Archive of Our Own

Maura is leaning on the kitchen island, elbow on the surface leading to a bent wrist and a hand holding her head up as her free hand holds a pen hovering over the daily crossword she completes only occasionally, the scant days when present company is absent or graciously allows her to. Today is clearly one of the days where the puzzle will go unsolved, she can hardly concentrate with the way Jane is going back and forth between the stove and the other side of the island, alternating her own attention between making breakfast and picking up her own pen to scribble down things in her list as she remembers to add them. Not only is she suffused by a sort of nervous energy, but she also is of course chatting all about it. Maura has long ceased to expect her to do anything quietly, and welcomes all the externalized thought processes with gusto when shared.

This time, she sets the pen down delicately and sits back in her stool to wholeheartedly observe how Jane turns sideways to jerk a pan with one hand, stirring the vegetables there, and picks up the chewed-on stylus on the other and scribbles on the page she had torn off her notepad. “I need at least a six-pack in place to cope…” she starts in a low, private, grumble, and suddenly looks up at Maura “You have all the weird wines we need here right? I mean” she grumbles when Maura does not immediately respond, tilting her head towards the cellar behind her “This covers Constance and Arthur and Hope and Cailin?”

“I hardly think they each need a different wine, Jane. They will drink whatever pairs best with the meal.” Jane shrugs before her and something cold runs down her spine as she finishes her sentence, an acute sense of Dèja Vu so intense she stills in her seat and casts a look around to place it. She passes her eyes over the island and the configuration of objects on it, over the kitchen counter and the sprawling of Jane’s cooking process, over the cabinets and how the light falls on them even, but conscious effort does not yield results.

Before the pressure of the need to know becomes too much though, one of the cellphones on the island rings and Jane expertly grabs at it even as she lifts the pan and slides half of an omelette that had come to shape in her moment of distraction into a waiting plate, swings around and deposits it in front of Maura with a wink as she turns back for a fork to eat her half right off the pan. Maura can’t chastise her as usual because she answers the call, “Rizzoli” there’s a pause “Oh shoot, yeah this is Isles’ phone actually, I guess”. The second call comes as she says that and Jane chuckles as she sees her similar phone buzz, “Yeah, tell him to go ahead and hang that one up, we’ll be there.”

She hangs up and turns back to Maura, leaving her phone discarded on the counter by the grocery list, and now with the pan in one hand and a fork spearing quite big chunks of the omelette in the other, smile in place “Sounds like a gnarly one, Doctor. Might want to get that down quick.” Maura obeys, looking down at her plate even when the eerie feeling is still settled over her spine, keeping her back lifted slightly off the chair. She almost shakes it off enough to eat, before Jane speaks again, looking at her puzzledly “Check that we have enough of whatever pairs well with the meal though? Don’t wanna have to give any of them beer, or worse, a wine that doesn’t pair. The horror.”

She tilts her head, the pinpricks of curiosity shooting up into her mind and casting light in there in a moment of clarity akin to what Archimedes might have felt once upon a time. This is a conversation that she has witnessed, in the kitchen even, but when she was a child. A small gasp leaves her then, not dramatic enough to make her friend stop her frantic eating, not even noteworthy enough to be picked out over any other sound of their joint breakfast. The statement that follows is not as subtle. Not because she premeditatedly wants to imbue it with dramatic flair, not even because she is fishing for a reaction; she simply, for once in her life, speaks without thinking. “Jane, I think we're married.”

She coughs over the last bite of omelette she had hastily crammed down, and sets the pan down with uncharacteristic softness, most likely because Maura has told her time and time again to stop manhandling her kitchenware, over the countless times they have cooked together, in this kitchen. Jane coughs and sputters and lets out a “Huh?”, but Maura is truly elsewhere, eyebrows furrowing together at how it had truly been at least a year, ever since Jane had moved a block away and then stayed, they had somehow become a married couple for all intents and purposes, and she had not realized it until just now. Jane prods again “Maura, what?!”

She dazedly looks up at her again, “’Connie, they will drink whatever pairs best with the meal.’ That’s what my father said once when my mother was fussing about wine before a dinner, I was 10.” Jane frowns in front of her and Maura tilts her head, taking her in as if for the first time, the mist clearing from her thoughts. She locks her eyes onto Jane’s with a small grin growing unbidden, “She told him to please go to the cellar and make sure they had enough regardless.”

Jane seems to unwind before her, hands that were just now tensely splayed on the island coming to nervously bend the grocery list and shove it deep in her slacks’ pocket as she gathers phones and keys strewn around “So I’m Connie? I’m Constance?”, she huffs. Maura’s small grin blooms into a smile at the incredulity there. As displeased as Jane can be about being Constance in this scenario, Maura has just had three minutes of slowly realizing she is somehow her father, oddly unfazed by the looming shadow of mixed company that would have sent her on a conniption five years ago. So she spares who has now morphed into Detective Rizzoli, hands folded over her belt buckle, no sympathy.

“Ok honey, we have a dead guy in a busy intersection, so we better go.” Jane says. Maura doesn’t comment on her sarcastic use of the word, she however notices the utter lack of sarcasm on how she reaches over the island to grab and hand her her purse, on how she leads her to the door with a hand hovering over the small of her back, on how she rushes around her to go open her unmarked car door for her, on how she settles on the driver’s seat, and turns back to pull out of her driveway with her right hand alternating between the gear shift and a playful swipe or another at her thigh. Maura chuckles as they drive off and settles in her seat and in her mind.

Of course she had known she was attracted to Jane, back when they met. When nothing seemed to be happening past the incredibly fast invitation to family dinner she thought Jane might somehow be straight, despite all circumstantial evidence to the contrary; by the time proximity and shared confidences disabused her of that notion, their friendship had fully missed the window of time that it had usually taken her other friendships to take one of two turns: sex or acrimony; they had somehow sailed past that and were deeply entrenched with each other. Maura had put it out of mind, entering uncharted territory in the waters of interpersonal relationships and navigating not only being Jane’s closest friend but somehow something to every member of her family too. She once again lets out a huff that turns into a chuckle at that, however could she have thought that any of this was the norm for every close friendship out there?

“Wow, you’re really getting a kick out of that one huh?” Jane says with a sideways grin her way, “Remember how you used to have to wait for us to catch up when you’d made a joke? Now look at you, joking like a real girl made of flesh and blood.”

“I was not joking, Jane.” She rolls her eyes at what she now knows is a Pinnochio reference, and jolts when they run over a curb, turns back to see Jane’s alarmed expression “Oh, are you okay?”

Jane alternates between casting a searching glance at her, eyes passing quickly over her entire face and turning back to the road. When she’s done that twice she clenches both hands over the steering wheel “Maura, you’re scaring me. What did you mean then? Is this like…? Is your injury…? Were you confused when you said…? You know we’re not… married, right?” She reaches over the console to grab at Maura’s hand and point out the lack of a ring on her finger. It makes Maura laugh but somehow does not make her drop her hand.

“Jane, I know we are not in a legally binding marriage. My cognition is functioning at usual capacity, thank you for your concern.” She settles their joint hands on her lap, intertwines their fingers like they have many, many times, and is allowed to of course. “It took me by surprise, so I misspoke. I just simply realized that, short of the contract and the sexual components, we are a married couple.”

It's almost alarming, the speed with which Jane veers off the lane they are in and has the car parked in what surely is a no-park zone. Maura glances off the window to verify and Jane now clamps both her hands over hers to stop her fussing with something that a detective badge will fix in a second. She tugs “Maura, what the fuck does that mean?” She grumbles before Maura answers to that wording of the question, "What are you trying to say with that?"

She supposes she has been so happily entertained by the idea in this past half hour, by the rumination about how Jane has filled her life with love and companionship surreptitiously, by the trove of confirmation of the initial thought that spilled out so unbidden, that she didn’t stop to consider how bizarre it sounds coming from the outside. She focuses on the present moment, on Jane’s concerned face and her pleading eyes “Jane, I’m sorry. You were planning a grocery trip for a dinner you instigated with my families and it just dislodged the memory of one of the sparse happy mornings with my parents I had. I realized our lives are just as enmeshed. Perhaps more, they only live together for some months a year, we have even worked together daily for seven or so."

Jane blinks, eyes like saucers “We don’t live together, Maura!”

“Don’t we?” She chuckles, settling for what she recognizes is going to be one of their rapid fire back-and-forth matches, like discussions of Jane's sleeping habits, or her own water usage, or their weekly restaurant selection, and many such topics that prompt playful banter in the usual run-on-the-mill married couple. The thought makes her smirk up at her not-wife “You keep the town house perfunctorily. Carry a bag back and forth with the same assortment of ten items almost weekly when it's time to do laundry. Some nights you don’t even bother with the charade of going there when it’s time to sleep. This morning I distinctly remember you groaning awake in my bed.”

“Well, we needed to plan! For this dinner!”

“That you spearheaded, for me to spend more time with my family. And then you asked your mother what to cook.”

“Well, you always host me and my family! It makes sense for me to pay it back at least once!”

“Yes, every week your entire family descends upon the oldest child’s residence to have dinner… and even now that you happen to have a comparable kitchen and dining room, it continues to happen in my residence, our residence.”

She stops, and grumbles, drawing her hands away to hold them up animatedly “Maura, we’re not married!”

“So, I gather you will not have any issues with me clearing your sparsely used nightstand, getting rid of your toothbrush and your red sox towel, and finding someone else to camp out in your side of the bed.”

The mere threat seems to make her pause, but she has entrenched herself in this position, Maura expects her to defend it almost to the death. And that she does “You’ve had boyfriends… so have I, I mean, maybe a while ago... but we date.”

“We both know men don’t provide enough emotional intimacy for your position in my life to be truly threatened by them initially, and then they don’t last." She almost chuckles at Jane's involuntary pleased expression at that, pointing it out by reaching up for the dimple in her cheek and giving it a happy caress "And even knowing this, you have never liked any of them.”

