Deb spent her first two weeks on nights calling through bodies to the various homicide teams. Occasionally she could hear family dinners that had been interrupted, and in the case of Korsak, a lot of barking in the background. She went back to days for two weeks, and then back to nights, calling the lab team. It was the way they cycled through the shifts. Detective nights, detective days, ME's office nights, ME's office days. It gave life a good rhythm, and the overload pay was worth it, along with the added bonus of being able to do human things in business hours, like see a GP or go to a specialty store.

She was two weeks behind Em, who'd trained her - they were on the same shifts but on opposite teams. Deb had always thought there was something alluring about that one female detective's voice, so deep and husky. She hadn't run into her in the precinct yet, but she was usually snappy until she knew it was Deb; Deb assumed some of the other dispatch callers gave her a hard time or hit on her, or were simply incompetent. Deb just followed the script, but sometimes was hit with teasing asides from Detective Jane Rizzoli - stuff about her dad cheating on her mom - then a sotto voice 'I'm kidding, it's dispatch'. Sometimes she was mid-laugh, and Deb could always hear a woman in the background announcing herself as well. It wasn't until her next turn on days that she tied Doctor Isles' voice to the one she heard in the background, hearing Jane's distinctive voice yelling at someone, seeing one of Em's team flinch.

At lunch, Deb went over and sat with Em. She'd liked her - she'd been straightforward and pleasant, and she had a nice smile. Deb usually read on her break because the call room was loud and she'd had enough of people by the sixth hour of her shift, but Em smiled up at her as she sat across the table.

"Had a call with Doctor Isles," Deb said in order to broach the subject. "I could hear Detective Rizzoli in the background."

"You usually can," Em admitted. "She's pretty loud."

"But it was 2pm on a Sunday. What on earth are they doing?"

"Well, it's only hearsay, but I heard that Jane's mom lives with Doctor Isles."

"Lives with lives with, or just lives with?" Deb asked, and Em chuckled, forking more fried eggplant into her mouth.

"Lives with. Well, I don't know. The rumours are that Jane and Doctor Isles are dating."

"Oh," Deb said. That made sense.

"But they're two women in male dominated fields that don't hate each other, of course people are going to say that."

"That's true," Deb said thoughtfully, shoving over her halved muffin. Em took half and handed over one of her two band candies.

"Elton is selling again," Em said, rolling her eyes.

"Elton?" Deb asked. She didn't know a lot about Em, but she'd thought she looked too young to have a kid in band.

"Nephew," Em said. "He gets me every time with that cheeky smile. And, well, it's chocolate." Deb wasn't sure why she was so relieved.

"No kids?" Deb asked. Em laughed and shook her head.

"I'd need a girlfriend for that," she said, and Deb's eyebrows shot up.

"Me neither - I mean, no kids, not no girlfriend. Not that I have a girlfriend," Deb stammered, blushing. Em shot her a grin and stood; her break was over. "Wait - I want to - do you mind if we take the calls to those two? To figure it out?"

"Yeah, sure," Em said easily, and Deb dug into the band candy with a sense of satisfaction. She'd be able to solve a mystery - and it meant she and Em would have to compare notes every few days.

Deb was back on ME nights, and it took a few days to cycle through - the schedule for on-call was based on workload, although Doctor Isles should only have been an escalation point, there was a note in her file to call her for Jane's cases. Deb shot through an IM to Em, and Em pinged back immediately, starting the call. It was 3am, there was no way...

"Isles," Doctor Isles answered her call. She never sounded groggy or upset, no matter the time. She must be the most patient human in the world, Deb thought. And there it was in the background, the deep rumble of Jane's voice. Deb listened carefully but didn't catch any specifics like where they were or what they'd been doing.

"I couldn't even tell if I'd woken her up, she's always so polite on the phone," Deb said ruefully. Em chuckled and slid over a Tupperware container, and Deb swapped it with one of hers. Em was trying out some new recipes at home and she'd asked Deb to taste test - and Deb had wanted to return the favour, so she'd started cooking as well, putting more effort into it than usual.

"I definitely woke Jane up. I could hear... the Downton Abbey music in the background? And Doctor Isles answered a little after Jane, like an echo. It's kind of cute, isn't it?" Em asked, and Deb looked over at her, really looked at her. Em was a pale blonde woman with immensely deep, forthright blue eyes, a cute nose and an even cuter smile that was aimed, for some reason, at Deb, who was just your normal All-American mixture - some Native American, tribe long unknown, a little Chinese, a little Irish, something from the Latin Europeans from at least a century ago - Deb felt she was completely forgettable, completely average with her boring brown eyes and boring brown hair. Deb longed to say that the Rizzoli and Isles situation wasn't anywhere as cute as Em, but instead she blushed and nodded.

Back on days again, and Deb got Rizzoli a few times. She could always hear the 'Isles' a few seconds later, now she was paying attention. She knew Em started at least one of the calls before Deb had managed to dial. Once again in the break room, Deb questioned it.

"Oh, I think it's how polite she is. Have you ever met her? She's a little... it's cute. You'll see. She's probably doing it because Jane likes to be in charge, and it doesn't matter to her. She knows who's the boss." Deb stopped with a homemade jalapeno popper halfway to her mouth.

"You've met them?" Deb asked in wonder. Em shrugged.

"Not met, per se. I've seen them in the station.

"Oh my god! I half thought they weren't real! What are they like?"

"Oh, you'll know them when you see them. Didn't you see them in the papers? Jane shot Doctor Isles' father."

"What? Really?"

"Must have been before you worked here," Em said. "I forgot you're new, it feels like you've been here forever."

