"So the new development seems to be that Bella knows her sister knows…but doesn't know we know." Jane sighs.
Frost wrinkles his nose, "So, you know, and Sofia knows you know. But Bella thinks only Sofia knows? She doesn't know you know?"
Jane pauses for a moment, replaying the sentence in her head, and then nods, as Maura chuckles. "Yes…you got it."
Frost shakes his head. "No children for me. Not ever," he says, "too complicated."
Maura prods his shoulder from the back seat, "you're sure? Alissa's still young enough. Biologically speaking she has another five to seven years before her fertility-"
But Frost brings the car screeching to a halt, even though there is not a stop sign or a red light in sight. He clutches at his heart while Jane roars with laughter.
"Doc," he says, weakly, "please."
"That's what you get, for robbing the cradle, partner," Jane teases, turning around to fix her wife with a conspiratorial grin. "Does Alissa want kids?"
Frost shrugs, smiling, "she is eight years younger…that's hardly a crime and…" he pauses, considering, "I don't know, we haven't discussed it."
"Well are you two using birth control?" Maura asks innocently from the back of the car.
This is greeted by a splutter from Frost and a "MAURA!" from Jane.
"What?" Maura asks, eyes wide, "It's a valid question."
Jane shakes her head trying to hide a grin. "It is none of our business," she says firmly.
"Well," Frost glances at her in the rearview mirror "We have been using-"
"NO!" Jane says waving her hands wildly. "No, no, let me rephrase. You guys can talk all about this in the little girl's room when we get back to the precinct. I do not want to know."
And Maura and Frost exchange smirks, before attempting to change the subject.
They've just come from the high school, following up Jane's theory by questioning some of Melina and Amaya's friends. Maura had opted to come along, unable to simply sit and wait around for the test results that might condemn a child to murder.
The interviews they'd conducted hadn't made her feel any better. No one had anything mean to say about either girl. Best friends. Always together. Melina was super popular, but she never left Amaya behind. Amaya's so smart. Both are so friendly. It had gone on like that until the last kid they'd spoken too.
"You knew Melina?" Jane always sounded so intimidating when she was questioning.
The scrawny kid had nodded, pushing his glasses up his nose, "Yeah, she stopped a group of jocks throwing me in the trashcan once."
Jane frowns, "What about Amaya, you know her?"
And the kid had scowled back at her, "Yeah…manipulative," he'd mumbled.
"How's that now?" Frost had prompted, stepping forward.
He'd shrugged, "She was mad smart, and hot, you know? but that innocent act wasn't really fooling anyone. Everyone knew she was sleeping around."
"And Melina didn't care?" Jane had asked sharply.
The kid looked incredulous, "Course she cared. But what could she do about it?"
.
"That doesn't make Amaya a bad child," Maura argues, now as Frost pulls up in front of the precinct. She knows why she doesn't want Amaya to be the bad guy, but she's not about to admit it now. Jane glances back at her, tiny frown on her face, "We've been doing this long enough to know that not all murders are premeditated…or even voluntary."
Maura sighs. "You're wrong," she says, hoping against hope that she will soon have the test results to prove it.
...
were right, Jane." Maura rounds the corner with the results in her hand. She knows she looks pale and unsteady, and the detective does the smallest of double takes as she stands to come over to her.
"Her fingerprints are on his necklace?"
"There's a perfect seven point on the pendant," Maura says sadly. "That indicates that she was the last person to touch it. At least that part of it."
Jane nods, her eyes lingering for a little longer on the doctor before turning back to her partner. "Because she has the same nervous tick that Maura has," She says to Frost, who is frowning at her.
"I don't follow," he says.
Jane gestures at Maura's chest and presses her thumb and forefinger, running them along her own collarbone. "When she gets nervous, she runs her necklace along it's chain…like this." Jane watches Frost's face for understanding. "She did it on the sofa, when we interviewed her"
"But she wasn't wearing a necklace," Frost replies, still looking baffled.
