Author's note: welcome back if you have survived the technical glitch; if not, you will be missed.

Chapter four: This Will Never Stop

Maura began to breathe again the moment the door got closed and Leo left. Her heartbeats were not regular but she hoped that it now was only a matter of time before she found back a semblance of normality in her breathing.

Clutched to the edge of the kitchen counter, she watched how Margot turned around and made a few steps towards them with a rather evident nervousness.

At least she has a conscience. Good start.

"Is this your way to punish us for what we did when you came to Boston for the very first time?" It was a fair question but Maura couldn't help thinking that she had lacked patience and had jumped a bit too quickly to a harrassing method of questioning. "We already apologized for it." High-pitched voice.

She was now panicking again. Goodbye, peaceful breathing.

"No, of course not." Margot sat on a stool and leaned her head against the palm of her hand. "I had no evil plan in mind when I met Leo but he seemed so passionate about the association that... Well, it just came up by itself." She shrugged and made a vague gesture of the hand.

Maura exchanged a knowing look with Jane. They weren't angry. It was an incongruous lie – almost a funny one if they thought about it with objectivity – but they were completely taken aback by it.

"You can't base a potential relationship on a lie, Margot. He'll eventually find out about it. What will you tell him when it happens?"

Jane was right and they all knew it. For once, she was showing maturity and wisdom instead of just hiding behind sarcasm as she used to when she wanted to run away from an issue. Probably because it mattered to her. Margot mattered. A lot.

"I'm only here for a year then I go back to Bordeaux. I won't see him ever again..."

Jane raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms against her chest. She was extremely surprised by the statement.

"I thought you were looking for something serious."

"Isn't a year more serious than twenty minutes?" Margot smiled bitterly then shook her head to apologize for the remark. Not the best moment to make a joke. "I don't think Leo's the man of my dreams but I think we can live something lovely and maybe that's all I need. Something light but nice. I'm not deeply in love with him but there's something."

"But how can you hope your relationship with him to be sincere if it's based on such a big lie? I am sorry but I have to admit that I agree with Jane on this point."

Maura grabbed a bottle of wine that they hadn't finished and poured herself a large glass. She really needed alcohol right now. The shock of the news was still latent. Of course, they hadn't said a word during the evening and the meal that they had shared with Leo. Their conversations had focused on other topical issues and she was thankful for that.

But now that he had left, they couldn't pretend that nothing had happened.

"I can't lie, besides. If I do, I break into hives or pass out. Ask Jane about it. I am physically unable to lie. How would that even work out?"

Margot's attitude changed right away. She straightened up and barely hid the timid smirk that now played on her lips. She crossed her hands and nodded with determination.

Frenchie has a plan, Rizzoli. Watch out.

"Very easily. Jane is my biological mother. We're both brunettes and she's older so it..."

"Hey!" Jane pouted. "I'm not that old. An eighteen-year-old daughter? Nobody's gonna believe it."

"Why? You are forty-two. That means you would have had Margot at the age of twenty-four. It isn't that young. As a matter of fact, it does sound plausible."

Jane stared blankly at her wife with the cruel desire to take her glass of wine away from her. Maura was not helping with all her calculations right now. Why did she have to be such a science geek, at times?

And there was no need to yell her current age either. She perfectly knew how old she was. No need of a reminder. No. Need. At. All.

"See!" Margot enthusiastically clapped her hands. "Mommy Jane..." She grinned.

Jane looked at her wife: her eyes squinted in anger, her lips pursed.

Thank you, Maura. Really. That was exactly what we have to avoid right now. Don't give fuel to her crazy scenario.

"What do you do of Maura's incapacity to lie? I don't want her to have a season ticket for the ER..." Jane proudly smiled. Her argument was strong, perfect. She shook her head at Margot. "That won't work."

"She didn't have any issue to let me think she was married to you."

Jane made a face. Okay. Perhaps her argument wasn't as strong as what she had assumed in the first place. Margot would have been a terrific attorney.