"12 hour days will do that to you," Deb joked. She handed over her latest dish - she wasn't completely happy with how it turned out. "Candied peach," she said shyly, as Em raised a questioning look to her upon opening the container.

"You're amazing," Em said, shaking her head in wonder. She raised one to her mouth and bit in, and Deb watched ravenously, seeing how Em's fingers touched her lips, how Em's tongue chased the sugar on those fingers, how Em's eyes closed as she savoured it. Em sighed, swallowing and opening her eyes, catching Deb's gaze on her. "You're too good to me," Em said, her voice lower than usual, and Deb blushed.

"Are you sure they're okay?" Deb asked. "It was my first attempt - I think I could get them more crisp if I-"

"They're perfect," Em said, reaching that same hand over the table to cover Deb's as she reached for the container. "And they're mine now."

"I have more at home," Deb admitted, and Em chuckled as she ate another one.

The next day there was a newspaper clipping on Deb's desk, something about a mob boss - but there was Detective Jane Rizzoli, in her academy photo, and then in another, looking heartbroken. She was gorgeous, and it was nice to put a face to the name. And there was Doctor Maura Isles - oh, she had brown hair, Deb had always pictured her as a blonde. But brown didn't really do it justice - there were highlights of copper and gold, and her jaw was set in a hard line. These two women didn't look anything like they'd sounded; not here, at least.

"Why do we bother calling them both when they're always together," Deb complained. She and Em were eating roti, several containers of tidbits strewn across the table. She'd contributed an apple and cherry pie that she hoped Em would enjoy - Deb had learned that Em had a sweet tooth, and the sweeter the dish, the sweeter the looks Em gave Deb as she ate it.

"Protocol," Em said simply. "We can't trust that they'll always be glued to each other, and the one time they aren't is going to be the one time we only call one of them. We can't afford to lose any time in getting them out to the bodies." Deb nodded; although she worked in dead bodies, she was far enough removed from them to be fortunate enough not to picture most of them. Sometimes the notes they got from 911 were horrific - that poor kid, his parents chaining him in the yard until one of the neighbours lost a ball over the fence and found what was left of him. Deb shuddered.

"I know. I take our work seriously. I was just saying they're always together. See?" Deb pulled out her notebook, and turned to a page with a tally. "In the last two months I've only not heard the other one in the background once, and Rizzoli was definitely in the bathroom that time. There was a flush."

Em chuckled. "Well, you've proven your hypothesis, what next?"

"I don't know," Deb admitted. "I thought it would prove if they were dating or not, but just because two people are always together doesn't mean they're dating."

"I mean, people have started talking," Em said, handing over a loaded pull of roti. Deb took it without thinking, closing her eyes as the mixture of toppings Em had chosen for her melded perfectly in her mouth.

"About Rizzoli and Isles?"

"About us," Em said in a hushed voice. "Because we always eat lunch together." Deb could tell she looked startled; Em's face closed a little as she read Deb's face. "Silly, isn't it?" Em laughed, but Deb saw the hurt beneath the smile.

"Not silly at all," Deb said firmly. She took a deep breath and pulled out a brochure. "In fact, I'd been wondering if you'd like to come to this with me? I - I didn't want to go on my own." The brochure was for a set of queer movies down at the old picture theatre, as part of a historical viewing that had been going on all year, the only thing that kept the place funded.

"Bringing up Baby. I do love Cary Grant," Em mused. She looked up and met Deb's eyes. "But not as much as I love Katherine Hepburn. It's a date."

"A date?" Deb squeaked, unable to believe how lucky she was. Em chuckled.

"I assumed that was the intention," Em said.

Deb was not at all surprised to see Doctor Isles and Detective Rizzoli canoodling in the back of the picture theatre. She and Em were doing the same thing, after all.

Halfway through the show, though, came a very familiar 'Rizzoli', followed, as always, by a more sedate 'Isles', and then a commotion as the crime-fighting pair sped off into the night.

"I'm pretty sure they're dating," Em said, sotto-voice to Deb.

"I'm not certain," Deb said, her hand on Em's knee. "We'd better check out that baseball game tomorrow. The Sapphic Slammers are playing the Boston Bi's, and if they're there we can find out for sure."

"They'll only get called out at half-time," Em sighed, resting her head on Deb's shoulder. "But it sounds like a date to me."

Three months later, Deb and Em came into the lobby together, chuckling over something Deb had said. They froze; Jane and Doctor Isles were right there. They'd been to every LGBTQIA+ event all over Boston with them, but they'd never actually been introduced. Deb stood up straighter, not realising her hand was clutching Em's at this impending showdown.

The gates were down again. Em verbally signed in at the front desk, showing her badge.

"I know that voice - you're dispatch, right?" Jane's lazy drawl asked, and Em and Deb looked up nodding, Deb signing in now. "It's nice to put a face to the names. Wait - you were at..." Deb wondered which of the many, many queer events they'd attended Jane was going to mention, but she mentioned none, just nodding to herself with a grin. "Nice. We always wondered, you know, if you two were..." Jane shrugged. "Hey, hon, check it out - it's Deb and Em from dispatch."

Em gave a tiny half-wave and Deb blushed. Doctor Isles covered her mouth. "Oh, they're so cute."

"We wondered the same thing," Deb said belatedly, and Jane laughed.

"Birds of a feather," Jane said casually. "I guess we'll see you at the hockey game this weekend." Jane's phone rang and she smiled politely and took the call. "Rizzoli!"

"Isles," Doctor Isles said a moment later, and they headed to the lift for the parking garage, off to solve another murder.

Notes:

Reading it back it's more Rizzles adjacent but also it's Rizzles.

I have done a lot of weird jobs in my life and one of them intersected with a dispatch team, who always, always had the best stories.