"Yo, Janie, we're here!" Frankie walked into the main living space of Maura's home followed closely by Tommy. "What's so important that we had to rush over here?"
"Yeah! You do know that I worked a double today, right?" Tommy passed by both women on his way to grab a cold beer for his brother and a cold soda for himself. "Hey, Maura."
"Hello, Tommy. You're," the doctor tried – and failed – not to scrunch her nose up in slight disgust, "very greasy."
"I had to roll around on the ground today. Low man on the totem pole has to do all the crap things on the job. You know how it goes." The youngest Rizzoli handed the beer to his brother before popping the top off of his own drink. "I promise not to touch anything or sit down. I know how you are about things being clean."
"Yes... thank you," Maura gave an uneasy nod.
"No problem. I would've taken a shower before I came over, but Janie sounded like someone had died or something, so I figured Frankie and I should probably head over as soon as we were off." Tommy shrugged and turned to his sister. "Anyway, what's up?"
"I know that you two like to get stuff on me to hold against me later, but I'm about to tell you something that you need to know because it's about to fly through the station quicker than Ma's sausage flies through Frankie," with a smirk, Jane nodded toward Frankie as Tommy tried not to spew his soda. "And I need you two to act like I'm a person and not just your sister because this info affects more than just me, okay?"
"Is this about whatever happened with you and Cavanaugh today?" Choosing to ignore the dig he'd just gotten, Frankie leaned against the island and casually sipped his beer. "Word is you came out of his office looking pretty pissed off."
"Actually, yeah, it is about that." Jane ran a hand across the back of her neck as she looked toward Maura who simply nodded to show her support.
"You get written up or something?" Tommy smirked, "Cuz, if you did and you need a few pointers on how to get off the hook for good behavior..."
"No, I didn't get written up," the eldest Rizzoli child made an angry wave of her hand as if brushing off the idiotic comments made by her siblings. "I just... okay, look, there's just no good way to say this, and I've already told Ma, Frost, and Korsak, so you two are going to find out one way or another pretty soon anyway." She took in a quick breath to cut the two men off from saying anything. "I'm dating Maura."
Two pairs of stunned eyes went from their sister to the shorter woman standing by her side.
"That is true," Maura nodded, face calmly neutral. "It is a new development in our relationship, but we felt as though those of you closest to us should hear this news directly from us as opposed to through some other, less reliable, means."
"What did Ma say," Frankie asked, shifting his weight as he continued to sip on his beer.
"Ma said she needed time," his sister replied, "but she said she still loved me. All things considered, she took the news pretty well."
"You told Pop?" Tommy asked. Unlike Frankie's face, which had taken on the cop mask most law enforcement professionals had, his face was a clash of emotions – anger, surprise, jealousy, hurt, resignation.
"No, I haven't told him yet, but you know he's somewhere in Florida with his girlfriend," Jane paused as if saying the sentence was enough to make her want to gargle to get the feel of the thought off of her. "It's hard to find him, and I don't really think he's got a lot of room to talk about anything anyway."
"Why?" Frankie's voice was steady but his eyes were angry.
"I don't understand the question, Frankie. Why what?" Jane looked to Maura for help, but the doctor only shrugged. "Why am I not bothering to tell Pop? Why am I dating Maura? Why..."
He cut her off. "Why do you think you're a lesbian?"
"I never said I was," she quickly countered.
"Okay," Frankie slowly set his beer down on the island but his eyes never left his sister's. Despite the cool even tone of his voice, the tension was starting to turn thick in the air. "Are you bi? Are you a dude trapped in a woman's body? What? What are you?"
"I'm... I'm," with uncharacteristic hesitation, Jane stuttered to answer the question. Her eyes ran around the room finally settling on Maura.
"Jane," the honey brunette's voice was soft but firm. "You don't have to."
"No, Maura, I really do. They're not the first and they won't be the last, and, if I'm going to do this... if we're going to do this, it's better if I just bite it." The detective swallowed down the lump in her throat.
