Notes: Thanks everyone for the reviews! I'm really pleased with this chapter, hope you all enjoy it.
CH 5: Raise Your Glass
Maura stormed into her house like a cat with its tail on fire, flinging the door open with no mind to the knob slamming into the wall behind it with a shudder-inducing wallop. Jane winced as the next thud echoed through the living room when Maura threw her Hermes bag to the hardwood floor. Her usually delicate footsteps hammered out a frustrated stiletto clip clop as she marched back to her bedroom.
"Maur, don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit" Jane called after her.
"No!" Maura yelled pointedly as she proceeded down the hall, the next sound Jane heard was a surprised shriek followed by another thud.
"Maura? Are you ok?" She trotted down the hall to investigate. The sight she came upon was quite possibly one of the funniest things she had ever seen. Maura had evidently been in the process of stripping off her scrub top; as such she must not have seen Bass firmly planted like a gravestone square in the middle of the hallway. She had tripped over him and face planted into the hard floor, topless, one arm still tangled in the mint green top, which was pulled over her head. One foot was still clad in an aubergine Jimmy Choo crocodile pump, the other foot, bare, resting on top of Bass' shell with the shoe on its side next to him. Bass had retreated inside his protective dome.
I wouldn't come out if I were you, Jane thought eyeing the tortoise. "Pfft" Jane clasped her hand to her mouth trying to muffle the laugh that was threatening to erupt. It's really not funny, that probably hurt, but if I had a camera of this scene for all the times she's told me just to watch where I was going when I've tripped over that damn creature…
But then Maura started to cry.
"Oh shit!" Jane was on the floor next to her in a second, "Baby? Babe…are you ok, are you hurt?" Jane eased the top the rest of the way over Maura's head and helped extricate her tangled arm. Maura continued to sob, her tears running down her cheek and pooling on the cool dark wood beneath her face. She gasped as Jane's strong grip grabbed her under the armpits and hoisted her into a sitting position.
Jane scooted in close and began smoothing Maura's hair out of her face, tucking chunky tousled strands of it behind her ears. She used her thumbs to wipe at the warm salty stream of tears laced with mascara that stained her face. Maura had retracted her legs and hugged her chest to them as Jane rubbed her back.
"Maur, are you hurt?" Jane asked using her free hand to take her girlfriend by the chin and turn her head to face her.
Maura sniffled as she shook her head no.
"Ok, good…Maura, it's just a dress…"
Maura shot Jane a stern look, "It is NOT just a dress! It was brand new from the current Givenchy suit collection and my parents had it sent to me from Paris. It was the first time I'd worn it and it's ruined…And…and it's really not even about the dress!"
Maura got up from the floor and took a few awkwardly uneven steps with only one heel on before she paused and flipped the shoe off, leaving it in the hallway as she continued on her way to the bedroom. Jane gathered up the shoes and the discarded top and followed her. She folded the top and placed it on the foot of the bed and then walked into Maura's closet to return the shoes to their appropriate resting place. When she came out, Maura had stripped to her underwear and was sitting on the bed, the throw blanket clutched to her chest.
"So…if it's not about the dress, you wanna tell me what it is about?" Jane joined Maura on the edge of the bed.
"They laughed at me."
"Sweetie, who laughed at you?"
Maura looked at Jane, tears welling up in her glossy eyes again, "All of them, all of the officers…" she took a deep breath and tried to compose herself to tell Jane how her brand new suit had really come to be doused in coffee. "I didn't just spill a cup of coffee on myself; I was going to the coffee counter in the building, someone must have spilled something on the floor but they didn't put up a sign. I slipped and my hand caught the coffee pot and I pulled it down on top of myself when I fell…And then they laughed. Someone asked if I had a nice trip, no one even helped me up, and as I went to leave I heard someone say that maybe if I wore more appropriate footwear I wouldn't have slipped."
