A/N-Here's a little early Christmas present. Yet again, it was meant to be longer, but this section of the fic is giving me some serious issues. So this is what I have for my scheduled update, and I was at a good breaking point. Since I know a lot of people are on vacation this week, I thought it would work out well to give you something to read :)
Fun fact: The R&I season 1 finale was on my birthday, while the season 3 finale is on Christmas...You might also be interested to know that I still don't own R&I :)
"What was that, ma?" Jane demanded as soon as she saw her mother, who had apparently just taken it upon herself to start making some coffee. "I only gave you that key in case of emergency, ma! I mean, what are you even doing here?"
"I really don't think you're the one that should be demand answers," Angela said as she pressed the power button on the coffee pot. She didn't seem livid or anything, though she did seemed a little flustered. But that was understandable, so Angela's demeanor gave Jane very few hints on where this was going. "But if you really need to know, I tried calling you last night and twice this morning and got no answer. No answer when I knocked on the door either. The last time something like that happened you were in the hospital. So, yes, I was a little concerned. But I definitely did not expect to find you...in that position."
"First of all, it was just a broken nose that time. More importantly, it's not like I was have sex on the couch in your living room right when I knew you were going to be home! I was in my apartment, in my bedroom, kissing someone in my bed with every reason to believe that I would not be having any unannounced visitors bursting through my door like Seal team 6," Jane said.
"And I'm not denying any of that," Angela said, firmly, but with an evenness that Jane rarely associated with her mother. Angela took a breath and exhaled slowly. "I'm talking about the... surprising circumstances. The fact that my being here needs a lot less explanation and is a lot less surprising than what I just walked in on."
Well, Angela was right on one thing there; there was nothing surprising about her decision to use an emergency key for early morning check ups on her 30 year old cop daughter. And as much as Jane hated to admit it, her job caused Angela a lot of stress and anxiety, which, Jane thought, was probably a contributing factor to her annoying, nosy over-protectiveness. So Jane could understand her mother's explanation, which took a little bit of the edge off. Because Angela was not completely wrong on this one.
Jane folded her arms in front of her and leaned against the counter across from Angela so that she faced her mother, unsure of what to say. She couldn't look her mother in the eye for a few long seconds, instead watching the coffee drip into the coffee pot just to Angela's left.
Angela was actually composed by Angela standards, especially considering what had just happened. Jane couldn't read anything beyond that though. She could not for the life of her pick up on any hints about her mother's feelings on the 'circumstances', and Jane wondered briefly if this was how Maura felt when she had a hard time reading people, this paralyzing uncertainty about what to do and say next. It was frustrating as hell, and Jane had a new appreciation for the way that Maura worked through those difficulties on a daily basis.
Jane just wished her mother would say something, anything. Because Jane sure as hell didn't know where to start.
But it had turned into something like a mini-standoff. Angela standing there waiting for Jane to explain what had just happened, Jane standing there waiting for Angela elaborate on how she felt about the 'surprising circumstances.' Neither budged for a few long seconds.
Angela folded her arms over her chest in a pose that mirrored Jane's, tilting her head as if she was about to speak.
The coffee pot finally beeped. Angela turned around and poured coffee into two cups, making one black for herself and adding a dash of creamer and two spoonfuls of sugar to Jane's coffee before holding it out to her daughter. She moved slowly, like she was stalling for time.
Jane took the coffee mug and held it between her hands. Angela took a sip before speaking.
"You know," Angela said before taking another sip. "She's a lovely woman."
"What? What do you mean?" Jane stammered.
"When I met her. On vacation. I thought Maura was a lovely woman," Angela said simply.
"I thought, I mean, you said you couldn't remember too much from that night. You couldn't even remember her name," Jane said. "You kept calling her Laura!"
Angela sighed and rolled her eyes as she put the coffee cup on the counter next to her. She looked directly at Jane, which forced direct eye contact for the first time in the conversation.
"I lied, Janie. It was easier at the moment to pretend that I didn't remember seeing you check out her ass as she walked away just fifteen minutes after overhearing you two in the bathroom," Angela said.
"Ma!" Jane said, feeling the color rise from her neck up to her cheeks. "You, what, you saw that? You were looking at the fishes, ma. You even named 'em. Told me all of them on the way back. You couldn't have seen that."
"A mother, even a drunk one, has eyes in the back of her head, Janie," Angela said cryptically.
