Angela smiled at her daughter when she entered Maura's kitchen late Saturday afternoon. She had shot up in fifth grade, towering over all the boys and not stopping until she was in her first year of the Academy. Sometimes when Angela looked at her now she still saw that lanky kid, her limbs all stretching far beyond the trousers she had just bought her much to her father's delight and her own dismay. Angela Rizzoli had no idea where she had inherited her height, but like most everything about her daughter it remained an exceptional mystery of how it came to be but a staple of her very character.
"Hi, honey."
"Hey, Ma." Jane was sitting at the island crowded over a bowl of cereal as if it would be taken from her, judging by the free floating sugary marshmallows of different colors it very well might have. The idea made Angela chuckle and look about half expecting her daughter's best friend to appear and begin the thankless task of caring for Jane and her eating habits.
"Where's Maura? I thought you two were going to yoga?" She stepped fully into the kitchen and rested her bag down on the counter.
Jane plunked her spoon beneath the sea of off florescent colored milk and nodded as she chewed. "We went this morning, just got back from traffic, Maura's showering…" She fished out a clover and a rainbow and stared at them a moment before scooping some more pieces of cereal onto her spoon and eating it.
"Well that defeats the purpose of a relaxing morning, huh?" She teased with a soft smile as she shifted through a small stack of mail that was no longer left at her guest house door and had mingled with Maura's very official looking postage on the kitchen counter for quite some time now.
"Waking up at nine defeats the purpose of a relaxing morning." She watched her mother as she continued to eat now distracted by the usually loud woman's silence. "What's up?"
Angela looked up suddenly full of animation. Jane narrowed her eyes when she realized she caught the bait. "I wonder what Nina and Frankie are doing today."
Jane lowered her spoon into her bowl slowly. "I think their actually eloping—shoot I was supposed to witness. I better go."
"Jane."
Jane chuckled. "Why don't you call and ask them?"
"When was the last time we all had a meal together?" She looked at her watch as if it would tell her. "It's just about lunch time? Or an early dinner?"
"Tomorrow, because we eat every Sunday…"
"Well not last week."
"Because someone was too busy canoodling to make her children dinner." Jane reached for her spoon again and huffed. "I had to eat weird crackers, Ma."
"Why don't you kids invite me to dinner tonight or a movie?"
Jane pushed her bowl away and studied her mother's features wondering briefly for the third time that week if she would be so lucky to age so gracefully, Maura most certainly would. Hope could be her older sister. The detective wasn't sure where this earnest request for company was coming from but on occasion she indulged her mother, and for some reason today she was feeling lighter and left to examine all her human connections and what could be more human than a mother-daughter relationship? Jane nodded once.
"Alright, Ma. Let's go to a movie."
Angela briefed suspicion before smiling and going back to looking through her mail. "I'll call your brothers." She added as if no longer interested.
Jane looked back to her cereal. "Maura too?"
Upstairs in her personal bath Maura allowed several cool droplets of water to paint down her face and chest before brushing them away with a soft towel. She found herself blushing heavily and unable to focus on their paths. The doctor stared at her naked reflection carefully examining the emotion, turning it over and over again and again before leaning forward and staring it into a forced definition.
Buoyant
There was no other way to describe how she felt when Jane showed up at her doorstep this morning with little to say about the closed case and even less to say about their class, she had paid attention though, made only the expected wise cracks and only halfheartedly. There was a careful way about her Maura had only seen when she had to babysit Bass that one time or when interacting with small children.
She wanted to try because she cared and she wanted to do well because she too had feelings.
They had feelings for one another.
They had feelings for one another and they were in the mist of defining them.
As a buoy might she felt excited by the waves to a point of sea sickness, and as the waters calmed into a familiar ripple she moved still, anticipating the inevitable shift into activity again.
Maura finally decided on a pair of white capris and a free flowing tank of purple and green before she stepped barefoot downstairs to find Jane sitting on the couch watching baseball highlights. The raven haired detective glanced at her and sat up a little. "Hey."
Maura came over to the couch and sat beside her. "You won't change?" She motioned to Jane's jeans and sneakers.
"Ma wants to go to a movie later… Do you want to come?"
Maura smiled. "No." She answered simply before reaching for her book that had been forgotten on the coffee table and adjusting a leg under herself to get comfortable. She had had her mind set on an early night tonight and having had never encountered a feeling so indescribable made her warry to interact with the outside stimuli that came with the distraction of cinephotographic experiences. She wanted to allow her mind to digest the morning in slow and dedicated mouthfuls. Besides she and Tasha had scheduled a phone conversation later that day and she ought to call Constance and possibly Hope.