Jane pulled her once again sobbing girlfriend into her arms, squeezing her so tightly she actually had to stop herself and loosen up for fear of hurting her.
"It really burned" Maura choked into Jane's neck.
Jane stroked her hair and kissed her, all the while the anger boiling inside her, "I know, people can be assholes…"
Maura pulled out of the embrace and looked at Jane, her lip quivering, "No…it really burned…" she dropped the blanket she had been clutching to reveal her discolored red-mottled chest.
"Jesus Christ Maura! Do we need to take you to a doctor?"
"Jane, I am a doctor."
"Maura, I mean a doctor that's used to treating things like this…"
"No, really, it's barely even a first degree burn in places, I think luckily the pot had been off the burner for a little bit. There's nothing that can be done for it other than just wait for part of it to blister up."
Jane shriveled up her nose at the thought, but reached out and cupped Maura's face, letting her fingers momentarily stroke Maura's flushed cheeks before pulling her close to kiss her forehead, "I'm sorry, and I'm really sorry the assholes I work with…well, are evidently assholes."
"It wasn't anyone from your unit down there."
"It doesn't matter, they shouldn't have laughed. And when I find out who all was down there…"
Maura smiled as Jane enveloped her in a tight embrace again, "…You'll what, punch them in the mouth?"
Jane kissed Maura on the top of the head, nuzzling her face into the sandy brown hair as she lightly stroked her arm, "Exactly, I hope you've got plenty of band-aids. Now, let me get you some pajamas, whatever you want for dinner I'll fix it, go get it or order it…"
Maura looked up, "No! We've got to go to your party! Besides, after today I could really use a drink."
"Maura, we don't have to go to the party, I'll call Korsak tell him you're not feeling well and we'll do it some other time. We've got alcohol here, we'll open a bottle of wine…"
"Jane, I know for a fact Korsak and Frost are really looking forward to doing this for you. And we're going, I just needed to have my breakdown and now I'll get cleaned up and we'll have a nice night out with your friends." Maura got up and started towards the bathroom.
"Hey Maur…" Maura turned to look at Jane, "…our friends."
With the sound of running water emanating from the closed bathroom Jane stepped into the hallway to make a call.
"Korsak, it's Jane. Yeah we're running a little late Maura had to come home to change…hey, did you hear anything about her falling at the coffee counter?"
Korsak affirmed that he had.
"Listen to me Korsak, you tell everyone at the Robber, if anyone says anything tonight about that to Maura, around Maura, within range of Maura hearing they'll be getting the Tommy Rizzoli treatment, you follow me?"
Jane and Maura walked into the Dirty Robber and the congregating homicide unit erupted into hoots and hollers. Beers were hoisted sloppily in the air in Jane's direction. Jane modestly put her hands up as a signal to knock it off, which was pretty much ignored.
"I see you all didn't bother to wait for me to arrive before you started hitting the tap!" Jane joked as a pint from Korsak was thrust in front of her. She turned to order Maura a glass of wine at the bar but Frost had already beaten her to it and was handing Maura a glass of cabernet. Soon Crowe and a host of other members of the unit had gathered around the guest of honor.
"Thank you Barry!" Maura swirled the wine and took a sniff, "Hmm, a far better aroma than the Robber's usual offering, I wonder if they've switched brands?"
Korsak and Frost smiled at one another as Frost leaned in to be heard over the noisy din of the exuberant patrons, "No such luck, but we know you find the red here a little chalky so we picked up something special just for you."
Maura placed her hand to her heart as the surprise soon gave way to being genuinely touched by the gesture, "That's…that's so sweet!"
"Oh Lord, you guys, you're gonna make her cry…" Jane teased giving her old and current partners a wink. Maura laughed and gave Jane a playful punch in the arm.
"Janie!" Frankie wove his way through the bar to his sister.
"Hey! Frankie, you joining the grown ups tonight?" Jane laughed.