“I mean drug smuggler? serial killer? the one who... already had a whole child?”

Maura nods “And Agent Dean was hardly ever competition. Casey I truly never liked. I thought my contempt was simply because he could only seem to wear the uniform, and poorly at that, and send a mediocre email every three months, and you deserved better. Now I know, you had better. You had me!” She adds cheerily, tilting her head to the side and letting her hand slide down Jane's neck and subsequent arm to drop it on top of her hand. She squeezes “I decided to never bring it up and simply be your best friend as you wanted me to, but you still went ahead and married me.”

For a beat Jane only blinks, and Maura knows she has won the first round of... whatever this will be when Jane lets out a growl and turns back to the steering wheel to locate the ignition with her free shaking hand conflicted for a second while she clearly wants to draw the other through the wild curls on her head, she decides against it to keep holding hers “Maura that doesn’t make any fucking sense! Why are we doing this in the car? We have a crime scene to get to!”

“Yes, but then I will ride with the cadaver to the precinct because you need to go pick up the flowers my mother likes and take them home, bestie.” She earns a huffed out chuckle with that colloquialism.

The whole day Jane had been drawn into her mind and lumbered around like a zombie. Maura had deemed them married and had dismissed all her very valid objections to the claim in their car ride, which had been unsettling but mostly fine; but when they had gotten to the crime scene her best friend had seemingly decided that violence was needed.

To prove her point, Jane assumes, she had pointedly and very brazenly gone on to flirt with one of the paramedics that usually responds to their calls in that area when there’s a live one by the dead one. She had slowly traced this woman's bicep with a teasing finger prattling about some historic reference in the tattoo there, and then she had at first rested her hand on her shoulder with a fluttering thumb, but only to then keep going up and reach the crisp white collar of the uniform she wore, fixing a position that did not need fixing while she laughed airily at a quip; the woman had been on cloud nine, hand falling to Maura’s back briefly even. So happy that she forgot what the other two usual inhabitants of the ambulance did not, what had them worriedly glancing up at Jane where she stood with her clenched jaw and one of her hands resting on her hip by her gun next to her new partner equally mystified.

This fresh kid she had been tasked with training up ever since Korsak had up and left her is observant, great instincts, can often see past the surface level in a way only Jane had been able to before, to Frankie's dismay. There, watching Maura wave goodbye to the blonde and her equally fresh and relieved ducklings as they retreated back into the bus and out of Jane's glare, he had frowned the frown she could not and looked sideways her way, "Oh shoot boss, did you two break up? Real shitty to fish in this same pond so quick," he said, so maybe he wasn't so good after all.

Jane had of course refused to yield, to let out any comment, as Maura returned to lay the usual professionally brief hug on her on her way to the van that would take the body to the lab; she watched her go before turning on her heels and going out of her way, both literally and figuratively, to go purchase the flowers from the fancy shop as she said she would.

And she wants to think that was not the reason why she had wrapped herself into her most starched white shirt for this dinner, nor were the three separate bright smiles Maura had thrown women in the hallways when she went to retrieve her from the lab to get her home for this, nor was the appreciative hum with a caress drawn from shoulder to shoulder she'd received when she had been in the kitchen slicing ciabatta for the table. But the more she thinks about it, the more she can feel her forehead tugging and begging to be folded into a grimace that will prompt a lecture about wrinkles.

Constance laughs at something Hope says and it drags Jane out of her jealous compilation of uniforms and clerks her friend had tried to seduce earlier. She tunes back in to the conversation she had let gone on around her to see if the matter at hand is easier to understand, and perks up when she spies Maura looking embarrassed at the head of the table to her left. Constance and her uncharacteristic chuckle that has made more appearances of late continue from across Jane throwing Hope a look "Yes, I should have surmised I was doing something wrong when it was all so very oedipal. All those girls in that school, and it was just tortured artiste after tortured artiste."

"Maman, arrête..." Maura pleads with a pinched tone, and Jane smirks at the sight. Maura is anxiously drawing her fingers up and down her wine glass stem as the subject of Cailin's new boyfriend has turned into Hope's, and by the grace of god Jane's, learning about Maura's dating history. Jane moves her knee toward hers and knocks them together, hoping to comfort her a little, and Maura gives her a sheepish look and tilts her glass up daintily to fully empty it into her mouth.

"How tortured could they have been?" Cailin asks under her laughter.

"Privileged European teenagers? Very, they think." Arthur takes a jab too, recently reconciled into their good-graces and casting a timid smile his daughter's way "I was very worried she was going to marry one of those socialites who do nothing but lunch and woe about the ‘state of affairs’."

Constance draws a hand to his arm in her mirth "Then Boston introduced this same kind of trust-fund men to the mix and he started worrying she was going to be the socialite. 'Connie... what if she never publishes?' he used to say, like it was the greatest tragedy that he would not be able to pass down his Dr. Isles monogrammed paraphernalia"

"The stack of notebooks had already been made?" Maura asks, leaning forward to truly look at her father as if he was a new person to figure out with her arcane knowledge in human behavior. Her life-long father who nods and telegraphs, even to Jane's eyes, that Constance has just revealed a bit of information he was planning to take to the grave.

"I simply purchased two every time I needed a new one, I wanted us to have matching ones. I hope they have been of use."

"They have." Jane adds, after Maura is seemingly rendered speechless by it, pulling the one torn page from her pocket and pointing at the Dr. Isles in the corner of the page. It was something she had believed very conceited and pretentious when she first saw it, then quirky as she got to know the woman who was none of that, at least not in a malicious way; and that she can now appreciate as the kind of thing these strange people that do not know how to easily show love keep doing for those they would, simply put, probably die for. Both her and Frankie have the “Detective Rizzoli” notepad to prove it, and the stock of the Rizzoli & Sons business card is a little more fancy than the usual business card for a plumbing business as well.

Constance smiles her way and Jane startles at the attention, she had kept quiet for once, out of her depth as she had been for the first half of whatever they had been talking about. She turns that prize of a smile Maura's way and then back to the other end of the table. "Hope, besides the obvious physical traits, I have been in awe of how similar you two turned out to be, how after you had her you became exactly what she would one day be, as if you two were meant to walk twin paths..." It could be heavier than it is, in someone less socially skilled, but Constance pivots, "It was your genes that made Arthur’s outsized stationary investment worthy."

"Not fully twinned, thank god." She acquiesces with a nod "Although I suppose Italian cop bears a passing narrative resemblance to Irish mobster in the Bostonian cast of characters, for the added bit of danger," there's a pause and Hope shoots her a smile as well, "should things shake out that way."

Jane sits up at that, as the set of parents around the table laugh and Maura throws an amused look her way, as if daring her to dispel the good mood with her funny quips about how not married they are. Cailin beats her to the punch, but only to throw more well meaning wood to the fire "Oh so now any boyfriend I have would have to compete with city hero Jane Rizzoli instead of benefitting from the logical comparison to my mom's mob boyfriend? Thanks a lot, Maura."

"I am sure Preston will do nothing but wonderful things in... banking." Maura replies drily, almost immediately, with an instinct honed through hours and hours of repetition and observation with Jane and the other Rizzolis. She receives her earned laughs from around the table and takes a smug sip of the refilled glass of wine, casting her cheekiest smile at her sister.

Jane is almost awed at the contrast between this family dinner and the one that occurs every Sunday at the same table. Besides how in her element Maura is in this one at the head of the table, there is her own ironed white shirt instead of BPD t-shirt with a tomato sauce stain sweated through post pick up game in the park; and the soft spoken voices, the cello coming from the speakers in lieu of a game coming from the TV in the next room at full volume so it reaches them in the dining table, how the one sibling in attendance doesn't tackle three beer bottles when reaching for the bread, how none of the available mothers have to issue a stern warning and a request to shut up and eat, at the witty repartee that does not turn to name calling, at how easy the conversation about Maura dating women has weaved around the table, how there was no awkward shuffling, no sideways glances; they had been worried she would marry an American-rich dude actually, they are happy she has Jane now... instead.

The conversation picks up speed in another topic out of her wheelhouse, something about Constance's issues with the ethics of an artist or other, and she withdraws again into her mind. Maura was more than welcome with her family, had been part of it for years now. And still Jane knows, that were she mention any of her dalliances with women at the table in a Sunday dinner there would be a hush. Her mother would avert her eyes, one of her brothers might make a crude joke as a knee-jerk reaction, someone would have to change the topic quickly or they would just be awkward for the rest of the night if they tried to speak about it like normal adults. No one in her own family would have, or more like has, dared ever make that joke, let alone in front of Maura or her; is it really so far from their perception? or do they know it's too close for comfort for Jane and would rather not cast light to it? She loves her family, hell, Maura loves her family, but why she wants to get even deeper in there is beyond Jane. How could she be the closest thing to a spouse Maura has? She is the one that deserves so much more.

The night had been a rousing success. The whole week really, not only had she started pleasantly surprised to find her usual nerves at her parent's upcoming presence vanished by the social ease and emotional proficiency she had developed in the recent years; she had bookended it with her auspicious revelation about how the catalyzer for that and so many other wonderful things in her life was already at least partly her wife, conspicuously missing elements aside. Elements she is sure she can come to make pass, now that they had crossed so many harder hurdles like meeting the family, disagreements about careers, domestic rhythms, high-stress situations involving near death events, and etcetera; convincing Jane to simply have sex with her and sign a paper surely cannot be too hard.

Maura smiles as her mother seems to hesitate for a single second before drawing forward and pulling Jane down for her own hug, reaching for her where she stands by her side on the internal side of the threshold as her assorted families file out the door. Jane's breath hitches as Constance pulls away "Thank you, Jane. Everything was delightful. Please, congratulate Angela on a recipe well conceived and a daughter well taught."

She chuckles "I won't, or she'll make me start cooking for everyone. But you can tell her yourself Sunday, if you're still in town."

