean, yes, you probably have your own word for it, but I don't mean I lashed out at other people, though I did. And I don't mean that I was self-destructive, though I was. I mean that there was-"
"A supernova inside of your chest cavity," Jane says. "Yeah. I know."
Maura is unable to hold off any longer. She comes to the doorway of the kitchen, smiling at the sight of Jane and Lily, sitting at the dining room table, over their beers. Maura meets her wife's eyes.
"Well," Lily says softly, grinning. "Well, how about that." She looks back at Jane. "That's how you know, kid," she says. "That's how you know you'll do what you have to, and nothing less."
…
…
It is Lily who threatens to shoot Frank Rizzoli if he doesn't leave the waiting area outside of Elena's room. Lily, who puts one hand on her gun and the other on Jane's shoulder, protectively, and tells him that working cold cases does not mean she doesn't know how to use it.
Frank sputters a lot. He throws around a lot of insults that Maura knows must pierce the very inside of Jane's heart.
Lily tells him to 'shut his homophobic mouth before she feeds him his own ass.'
There is something about the way her blue eyes turn fire when she is angry.
Maura is proud and in love. Lou throws her an impressed look.
It is Lily who grabs Angela by the arm as the couple is leaving and tells her that she should be ashamed of herself.
"No woman should be made to choose," Maura hears her say, "But your hand was forced. And you have made the incorrect decision."
Angela looks scared, but she also might look a little guilty.
Jane catches a case involving the assault and murder of a girl not much older than Mags, her body shoved into a suitcase, and left like garbage.
She and Lily sit up late, late into the night discussing this case, and when Jane finally solves it, Lily takes her to The Dirty Robber to celebrate, just the two of them.
.
It is Lou who takes Mags to by her Christmas Pageant Halo, who teaches her the song, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." It is Lou who comes over with Wyatt and Marc on Black Friday and falls asleep on Maura's couch in front of the third showing of A Christmas Story.
When she wakes up, she tells the other doctor that her wife's hands are hurting all the time now. The cold of Boston is harder, it settles in deeper.
Maura shows Lou how to rub, from the inside to the out. She shows her where to take care, and where to press harder.
"Do you two talk about Hoyt?" Lou asks her. "Does she talk about what went on down there? Or after?"
And Maura could tell by the way Lou asked her, that she and Jane talked about it, possibly at length.
"No," Maura had said, pointing out a spot between the first and second knuckle that Lou should not forget. "No. I think that's just for the two of you."
Louisa knows by then that the doctor cannot lie. She is not fully successful at hiding her relief.
…
…
Maura. Come to the hospital now. Please.
It is three days before Christmas, and her family is scattered around the city, but she shoots a 911 text to Lily at the precinct and bundles Mags into the car.
They meet Elena's Oncologist, Dr. Andrews on the way in, and he slows down to address her, smiling widely.
"You on your way to celebrate with Jane and Louisa?" he asks cheerfully. "They've got a hell of a little fighter there."
Maura feels like all of the wind has been knocked out of her. Mags asks the question she cannot.
"The Cancer is gone? It worked?"
And the doctor looks down at her, nodding. "I'd say we'll be able to call it remission officially just after Christmas," he says. "But we'll definitely get her home in time for Santa."
And Maura doesn't have time to catch her breath, before Mags is pulling her towards the elevator, squealing excitedly.
"Use your pass, Mommy! Use your pass."
It is flagrant abuse of power, but Maura does it without hesitation.
Lou and Jane are kissing in the hallway outside of Elena's room. Wyatt standing shakily next to Jane's leg, hands holding tight to her pants.
Jane has Lou's face cupped in her hands, and the kiss they're exchanging is full and desperate. They are both almost crying. They are both nearly hysterical with laughter.
"Gross," Mags says, dropping her mother's hand and running down the hall. She stops next to Wyatt. "Can I take him to see her?" she asks, and Lou pulls away from Jane, bending to pick her son up.
"Let's both go," she says. "We've been waiting for you to do the victory dance."
Mags, Maura's usually quiet, placid daughter, whoops loudly enough for an echo. And Maura laughs as the three of them disappear through the door.
She steps up to Jane, smiling.
Jane grins at her, her expression full of shock and disbelief.
And then she bursts into tears. She puts her hands over her face and leans back against the wall, sliding downwards until she is squatting.
Maura kneels in front of her, putting her hands around both of Jane's wrists, but not pulling. Not yet.
"Breathe," she says, because she cannot hear the brunette take in air. "Breathe, sweetness."
Jane takes two deep, shaky breaths that devolve into tears again.
"Okay," Maura says, moving closer. "Okay, it's okay. Let it out. She's okay."
Jane's hands come away from her face, and around Maura's neck. "Lena," she says, shaking her head against Maura's shoulder. "Remission."
"My dear," Maura says softly. "You've done it." And she kisses the side of Jane's head, just above her temple. "Sweetheart. Keep breathing."
There are tears in her own eyes, but she holds them in, at least until she sees Lily skid around the corner at the end of the hall.
Her wife takes in the scene, and her face falls. She looks at Maura, wide eyed, and Maura pulls away long enough to shake her head. "Remission," she mouths, over enunciating.
Lily's face cracks into a smile. She puts both hand to her mouth.
.
Maura helps Jane to her feet, and the three of them enter Elena's room, where the victory dance has already started.
Elena is even up and out of bed, dancing as well as she can, using Mags' hand for support.
Lou is sitting on the edge of the bed, Wyatt standing on her lap.
"Touchdown!" he says when he sees them enter. "Mama! Touchdown! Kitten!"
His favorite words. The happiest he can think of.
Lily laughs, a soft, unassuming sound that makes Maura want to hold onto her. "This calls for a take-out feast," she says, to general cheering. "Who's up for fried chicken!?"
"I want pizza," Mags says.
"I want Cake!" Elena chimes in excitedly.
"No!" Lou says, still laugh crying. "Cupcakes!"
Maura could go for some Chinese, and bottle of cheap white wine, but she turns to look at Jane, who is just watching them all, contented.
"Miss Rizzoli," she says, quietly enough that the others don't here. "What do you want?"
Jane looks at her, she beams.
"My family loves me," she answers. "I have everything I've ever wanted."