"Exactly!" Jane says, "Because she gave it away, She turns to the projector, "Pull up Melina's profile. The secondary one."
Frost turns to the computer and does as she instructs, pulling up the picture of Melina scowling at the camera. "Okay, look, there, she's wearing her necklace…And Amaya's in the background…she doesn't have one." Jane frowns, "Can you pull up something less recent, Frost? Something from a couple months ago?"
Frost shuffles for a second and then pulls up a picture of the girls together in the middle of a field, a soccer field judging by their matching uniforms. They are both proudly sporting medals around their necks, smiles wide, arms around each other.
And there, glittering in the sun, underneath the red ribbons of their medals, are matching silver pendants.
Frost gapes. Maura feels her stomach sink even more. She hadn't wanted this to be true.
"So..." Frost is trying to put the dots together, Jane nods, waiting. "So…Jesse McNichol's necklace belonged to…to Amaya?"
Jane nods, encouraging. Frost rubs the back of his neck… "She gives Jesse her necklance…why? You think Melina asked her? You think Jesse took Amaya's place in Melina's life?"
But Jane shakes her head. "I don't think Melina was dating him," she says slowly. "I think Amaya was."
Frost looks incredulous, but Jane presses on. "pull up the chat of their fight again," she says, and when it appears on the giant screen she points at it. "What if we read it wrong? What if Amaya's dating Jesse?"
All three of them look up at the chat.
Mel: You don't know what you're talking about
Maya: You don't. You're head's so far up your ass you can't see day light
Mel: My, this isn't about Jesse. This is about you and me. You have to trust me on this.
Maya: You're full of shit.
Maura sighs. It works this way too. Frosts eyes are huge. "Amaya was dating Jesse."
Jane nods, glancing at Maura, "And Melina was trying to talk her out of it."
"Oh Shit!" Frost says, "Sorry, Maur…What did Jesse say when we question him?"
Jane nods, indicating that her train of thought has been going that way too, "he said it wasn't a crime to leave a girl in a park. We assumed he was talking about Melina, which would have made him stupid…but what if he was talking-"
"About Amaya!" Frost slaps his head, finally on board. "Holy shiiiips," he amends, and Maura rolls her eyes, feeling like she has been plunged underwater. Her team is right…this story makes more sense than any that they've thrown out in the past week and a half.
But she hears herself speaking into the silence before she knows what's happening. "There could be other narratives here," her voice sounds reasonable enough, even if her heart is racing. "You are leaving a lot up to imagination."
Frost nods, sitting down at the computer, "You're right, Doc," he says, very used to her cautioning by now. But Jane looks at Maura hard, trying to read her.
Maura turns half away, not willing to discuss her discomfort in the bullpen. "They're awfully young," she says, when Jane continues to look at her. "And studies show that girls don't often have that level of violence…not unless they have some form of trauma in their backgrounds."
"I don't know, Maur," Frost says from behind his computer, "You didn't hear Amaya and the way she talked about Melina's popularity. How everyone wanted to sit with her at lunch…how they were best friends," he taps at the keys, not looking up as he continues, "You know what high school is like. She probably met Jesse, and suddenly she has something Melina doesn't have…and then her homegirl tries to talk her out of it?"
Maura opens her mouth…and then shuts it again. Yes, she knows what high school is like.
"You're right, Maura, there could be other answers," Jane says quietly, and the doctor hates the understanding she hears in her wife's voice.
"Explain why only Melina's prints are on her own necklace, then," she says, aware that her tone is belligerent, and not trying to do anything about it.
"I can't," Jane says gently.
Maura hates the rush of vindication she feels, but it is extinguished almost immediately as the image of Sofia and Isabelle fighting comes to mind, Sofia tugging at the anklet around her leg, hell bent on giving it back to the person she thought was her best friend.