"Perhaps we will be, if it is not too much of an imposition." She replies, stepping back to her father's side, who has a guarded hopeful look. Of all of them, he remains the only one who has not had the privilege of truly meeting the Rizzolis, of basking in their energy out of the police precinct. He does not even know Angela, if memory serves Maura well. Something to rectify now that Jane has convinced her to extend him a tad more grace and keep him in her life.

Maura nods his way with her own guarded smile, before turning back to Constance who has more than earned her serving of connection "Never, you are always welcome." She surges forward for one last hug, Constance drawing her arms around her without hesitation now that doubling down upon goodbye has become commonplace, and squeezes her father's hand as his version of it.

They watch them retreat down the walk for a moment before closing the door and Jane deflates against it dramatically, letting her head loll to the side and her tongue fall out of her mouth for a second, just until Maura rewards her with a chuckle and she can draw herself back up to her full height, already striding by her towards the living room, where she probably wants to lounge in relative silence and have a set of no less than three men narrate a sports game even as she sees the events in real time. Maura shoots a hand out to hold on to her there in the foyer for a moment "The food truly was lovely. Thank you, for everything you did to make this happen for me."

"Don't get used to my cooking either, tomorrow's back to grilled cheese for dinner." Jane smiles bashfully and Maura lets her pull her hand away, follows her as she rolls up her sleeves, which makes her look quite dashing for a moment, but not as much as she does when she does not even stop in front of the couch but walks around it instead, to where the strewn tea cups and biscuit trays are waiting to be picked up from the end tables, and starts gathering it all.

Maura sits in one of the kitchen island stools and watches her do three trips between the rooms with an amused grin, eyes roaming over her as she grunts trying to find room on the counters for all the tableware. She decides to pick up where she left off this afternoon "Jane, please go home. I'll clean up. You are a guest, you have done enough."

She turns to her dumbfounded, until she seems to catch on and groans, "You’ve had a lot of fun today, huh?" Maura can feel her smile grow unbidden, like it does often in present company, and can see Jane's expression begin to match on her side of the counter between them, sideways. "Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face before I actually go and leave all these dishes for you. See if the paramedic will show up in the middle of the night and understand how you like the dishwasher loaded."

Maura chuckles, leaning back on her seat and crossing one leg over the other. She knows one of the many men they spend their time around would find a way to turn that phrasing right back on Jane. She turns it over and over in her mind, decides she can't really see more to it than to drop to a salacious tone "Who says she has not loaded my dishwasher before?" Jane snaps up from where she had bent to do the literal action, the movement so quick she almost swings her head into one of the opened doors of a cabinet.

Maura chuckles, "Doctors and paramedics are a commonly found couple." She observes as Jane steadies herself on the kitchen counter, her hands laying flat on the surface tensed as if ready to draw her gun from her hip at a moment's notice, even when the gun is not there. "Complicated schedules that leave little room for any socializing outside a workplace that, nonetheless, provides them with frequent and repeated points of contact over an extended period." Jane only blinks, and she continues "A paramedic has an area with a limited number of hospitals, and takes several trips per day to the same ER, that in turn has a steady rotation of doctors." When Jane seems ready to faint with her need to withhold comment on what Maura is telling her she lets her smile grow again and releases her of the current torture, "She’s married to one of my classmates from Med School. I don't go drape myself on strangers, even for the benefit of a well proven point."

"She wasn't wearing a ring."

"Looked, did you?" She huffs at having volunteered that information and Maura continues to smile her way, "All my jewelry gets put away while I work too. We will see how you handle the ring I will promptly put on your finger when we move past this momentary reticence you insist on."

"Maura..." She huffs out, exhaling in relief and letting out a nervous little chuckle "What the hell has gotten into you? Did you say something to Hope? You're not gonna keep this up on Sunday... right?"

Ah, Maura thinks, tries to look less downcast than this brand of denial made her feel suddenly. It was entertaining, when she was shrieking; it is less so now that she can't look her in the eye. "Of course not, this is a private matter between you and me. One that I hope we can discuss seriously," she tries to inject the humor back in her tone, knows medicine goes down smoothly on the Rizzolis with it "as a couple."

Jane lets out another uneasy huff "Ok, fuck it. I'll bite. How long have we been married?"

"Unclear. We've weaved in and out of it for a while, though. You were ready to raise a child with me, then we got perhaps a bit sidelined by a non insignificant amount of grief." Jane groans in her spot, almost slams the dishwasher closed at the mention of her miscarriage, or the bridge, or Frost, or Susie, or the only place she had called home after her parents’ house. Jane stops herself at the very last moment to close the appliance gently and Maura lets her punch in the buttons and gather herself. "Then I was taken, for being not-your-wife of course, and not for the first time; and then we went on a month-long vacation to one of the most romantic cities of the world.” She adds chipper, before Jane can start self flagellating about the kidnapping of it all. “You dismissed a quite interesting job opportunity, and here you are, doing dishes. Not just because of me, surely, but perhaps I was factored in."

"Maur... of course you were. But still, I've never even dated a woman before. Not really."

"Yes you have Jane, me. You spent years dating me, and now we truly are all but married. You and I had never been in a serious, committed, full time relationship with anybody, male or female; and so, we didn’t realize when we entered one with each other." She shakes her head and tosses her curls and paces up and down her side of the kitchen and Maura smiles at it all “Sex aside, what do you want out of a relationship that I have not given you?”

"Well relationships are just great friendships with sex so that’s just circular reasoning. If we had like, more than the friendship part, we would have realized it was happening. You're a genius!"

"And a very willing victim. You know I do your taxes, right?" Jane is about to refute her "Every year, after the whole debacle with Angela and your father, I sit down and 'check' your taxes while you ‘help’ by providing color commentary and entertainment. I don't do my own taxes, I have an accountant. But I do yours. A couple of young paramedics thought you were going to shoot them today just because of being too close to the phenomena of me flirting with their superior; but most importantly, after your mother was left with a debt that almost ruined her financially, you trust me to do your taxes. We have both ignored plenty physical signs, but subconsciously, we are married."

"Maura you’re rich, why would you steal from me? If anything, you’re the best person to help with my taxes."

“Now your argument is that you trust wealthy people to be uninterested in acquiring additional money?” She laughs, this is clearly not going to be the night they sign the marriage license, and as much as she enjoys the verbal sparring, Jane has proven that she is currently on the verge of being stretched to the point of saying something that will truly ruin what was a perfect soirée. So Maura stands, but can't resist leaving her with a little something extra to mull on "Jane, look me in the eye right now and tell me that if I want my future to include a spouse and children, I should start looking elsewhere."

"I- I'm- I don't know- Maura..." she finishes her attempt at a coherent sentence in a drawn out gravely whine that Maura frankly can’t wait to hear in a different context; now that she’s given herself permission to bring the thought to the forefront of her mind it’s become quite pervasive. But she needs Jane to come around while of sound mind, and while jumping her in the kitchen is another pervasive thought, in this current moment her big brown eyes are shining with moisture as she fights her instinct tooth and nail, so Maura retreats.

"Hmm. Perhaps I will, then." She gives her a final chuckle and leaves her there looking confused "You're welcome to the guest room, if you want to stay. Lock the door either way."

"How was dinner with Maura's folks the other day?" Frankie asks, clapping her shoulder as he drops a coffee in front of her. He's using the more casual tone she had taught him to catch a witness in white lie, make it sound like you don't care about that one, like you're just making conversation before you get to the real meat of the issue.

She eyes the cup suspiciously, since she had been dragged across the street to a fancy coffee shop instead of a quick shitty cup in the precinct's cafe, she suspects it could be poisoned or Frankie is about to ask a favor that needs greasing of the wheels to the utmost degree. Maybe he's about to reveal he got some other woman pregnant and this is goodbye before he flees the country and Nina's wrath. Jane frowns, but takes the tentative sip of her expensive cup, and puts on her real cool tone, that lets the other party know it's all kosher. "Real fun actually, they get down. Just do it real polite. Constance and Hope were trading off stories that I think they wanted to be embarrassing for Maura and Cailin, but it just made them sound like they should be running for congress or something. They got an stupid amount of plaques and awards between them." Fuck, maybe she overshared. She would've usually just said 'fine'. But Maura's emotional terrorism has her off her game. She clearly wants to talk about her dinner with Maura's parents with someone, and Maura is unavailable due to the whole... Maura of it all. She cringes at herself in her own mind but keeps a cool face.

"That sounds real nice, Janie..." Frankie crinkles his eyes at that, a genuine smile on his face before he sobers up again. He starts rubbing his hands over his legs like he's about to confess to murder. "So look, you know Smith, on cybercrime?" Jane nods as she drinks her coffee "Nina and her are friendly. She just told her earlier that she uh- got Maura to accept to go to uh- dinner with her, tomorrow. Finally, she said. Like she's been trying, you know? So yeah, you know about that?"

Jane tries to put her cup down, steadily. But the steadier she tries for, the more visibly her hand shakes in their pregnant silence, he had indeed lulled her into dawdling in her own mind to catch her off base with a meaty casually posed question. She decides to just go for speed and lets a few drops escape the lid as she puts the cup down and shakes her head, as naturally as possible. "I mean, if it just happened... maybe she'll tell me later.” Which is quite plausible, if this was a week in which Maura hadn’t thrown a grenade two days ago. She shrugs for good measure “I usually meet those schmucks after like date 2 or 3."

Frankie nods and keeps on working his pants and kneading his legs with it, good conversational technique but they have to work on his body language still. "Sure, sure, yeah. So like, uh, Maura you know, dates... women, too... You know what I mean?"

Jane would laugh if her heart wasn't threatening to stop. This is exactly how she expected this to go. At least it's better to have the conversation one on one, out of the precinct; and make sure he won't terrorize Maura in a public setting or at a table full other idiots, including their mother. "You gonna have a problem with that Frankie? Don't fucking disappoint me."