"Yeah and apparently supersonic hearing too," Jane said, unfolding her arms and pointing accusingly at her mother. "Speaking of, how did you hear that? No way you just happen to overhear a conversation through the wall with that kind of music on."
"I, I," Angela hesitated and Jane raised her eyebrows. "I may have listened. Used the empty highball glass against the wall to see what I could hear. Must have been really thin walls and I think I was probably right where you were standing because I could hear almost everything."
"Ma!"
"I thought she was going to be sick!" Angela said defensively. "I was curious."
"So you listened through the wall to see if you could hear a woman you'd just met puking her guts out?" Jane replied.
"I was drunk, Jane. You said so yourself! Really, really drunk," Angela said, as if that settled everything.
"Ma, that excuse only counts if you wouldn't do the same exact thing sober," Jane said.
"Well, at least I knocked on the door before things got...carried away while I was listening," Angela said.
"Oh, yes, thank God for small miracles," Jane said, taking a long sip of coffee. She needed more caffeine to keep up with the current conversation. "I'm so very glad you were there to stop the madness."
"Jane," Angela said. "I'm sorry I did that, I am, and I won't do it again. But I really think we're getting off track."
Jane really doubted whether Angela had the kind of will power she would need to keep her promise, but decided against starting that argument when they already had plenty of unaddressed items on the agenda. Namely, Jane's attraction to woman.
Jane sighed and drained her coffee cup, then went to refill her cup. That meant that she conveniently didn't have to face Angela directly.
"Fine, ma," Jane said. "Go ahead, lecture away."
"You clearly don't know me very well, because if I had any intention of lecturing you, then I would have started without your permission," Angela said. "I think you've paid the price for not answering your phone. Now I just want to talk about...that, what just happened in there."
Now Angela and Jane were standing side by side, facing each other, each with a hand resting on the counter. It suddenly popped into Jane's head what Maura had once said about body language, that folded arms marked an unwillingness to communicate directly, while an open stance and arms by the side indicated a move towards openness, a desire for communication. Normally that would have been something Jane would be able to pick up on instinct, but her instincts were failing her, and Jane was even more glad in that moment to have Maura and her fun facts.
Jane sighed and drummed her fingers on the counter top, trying to find the least embarrassing place to start.
"Fine," Jane said, running a hand through her hair. "Yeah, we were, it was just a vacation thing. Not planned, or something we were looking for. Just sort of happened. You know?"
"Well, I've never had casual sex just happen to me, so I don't actually know," Angela said. "I don't even really understand it."
Jane had expected a little jab like that from her mother given her mother's emphasis on sex as a kind of sacred thing, though Angela had always been surprisingly quiet about the gay thing. Not since around the time Jane hit high school could Jane remember her mom ever saying a word against homosexuality despite the fact that Mrs. Rizzoli was a good, church going Catholic. Even now, confronted by her daughter's own sapphic inclination, Angela was mum on the subject.
"Yes, ma, I know," Jane said. "Do you want to know how it happened or not?"
"Sorry, go ahead."
"Well, yeah, you know it was only suppose to be just the week, you know? Well, no, I know you don't. But, still, just the week, then she was set to go back to the west coast. Just so happened that she started working at BPD about a month later. Then we became friends, then, I think a lot more than friends while working together."
"And you were never going to tell me about her? About this?" Angela replied. "About you?"
"With all due respect, it is absolutely none of your business who I hook up with, ma. I don't have to tell you anything, but I will only because this thing will not die until I do," Jane said, putting her coffee mug on the counter and moving towards the living room as her mother followed close behind. That room was closer to the door, which meant Jane would be at least a little closer to getting Angela out of her apartment.
"At the time it was just a hookup that happened a few times. Nothing more, nothing less," Jane said as she walked out of the kitchen, past the short hallway leading to her bedroom and bathroom and towards her living room. "I wasn't going to bug you with some kind of coming out drama if I didn't have to."
Angela followed Jane into the living room and sat on the sofa while Jane stood facing her, leaning against the wall by the door.
"Jane, come here. Sit down," Angela said in a voice similar to the one she used when she thought that any of the teenaged Rizzoli kids were being unreasonable and moody. But she was softer about it, less frustrated than she'd been in times past.
Jane rolled her eyes at being spoken to like a moody teenager, but did as Angela said and sat next to her facing her mother. Angela took Jane's hands in hers, looking down at them for a few seconds, before looking up at Jane and smiling. Then she continued speaking.