"Oh God," Maura says, and both Jane and Frost look around at her.
"Maur?" Jane takes a step closer, but Maura turns back towards the elevators.
"I have a great deal of work to get through," she says, hoping her tone is hard enough to be clear. And it must be because as she clicks away to the elevator, she does not hear the thud of Jane's boots behind her.
...
...
Maura runs. She doesn't check her phone to see how far away the detective might be, and when she reaches the park, she doesn't stop and listen for sirens. She jumps out of her SUV and runs towards the path that leads to the soccer field, cursing the fact that there is no way to drive directly there. The number that called had been unfamiliar, and the boy that had answered when she'd picked up had not been her son.
"Yes, this is Dr. Isles, who is speaking please?"
"It's Finn…Lee's friend? You better come to the park, There's a fight! He's gonna kill that kid!"
Vague as only teenage boys can be. It doesn't matter. Maura heard her child, heard "kill," and "park" and she was running before she can hang up the phone, speed dialing Jane in the car and screaming something she could only hope was coherent.
Now as she runs up the path, she can hear the shouts of the kids growing louder, chanting the one word that has not changed in the thirty plus years since she was a child. Fight! Fight! Fight!
Maura speeds up.
...
"We just have a couple more questions for your daughter Mr. Moore. It won't take long at all." Jane tries to put on her best concerned parent face, and it must work, because the man steps aside to let her and her partner into the house.
"Is there a place we could speak to Amaya?"
The father nods placidly, and Jane has a twinge of guilt, for what she is about to do.
"Sure," he says, gesturing them through the hall way, "Dining room is right through here"
...
Maura has always been good at assessing the damage. About looking at a crime scene and knowing what needs to be done and in what order. But as she approaches the scene, pushing boys and girls out of the way to get to the middle of the fight, she feels herself get lightheaded.
Levi on his knees, with a boy in a choke hold. Sofia bloody nosed and wild haired, her arm around her sister, and her other hand out protectively, shielding a petite brown haired girl.
A very tearstained MacKenzie Brown.
...
"What necklace?" Even as she says this, she gives herself away, her forefinger and thumb coming up to grasp at nothing.
Jane pulls out the picture, "You and Melina used to wear these," she says, watching her face closely. She wishes Maura were here to aid her. "And now yours is gone, and Melina's was ripped off of her before she died." Jane pauses, watching Amaya struggle with impassivity. "I think she ripped it off herself," Jane says quietly, and the girls eyes shoot up to meet her. "I think she ripped it off and threw it at you…when she realized you gave yours away to Jesse McNichol."
...
"Levi! Levi let him go," Maura stands in the middle of the group of children, already beginning to scatter, some primal instinct telling them not to hang around once an adult has arrived. "Levi, let him go."
The smaller boy is struggling to get free, but Levi doesn't obey his mother. He looks back at her with hard blue eyes, and Maura watches his muscles flex slightly, holding the boy in place.
"Levi," she says, glancing at her daughters, at Sofia's look of fury, and Isabelle's terror. "Levi, let him go."
But Levi shakes his head. "No," he says calmly. "I'm not hurting him. Not really. And I'm going to hold him here until Ma gets here." He looks up into Maura's stunned face, his own features stony.
"I'm going to hold him until Ma gets here to arrest him for touching my sisters."
...
"You were giving a necklace to some boy? That necklace? You and Melina picked those out together," Mr. Moore looks around at Jane, his polite curiosity slipping into suspicion. "Cost them a fortune, but they were dead set. Saved for weeks." He looks at Frost, who is studying the hard oak of the table.
"What is this?" he asks suddenly. "Why are you asking about that necklace."
"We know you gave it to him," Jane says to Melina, and the girl looks away. "Your finger print is on the pendant. We know it's yours." Melina shakes her head, but no words come out of her mouth. "You gave it to Jesse because he was your boyfriend, didn't you? And Melina didn't like that."