"No!" He bends forward, and his hand shoots from his leg to hers, squeezes for good measure, and stays there "Janie, no, of course not." He sighs "What I'm trying to say is... fuck. In school, you know, kids talk, right? I would just pay it no mind. Like you just liked sports so that's what they were using for that, it's just kid shit. And then you never- like, we're kinda old, yeah? I stopped thinking about it really. But Jane... if you and Maura are like, together, you know that you can tell us right? Did you guys have a fight? Why is she going on a fucking date with Smith?"

She lets out a laugh, to compensate how rigid her entire body is "So Maura accepts a dinner invitation, and you immediately disregard the 30 years of convincing yourself I'm straight? Like, within hours? And on top, you assume we've been secretly together... for how long?"

His hand finally leaves her leg as he sits back and shrugs "I don't know, couple of years? After Casey and that university guy of hers? Or before and on and off to work around them? I mean it looks... dicey, specially the way you two were back then. You should have seen her when you jumped off that bridge Jane, just fucking... widowed."

She barks out another uneasy chuckle "Frankie what the fuck? Why would you- does Ma think that?"

"I mean," he shrugs "Nina and I didn't, not really. But I think as soon as she brings a woman over... Ma and Tommy will try to have this same conversation with you, yeah." He scratches at his hair and remembers himself, pats it back down "Jane if there was any doubt, it's because Maura is so... girly. Once that domino's fallen..."

"It's never been like that!" She whispers harshly.

"Well, ok. But that just sounds like you’re not denying the part about liking women." She curses internally, she taught him too well. He bends forward again, all concerned. Now both hands on her knees. "Fuck Janie, you can't let Smith take your girl to dinner. What kind of idiot are you? How long have you known she dates women? It's been almost a decade! Even I kissed her years ago."

She forgets all about the inside voice she was trying to force "You fucking what?"

Frankie lifts his hands up for a second before becoming equally animated, hands motioning to his chest repeatedly "I would have never, if you had told me you felt this way about her."

"What- um- what way?" She asks, her own hands streaking through her hair as much as the curls allow.

He all but ignores her, settling his eyes on hers with an expression as serious as she has ever seen on her little brother. "Jane, I don’t know what she does but Smith has some serious fucking juice, you remember how obsessed she had that uniform acting last year? This is not like a hail-mary three pointer. You need to defend the paint, now."

She feels her mouth open and close as she searches for an appropriate response, and can only let out a sigh at first. She deflates on the seat and her hands draw up to find a sugar packet to fidget with, twirling it in her fingers as fast as she can manage. She can't look Frankie's way, not when her tone drops down to a choked whisper, "Frankie, this is Maura we’re talking about. I'm way out of my depth here. I can't defend shit, I'm in the G-League."

He stops for a second, settling down into something less animated too. He reaches for her fidgeting hand and settles his over it, gives her a small squeeze, "You know she does your taxes, right?"

She lets out a huffed little laugh "What's with the fucking taxes?"

"I'm just saying, you're definitely a starter in the main show if the rim is doing your taxes."

“Hey Ma, you’re thinking of calling it a night soon?” Is what she offers for a greeting when she drags herself into Maura’s living room to find her mother and her… Maura having a seemingly pleasant conversation.

For a couple of hours she had tried to stick it out at the town house, that she does not even refer to as her house in her mind. A couple of trips to the depleted kitchen and a beer drunk with an ESPN analyst going on and on about the Patriots made it incredibly obvious how this is just not something she does any more. She has dinner at the Robber with Maura, or gets dragged to a restaurant by Maura, or ends up at Maura’s where they have takeout, or one of the two women present will have cooked; and some more visitors will sometimes flutter around, and she will go sit by Maura and hangout until the very last moment. Sometimes after all that she will go ‘home’… other times she’s reminded she’s perfectly welcome to stay and the guest room is made up to her liking, and other (better) times she’s pulled into a case discussion or maybe a shenanigan that sees her stretched out in the master bedroom’s bed while Maura weaves in and out of her bathroom applying creams and potions to her face and body as they talk.

So she has to acknowledge that there’s some truth to what Maura says. They’re overly enmeshed. Her family treats Maura’s house like their base. After the fire, this has become her home. It bothers her when someone else shows up and tries to date either of them really. But Christ, she had been evident enough that Frankie can see? enough that Hope has her slotted in that position for Maura? enough that her new partner had simply assumed after a couple of months working with them?

Angela grumbles at being so patently dismissed but leaves well enough alone when she looks at Jane and sees how this is very much not the moment to be overly annoying, not this late at night and after a long week. And after they each get a hug and a set of unrequested advice, the door closes behind her mother.

Jane turns to Maura with a sigh, dropping herself in the vacated spot with no finesse. “So, a couple of people felt they should tactfully comment on the fact that you’re going on a date with Smith, apparently.”

Maura is out of reach, sitting in a plush chaise instead of on the couch where they usually end up, legs touching under arms entwined. She gives her a small shimmy from there, too playful for the dire vibe that Jane feels she has aptly dragged into the room. She huffs as her response comes out “Wednesday we’re in love, and today you’re agreeing to dinner invitations? Divorcing me just like that?”

“Well since I have been disabused of the notion that we are in love, I saw no point in discouraging conversation when she approached me today.” Maura smiles at her, mischievous. And Jane wonders how she's found entertainment in this clusterfuck she decided to bring up, mid week, before back to back family dinners. Surely, there was a better time. A monday away from home, or something. A sequence of sentences that would not have made her flop like a fish out of water, because whatever she said, she’s sure she did not say ‘go on and date’.

Jane rolls her eyes to let Maura know she does not appreciate this happening with escalating commitment to the bit. Hopefully this one will crumble under scrutiny too “How did Smith even know you date women?”

Maura chuckles just enough for it to be polite, laughing with her and not at her. Like Jane’s laughing at all. “She asked. Years ago. It’s not a secret, but only she has asked and I suppose she must have kept the confidence until today. A conceited mind might say that she was too excited to keep quiet.” Her eyebrows wiggle and everything.

Jane narrows her eyes as she looks for any sign of hives, any nervous tics past the usual level of quirky energy Maura exudes “This woman has been trying to take you out for years, and you’ve never mentioned it?”

“Well, plenty of the men we encounter daily have tried repeatedly as well. I could provide you with a list, if you assure me you won’t treat them with hostility for it.”

Oh she has been plenty hostile to Frankie about it already. Jane sits forward, desperate for Maura to gauge how insane it is that this is what she gets playful about, talking about them building a future together. She needs to know how much of this is Maura playing with her food, and how much of it is a real chance of them being anything more.

Because yes, it is clear she’s beyond friendly feelings here, and it seems she has somehow been offered the chance of a lifetime, something so good she had not even dared to really consider it until it was suddenly the main topic of conversation two days ago. But that’s just it, it’s too good to be true, that her best friend feels this way for her too, that she has felt like this for a while and is willing to go all in on her, that Maura Isles loves her like she would a spouse.

“Maura… ok.” She passes her hands over her frazzled end-of-the-day hair, today has been particularly hard for it, she starts patting it down instead. “So, staying in your logic, you’re in love with me and what? You’re gonna lead her on to prove your point that it bothers me?”

“Does it?” She asks at once.

“Maura.” She whines. They’re so past the acknowledgement of jealousy she’s fishing for.

She shakes her head demurely “I let her know I am currently emotionally unavailable, and she has admitted to a similar predicament as well.”

That sentence was uttered too confidently for any dishonesty to be in there. This dinner date is sounding more and more like it will not have a dinner in it. Jane frowns “Similar how?”

“That’s not my information to share, it was told to me in confidence.”

Her flash of anger at Maura already having secrets with fucking Smith does not go unnoticed, the emotional intimacy definitely feels fucking worse when it’s a woman; the doctor was right, big surprise. Jane smooths her hands down her legs, this is proving to be too much. “But, basically, you only agreed to go on this date now to bother me?”

“She’s attractive.” Jane has to keep her hands clutching at her legs, because otherwise they’ll start fidgeting, she watches as Maura settles into one of her informational tirades and focuses, knowing that she needs to gleam the one morsel of information from it that she clearly can't emotionally afford to say plainly. Her eyes roam away as she starts “There is a commonly held belief crudely stated as ‘the only way to get over someone is to get under someone else’. Following that intuition, some studies posit that casual sex amongst consenting parties could perhaps link the release of oxytocin to a partner different than the unavailable one, which may in time rewire the neural pathways that have enshrined this person as the sole object of adoration in one's mind.”

“And you’re..." she squints and clutches at her pants some more "trying to undo my hard-earned neuron paths?" Maura doesn't reply immediately, and Jane gives her a sideways grin she hopes defuses the situation "Giving up on me so easily? Could learn a thing or two from Smith, try for a couple of years." Or at least until Monday or Tuesday of next week or so, enough for her to collect her fucking thoughts.

"I think I have, Jane." She says, impressively steady, but then again, it's like her 4th confession of the week. She's gotten good at them; while Jane can't undo the knot in her throat. It knocks the wind out of her again, seeing the scientific monologue light dim out of her… Maura. Jane watches her stand and reach for a discarded wine cup on the coffee table, refill it and sit back down, drinking as she shrugs.

It seems like the time for playfulness has ended, Maura looks at her head on "I am chief medical examiner of Massachusetts, not Boston. I could be a figure-head, and roam around the state implementing upgrades, do the high profile autopsies the governor might need me to, publish the odd finding from an interesting case… Instead I personally take care of just your quarter of homicides, physically deliver files to go see you bounce ideas around with your partners, ride along to your myriad of locations and do a tech's job of putting elements in evidence bags..."

"So homicide detectives and chief medical examiners don't have frequent points of contact naturally?" Jane smirks lightly, but sobers when Maura only tilts her glass to concede her point, sighs. "I had never watched the autopsies before you took the job. We used to get a call and a PDF from the last guy."