She ran a hand across her face as her dark brown eyes darted between her brothers. They waited, one calmly and one with a myriad of emotions dancing across his face. Finally, she took in a deep breath and answered. "I'm a lesbian, Frankie."
"Why didn't you two tell us or at least tell me?" Tommy's outburst of anger shook everyone in the room. "You had me make a fool out of myself thinking I could date you," he turned toward the doctor. "I thought we had something! I would never have bothered if I'd know you were into chicks. I bet you had a good laugh at me, didn't you?"
Maura tried to break in and object, but Tommy's anger overrode any chance she had to get a word in. "I bet you thought it was funny to string the screw-up, ex-con Rizzoli around. What was it? Huh? Was it some kind of bet? Did you and Janie have some sort of sick, twisted inside joke going on about how long you could string me along?"
Tears began to form in Maura's eyes as he jaw tightened with unspoken words of defense. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Jane broke into Tommy's tirade. "That's enough, Tommy!" She stepped between her youngest brother and her girlfriend. "Maura wasn't stringing you along, and you know it. Stop being pissy because you didn't get the girl."
"Really? And why should I take your word for it, huh? I mean, I think it's pretty clear that you were in on it, too. Man, I can't even," Tommy took in a deep breath. "You know what? Fuck you both."
"Hey!" Jane snapped back, "Watch your..."
"All you had to do," Tommy snapped back, "was tell me that you were into her, Jane. All you had to do was tell me that she was into chicks or at least into you, and I would have backed off. You made me look like an idiot. What the hell? What the fucking hell ?"
Again, Maura started to say something, but Jane placed a hand on her arm to silence her. With more gentleness in her voice, she answered her brother. "I didn't know, Tommy. Okay? I didn't know. I didn't know that Maura felt that way about me, and I didn't know that I felt like that way about her. I didn't know."
"How could you not know? That's the lamest thing I've ever heard. What a bunch of bullshit." Tommy tossed his empty can into the bin under Maura's sink. It made an angry thunking noise as it landed with the other empty and smashed cans in the darkened bin. "I know you can do better than that."
"No, I really can't," Jane's voice was tired. "I didn't know, Tommy. I swear to God that I didn't." She glanced to Frankie, who remained unchanged as he watched his siblings. She sighed and turned back to her youngest brother. "I didn't know because I didn't want to know. Knowing meant that I'd have to admit that I was that way. That I was... That I like," she gave a heavy sigh. "That I am a lesbian, and I just wasn't ready to deal with all the crap that meant."
Her eyes pleaded with her brothers to be okay with this new information as she continued to explain. "Besides the fact that I didn't want to admit that I'm attracted to women, there was also the fact that Maura is way out of my league. I mean, admit it, you think she's totally out of league, too, right?"
"Jane, we've talked about this. You know I don't care how much money your family does or doesn't have," Maura cut in, her voice holding a hint of hurt at the insinuation that the amount of money in the Rizzoli family made a difference in how she regarded the people within the family.
"Yeah, I know, Maura, but I need Tommy and Frankie to understand. Just... just wait a minute, okay? Let me do this my way." Jane gave the doctor a look that begged her to keep quiet. In response, Maura nodded her agreement.
"Tommy, you know what I'm talking about," she turned back to her brother. "Why would someone like Maura even consider the idea of dating someone like me, right?" He gave a short nod. Jane took it as a sign that he followed her line of thought. "So between not wanting to admit who I was actually attracted to and the thought that I had a snowball's chance in hell with Maura anyway, it was easy for me not to know. You follow?"
"Maybe," he answered quietly.
"So what happened that made the rest of it happened?" Frankie's voice held an edge of irritation to it.
"Maura came over last Thursday night, and she was was pretty upset," Jane looked to Maura to help tell the story.