But Mr. Moore leans across the table to get Jane's attention. "You've got it wrong. Amaya is a good girl. She doesn't date and she certainly wouldn't hang around with some boy and not tell us…She's just a kid. She doesn't…she doesn't date."
Jane is going to respond, but before she can, Amaya slams her hand down onto the table, her face red and furious. "I AM NOT A LITTLE GIRL," she yells, and her father looks shocked. Amaya lowers her chin.
"And yes…I do."
...
Maura moves towards Isabelle and Sofia. "Honey," she tries to keep her voice from shaking. "Sofia come here, let me see your nose. Bella, sweetheart, are you okay?"
But Isabelle pulls away from her sister and turns to MacKenzie, throwing her arms around the smaller girl with enough force to almost knock her over.
Maura stands with her hands cupping Sofia's face, but she looks from one child to the next, unsure of what the right move is. She doesn't know who she should comfort and who is alright.
MacKenzie holds Isabelle back, her own face buried in the girls neck, and Maura is astonished by the level of understanding and intimacy they seem to share.
"It's alright, Belle," Levi speaks into the silence, looking up at his sister from the ground. "This shit isn't going to bother you anymore." The boy Levi has, Maura thinks this must be Adam, makes a sound like a whining dog.
Isabelle's head on Mackenzie's shoulder starts to roll back and forth, and as Maura looks back at Sofia's nose, it registers what she's saying.
"I didn't know. I didn't know I didn't know…"
Maura cannot think of a time she has wanted Jane more.
...
"You're telling me you were dating that boy?" Jane looks away at Mr. Moore's tone. She understands what it's like to be blindsided by your kids. "For how long? Without telling me or your mother? Is this why you and Melina weren't speaking?"
Amaya glares at Jane as though this whole thing is her fault. "She thought he was scum," she says lowly. "She told me not to date him because he was bad news."
"She was a good judge of character!" Mr. Moore bursts out, and Amaya jumps to her feet.
"She was jealous! She didn't want anything to change. She wanted to be queen bee forever. She wanted to be the first to get a boyfriend. She wanted everything for herself."
Mr. Moore has his hands up, his eyes are wide and panicked as he tries to quiet his daughter.
"Stop," he hisses. "Amaya stop this. These detectives think you killed her. They think you killed Melina."
And Amaya bursts into tears, covering her face with her hands. She shakes it back and forth, muttering, and her father's look of helplessness turns to shock as they all realize what she's saying.
"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to I didn't mean to."
Jane looks down at her hands.
She wishes Maura was there.
Like an answer to her silent plea, her phone is alive, buzzing through with six messages, all of them 911s from her wife.
"Frost," she says urgently, pulling her phone out of its holster. "Frost…"
...
Sofia's nose is not broken, thank God. Levi really isn't hurting that boy, thank God. And Isabelle…
Maura watches as MacKenzie pulls gently away from her daughter, leaning in to press a kiss gently to her nose. "Alright?" her voice is soft.
Isabelle sniffs, nodding, and MacKenzie shifts her gaze to Sofia, and then tentatively, to Maura. "Call me tonight," she says to Isabelle, already backing away. "If you can."
And Isabelle nods, watching her girlfriend as she turns and walks away, towards the opposite side of the field.
Maura drops her hands from Sofia's face, and takes a step towards Isabelle, who jerks her head around and takes a step back. "Don't," she says, her eyes wide. "Don't yell at me."
And Maura stops dead, a million questions and replies vying for position as most important, as needing to be said first.
But the sentence that wins is, "Oh, Bella…why didn't you tell me?"
And Isabelle shrugs her shoulders, her eyes widening at something behind the doctor, who turns to see her detective, at last, striding across the field kit belt and vest still on from the day, looking fearsome, and the boy in Levi's hold starts to struggle harder, so Maura almost misses Bella's answer to her question.
"I…couldn't."