"And?" She asks, and Jane looks up at her, hoping her eyes say enough, since her words won’t arrange in the right order like Maura’s so quickly do; hoping that Maura understands that she is trying to admit the same thing right back, the whole thing. That she had gone down there to apologize and kinda kept going to see the black scrubs and hear a weird little fun fact, that those were the best 10 mins of her day, and then 20 and then an hour or two, that she had never invited anyone to family dinner until her, that she had never enjoyed running, that she had never woken up a minute before necessary let alone 60 to drive out of her way for a chat before work, that she hadn’t known wines needed to be paired to meats and had spent an evening trying to google it and failing to fully grasp it. But she can’t, the flurry of images of her pining uselessly after Maura Isles won’t settle for her to speak; and the woman in question does not let her silence stand, stabs her out of it really, "Does it bother you, the prospect of me being in Daniella's bed by this time tomorrow night?"

The loud exhale that leaves Jane without her permission is answer enough, and she throws in a groan for good measure "Jesus Christ, don't call her that."

Maura seems to accept that much as confirmation, and laughs at her this time; hey, at least she's managed to bring levity back into it. She tosses her wine back and the move makes her hair flutter around her, cast with light from the nearby lamp like a halo. Jane has to look away, but she can feel Maura settle down again, knows her eyes are on her like she's a specimen discussed in the 45th volume of the Journal of Jittery Conversationalists. She can feel, but doesn’t want to turn her eyes up to watch, Maura become Dr Isles, as she does when she can't cope with the messy human nature of the interaction at hand. If only she had the world’s smartest fallback persona as well. Jane cringes as Maura begins her careful talk "Ok then, facts established, do you agree now that we are in a relationship?"

Her heart is hammering in her chest. The facts are that Maura has a date set up where the only intention is to start forgetting her. That Jane is in love with her best friend, and has been too chicken to admit it even to herself. That she keeps being asked point blank and can’t say it out loud because she has taken so much she can’t also take her chance of finding someone that will do the right thing right away instead of moving her family in to her living room and eating her groceries and involving her in their shit and getting her chased by killers and-

“Jane?” She interrupts her jumbled mess of flashing recollection of the case file at hand.

"Do you really want us to be in a relationship?" She asks, voice suitably small she thinks, but at Maura's annoyed expression she rushes to clarify "I mean, you've never been shy about this stuff, Maur. If you do, why didn't you ever just ask?"

"Like I said, I put it out of mind. I suppose... because of this." She points at her, and Jane gathers she's referring to her general skittish behavior "What we have... the 80% of a relationship we are in is more fulfilling than anything else I have experienced. I think, subconsciously, I let myself simply keep doing what we do because I did not want to jeopardize it by doing anything that might..."

She lets her trail off, and finishes the sentence once she doesn't "Spook me? Maur, you can't fuck it up between us. You can straight up kill a man, and we'll be fine. You can't lose me."

She chuckles "I think this could have been enough, the equilibrium we finally reached this year, for who I was a decade ago... but sadly for you, you have made me seen the virtues of family and want one of my own. I don't think it's gonna happen accidentally enough that we can slide in it without having this conversation, not twice.” Jane turns away at that as well, hands now worrying each other, thumb finding the scar tissue on the opposite palm. She still almost can’t bear to dwell on those days when she almost had Casey’s child, how she had immediately known she wanted it to be Maura’s instead.

Her silence must be a little too long because she can hear Maura’s tone fray at the edges, “You love me, Jane. I know because you’ve shown me, plenty of times and plenty of ways. But can you really only love me if you have plausible deniability while you do it? If no one but you can say for certain?"

She tries to find the proper fucking words to let Maura know how very much not that this is. "No Maur you're just so... fuck. I just- When we were just getting to know each other and our hands used to kinda just brush, or we’d have a few seconds of eye contact, or you’d laugh at one of my jokes, my heart used to fucking stop, like I was dying, it still does... but the way I've seen you just always go for what you want… I thought I must have been just imagining it." She glances up at her, only casting her gaze up, and she finds Maura’s eyes on her with an expression so fond that the arrhythmia comes back. She straightens up from her slouch, not her most appealing moment, but she still has to ask, "I didn’t think you wanted me like that. Do you really?"

She can see the words seep into Maura, it starts like an incredulous chuckle, innocent enough, but then she tilts her head to a side, and what was just seconds ago tense and rigid now turns to a relaxed poise. The leg that is crossed over the other hangs more easily, the fingers on the glass stem start drumming, she drops her other hand to the very edge of her skirt drawing Jane’s eyes to it for a second; and when she looks back up at her, she smirks. "Jane, that I never put out of mind. I have devoured your body to the point that I’m certain that I could reproduce it within millimeters of exactitude. I know every muscle, every bone, every scar… the volume of your hair, the timbre of your voice, the required strength of your trigger finger" the sigh that follows crosses the room and settles over Jane, her skin prickling; she can feel the blood rushing to her face, her breathing hitching out of rhythm with her jumpy heart at being on the receiving end of this version of Maura. Who seems too pleased at the reaction, and continues lowering her voice, making her lean in ever so slightly even from the other side of the room, "And I quite enjoy how you have catalogued my every gesture and learned to anticipate my every need, how your eyes roam every room you enter looking for me if there’s an expectation I will be there and your legs drag you to my side every single time. How you have spent hours upon hours watching me, regardless of who might see you doing it; I even enjoy how you tend to lay claim when someone does notice, the hand that hovers, the authoritative stance with the glare. Of course I want you."

Jane swallows past the knot the words have just put in her windpipe, and has to quickly glance up when she realizes her eyes were trained on the smirk on full display. Maura’s eyes twinkle too when they meet hers and she looks away with a fully forced huff. This is not the conversation they do need to have right now. She hopes her voice doesn’t give her away "Maur, I-“ it does, she has to clear her throat and she gets a dark chuckle in response, but she soldiers on. “You've been settling for this 80% you say I give you, and I think even with the 100%, you'd be settling and I don't wanna-"

She interrupts "Jane, there is only so much avoidance I can feasibly take before it starts to sound like rejection." What's even worse is that she stands, leaving the wine glass where it was before she starts rounding the coffee table and inches within touching distance with a playful pout that has no business looking this good now that she’s combined it with the hooded eyes. “Now, that would truly make me upset. And I think that making me upset would hurt you even more than me telling you I will fuck Daniella tomorrow unless you simply admit we are in a relationship and finally do something about it."

It must be the verb that does it. The verb on top of the pout, and the eyes, and the tone, and the perfume, and the proximity; something does it but Jane finally feels herself snap. And she’s lunging forward and reaching to wrap a hand behind one of Maura’s knees before another request for restrain filters through her addled brain. Maura wastes absolutely no time in misunderstandings, grins her victory and sinks the knee in the cushion by Jane’s hip, lifting the other one to straddle her in one swift move, hands going first for her shoulders before they both reach up and tangle themselves in the mane of already ruffled hair on the narrow of her neck. Jane reaches up to pull her down into a kiss before Maura can even think of taking a moment to gloat.

She sinks back into the couch clutching onto the woman above her like a drowning man does with a lifesaver, one hand like a vice around her leg and the other tangling in her hair. Having Maura’s lips on hers is drawing a kind of passion that Jane has never felt before in her life. The urgency with which her heart hammers in her chest and her lungs double their load to keep this going as much as it possibly can without separating could perhaps be a medical emergency, she thinks. Lucky her that she has the world’s most beautiful doctor grabbing her neck to tilt her head back and drawing her up to take even more. To pull her jaw open, to bite her lip on the way, to chuckle against her at the completely instinctive whimper that leaves her when the other hand tugs at her hair some more, to trace her bitten lip with her tongue and thrust it inside to drag it over hers.

Jane lets her hand leave its post on Maura’s knee as well, drawing it up regardless of its tremor, and finds the pencil skirt mercilessly stretched where it’s ridden up. She barely has a fraction of a second to look down and has to groan at the new expanse of leg she had never quite touched before, and then has to groan again as it makes Maura press herself even closer. She manages enough self control to draw her head back enough to speak against Maura’s lips “Maur… we should- we can-”

“What?” Maura pants impatiently against her, tongue settling for another swipe at her lip, and Jane can feel a lot of her body immediately react to that, blood rushing in every direction, heartbeat hammering at many terminal stations.

She stutters “I- I can take you to dinner, on a- on a date”, she has to whisper it out because Maura’s found her neck on the three seconds of opening she gave her, and her voice truly is giving out on her, much like her eyelids. Her fingers are clutching at Maura’s legs with a commitment to the task they have never displayed before, holding her in place like she could float away if she doesn't.

Maura only chuckles against her neck, barely stops her open mouthed kisses “Jane, you’ve taken me to dinner hundreds of times. Take me to bed.”

With the way that this night was almost ten years in the making, it was quite unsurprising how it took a little less than ten minutes to reach a crescendo. At least a first one. Just efficient enough that they could then make love as leisurely as the euphemism surely calls for and without the lingering question of if an orgasm would come out of it.

It had of course been the kind of coupling that Maura supposes Fairy Tales and Valentine’s days as an industry were built upon; but perhaps the best part of it all had been finding out just how very vocal Jane gets when she crosses a certain threshold of arousal, and how it also seems like the rush of chemicals coursing through her let her confess to quite a lot.

Beautiful, disheveled and boneless Jane retelling the many times she had wanted to buy her gifts but refrained out of fear they would be misconstrued as romantic overtures had been a treat Maura had enjoyed peppering kisses wherever she could from where she had been tangled between her limp legs. When Maura had deemed her recovered enough and started kissing her way back up her body and drawing her hands to their god-given mission, and Jane had then launched into a litany of occasions she had wanted to kiss her, Maura had realized that this is the best way to get no-frills honesty out of Jane Rizzoli.

It will easily become her favored communication tool on their relationship, Maura thinks as she hears Jane mutter something in Italian with a fluidity that suggests she might be able to speak more of the language than even she is aware. Maura draws enough distance to watch as a hawk as Jane’s face contorts in pleasure and reaches for her chin with her free hand, holding her in place until she opens her eyes and locks them with hers, "You'll move in tomorrow."

