A/N: I don't even want to talk about this chapter.
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters.
After their nap Maura spent the rest of the day with Jane just watching television and eating snacks. Wednesday morning Maura woke up feeling very sore. The aching in her body seemed to amplify with every move. She groaned into the pillow. Jane's head popped up from under the comforter with a yawn. "You okay?"
Maura shot the detective a withering look. "I'm sore."
Jane grinned knowingly. "Hot shower." She said sleepily.
Maura rolled her eyes. "More like a hot bath."
Jane sat up stretching for a moment before turning back to her friend. "Well, you're going to have to go home for that." She said with a chuckle. "I can drive you." She looked around the room. "We could eat breakfast here or just let Ma' make it. Actually," she said as an afterthought. "We can just let her make us both breakfast."
Maura laughed slightly slowly sitting up in the bed. "That sounds nice actually." Jane was holding her left arm close to her body; her left hand was holding the strap of her tank top on her right side. Maura let Jane do her bathroom business. When she came out she was wearing a fresh pair of clothes consisting of worn in jeans and a Boston Bruins t-shirt. Her arm was still close to her body.
"Do you want to put on some of my fresh clothes or do you want to wait until you get home?"
Maura thought about it. "I think I'll wait since I'll be bathing anyways. I'd hate to dirty a pair of your clean clothes since you do seem to hate doing laundry." She shot Jane a cheeky grin.
Jane stuck her tongue out at Maura. "I'll go get your shoe."
…
Fifteen minutes later Jane was parking her car in Maura's drive way. It was a hell of a time getting the injured woman down two flights of stairs out of Jane's apartment. Jane's shoulder was aching. But regardless she was going to get them inside. Jane stood impatiently at the passenger side door. Maura held the black sling out to the detective. "You promised."
Jane rolled her eyes but nonetheless slipped the thin fabric around her shoulder. "Ready now?"
Maura rolled her eyes this time. She got up from the car using the handle on the roof to pull herself up. Her ankle felt much better than it did yesterday but it was still sore and swollen. She could put more weight on it but not her whole weight. She felt Jane place her hand on her lower back giving her some stability as she hopped awkwardly out of the car. She stood for a moment. She was going to lean into Jane, wrap her arm around the other woman's waist but images of the dark bruises she saw the day before caused her to hesitate.
Fortunately for her – unfortunately for Jane – quick footsteps made their way to them. "Oh!" Angela Rizzoli shouted.
"And this is why my mother living in your guest house was a bad idea." Jane mumbled under her breath to Maura.
"What happened?" Angela asked. She looked Maura up and down reaching out to grab the medical examiner's arms.
"She got trampled by a bike, Ma'." Jane said exasperatedly.
"I was out for my morning jog and a cyclist ran into me." Maura better explained. "I'm fine really. Just bruises and scrapes."
Angela raised an eyebrow. She'd heard Jane's 'I'm fine' stories enough to be able to read when someone wasn't actually fine. And the young doctor standing in front of her was definitely not fine. "Yeah, uh-huh." She replied wrapping her arm around the doctor. "Let's get you inside, sweetie." Whatever resistance Maura was planning to put up fell flat when Angela wrapped her arm around her. She sunk into the older woman's side feeling the comfort of a mother. It was much easier navigating and leaning into Angela than it had been with Jane. Maura could put her weight into Angela without being worried about hitting a bruise or irritating her shoulder. Jane followed them into the house.
Maura sat at the bar while Angela puttered around at the kitchen. Jane sat next to her. She lifted the ME's leg into her lap. Holding Maura's foot between her knees she maneuvered the ace bandage from around Maura's ankle. "Run to the bathroom before my mother follows you." Jane whispered into her ear half seriously.
Maura chuckled. "Or you could just help me?" She whispered back.
A few minutes later Jane was knocking on the door to Maura's master bathroom. "You okay in there, sport?" She was trying too hard at this. It was obvious to her, probably obvious to Maura, but she couldn't help it. Jane had this fear boiling in her stomach that all of this was a joke, that it all was just temporary until she screwed up again. Because she would she knew she would, she always screwed up. Maura would leave her again and she'd be left with nothing. She shook her head at herself.
Maura sat on her toilet on the other side of the door in a fluffy white bathrobe. It felt good to be clean. She was inspecting her injuries. Her wrist and ankle felt much better but were still sore. The hot water of her tub definitely eased some of the tension in her back and shoulders. Maura looked at door at disgust at Jane's chosen term of endearment. She opened the door softly. "Please refrain from calling me sport forever."
Jane laughed. "What's wrong with sport, Sport?"
Maura rolled her eyes easing passed Jane and onto the bed. "I am not a male colleague, and we don't play sports together."
"That's not true. We play softball together sometimes." Jane bounced on her toes trying to ignore the fact that Maura was only in a bathrobe. "Looks like you're feeling better though. You can kind of walk now."
"Could you pick me out some clothes from the closet?" Maura said gingerly walking to her chest of drawers.
Jane smirked. "Aren't you afraid I'll pull something with the wrong color scheme or with different fabrics?"
"Looks like you're feeling better." Maura pulled out a pair of her underthings from the drawer.
Jane rolled her eyes finding herself once again trying not to look at Maura. She turned with a huff opening the double doors to Maura's closet. She swallowed hard at the sight before her. "Holy Hannah Montana." Jane mumbled under her breath. Maura's closet was not only gigantic but she appeared to have some crazy intricate organization system that Jane couldn't even begin to understand. She needed a diagram or a map or something. Half of her wanted to introduce chaos into the order but she knew that Maura wouldn't find that funny at all. After standing dumbfounded for a few minutes she finally got an idea of how the closet was set up. At least that's what she told herself when she pulled some black pants she heard Maura call "lounge wear" once, even though to her they were just fancy sweatpants, and a dark grey Henley.