…
…
They stand in their bedroom, Maura and Jane, just looking at each other, listening to their kids jostling for position on the couch downstairs. Jane shuts the door silently, running her hand through her hair.
"He wanted them to show him," Maura says, and Jane closes her eyes. "Sofia came around the corner as he was grabbing for MacKenzie. He wanted to watch them "dyke it up."
Jane's eyes open and focus on the floor, "Amaya confessed," she says dully, "Melina made her so mad, she just wanted to shut her up."
"He punches Sofia on the nose while she's trying to comfort her sister, and that's when Bella started yelling for Levi."
"She said to her father, 'I'm not a little girl anymore, you can't keep treating me that way."
"I asked Bella why she didn't tell us, and do you know what she said? She said she couldn't."
"That's two lives ruined. Over a boy."
They look at each other, both glassy eyed, like they haven't really heard the other speaking, but then Maura's eyes widen as her wife's words start to register.
"Oh, God," she says, putting her face in her hands. Jane seems to come back to herself, and she starts to cross the room, intent on nothing so much as holding her wife. But Maura pulls away.
Jane frowns, stopping. "Maur," she tries.
"A girls is dead, Jane!" Maura moves away from the detective, even though her tone has already given away her tears. "A girl is dead because of a relationship, and her best friend…her best-"
"Not our girls," Jane says at once, and she closes the distance between them, but doesn't reach out to hold her wife. Not yet. She shakes her head once, "Not our girls, Maura. Listen to me. Our children are safe downstairs fighting over what channel to watch."
"Today could have-"
Jane steps closer, cutting Maura off. "Could have," she says firmly. "But it wasn't. And we won't let it be."
Maura shakes her head, wanting to believe. She tries to stop fresh tears but they come anyway. She feels Jane pull in a deep breath, and she knows it is taking the brunette a lot of will power not to reach out for her. She shakes her head again.
"Isabelle-" she begins, but Jane cuts her off again, not moving.
"Is not alone," she says and her voice is quiet, but steady. "She's not alone, Maura. You were alone a lot of your life…before me and…" Jane hesitates, keeping control, "after me…for a while. You were alone, and you didn't have anyone to…And if I could take those times back, and be there for you...God Maur. You know I would in a heartbeat."
Maura opens her mouth, but no words come to mind. She doesn't turn to face her wife. She can't make herself.
"But Iz isn't you, Maura. She's got me and Lee and Noah and Sofia. She's got you." Mayra feels Jane shift behind her. "She's got us. All of us. She's not alone, and she never has to feel like…She never has to feel like…" Jane breaks off, searching for the right word.
"like no one is there." Maura murmurs.
"What?" Jane steps a little closer, leaning forward, and Maura turns around to face the brunette. Sometimes, they will go an entire day without seeing each other, both running in different directions even though they are on the same team. Children need to be picked up, suspects need to be questioned, the test results are back…and the day will slip by and they will have simply missed one another. On those days, when Maura rushes into the kitchen at the end of the day, or hears the door swing open from the couch in the living room, she will look around into Jane's face and she will be stunned at how much she missed her. At how much she still loves her, after all this time.
It is like that now, facing Jane, just looking at her.
"Maura?" Jane's tone is confused and nervous. She is not used to the silence.
Maura opens her mouth to say 'I love you," but what comes out is, "it hurt, growing up."
Jane's confusion deepens, and Maura knows she has not been clear.
"It hurt…not having…" she tries to find the right words to adequately describe the feelings, but seeing the devastated look on her wife's face, she rushes to smooth it over, "No! not you! I mean, after you'd gone, not having you hurt tremendously… I just mean as a child…an only child…" She looks up into Jane's deep brown eyes. "I never felt as if I had somewhere to go. Someone who would listen to me and…I often felt so…Isolated." She shakes her head, and finally, finally, she steps into Jane's arms. She can feel the taller woman shaking slightly.