She can see her pupils dilate that one last millimeter more, black against impossibly dark brown, her mouth enticingly open now that her lungs need that extra dose of air, her neck straining up to try to reach her, to let her asphyxiate if it means another kiss. "Yes."

So easy, she truly should have tried this years ago. She smirks "And our wedding?"

"Soon as- soon as we can plan- fuck- whatever you want." Maura’s sure her waist will be bruised in the morning, with the way Jane’s holding on to her.

It simply works to remind her she should get her leg involved for leverage, the resulting moan gets paired with a wholly unwelcome flutter of the eyes and Maura steadies her grip before she loses her altogether "And our children?"

"You pick the school, but we baptize ‘em,” she keens out, but seems to remember a crucial part, “and they have to play at least one sport with regular people and pick up some plumbing from me."

That throws off her pace, almost making her stop altogether for a second. She watches Jane’s eyes struggle to do anything but flutter closed or perhaps roll to the back of her skull. The fact that she is trying so valiantly to please her by holding her gaze is yet another surprise, vocal and obedient. Maura chuckles and renews her efforts with extra vigor "That is quite an elaborate response. Thought about it before, sweetheart?"

"Fuck, Maur.” She moans and trembles equally, the hand that was bruising her waist comes up to tangle in her hair and grasp the back of her neck. “Yes, of course."

"Now, was that so hard to admit, mon amour?" The moniker is clearly well received because Jane’s mouth falls open, but whatever she wanted to say gets lost in the shuffle as Maura reaches her lip with her free thumb and Jane pulls it inside her mouth. “Fuck.” Is truly all she can say, and Jane somehow manages to look smug as she keeps her eyes locked on hers and her tongue works up Maura’s thumb. Feeling the mirror sensations of Jane’s body pulling her in, responding so transparently to her very words, is filling her with a kind of drunken power that she has never quite experienced before. Not that she has doubted the strength of their bond in the 48 hours since she realized they had gone so far beyond friendship that it was laughable, but the fact that they can draw this much pleasure from each other in their first time together...

She’s pulled back to the task at hand by Jane letting one of her hands go to give her an aggravated, huffy moan "The shit-eating grin again." The familiar noise she begins to let out in complaint turns into something animalistic, that n getting stretched for all it’s worth when Maura modifies the angle of her other hand; it only spurs the smirk on her face to grow wider, she will nobly dedicate her Friday night to finding that last bit of effort that makes Jane Rizzoli truly scream. "My little grin only means I love you."

This is clearly also Jane’s preferred communication scheme, because she drags her down into another one of their frankly debauched kisses with the last bit of control she has until she seizes under and around her.

"Maur, are you awake?" Her half addled brain only provides a pleased hum as she takes a moment to stretch and contract her muscles, pulled from her lightest sleep cycle by Jane’s gravely whisper and cocooned by her warmth, held against her by an arm snaked around her midriff and a hand stroking her abdomen, this might be her best morning yet. She feels Jane lay a kiss on top of her T1 vertebrae and hums again, drawing her hand up to intertwine it with the one there.

She moves to turn around and greet her… surely now at least partner is appropriate, but Jane holds her in place "No, don’t turn around yet." The next kiss falls on her disheveled hair, and Jane goes on "Maur I... I know you do my taxes, and so much more. You've always been more than a friend to me, I mean from day one I had the biggest stupid teenage crush on you, and I would have married you in year one… I was really fucking happy that life somehow handed me an opportunity to baby trap you.” They chuckle in unison and Maura pulls Jane's arm even tighter around herself as she goes on “I'm sorry I let you hanging these two days. I just- I'm not that good with words, not like you are, I couldn't find how to tell you that yes, you're the most important person in my life. And I was- I am so scared because you can do better and I was just kinda taking what I could get meanwhile, I didn't want to drag you in deeper, in case you know, someone good finally came around. I tried to give you your space after... all that happened, but it really was impossible, moving was so unthinkable- Anyway, I love you, I am in love with you. I'm sorry I wasted all this time."

She’s finally allowed freedom of movement and turns around to look at her, her hands reaching up to hold her as gently as she can, thumbs finding the dimples spurred on by the bashful smile, "Jane, you are the best thing that has and could have ever happened to me. There was no time wasted.” She pulls her in what might be their first sweet kiss, after the night before where the pent-up lust was the main driving force every time they pulled each other close. She can feel Jane’s smile grow wider against her and pulls back, with her own matching one “Can you say it to my face, or is my hair what really prompts the feeling?”

She groans in her arms “We’ve been dating for years. We’re functionally married. I love you.” Maura grins her way and Jane collapses back onto her back, pulling her with regardless of complaints, “You’ll never let me live this down?”

"Unlikely," Maura shakes her head, moving away to reach her night stand as she chuckles “and I'll make you regret the years of sex you deprived yourself of."

She does not manage her mission, because Jane follows her path to the side and reaches for her phone there, interrupting her and rolling back pulling her into her arms and into the middle of the bed "Probably very rude to cancel a booty call any later than noon day of, and I'm not letting you get out of this bed until lunch. You should call Smith, on speaker. I want to hear the despair in her voice"

She watches Jane's playful smile as she goes as far as to unlock the phone for her, password lodged so deep in her mind she does not have to even look at the screen to do it. She laughs at the ridiculousness of it all "There was no date, Jane."

She gasps, holding the phone out of reach, now trying to find texts "You lied?!"

Maura stretches her body over Jane's trying to recover the device, lest she gets a glance of an order confirmation message that will ruin the surprise. "She lied, to Nina, who told Frankie, who told you. I just, didn't disabuse you of the notion."

Jane's long arm keeps her phone well out of range, she gapes "You said you were going to fuck her tonight!"

"I said that I think you knowing you upset me would hurt you more than if I told you I would go to bed with her. That is not a lie." She pauses, assesses, agrees with herself. "I have noticed you don't like upsetting me, and that you begrudgingly stand the fact that I will occasionally have new sexual partners. It is a thought I have."

"What are you? A lawyer?" Jane lets out a barked out laugh, relinquishing the now locked phone to the gaping maw of the tangled covers between them, her hand drawing around her back instead. She holds her in place with her best serious expression "No I don't fucking stand it. And it stops now."

"It does." Maura chuckles, dropping down to peck her lips as a distraction scheme. It works well enough that Jane's grip slackens and she can reach back to the nightstand, open the drawer and retrieve her gift. With the way she is being watched like a suspect, she does not have the time to imbue any more ceremony to it than simply turning back into Jane's open arms and holding the ring box open for her to see "For the rest of our lives, hopefully?"

It seems endless, the surely very small stretch of time in which Jane only looks at the ring with a stunned expression. But she is reaching for it at last and Maura can see that any hesitation was likely her trying to still the slight tremor that had ensued. She takes it gingerly and slips it on her finger equally so, looking at it with a quiet private smile. The silver band is a bit wider than most and raises just enough to accommodate the diamond set directly in it, spanning the upside of the ring sideways and of the same width and depth, merging seamlessly into a flat surface; And Jane turns her hand this way and that, watching the light play through it, testing her hand with it, eventually calming the shakes by bringing it back around Maura's body with a blinding smile, her coarse voice betrays her as it usually does "Maur, when did you buy a ring?"

"I called my jeweler on Wednesday morning while you were getting the flowers to have it made. Curiously, the design was fully formed somewhere in my mind and it just sprung forward once realization hit, as well as an absolute certainty about your ring size, which I would have told you I had never particularly thought about before. The subconscious truly is a treasure trove of under-studied mechanisms." She finishes, eyes dancing with delight and her tone bright like the sun filtering in through the window.

Jane's ability for conversation seems spent, but now her hands roam to say what the proverbial knot in her throat won't let her initially. At least now Maura knows how to make her speak; she feels her body heating up at the mere memory, at the way the silver band is really the only thing between them. Jane's body must too because she pulls her closer and groans under her breath when any little space that was left is no longer there “Maur… how much did you pay for them to make you a ring this beautiful in like 36 hours?”

She gives a playful shrug, as she lets herself be steered onto her back. Jane slots their legs together like the easiest puzzle on planet earth that she still took almost a decade to solve, and tries to outplay her to draw the information out of her, but they are quite evenly matched in this arena and the version of Maura she had finally decided to get to know the night before starts overtaking her, rakish smirk in full bloom “Don’t worry about it, my love. It’s insured.”

"Insured?!” She definitely has more complaining in her, but Maura bends her knee and presses her thigh into her. Jane eyelids flutter closed but she tries to finish her thought “I can't wear this, at least until I get you one."

"But Jane,” Maura drags one of her hands from the path she had started them in, to come up and hold her face with a sweet gesture, thumb caressing her cheekbone, nothing but a ploy to make sure she opens her eyes and holds her gaze as she lays the fatal blow “that would upset me."

Sunday Family Dinner really usually starts with Sunday afternoon grazing while Maura and her mother prepare whatever it is the matriarch decides she will be feeding the troops and Jane acts like a pack mule as directed. The three of them are usually there at least a couple of hours before anyone else is expected, but then again, the three of them do kinda live there; now more officially than ever. They had told Constance and Arthur to arrive earlier as well, to share their news with the main line of defense before they face the rest of their conjoint families and friends; and in the few minutes it had taken Jane to go buy the case of beer she knows will barely last to halftime of the game but ensure everyone can safely drive out of their home, they had arrived and sat across the kitchen island.

She puts her load down on the floor as quietly as possible and watches for a moment, her mom is in the thick of it with a sauce in a pot that can and will feed a village, and Maura is grating an industrial amount of cheese on the opposite counter, looking as beautiful as she always does as she directs a conversation about Italian food that weaves a string between her parents' and their summer vacations, and her mother and her old ladies with secret specialty grocery stores; and Jane’s feet carry her forward before her mind can reel her in.