"I've suspected for awhile, you know. Even before the cruise, I had a feeling you might be, you know, bisexual I think they call it. I read once that they say a parent sometimes knows before the kid, and I think you were that way," Angela said. "I just sort of had this sense about it. Since you were in high school."
Jane inhaled sharply, partly out of surprise, partly out of the adrenaline rush when she realized that she was actually having that conversation with her mother. Without any preparation or forewarning. So she'd have to say the first things that came into her mind and hope she didn't screw up too badly.
"Ma, I'm sorry. I know you're always saying I'm the good one, the golden child or whatever, and I just, I didn't want to disappoint you, coming out and putting that on you. So I kept it in for a really long time," Jane said, her voice cracking as she kept her eyes on her hands, which her mother still held tightly. "You know, it's funny, for awhile, even up through my second year at the academy, I really tried so hard. Not to be, not to like girls. I tried really hard to convince myself, ma."
"I know, and I really wish you hadn't. Not for my sake. Jane, look at me," Angela said and waited until Jane met her gaze to continue. "I'm not going to pretend to understand the attraction to women. I don't get it, and I don't think I ever will, but I don't understand half the things that you do. I'll never understand why you always insist on roughousing with Frankie til one of you ended up bleeding, or why you feel like you need spoonfuls of sugar in a perfectly good cup of black coffee, and I still don't see why you wanted to be a cop so bad. But I love you, all of you, including the parts that I can't understand, Jane. I only ever wanted you to be happy."
"Ma, I," Jane stammered, her throat feeling tight.
She swallowed hard and hugged her mother. Angela hugged her back and stroked her hair, kissing her on the side of her forehead in the way that mothers do. It was so comforting, not just the kiss or the hug, but the whole thing. Angela's little speech made Jane feel light and happy in a new way that was unlike anything else. Jane had kept her lesbian leanings from both herself and her mother for so long out of some kind of misguided Catholic guilt that she'd forgotten what it was like to not feel that weight.
"Thanks, ma," Jane finally said. "You know you're pretty cool sometimes."
Angela laughed and pulled away from the hug to hold Jane's face in her hands. She gave Jane a kiss on the cheek, probably taking advantage of the fact that she knew it was one of the few times Jane would allow that kind of doting.
"I do have my moments, don't I?" Angela replied. "You just wait until you see me bust a move at your wedding. Then you'll see how cool your mothe-
"Damn it!"
It had been muttered, a whisper even, but it was enough to catch Jane and Angela's attention, causing them both to turn instinctively towards the voice.
There was Maura in the entrance of the living room, frozen mid-stride very much like a deer in the headlights, a deer that was sincerely surprised that the headlights even saw her in the first place. Jane figured Maura hadn't meant to speak out loud, because that was kind of a Maura thing to do.
Maura's sudden appearance in the scene wasn't the only thing that surprised and distracted Jane in that moment. There was the whole matter of Maura's wardrobe. The fancy, expensive black dress fit Maura surprisingly well, as most fancy, expensive things fit Maura. It fit Maura almost too well around the chest, giving the ME even more cleavage than usual, and significantly more cleavage than the dress was meant to reveal. It was still classy, but just this side of classy, and more the kind of cleavage meant for a hot date than a meeting with the in-laws.
It wasn't something Jane would ever complain about, but the fit of that dress was definitely distracting. In 90% of situations, it would have been deliciously distracting. They just happened to be in the other 10% of situations at the moment.
Maura smiled nervously, looking from Angela to Jane before Maura's eyes flicked down to Maura's shirt on the floor. Jane had forgotten about it, but it was fortunately already half under the sofa behind where Jane sat. Jane kicked it under in the second that Angela was distracted by Maura taking a step towards them as she smiled and held out her hand.
"Hi," Maura said, smiling nervously as she shook Angela's hand. "I'm Maura Isles."
A/N-This chapter took some serious drafting and re-drafting, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. A lot of the awkwardness and ambiguity was intentional, but some of it's just not working for me the way I thought it would. I might just be too close to it to even know what I'm reading anymore. Maybe it's also because there's so little Maura in this chapter and I do adore her so :) Thoughts?
I never in a million years expected to get as many reviews as I have on this, and I'm so grateful for that. In times like these when I get blocked those reviews keep me moving along :) More of those reviews would make for a great holiday gift!