"I want her to have somewhere to go," she says into Jane's shoulder, "I just want her to have someone she can turn to, always…A family she can count on."
"She does," Jane's response is immediate. "Of course she does."
Jane steps backwards, pulling Maura along with her until she can sit down on the bed and tug the doctor into her lap. "We are that family," she says into the smooth skin of Maura's neck. "We are not the Moores, or the Rosses. You are not your mother, and your children will never know what it's like to have no one to turn to. Even if that someone isn't us."
Maura closes her eyes, smiling.
"They will not have boyfriends that we don't know about, and they will not have secondary facebook accounts where they discuss their sexual conquests."
Maura wraps her arms around Jane. "They will hate us for butting in."
Jane shrugs, "so be it. If Sofia's becoming me, I might as well become my mother," she grimaces and Maura laughs, pushing her weight forward so that Jane falls back against the bed, looking up at her affectionately.
"I love it when you laugh, Maura," she says and Maura thrills.
She loves this romantic and earnest Jane. Gentle and open and just for her. She bends to press their lips together.
"I Love you, pretty girl," she whispers, and Jane's lips curl into a smile, and she pulls away, taking Maura's hand.
"Come here," she says, tugging her towards the door. "I want to show you something."
Jane leads Maura down the stairs and around the corner, stopping her in the door way to the living room, where all four children are parked on the couch. It barely fits them all anymore. Levi is stretched out lengthwise with Noah squished in at the end, and Sofia and Isabelle are sitting with their legs draped over their brothers. Bella's head is on Sofia's shoulder.
"Listen," Jane says when Maura looks at her questioningly.
"Mom's mad," Isabelle says glumly.
"Nah," Levi says, flipping the channel over to ESPN, "she's just emotional."
"She's an emotional gal," Noah says knowingly, and Maura has to put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as her youngest continues, "she thought you were gonna get hurt," Noah says from the end of the couch. "You know how Mom hates it when we get hurt."
"Cuz she carried us," Sofia says wisely, "And she hasn't been hurt nearly as much a Ma, so it's still shocking."
Maura smiles, despite herself, watching Sofia grab the remote and flip over to the history channel. Isabelle sighs heavily, and Sofia slips an arm around her.
"I'm glad we're friends again, Fee," she says quietly, and Sofia rolls her shoulders, uncomfortable with feelings.
"We were never not friends, Belle. I like Kenzie, anyway. I just hate the dickbags who walk around saying shit about you."
"Don't swear!" Noah calls from the end of the couch, Jane chuckles.
"Anyway," Sofia says, as Noah swipes the remote and changes to SPIKE TV, "Mom grew up different from us. She doesn't know what it means ta show up for each other."
"Ma shows up for her," Bella says, turning to look at her sister. Sofia nods, but it's Levi who answers.
"Sometimes, you gotta be reminded, Bella. When it wasn't in you from birth."
And Isabelle nods, accepting this as truth, and Jane drags Maura back into the hall and out of sight. She presses Maura gently up against the wall, leaning in so that when she speaks, her breath is warm and wonderful on the doctor's collarbone.
"That's your family," she says softly, and Maura feels goose bumps along her arms. She tilts her head back, inviting, and Jane grins, kissing her, slipping her fingers into Maura's hair and holding on.
But a loud squeal makes them both jump and look around. Sofia has wandered into the hall, and she is now pressing her hands against her eyes, face screwed up.
"YELCH. MOM! I'm scarred now!" She hollers accusingly, "well, at least we know where you get it, Isabelle."
And Maura and Jane laugh, Jane fake lunging at her daughter and making her scamper away.
"Isolated," Jane scoffs, following after her towards the kitchen.
"I long for isolation."
And Maura laughs, following after her.
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. Words do not, cannot come close to expressing my gratitude.
Thank you. Thank you all for showing up for me. I will continue to show up for you. Even if it takes me some time to get back on my feet.