In three strides she's by Maura's side and although that is par for the course, with how gloriously entwined they had spent the day before when it was just them in the house, she seems to have forgotten where the line had previously been, or that there ever was a self imposed line at all. Now, she draws her arm around her waist, drops a kiss where her jaw meets her neck and draws a chuckle out of her.

Jane stills, when she realizes the conversation had fully halted. She keeps her gaze down and debates whether to take a step back and put the cat back in the bag for a few more minutes, regardless of how they're all probably gaping at them, but Maura draws a hand up to lay over hers for a second, a thumb stroking her hand in greeting, and then continues grating her cheese like she too forgot.

"A dramatic entrance, sweetheart;" she says, and of course she did not, she is throwing her a lifeline by continuing as nonchalantly as she can, “maybe Angela is right when she says you want to give her a heart attack.” Jane finally raises her eyes just enough to watch the room react, Constance smiles their way with a pleased expression that’s a little too familiar, and Arthur sips on tea as if nothing of substance had passed.

Jane could not expect that type of level-headedness out of her mother, who seems to come to the obvious conclusion after the few seconds of calm "Oh!", she yelps out, looking bewildered at them, her hand still holding a spoon over her sauce as if something will disappear if she moves, her eyes go wide "Oh... god. Ok. Oh! Um, girls! I- wow!" It seems, positive? Jane hopes, certainly could have gone much, much worse. Her face must fall just enough she notices though, and she jumps in place “No, no, It's so great! I’m happy for you girls!”

Jane finally relaxes, and slouches in her spot, letting her chin fall to Maura's shoulder and her free hand come bracket her by reaching for some of the cheese in front of her, to start the grazing section of the afternoon. That could’ve been that, for at least a few minutes before the food is in the oven and they sit down and talk to their parents, but that's when the light coming in from the window catches the rock on her finger and makes the room glitter for a second. Jane’s eyes go wide and her heart hammers in her chest as Maura only laughs when she fucks up her carefully planned speech for the second time, “So I guess the ring stays on at all times?” Well yeah, it’s incredibly beautiful and surprisingly practical for a diamond, and Maura gave it to her.

Constance reacts first, her surprised gasp is quite respectful once all is said and done "Oh darling, congratulations." She says at once towards Jane, seemingly without thinking, as she leans over the island to take a look at the ring. She holds it up as if in autopilot, her hand reaching up and forward to fulfill her end of the bargain when the engagement ring is complimented, letting her new mother in law beam more comfortably.

It had of course also commanded her own mother's entire attention at once. The yelp is nothing near cute, followed by the spoon dropping into the sauce with a wet splat and sinking out of view. She jumps forward to claw at them both, squeezing them into the same hug "Oh my god! Oh Jesus! Janie- Girls! Oh wow!" She pulls at Jane's head until she lowers it enough she can kiss her hair a few times but once that's out of the way she is all but pushed to the side for her to focus on Maura, almost lifting her right off the floor with the individual bear hug she keeps her in "Oh my god! Congrats." Maura’s sends her a beaming smile over her mother’s back as she drops her cheese grater and reaches up to return the hug.

"What am I, chopped liver?" Jane says and finally Maura's let go, to receive a much more bearable hug from Constance and a small one from Arthur who have rounded the island, as Angela hastily wipes her hands on her apron to reach up and paw at Jane's hand to get a closer look at the ring, beaming like the sox had won the world series at home. Jane chuckles as she half draws herself away to receive her other pair of hugs one armed. “Ma, not too excited about it yeah?”

Constance laughs "I do think the sauce is compromised." Her smile reaches all the way to her eyes like Jane has never seen it do before, and the arm she has slipped over Maura's shoulder ends in a hand giving the opposite one happy pats. Maura seems over the moon at the whole thing.

"Oh a little extra iron never hurt nobody!" Her mother says, dancing in place like she's the one that got proposed to the day before. She squeezes a hand over each of them again "What about grandbabies?"

Jane tears her eyes away to gape at her "Ma! C'mon, what the hell?"

"In due time, yes." Maura says, and that's why she’s her mom’s favorite above her three flesh and blood hooligans.

She forgets all about Jane to grab at her again, this time absolutely managing to separate Maura from her own mother and her impractical shoes for a second "Oh Maura, Thank you baby! Finally, someone gets through her thick skull." She puts Maura back down and goes for Constance, who lets out a surprised chuckle “We’re family now, I expect some of these Sicilian Sun dried Tomatoes next time you go that villa.”

“Jesus Christ, Ma!” Jane watches anxiously, she must be really regretting not pushing for one of the European artists from boarding school when she had the chance.

But to her surprise, Constance laughs in her mother’s arms “We will order cases of them, for the wedding.”

Oh absolutely the wrong words to say, because Angela does not free her, instead pulling her, Maura and the neglected cheese to the stove to retrieve the spoon with a pair of tongs and start planning the party. Her fiancée throws her a smile and a shake of her head over her shoulder and Jane laughs, reaching for a discarded piece of un-grated cheese and popping it in her mouth.

She moves to finish her mission of filling the fridge with beer, and Arthur follows, gingerly putting a hand on her shoulder as they tuck themselves in the hallway where she had dropped the case. “Jane, congratulations once again.” She nods, he must be so happy to not have been sequestered to discuss floral arrangements. He throws a look back, and leans in when he confirms they’re alone “The family ring I used to propose to Connie, we think it would mean a lot to Maura to get to wear it. We don’t want to overstep, but it’s yours, if you want it.”

She gapes at this man she has barely had three conversations with since the whole murder debacle, now offering whatever ring they have been passing down since god knows when to a literally-blue-collar woman from Boston. “Arthur that is beyond generous, but I’m sure Constance loves her ring. I can’t-“

He shakes his head to shut her up and leans in conspiratorially “The ring has been in the safe here in Boston since she met you. None of Maura’s other dates who even made it far enough to meet her had ever been anything but smarmy, let alone so bluntly intervened on her behalf in their protracted awkwardness.” He has a dorky twinkle in his eye that Jane has seen before in the other Doctor Isles, tone delighting in his mischief too. “So, she expected Maura to ask for it soon after that. It’s been a point of contention, the prolonged secrecy of it all. Specially with the communication channels you helped open now flowing.” He chuckles, hand patting her back before he bends and retrieves the beer off the floor for her, “Initially she half thought she had married you in secret, just to spite her. I must confess, I’m glad it actually took her this long, I’m happy to be here to see it.”

Jane can only smile at him, surely by now disabusing people of the notion of their secret relationship is wasted breath, when they’re gonna spring an engagement on them directly. However long they think they’ve been together, they’re probably right anyway. She nods with a dumbfounded smile “Then I would be honored, thanks Arthur.”

He gives her a genial nod right back and kicks an elbow out to poke her with it. “Thank you, I can’t state enough how grateful we are for you being in Maura’s life. Constance’s therapist should wire you the thousands of euros she's wasted on him trying to help her do what you did.”

She laughs at his jab, following him into the kitchen where the sauce had been saved, and the mothers were still conspiring while holding on to one of Maura’s arms each. She throws her a smile and rounds the island on the opposite side, moving to pull the beers out of the plastic grid and into the wine cooler as quickly as she can while Arthur holds up the case closely by.

She can see him smile over her head before she feels Maura’s arms snake around her, a kiss dropped on her cheek that splits her face into a dopey smile she needs to learn to control before Frankie, Tommy and Korsak arrive in a couple of hours. Maura holds her close as she joins this conversation surely just to flee the other one “Beer won’t be strong enough. The way they’re spinning it, we will be having a wedding in Lake Como with 400 guests, mother knows exactly the Armani suit you need to wear and Angela has the menu all planned.”

Arthur chuckles with her entire supply in his arms now looking laughably small, “Maura perhaps you can hide a bottle of cognac somewhere in this house soon. When I got engaged my father told me 'A married man ought to have a vice besides his wife'.”

Maura smiles his way genially, and then turns to look her way with her bright eyes, laying another kiss on her cheek for good measure “But I am so content getting drunk off this tall bottle of Amaretto.“

Arthur only smiles their way and Jane can feel the blush creeping up her neck and to her cheeks, and it’s just not fair that Maura is the composed one now, this slightly nervous nerdy woman she has loved and translated human interaction to for so long, nerdy woman that had her almost begging last night. Jane forces herself to frown, to counteract the blush, and Maura chuckles and understands enough to relax her hold, maybe she can feel her overheat through their clothes. Jane clears her treacherous throat “I’m sure that’s offensive for actual Italians,” she composes herself now that no more kisses are being laid on her and continues moving beers from a to b "and I think the medical journals are pretty much a vice. I keep getting ignored because of them.”

Arthur laughs wholeheartedly, giving Maura a knowing look "Your mother said roughly the same thing when my father suggested it."

"I'm Constance again?" Jane groans and Maura pulls her back into her body in her mirth, lays another fatal kiss on her that turns the frown right upside down in a matter of instants. Damn it.

Food being kept at temperature in the oven and texts in the group chat that the others were leaving their homes, there was nothing else but for Maura to change into something more presentable than her current three-hundred-dollars outfit. And as much as her legs had itched to follow her up and watch as she did that, she had stayed downstairs as a gracious host to the people already there.

Constance and Arthur had gone outside when they had been two deep in a series of calls Jane has a feeling she will hear all about sooner rather than later and her mother had been puttering in the kitchen with some finishing touches for a few minutes. But that seems to be done, since she’s glancing her way with a pinched expression, as she drinks her first beer unencumbered by her brothers trying to outrun her and drink them all before she can grab for a second. She examines her slouch for glaring wrongness, as she drops the beer between her legs, and frowns when she finds nothing out of her ordinary behavior “Something wrong Ma?”