Jane stared at her a moment before chuckling to herself and looking back at the tv. Dr. Maura Isles never did something she didn't want to and hadn't apparently learned the obligation of social niceties. It made the idea of her whispering quietly at odd hours with the detective criminally obvious of her intentions and Jane couldn't help but flush a little. She spoke to fill the space. "Tommy and Frankie are coming…"
Maura nodded into her book.
"It'd probably an action movie anyway." Jane looked at her.
Maura looked up at her. "Oh I don't care much for those."
"So that's probably not something you would want to see then… Friday?" Maura shook her head no with a small smile. Their eyes danced over one another looking for hints of something more, signs of this change. The pathologist slowly closed her book. "What?" Jane grinned albeit nervously.
"Did I mention that I'm glad we went this morning?"
"Eighty times."
"Ah."
Jane couldn't refuse her eyes or shame them by looking away. She shrugged. "So yes to seafood and no to action movies?"
"Perhaps I should plan something."
Jane scoffed. "No I'm doing it."
Maura chuckled. "It's not because I don't believe you can plan a—proper experiment. It just seems to me that there needs to be a control."
"You?"
"An experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the independent variable. It will increase the reliability of the results."
Jane thought on it. "How about we wear the same thing, the same clothes?" Maura's brow wrinkled. "Not literally, don't pass out."
"Oh thank goodness."
"We should dress like we normally would when we um, y'know do things together."
"As to?"
"As to hence forth thus." Jane waved a hand and Maura smiled in that slightly displeased yet amused way of hers. Jane smiled back and then shied a little. "I'm gonna be nervous." She shrugged and massaged her hands together before looking over at Maura again. Trying to find something to wear that wasn't too dressed up seemed like a daunting task. Jane tried to think of the last time she was on a date and what she had worn. "Aren't you?"
"I am now."
"Now?" Maura nodded. "Why? We're just watching baseball, we do this every Saturday."
It was endearing that Jane believed they both watched baseball together every Saturday, sure they occupied the same space, often literally the same couch cushion, but Maura would do her nails, read, finish some paperwork, nap, she had no literal clue what Jane did beside her all she knew was that she was beside her, and that in and of itself made her more comfortable than being alone.
For the majority of her life solitude had been the only embrace she could depend on.
The detective waited patiently for Maura to reply but as the doctor opened her mouth to try and describe her new found buoyancy the back door opened and Angela appeared with her purse. "Janie! Before we pick up Tommy I need a loner."
Jane looked between her mother and Maura and then stood with a grand sigh. "Where to, Ma?"
"The bank."
Jane nodded to herself and then looked back down at Maura. "You need anything while I'm out?"
"No, nothing, thank you."
"Are you sure you don't want to come?"
"You're not coming?" Angela called from the kitchen.
Maura turned to look over the couch at her disappointment. "I—"
"Maura when are you going to realize that you're one of mine now? I wanted to sit with all of you, do something as a family. Tommy even got a sitter."
"She's just feeling guilty because she ditched us last Sunday." Jane shook her head. "You don't have to—"
"Don't tell her she doesn't have to."
"Angela really, it's okay, I'd rather—"
"Nonsense! I insist! Go change, Janie and I will be right back."
##
"Nah, I've seen that thing ten times with TJ!" Tommy protested into the microphone causing the ticket agent at the movie theatre to wince as the sound reverberated against the walls of the small stall.
"Oh Thomas stop, its family friendly." Angela pointed. "See it says it right there."
"Janie do you want nachos?" Frankie craned his neck passed the movie display and watched the concessions line carefully. If he separated from them now they wouldn't have to wait.
"How many times am I gonna have to watch a talking cat and squirrel become best friends!?"
Angela chuckled patted him on the back. "Okay okay. Not this one."
"Nachos Janie, c'mon we can get a large one and split it" Frankie rubbed his chin, "extra jalapenos."
Jane motioned to the electronic screen flickering movie titles and times like the stock exchange. "Yes to nachos, no to talking animals…unless they fight crime, do they fight crime?"
Tommy shrugged. "I don't want nachos."
"That's not what I asked you."
