DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.

Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.

Chapter 3

Jane felt like a punch was handed to her stomach, the pain taking her breath away, and she couldn't control her tears.

"Why?" was all she managed to ask, again.

"Does it matter?" Maura tried to put on her clinical façade to cover for her crumbling heart seeing Jane suffering. She didn't mean for any of this to happen. Jane was supposed to find the letter and move on. Not come finding her. This had not been part of Maura's plan.

"It matters to me, Maura…" Jane said, hurt. "If you are breaking up with me, I think I at least deserve the dignity of knowing why…"

"Even if that won't change anything?" Maura tried.

"Even so… Please, Maura…" Jane didn't mind she was begging. She needed at least to understand why things had gone this wrong and how she had failed to notice it in time.

Maura threw a few more pebbles into the lake, but said nothing else. Jane could see she was also crying. How could two people love each other so much and be hurting each other so much?

"Did I do or say something to hurt you? To upset you?" Jane tried.

"No." Maura's response was firm.

"Is there someone else?" Jane asked. She always knew Maura was gorgeous, intelligent, and it kind of bothered Jane that she could settle with a blue collar from Southie.

"Of course not." Maura stated matter of fatedly.

"Did you fall out of love with me?" Jane asked, her voice small and fearful.

Maura hesitated. Jane asking her questions could make it easier for her to find an easy way out that would not hurt Jane.

"And don't lie, because we will be here long enough for hives to develop." Jane added, seeing Maura hesitating to reply.

"No, Jane, I am very much in love with you, more so with each passing day." Maura admitted.

Jane exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Then will you please tell me what is going on, Maura? Because if you love me, and I love you, we should not be here having this conversation by a lake in Switzerland…" Jane's voice was gentle, trying to coax Maura out of her shell and share whatever was eating her inside.

Because Jane was not insensitive. As deeply hurt as Jane was feeling herself, she had seen Maura suffering since they came back from Boston, and it hurt Jane she was unable to reach out and easy the pain. And she could see Maura was struggling now. It took every ounce of Jane's self-control not to take the smaller woman in her arms and comfort her, reassuring her that everything would be alright if she could only talk and communicate to Jane what was consuming her.

"I just want you to be happy, Jane. You, more than anyone I know, deserves to be happy." Maura repeated what she had said in the letter. It was true.

"Well, Maura, newsflash for you… I can't possibly be happy without you by my side…" Jane tried to tease, and Maura's eyes met hers, and they were sad and hopeful.

"Why do you think staying with me would prevent me from being as happy as you think I deserve?" Jane knew Maura, and knew the only way to try to make her talk was by following whatever logic that big brain of hers had spined out for the past few weeks.

Maura sighed.

"A big white wedding? Children? To begin with…" Maura asked, her voice expressing the hurt and the pain inside her.

Jane looked at her in disbelief, and then reality hit her like a freight train.

"I'm gonna fucking kill my mother…" Jane muttered, and that made Maura chuckle in the midst of her tears, involuntarily.

"She didn't say anything wrong, Jane. She wants what is best for you. She wants you to be happy. And I want the same. And you can't have that with me." Maura continued, trying to make her point. She would not blame Angela, because she knew Angela was right in asking for a wedding and grandchildren.

Jane rubbed her face, tiredly, and pushed her hair out of her face, before continuing.

"Maura, love… You know my mother for what? Ten years by now? She always asks about wedding dates and grandchildren…"

"She alludes to those things, yes. But explicitly asking for them, only when her children are in committed relationships."

Jane exhaled. She would need to try a different tactics.

"Maura… Do you think I would be happy marrying anyone but you?"

"You might if you are free to find another person to love." Maura bit the inside of her cheek to avoid crying out loud for the pain that saying that caused her.

"You are MY person, Maura. Let me spell it out for you. If it is not you, I don't want anyone else. I had forty plus years of trial and error to find my perfect match. And I won't settle for anything less than you."

"But I am not enough…"

"Because we cannot have a big white wedding my mother wants to plan? Maura, I am the one who was happy as a teenager to get married in Fenway Park in a Red Sox jersey with people eating foot long hotdogs, drinking beers, and throwing peanut shells at me… Can I tell you what my plan to marrying you is?"

"Did you plan to marry me?" Maura asked, between fearful and hopeful.

"Of course I did… I still do, Maura. I know we've only been together as a couple for five months now, but we know each other for twelve years, are close for more than ten of those, we know the good, the bad and the ugly about each other. I love you and I want to make you my wife, I have just been waiting for the right moment to propose. And my plan for our wedding is simple. I know I will be marrying Dory Selsi on paper. And I don't care that is what the paper says, because I know you are Maura Dorothea Isles. I know we will not be able to have a big white wedding, because if one picture escapes to any media, you are at risk. So my plan is that we get married by a justice of peace, in DC, with Dean as our witness – since he already knows your secret, and nobody else needs to get involved. The papers will say Dory Selsi and Jane Rizzoli. Then, we rent a house for a long weekend in a remote place. You choose. Maine. Cape Cod. Or even Santorini, by the volcano crater. Whatever fancies you. Your parents fly in. My mother and my brothers fly in. They are all that matter. There we can exchange our vows only with family present, no priest, no stranger prying eyes, and you can still wear your silk charmeuse gown with an empire waist and a twenty-foot train. And we can still have your cake of hazelnut almond, chocolate ganache and mocha buttercream."

"Oh, Jane, you still remember…" Maura said, touched, her hand covering her mouth. It had been more than seven years she had mentioned those silly wedding fantasies to Jane, and she still remembered every detail of their conversation.

"I told you once, Maura. I do pay attention to you, most of the time anyway."

"And do you think that will satisfy your mother?"

"I hope so because I hope that her satisfaction will come from me being happy and from you being safe. But honestly? I don't really care, Maura. Because if anyone really wants me to be happy, what I just told you is what is going to make me happy." Jane said, with intensity, trying to get it through Maura's logic. She knew now that Maura had been drilling an opposing logic to that for weeks, and convincing her in one conversation would need all of Jane's persuasion powers.

"But what about kids? You know I struggle with this lie, Jane, and my only safe place not living this lie is when I am home with you. I could not lie to our children..."

Jane smiled gently at Maura.

"I totally understand that, Maura, and I respect it, and I love you for it. Having or not children has never been a condition for my happiness... I can't be married to anyone else. I can't have kids with anyone else. That is not what will make me happy. Whatever I am able to do with you is. Do you understand that?"

"Are you sure?" Maura was still hesitating, and it broke Jane's heart to think how much damage giving Maura space to think on her own in the past weeks had caused.

"I am 100% positive… Maura, I was drinking myself to death when I thought you were dead. I jumped to a trek to the middle of nowhere Idaho for the mere possibility to get to you. I just left everything behind to find you in Switzerland and try to instill some sense into you, for God's sake. I love you, Maura, and I cannot be happy as you want me to be if I am not with you. The only question that remains in my mind is if you can be happy with me?"

"Do you even need to ask?" Maura asked in a sob, tears staining her cheeks. "I've been completely lost since I decided I needed to break up with you…"