"You get lost in there?" Maura asked when Jane finally emerged.
Jane turned around looking at the double doors. "In the closet? No." She placed the clothes on the bed. "You've got an elaborate system going on. Took me a minute to figure it out." Maura laughed. "I'll let you dress."
Jane sat at the bar in Maura's kitchen while her mother was flipping things on the stove. The smell of the food wafted through the whole house. Jane took a deep breath. Her stomach growled again for what seemed like the hundredth time that morning. I really need to eat more, she thought drumming her hands on the bar. Maura came limping into the room fully dressed and styled for the day even though Jane knew she probably wasn't going to go anywhere. Maura had decided to not where the ace bandage knowing from years of ballet that they didn't really help anything.
Maura sat next to Jane just as Angela put two plates full of breakfast in front of them. While they ate Angela spoke continually about work at the café and how she found a recipe she wanted to try for family dinner on Sunday. It was then Maura volunteered her home to house family dinner. "Now who's the masochist in this relationship, Dr. Isles?" Jane said quietly hiding her face with her coffee cup.
Maura laughed shaking her head. "I like your mother." She said just as quietly.
…
Sunday evening Jane found herself ringing the doorbell to Maura's house. She knew both of her brothers were already there because of the cars out front. Tommy answered the door with his eyebrows raised. Jane let go of the leash she was holding allowing Jo Friday to run into the house tail wagging. "Maura wants to know why you're ringing the doorbell."
"I did not ask that." Jane heard Maura say from inside.
"You didn't have to." Tommy replied keeping his eyes on his sister's and blocking the way.
"It's called manners. You should try it sometime." Jane said sidestepping him. She paused while he closed the door. "Is that a new shirt?" Tommy looked down. Jane licked her index finger and quickly stuck it in his ear.
He pushed her away. "Why you always gotta do that?" Tommy griped rubbing his ear. Frankie was laughing in the background.
"You are just too easy, little brother." Jane smiled sweetly.
"That is really unsanitary, Jane." Jane's eyes shot to Maura. The other woman was standing with a grin on her face in the entryway. She was holding Jo Friday's leash in one hand the other resting on her hip. That's when Jane actually got a full view of the house. Jane saw her dog playing with bass. Frankie was watching the game and her mother was in the kitchen. They made a very strange family. She caught Maura's eyes smiling kindly at her. Jane finally felt at home. This was what Sunday Dinner was all about.
"I'm washing my hands now." Jane said sarcastically holding up her hands as she walked to the hall bathroom. In the middle of scrubbing her hands Jane noticed someone stand in the doorway. "What is it, Maura?"
"Why did you ring the doorbell?" Maura asked quietly avoiding Jane's eyes.
Jane sighed continuing the scrubbing. She knew that voice. It was Maura's 'I'm sad because I don't know how to say what I really mean' voice. She heard cheering in the other room. Someone must have scored a touchdown. "I didn't want to be rude." She turned the water off, shaking her hands in the basin of the sink before grabbing a towel. "I didn't want to barge in like…" Nothing's changed. She might as well have said the words out loud. They both could feel the tension of her sentence. Maura still had an anxious, hurt look on her face so Jane continued. "The point is that I'm here and you're here. We're okay, Maura."
"It doesn't feel like it." Maura held her arms tighter to her chest.
"We'll get there." Jane reassured reaching a hand to untangle Maura's arms. She held both the other woman's hands in her own. "I promise." Finally Maura cracked a smile. "Oh, look! There's that gorgeous smile I love to see." Jane said with a laugh. "Let's go eat dinner. I'm starving and it smells delicious." She wrapped her arm around Maura's shoulders.
Angela sat at the head of the table taking a look around at her family. The food was prepared with plenty of extras for all of the kids to take left overs home. The game was on in the background, the animals were fed. But most importantly there were no empty chairs. All of her babies were safe tonight. She folded a napkin in her lap. "Frankie why don't you say grace?" Her middle son grumbled but bowed his head and did it anyways.
"So does this mean you two are friends again?" Frankie asked as he piled food onto his plate. "And I don't have to do all those morgue runs for you anymore?"
Jane felt Maura stiffen at her right. She hurried to finish chewing the pasta in her mouth swallowing almost painfully hard. "Yes." She coughed reaching for her glass of water. At the word Maura immediately relaxed. For Jane it was worth almost choking for that simple act. Maura was just as unsure as she was.
"You know I never knew how much you guys actually talk about the case down there."
"What did you think we talked about?" Maura asked.
Frankie shrugged. "I don't know, boys or something."
This caused Jane to go into a coughing fit. "Sometimes it is boys." Maura replied patting Jane on the back. "But mostly it's the case."
"Tommy, pass the rolls." Jane said finally getting her breath back. Tommy threw a piece of bread at her which she caught in her left hand. She waggled a finger at him. "Nice try."
"No throwing food at the table!" Angela chastised her children. The table was much livelier than it had been in a long time. Angela let out a sigh. This was how family dinners were supposed to be.
A/N: I'm just going to stop telling y'all when I'm going to update because I always do it faster than I say. This is the product of forced writing and procrastinating study times. Also this is my first hand at humor (if you caught it.) Thanks for the reviews and alerts!
As always thanks for reading! (Reviews are greatly appreciated!)