"Jane." Maura tugged gently on Jane's loose baseball sleeves as she motioned her cell phone toward the detective and began reading aloud. "Patricia Waird stars as a surgeon at one of New York's most experimental emergency wards. When a routine appendectomy leaves her on the verge of psychosis she finds herself investigating one of the most prestigious secret societies in the medical field." Jane furrowed her brows. "It's about cannibalism."
"Gross Maura."
Maura frowned. "Reviews have called it sincerely medically accurate."
"Sinerely?"
"Yes, free from pretense or deceit; proceeding from genuine fact."
"Or a hot dog…" Frankie shifted his weight. "I don't know!" He threw his hands up. "They give you too many choices."
"Well I sincerely do not want to see some lady eating people." Maura pouted. "C'mon Maur."
"Where's Nina? She scared of us yet?" Tommy joked as their mother began to lean against the ticket counter and ask the agent if there father went to so and so high school.
"Yeah where is she?" Jane asked trying her best to ignore Maura's pout.
"At the station, she got a call." Jane and Maura instinctively checked their phones. "I promised I'd bring her popcorn." For the first time since arriving he noted a movie and pointed at the title. "Hey what about Stuck In A Tree?"
Tommy looked at him fiercely. "You got knuckle brains or something, Francesco? I'm not watching that again. All TJ wants to do now is climb trees and I can't get him down half the time."
Frankie laughed and nudged Jane. "I hear they fight crime."
Jane turned to Maura excitedly. "I'm an animal that fights crime." She motioned to the movie poster of the cute animated cat and squirrel in a tree. "They're animals that fight crime."
Maura shook her head. "Don't you want to see something mentally stimulating?"
"No." Jane smiled. "I think I've had enough mental stimulation for one day." The medical examiner gave Jane a look. "I mean not that I didn't y'know…get a lot out of…. Maura." Maura turned toward the ticket booth and moved to stand with Angela. Jane sighed heavily and shook her head.
"Eh anyway." Frankie continued. "Nina really wanted to see that one; I don't feel right seeing it without her."
Tommy nodded. "Ma's too much of a baby to see Death Row II isn't she?"
Both Jane and Frankie nodded.
"You remember that one time we tried to get her to watch Scream?" Frankie chuckled.
Jane laughed loudly at the memory. "Tommy almost sent her to the hospital when he bought that mask."
Eventually they were all able to agree on an action adventure movie with a little something for everyone; science, crime fighting, romance.
The concessions stand was another half hour affair but that was okay because since they took so long to choose a movie (Mastering the Art of War) they had some time to kill before the next showing started. Jane was acutely aware that every attempt to interact with her best friend was brushed off gently by the other woman.
Maura's feelings though exceptionally resilient and most often the most accurate cue when interacting with the pathologist sometimes passed through a deep fog to the detective where Jane found her confidence in reading them escape her completely. In her line of work people often became predictable, their habits of speech and language of body, their routines. Boring almost.
The problem with these moments, these fogs, was that Maura wasn't like anyone else Jane had come across. There was no chapter on Mauras in the police academy's handbook on character behavior.
She never knew what Maura was about to say or do.
As she walked over to where Maura and Tommy were viewing a movie poster together in the bustling theater lobby she realized it was this unpredictability that got them into this thing in the first place.
Jane hugged her obnoxiously large tub of popcorn to her stomach as if its weight resembled that of a bowling ball or a pregnant belly.
"…Yeah I thought so too but y'know my insurance isn't the best and I don't wanna take him for them to tell me he's fine…." Tommy trailed off when he realized his sister wasn't going to jump in on her own thoughts on the color of TJ's boogers. "Uh…" Jane looked at him pointedly without Maura catching it. "So…" He struggled to read her expression.
Maura glanced to her right at Jane who falsely turned her head to admire the movie poster as she rocked the baby bowling ball in her hands.
Maura looked back to Tommy who was shaking his head. "Try a humidifier."
"Yeah I will, thanks, Maura." He left them.
Jane looked to her left quickly at Maura and then looked forward at the poster that really didn't have enough going on within it to have the two of them fixated as intensely as they were.
"I'll share my popcorn with you if you tell me what's on your mind." Jane offered reverting back to the basics of interrogation.
Maura nodded once still looking straight ahead. "You were going to share with me anyway."
Jane looked down at her on her left. "I've been found out."
They looked at each other and smiled. "I was thinking about your family."
"Not the crazy cannibal surgeon movie?" See? She had no clue with Maura sometimes.