What she had just said caused Jane and Maura to look down. They were still a bit ashamed of their own past behavior even if it was slightly bitchy from Margot to use it against them now.

Karma is a bitch, Rizzoli. You're just paying for your own lies.

"We don't even have pictures of you as a baby. It's..." Jane's determined tone of voice was flying out of the window by the second. She was now whispering her lack of confidence. "It's just really too complicated." She shook her head. "Nah. I can't do that." Her index finger landed on the kitchen counter with strength. "Over my dead body, young girl."

...

"I'm done with the first montage. Wanna see it?"

Jane reluctantly looked up at Frost from her computer and shrugged. Mumbles. Of course, she had abdicated and Margot had won. It was wrong and immoral but she had given in. Or better said, she and Maura had given in. She wasn't alone in all this and it wouldn't even have happened in the first place if Maura hadn't asked her once to pretend to be her wife.

So many things wouldn't have happened if she hadn't done that, Rizzoli. You can't entirely blame her for it either. It brought the best to you too. In its own bizarre way.

They owed it to Margot. They had lied to her so the least they could do was to accept to do something in exchange for her. They simply would have preferred to offer her a nice meal at some hype restaurant. Besides, they could hardly keep on telling her how bad of an idea it was considering they hadn't done any better themselves.

Margot 1 - 1 Jane and Maura.

"Dunno."

But Frost nonetheless turned his computer around to show her the montage.

She was in a hospital bed with a newborn in her arms. Margot had given them the original picture that had been taken the day of her birth. Frost had simply edited it to make sure it would be Jane who would be holding the baby and not Margot's real mother.

"Gosh, it's so wrong. And... Wait! I look like shit on this pic. And chubby! Look at me! It's like a freaking fat zombie version of me."

Frost giggled behind his mug of coffee. His eyes were glimmering in delight. He was definitely enjoying it a bit too much for Jane's taste.

"What were you expecting? You're supposed to have given birth. You can't look like you're ready to be on the cover of Vogue! So I made some changes."

A door got slammed on their left. Brief glance in the direction, end of the break. Jane straightened up on her seat – mimicking her colleague – and focused back on her computer screen. Cavanaugh was walking in her direction with the kind of look she didn't like much. What had she done again?

"Rizzoli."

This is your lucky day. Seriously...

"Yes, sir." Jane turned her head and politely smiled at her boss. It had been a quiet day so far and she had taken advantage of it to type some reports. "May I help you?"

Her unusual soft voice made Canavaugh frown. The effect of surprise didn't last though and soon enough he dropped a file on her desk. The papers landed loudly on top of it.

"Congratulations. You're on a brand new case, although "new" is all relative... The governor asked for the case to be reopened. I want your first conclusions on my desk by 5pm."

She barely had time to brush the file with her fingertips that Cavanaugh's voice resounded loudly again in her back.

"I hope your daughter won't be much of an obstacle to it."

Silence. Jane froze and closed her eyes. She was that close to grab the first red pen out of reach to circle the date on a calendar and official declare the day as the new Friday, 13th.

"What?!" Strangled voice, very high-pitched. Complete fail to ever sound casual again.

"I've just seen Dr. Isles. Very talkative. And anxious. What you do outside the BPD is none of my business of course yet I hope that this little scenario won't prevent you from giving your best on this case. The governor asked for you to be on it, I'm sure you don't wanna disappoint him. Do you?"

Jane shook her head but remained quiet. She didn't need to add anything anyway. Cavanaugh had been quite clear. She could already hear her colleagues' jokes. They would have a blast once the news had broken in the building.

What had she done to deserve this? Margot would pay for it. Pay for it...

Oh yeah, she's gonna pay. She wants a mamma Rizzoli? Fine. She's so gonna get one. You'd better be ready for what's coming, Frenchie.

Jane's lips curled up into a smirk. One simply didn't mess with a Rizzoli without suffering from the side-effects of the whole thing.