"It was approximately 10:30 at night, and I had gone to bed early. As you know, Frankie, last week was very stressful. The case load was unusually high," Maura continued the story with ease. "After finishing my paperwork for the evening, I decided to try to get some extra rest, so I went to bed around 9 that night. Unfortunately, I didn't get the rest I'd have liked. I had one of the worst dreams that I can recall." She stepped closer to Jane. "Jane and I were, again, at the mercy of Hoyt. Instead of Jane being able to save us both, he was able to do what he liked with us. The dream was incredibly vivid, and I can't recall another dream where I can callback to mind the actual sensations of everything that happened." She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's amazing what the mind can produce just based on information one may have acquired from research, observation, and small amounts of firsthand experience." Her voice darkened even as it became quieter. "Rape and torture are very horrid things."
Jane moved to put an arm around the smaller woman, but she stopped in mid-motion as her eye caught Tommy's. Shaking her head and mentally chastising herself, she moved again, wrapping an arm around Maura and pulling her close. "You didn't have to tell what was in your dream, Maura," she whispered.
"No, I did. As you said, Jane, they need to know." Maura looked between the men. "I woke up around 10, and I had to see Jane. I had to know she was fine, that she wasn't hurt. All the near death moments in our lives over the past two years raced through my mind as I drove to Jane's apartment, and I realized as I walked up the stairs to her door that it was imperative that I tell her exactly how I felt about her because the next time she was in peril, or I was, may be the last." She took in a breath to steady herself. "I needed for her to know."
Jane cleared her throat and continued on with the story. "When I opened the door, Maura looked liked she had seen a ghost. I figured whatever was eating at her was important, so I pulled her inside. Before I could ask her what was wrong, she was kissing me."
Rolling her eyes, the detective gave a chuckle despite herself. "I figured I was either dreaming or I'd finally taken one too many hits to the head." When neither man gave a hint of amusement, Jane sobered from her moment of amusement and continued on. "I honestly thought I'd lost it for a couple of seconds, but then I figured that, if I was going to loose it, there were worse ways, and I just went with it. One thing lead to another, and the next morning Maura was still there. That's when I knew I wasn't crazy. She was still there, and I decided right then that I wasn't going to turn away from this. If we actually shared the same feelings for each other, then I wasn't going to screw it up by continuing to not admit that I was attracted her. I mean," she nodded toward the other woman, "would either of you walk away from her?"
"No," Tommy shook his head, "I'd fight like hell to have her." His dark gaze went from his sister to the doctor. "If I thought I'd have a chance, Maura, I'd still give it a try." He let out a grunt of frustration. "I still say you could have told me."
"If I'd known, Tommy..." Jane gave him an apologetic look.
"It's a sin, Jane. How are you going to deal with that? I mean, the church is going to excommunicate you." Frankie walked across the kitchen toward the end leading to the front door. "Is that why you haven't been going to church?"
"I haven't been going to church because I'm lazy and like to sleep in on Sunday mornings," she answered honestly. "Ma said pretty much the same thing, and, honestly, I don't think I care if they do excommunicate me. There are other churches out there that will accept as I am, and, frankly, my relationship with God is no one's business but mine and God's."
"I don't know how I feel about all of this," Frankie made a vague motion with his hand. "I always kind of wondered, but you always said you weren't. Now you're telling me that you are, and," he shook his head, "I don't know, sis. Why are you telling us this right now anyway?"
Jane relayed the story regarding Cavanaugh and HR to her brothers who listened with apparent anger regarding the situation. "That's messed up," Frankie said at the end of the story. "Where does he think he gets off? I mean, it's one thing to not be okay with you liking chicks because it's against his religion or whatever, but it's something else for him to threaten your job because you're dating Maura. No one threatened Bobby Jenkins when he started dating Amy Yearwood two months ago, and their drama is a thousand times worse than anything you and Maura have ever put out there."
Tommy nodded, adding, "Cavanaugh can suck my..."
"Tommy!" Jane pointed at her brother, "What did I say about watching your language in front of Maura?"
"It wouldn't be the first time I've heard someone say that phrase, Jane," Maura commented lightly, a smile playing on her face, "Although, based on the lieutenant's reaction to the news of our current relationship, I doubt he would enjoy the activity Tommy is suggesting."
"He better not try to... wait... Did you just crack a joke?" Tommy blinked back his anger as surprised cut in.
"Perhaps," Maura said as she made her way past him to the refrigerator. "It has been known to happen," she answered as she pulled out a bottle of water.