"I still want to see that." Maura reached over and picked up exactly three buttery pieces of popped corn. Jane waited patiently for her to say something for the second time today, Maura wondered just then if that was how Jane expressed her more intimate feelings, through these small subtleties. Jane had always been an affectionate person, but there was something telling about her patience today. "I wanted to be alone to process everything about today, to stew in it almost." She chuckled when Jane's feature's softened. Maura popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth. "That's how I do things."
"Ma didn't want to leave you out; she's worried about you not sleeping well." The older woman had given Jane an earful about a number of her worries on their short car ride to the bank.
Maura smiled and glanced over her shoulder at Angela sweetly. "She's very kind."
"I wanted you to be here too." Maura looked at her then. "I know you like your space though, Maura, we Rizzoli can be a handful."
"On the contrary this was just the environment I needed. It seems to be this way more often, a pattern I only recognize in my solitude mind you. ." A very Maura way for saying she liked spending time with her family, and missed them when they were not about.
Ah. Jane nodded to herself, here was something she could read. "Then you thought about this changing too? All of us getting together…"
Maura nodded and reached for four more pieces. "I had never considered it until we were standing in line to get the tickets." She smiled. "I have to admit it surprised me. Thinking of them knowing…"
"About this thing."
"I was always okay with you knowing," She sent a teasing look. "But even that took time. It will take time, Jane."
Jane nodded fully understanding now. This wasn't just something that happened overnight and yet telling everyone else, technically would be. "You don't need to worry about them, let me worry about them." She heard herself say without proper cerebral consultation. It was one thing for herself to be overwhelmed by their newness, but Maura had always been so brave, Jane found she wanted to protect that, protect her. Maura smiled softly at her before looking back behind them to where Frankie was on the phone and Tommy and Angela were picking out a stuffed animal for TJ from an older arcade box.
"I don't think you know what you are saying." She looked back to Jane "but it's working. Thank you, I feel much better."
"They like you more than they like me anyway."
Maura chuckled. "I'm sure they like you very much while I'm away."
Jane laughed. "Damn." She swiftly moved the popcorn out of the medical examiner's reach. "When's your next trip anyway? New York right?" They began to walk back toward their group.
Maura nodded. "Yes, I have agreed to panel in a few months. It would be nice to see Tasha while she is there for that one semester at Cornell. " She paused before looking to Jane. "You should come with."
Jane nodded. Maura was really good at keeping in touch with the young girl they had been joint mentoring for a little while now, they had a kinship Jane never really understood but she did care greatly for the young woman and wondered how she was fairing. "I don't know Maura, time off—"
"Is something you never take." Jane sent her a knowing look and Maura smiled knowing that if she pushed hard enough she would have her. "We could take her out to a nice meal, I still have my connections with the restaurant scene there—"
"What kind of connections?"
"The connecting kind."
"Ahuh."
"When do they want you to start lecturing in Virgina?"
"Um… once all my HR stuff is complete."
Maura looked at her strangely. "Jane it's been two months."
"Not actually, and I had questions—look Ma won a stuffed animal."
"Jane."
Maura turned to face her and Jane sagged her shoulder irresponsibly. "Can we talk about this later?"
"Talk about what?" Angela asked as the two approached.
"Oh." Maura motioned to Jane. "We're going to talk about her depression later." Jane shot her a look.
Angela nodded slowly. "Well good, you need to talk to someone sweetie, you were never a depressed kid."
"Ma just because I wasn't a depressed kid doesn't mean—" She looked up dramatically for help. "Why am I even doing this?" She looked back to Maura who was grabbing a few more pieces of popcorn from her arms. "You just couldn't help yourself."
Maura nodded. "Sometimes you need to be pushed. I don't understand your hesitation with this."
"I'll push you." Jane attempted a threat but Maura's dimples made her grin before pouting. "I have to do a psych evaluation…"
"That's it?"
"No that's not it, but it's a part." Jane motioned for Frankie to end his call before looking over at her mother and youngest brother. "We should go get seats."
"Wait!" Angela got up and grabbed Maura's wrist. "Ladies room first."
Jane chuckled at the look Maura was giving here as she was being dragged along. Frankie ended his call. He pointed to the large tub of popcorn in Jane's arms. "I thought we were getting nachos."
"We are, this is Maura's."