"Funny, Jane. Hey Maura." Frankie threw his arm around the Medical Examiner and placed a brotherly kiss on her cheek though he nearly sloshed part of his pint on her.
"Hey, Hey, little brother, watch it! You beer my girlfriend and I can't promise I'll be able to protect you…" Jane smiled as she took another swig of her beer.
"Yeah Frankie, don't mess up the one classy thing about this dive…" Detective Crowe added from behind them.
Ok, I'm going to owe him one for that, Jane thought as she gave Crowe a nod.
"Hey, how'd patrol get invited to this party anyway?" Detective Davies shouted from down the bar.
"Don't worry Davies, when Patrol whoops your ass in league basketball we'll be the bigger team and invite you to our victory party" Frankie lobbed back eliciting rowdy cheers and clinking glasses from the other patrol officers in attendance.
The nonchalant banter was not lost on Maura. Jane had just referred to her as "her girlfriend" in front of most of the detectives of her unit. She took a sip of her wine and smiled at Jane through the glass. Our friends.
"OK! OK!" Korsak began to shout as he moved away from the bar raising his glass in the air to draw everyone's attention.
Jane elbowed Frost, "Please tell me he's not going to make a speech…"
Frost shook his head laughing as he took another drag off his beer.
Korsak continued, "It seems like only yesterday this tall, scrawny young cop walked onto the unit. I remember the first time I saw her I said to myself you gotta be kidding me! The streets of Boston are gonna chew this one up and spit her out and then maybe pick their teeth with her bones. Well, boy did I have to eat some crow for those thoughts because not only did Jane Rizzoli turn out to be one of the smartest cops I've ever worked with, but one of the toughest too, a damned fine detective, a great partner and an even better friend. A couple of months ago, this family, this force, we went through a bad time at the hands of one of our own, someone we thought we could trust, someone who betrayed us. We lost a lot of good people that day. Good people we'll never forget, but good people we've spent too many days and weeks since mourning instead of celebrating. Let's raise our glasses to the fallen! To those we lost!"
"TO THOSE WE LOST" echoed around the bar.
"A lot of good people didn't walk out of the station that day. But we were fortunate that three did. Raise your glasses to Frankie Rizzoli, who took two in the chest."
"TO FRANKIE!"
"Which means we gotta raise our glasses to Frankie's mom who probably hounds him every morning to wear his vest which he was that day."
The bar burst into laughter as Frankie rolled his eyes, "TO FRANKIE'S MOM!"
Jane threw her arm lovingly around her brother's neck.
"To Dr. Maura Isles, who deserves more credit than we give her for helping bust open our cases, and the person we'll either be thanking or cursing in the future when there's a second Rizzoli on the unit!"
"TO THE DOC!"
"And last, but not least, to Jane Rizzoli, she's a pain in the ass but we wouldn't have her any other way!"
"TO RIZZOLI!"
Their attempts to finally take a swig of their drinks after Korsak's toast were interrupted.
"HOLD IT! HOLD IT!" A voice called out from the doorway.
"If you're gonna toast, do it right!" Lt Cavanaugh emerged from the crowd and waved his finger in the air as shots of Irish whisky were disseminated amongst the crowd, "Amateurs."
He raised his shot in the air and was followed by all in attendance, "Here's to cheating, stealing, fighting and drinking! If you cheat, may you cheat death! If you steal, may you steal a woman's heart! If you fight, may you fight for a brother! And if you drink, may you drink with me! SLAINTE!"
"SLAINTE!"
A mighty slam went out as shot glasses were pounded to tables and bar. Her arm still around Frankie, Jane pulled Maura close with her other, a beaming smile stretched across her face she leaned in and let her whisky-tinged lips mingle with Maura's.
A symphony of whistles chimed out from the officers, "Way to go Rizzoli!" someone shouted. Jane and Maura both laughed as Jane raised her beer in acknowledgment though she dribbled a little on Frankie's shoulder.
Jane stole one more kiss, "Ok! Now who's buying my next beer!"