Choosing to ignore the banter, Jane kept to the business at hand. "Okay, now that you two know everything that's going on, are you okay with this or not?"
"No, but give me a little bit." Frankie grimaced at his own words. "I want to be okay with this. I don't want to think I'm one of those people that hates people for stuff they can't control, you know? But you're my sister, and I just... I'll let you know if I hear anything about the HR leak, but give me a little time to deal with all of this. I'm not completely not okay with it, but I just... I just don't know."
"Fair enough," Jane nodded and turned to her youngest brother. "What about you?"
"Yeah, it's fine by me. I get it; you love who you love, but I hate that I lost to you... again." Tommy rolled his eyes and growled, "Story of my life."
"Thanks," Jane checked her watch. "It's late, and we have to get to work tomorrow. Tommy, you've got to be tired. I know what it's like to pull a double."
"Yeah, I could use some rest." He pulled his car keys out. "Come on, Frankie, let's get out of here. Burgers?"
"You buying?" Frankie pulled his coat back on as he stepped toward his sister.
"Yeah, but only this time," Tommy was already at the door. Sensing that his two older siblings needed a moment, he yelled, "See you at the car. Later Janie, Maura," before letting the door close behind him.
"Jane, I'm going to step into my bedroom for a bit," Maura said quietly before heading off in the direction of the master bedroom to leave the two Rizzolis alone.
"You hate me?" Jane asked once she and Frankie were alone.
"No, I don't hate you, sis. I just don't know how to handle you right now." He finished shrugging his coat on.
"I'm the same person, Frankie. I still like to do all the things I've always liked to do. I still hate all the same people I've always hated," she winked at his chuckle. "Nothing's changed except who I'm dating. Why is that so hard to deal with?"
"I don't know," he shook he head, face sadden by his own shortcomings. "I wish I did. I think, maybe, I'm just surprised you actually admitted it or something. But, I don't hate you, Jane, and I still have your back, okay?"
"Yeah?" Her voice cracked.
"Yeah. We're family. Family sticks together... unless you're Pop, but you know what I think about that." She nodded. Frankie cleared his throat. "Listen, I'm sort of like Ma. Just give me some time, and, for the love of God, don't let me walk in on you two. Oh man, I don't think I could handle seeing your pasty white ass mooning me while you're..."
Jane held her hand up, "Okay, yeah, I got it. We'll stick to the bedroom with the door locked." They laughed. "We're good?"
"Yeah," Frankie gave a weak smile, "We're good."
"What did Frankie say?" Maura asked as Jane stepped into the bedroom.
"Give him some time, he doesn't hate me, he'll let me know if he hears anything about the HR leak that could be useful, he still has my back, and he doesn't want to walk in on us in the middle of something intimate." Jane plopped down on the bed and began to pull her shoes off. "At least no one's flat out disowned me."
"Yes, that is a positive in this situation." Maura moved to the side of the bed and reached down to bat Jane's hands away and remove the detective's boots for her. "I will have to tell my mother soon."
"What about your dad?" Jane grunted as her boots came off with an almost audible pop.
"Yes, him as well, but Mother is the one I'll need to tell first. She will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma for a convention on Alzheimer's research in a few days. I plan to call her when she's there and discuss everything with her." Maura set the boots under her bed and began to help Jane pull off the rest of her clothes to prepare for bed. "Mother has always been liberal minded, as has Father. I don't think they'll care about your gender and, now that Mother has actually met you and seen how you act around me and toward me, I don't believe they'll have issues with me dating you."
As Jane pulled off her clothes, Maura hung up the pieces of her suit. "I'll let you know how the conversation goes. In the meantime," she said as she hung Jane's suit in her closet, "I've run a bath. Care to join me?"
"Best idea I've heard all day," Jane answered with a smile. "Come on, I'll wash your hair."
"Oh," Maura practically purred as they walked to the master bathroom, "that sounds lovely."
As always, thank you for reading, and please leave a comment if you can. I'm very curious as to what everyone thinks about the family's reactions so far.