##
Maura sighed contently as she ran a hand through her golden tassels and smiled as Angela moved to rest her purse down before tending to a pot of tea. "What a loud production." She reflected aloud, stepping into her quiet home after the movies was almost deafening compared to the many explosions and competing noises of the apparently all action version of The Art of War. "And very little science." She moved behind Angela to pour herself a glass of water.
Angela chuckled knowingly. "When they were young that's all they wanted to see. I started sending their father with them to the movies and when he was working I'd bring ear plugs."
Maura nodded as she drank. "That is a very good idea." She rubbed at her earlobe thoughtfully after resting her glass down. "Thank you for including me."
Angela shook her head at the thanks. "Oh nonsense." She wiped her hands dry on a kitchen towel. "You're a Rizzoli." She accented the Italian last name as any Italian mother would with pride for their own.
Maura smiled. She watched Angela reach for their tea cups as the kettle on the stove began to gurgle softly. "Well it's still so very new to me; I forget that I have them, all of them. Frankie and Tommy…"
Angela moaned with approval. "My boys love you, Maura." The opportunity to share with Angela that she had actually kissed all three of her children was not lost on the medical examiner. There would be a joke one day of it, she was sure, but right now Maura decided to keep it to herself. "Not as much as my Janie though." Angela paused a moment to decide on a tea in the dried tea cabinet. Maura sat at the stool at the island where Angela had placed an empty cup. "I'm so glad she's been able to find someone she can talk to. She's more like her father than she'd ever admit, stubborn like an ox that kid." She decided on a mint green blend and brought it down from the shelf as if removing an artifact from a museum.
Maura chuckled softly. "That is Jane."
"Have you ever seen someone as passionate though?" Angela turned. "Even as a kid…" She shook her head. "Just like Frank…sugar tonight?"
Maura shook her head. "No, thank you. Monosaccharides keep me alert."
Angela paused before nodding firmly and putting the sugar away. "You haven't been sleeping very well." She led as she caught the kettle just as it began to hiss.
Maura shook her head no. "Has Jane said anything more about his visit?"
"Maura do you think she would tell me before you?"
The ME shrugged. "I know it is upsetting to her…"
Angela moved to pour her some hot water. "I don't blame them; I would be upset as well…" She poured her own cup. "How long does depression last?" The mother of three asked innocently.
Maura cupped both hands around her hot mug. "I wouldn't be worried Angela."
"A mother never stops worrying."
"Well on some scale everyone goes through their own form of depression, Jane has the capabilities to cope…her current funk." She chanced a small sip of the tea. "This issue lies with long term or untreated cases of depression where the brain chemicals alter and production of happy neurotransmitters decrease. Loss of interest in things that normally make you happy, interest in morose topics like death, a feeling of numbness and excessive search for relief…" She paused. She had heard that before.
"Well if it's not depression then what is it?"
Maura blinked and nodded. "Jane?"
"I won't ask you to guess."
Maura smiled. "She's…in transition."
Angela looked at her plainly. "She hasn't been having intercourse has she?"
Maura colored. "I-I wouldn't know…"
"Well that might be it!" Angela laughed. "Whatever happened to that cute FBI recruiter?"
Maura's brain hopped from topic to topic. What had come of him? She wasn't sure exactly and Jane never really said. A fleet of anxiety whipped up in her that she calmed with a maternal patience.
Jane breathed heavily into the receiver an hour later. "Rizzoli." She mumbled.
"Your hesitation to complete your application for employment with the Federal Bureau of Investigations doesn't have anything to do with Agent Davies does it?"
Jane smiled into her pillow. "Who wants to know?"
"Maura Isles." Maura answered impatiently. The sleepy chuckle she got on the other end meant she had missed the joke or social reference completely.
Jane rolled over onto her back, a stomach full of movie theatre junk had made sleep a more pleasant bliss than wakefulness but she couldn't help but be amused. "No, he's not why."
"Well are you two still in communication?"
Jane stared at her ceiling fan, her smile never wavering. "He emailed me the other day about my application. Asking when I'd be in town next."
"Oh." She wasn't expecting all of that.
Some time passed without either saying anything.
"You in bed?"
"Yes."
"Why are you so curious about Davies all of a sudden?"
"It wasn't why I called initially."
A change of subject, Jane nodded to herself. "Why'd you call initially?"
"I was curious if you could help me find someone, a student." She bit her lip. "And…"
"And?"
"I wanted to say goodnight."
AN: You really don't know how much I love hearing from you all. Thank you for all those reviewers out there.
KathleenDee