Angela approaches equally as gingerly as she was looking a her, a very hard to get demeanor out of the bull of a woman she has for a mother, and sits at an appropriate distance. Weird, is all. She starts “Jane I- I’m sorry. I guess you never said anything because you felt like you couldn’t tell me and I’m not gonna sit here and tell you you were wrong about that. When you kids were, well, kids, it would not have gone down well. I’m sorry you had to feel like that for so long. Constance tells me Maura has always- that they know since she started dating in high school, so she also felt like she couldn’t tell only me. If it took you girls this long to get engaged because- if you felt you couldn't get married in peace, if it was all my fault… I’m so sorry.”

At some point in that long protracted apology Jane had started scratching at the beer label under her nails to prevent her hands to come up and wipe at her unshed tears, the damp paper giving easily to her shredding and the rolls of sticky paper falling carelessly to the couch like Maura had trained out of her years ago. They weren’t together, but why weren’t they? Maura hadn’t asked, sure; but Jane hadn’t either, out of fear that her whole family would turn on her? That her life would be fucked and she’d go to hell and her dad would yell and her mom would weep and her brothers would be gross? Was it all her mother’s fault? Probably not, but it hadn’t not been a factor. She lets out a huff “But now, it’s ok? We’re fine? You’re coming to the wedding and babysitting the kids?”

Angela nods with eyes shining with her own tears and draws a hand over her arm in a rough caress “Of course! You know I just want you to be happy. Maura is amazing, I love her like she’s one you kids. You made more than clear that she’s family, I should have understood what you meant.”

“And if it wasn’t Maura? If it was just me?”

She squeezes her arm like she wants it shattered “Janie you are my baby, my only daughter. Nothing would have kept me from loving you. If you had told me earlier, yeah I would have probably lost it for a while,” she lets out an uneasy chuckle “but even then I'm sure we would have patched it up. Because of you, I know that my way of living is not the only way. I saw how much you love your family and friends, your awful job,” she sniffs over another chuckle ”and saw that there was light at the end of the tunnel after my marriage blew up. Some guy and some kids don’t always mean happiness. I used to think, gosh she’ll be happier being Maura’s maid of honor than anyone’s bride, hell you looked happier than I ever was with your father; and I loved that you had someone like that, this is even better!”

Jane finally wipes at her eyes with the heel of her palm and her voice cracks in half “Thank you, Ma. That means a lot, really. I guess yeah, I was kinda scared. Maura's a saint, she was probably just taking her cues from me... she’s not scared of you, she would have told you if I hadn't made it such a thing.”

She grabs her fully at last, pulling her forward at a speed that’s dangerous for the beer bottle. Kissing her hair with all her might “I’m sorry you girls had to tip toe all these years. I’m so sorry. Thank you for sharing your wonderful news with me.” Jane laughs, still swiping at her eyes that won’t let up. “Constance says she knew something was up as soon as she came in here for dinner and we were both here, that it was so obvious Maura was just introducing her partner without fanfare. Then she thought you had eloped when the years went by and that I knew and also didn't say anything! Eloped! Jane Clementine Rizzoli you elope and I kill you! I told her that, she can go home in peace, I will be keeping an eye on you two now." She holds onto her with extra vigor, for the threat to really land, and Jane laughs with a groan mixed in there as she tries to draw air "You girls must think I’m an idiot, you do basically live here ever since I do!”

Maura chuckles above the couch, drawing both their eyes up at once in their awkward position. “You wouldn’t believe how much discussion there's been on that topic.”

“Oh Jane, you need to go change.” Her mother says, as they take in Maura looking like a million bucks above them.

Good that someone spoke because she seems to be tongue tied on top of teary, looking at the dress Maura’s wearing. She has enough strength to sit up and glance over the back of the couch at the very high heels, and chuckles “Nervous to meet the family?”

Maura draws her hand to her cheek, wiping at the last of her stray tears with an apologetic smile “By the volume of calls being made, I can surmise mother will instigate a family picture, of at least the 5 of us and in high-res. Her friends like to zoom in.”

“Oh no, we need to change” Angela yelps and disentangles herself fully to all but run out of the house, making the most out of their remaining quarter hour.

Jane draws herself to her knees on the couch to pull at Maura, even with the furniture between them, and hold her ratty t-shirt by the closest stain she sees. She had dug it out of the t-shirts trash bag she had hastily packed and then neglected to fully unpack when relocated, choosing instead to unwrap the woman in her arms once her condition of moving in was fulfilled. She had gotten no complaints about it. "And you were gonna let me wear this? To our one and only engagement pic?"

"Nice try. We're taking pictures, with full faces of make up. For the mantle." Jane collapses on her shoulder for a second and Maura laughs, drawing her up and holding her in place with her hands around her face, which has happened so much in two days she feels a kind of pavlovian response to it already, whole body buzzing at attention, "Tonight, anything with buttons is enough. The navy blue one you bought with the white shirt is encouraged."

She kisses her briefly and Jane smiles, eyes fluttering open once she's released and passing over Maura’s dress again, a surprising thrill running through her at realizing it has the appropriate amount of the requested color, and silver and black, that once she adds the slacks and the one nice belt she owns they will fully match without looking obnoxious. She is being stage managed, for family pictures. She cannot let Maura see how fucking excited she seems to be at the prospect or she’ll never live that down either. She leans in for an extra kiss “See how it easy it makes your life when I buy clothes in threes? Imagine I had endless dresses too, you would die trying to decide what to manipulate me into.”

Maura rolls her eyes and huffs "I’m hardly manipulating you until I say that they suit you so well I’m looking forward to tearing it off you later."

Jane laughs as she finishes, all matter of fact once again. She leans back in for another kiss, making the most of the last minutes of their empty living room for the foreseeable future "Yeah? Thought about it sweetheart?"

She can't out-tease the teaser it seems, because as she nods wholeheartedly Maura sneaks her hands under her awful t-shirt and strokes her back with a hum "Add in doing some dishes tonight and you might not leave the kitchen until dawn."

Jane leans back in without any more prompting, almost falling forward to chase Maura’s smirk. But that’s when Frankie, born intrusive and with poor timing, decides to show up, clearing his throat from the end of the hallway. He lets out an uneasy chuckle "God Maura, are you cheating on Smith?"

Jane gives him the finger, not the usual one, the one with the ring on it "Don't mention Smith in my fucking house ever again."

Nina gasps by his side, slapping her husband’s arm repeatedly until he understands what he’s seeing as well. He looks equally horrified and happy to have found them making out, warring with his feet to come take a closer look at the ring. But before he can make up his mind Maura chuckles, laying a parting kiss on her cheek before her hands retreat as well, patting the shirt back in place "Daniella is Nina and I’s friend, surely we can invite her to the wedding."

"Not if you fucking call her that." Jane vaults herself over the back of the couch, "And not if I shoot her, and Internal Affairs clears me when I tell them it's because she asked you out." She gives Maura one last kiss too and a squeeze wherever her hands may land, before she rushes out of there to change yelling back at them “That goes for you too Francesco, lips to yourself!”

Frankie seems to finally move close once she's out of physical violence range "Jeez, I didn’t know! You didn’t tell me either! And on Friday she fully denied you were together too!"

"Yes, that seemed to be her opinion. Hence the ring." Jane hears Maura laugh as she answers and smiles herself as she bounds up the stairs two by two.

She had been spared the Celtics game on Wednesday but that kind of luck does not strike twice and Sunday dinner, that had had a much-maligned Knicks game for backdrop, had been followed by the Sunday game Jane did want to watch. Lucky her that it runs late enough into the night that everyone had chosen to go see it in the comfort of their own homes.

After TJ had passed out on Tommy, and Frankie and Nina were chased away by the questions about pregnancy, and Kiki had mentioned Korsak’s commitment to keep an organized sleep schedule, and her parents had excused themselves with promises to send the photographer’s final pictures and return in the next few months, and Ron had all but dragged a reluctant Angela away; Jane had indeed loaded the dishwasher, but at an inhuman speed before running to the couch to stretch herself there, mercifully not without pulling her down and into her arms.

She had been allowed to retrieve her iPad somewhere through the first quarter, but the article on the screen hardly holds her attention as much as the closeness they’re sharing. The couch was the piece of furniture that allowed them the most freedom to cross the usual barrier of friendly proximity; as many times as they had shared a bed, they had both shied away from truly touching there, probably in fear of starting something that would alter their friendship irrevocably; but down here in the couch when the TV was doing most of the talking they’d often tangled together and shared a blanket, and Maura used to loved simply basking in it as she fully ignored whatever it was Jane wanted to watch.

This time though, instead of the gradual drifting together, the one with plausible deniability, Jane had looped her arm around her waist and pulled her in until she was flush against her side, had encouraged her to rest her head on her shoulder and started muttering about officiating in between dropping kisses to her hair, had only hummed happily when Maura had carefully laid her arm over her abdomen, had let her curl her legs up almost onto hers, and was drinking the one beer she’d hid away for the occasion with her free hand; the whole thing is almost inebriating in its odd normalcy. A scene that would repeat over and over in their lives if all goes well.

Maura smiles her screen’s way, such a primitive response, being thrilled at the display of ownership even with no audience. Jane drops her beer to its usual place between her legs and Maura’s amusement continues to grow; it has always been oddly phallic, the posture; it draws another wave of the primitive response out of her, such a delight to not have to tamp it down, to be able to revel in it instead. She moves her hand and draws it from the wrist to the edge of the rolled up sleeve and back down, enjoying the way it prompts Jane to grab the bottle harder, tendons tensing with the strain, she turns her exploration inward to trace those especially, her reading forgotten as soon as the commercials appear and she knows she can speak without being a nuisance “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” Jane chuckles through her nod, low and raspy this late at night, dragging her arm away from her wandering hand, tilting her beer bottle up, throat working to swallow. Maura smiles up at her, not even mourning the contact now that she knows she has free reign to let her hand rest on her abdomen again, decisively lower even “You’re a natural born model, the pictures were great. Natural born host too.”

She chuckles again, tearing her eyes from the TV and settling them on her with amusement “Maur, tonight I literally only got the beer from the store.”

She truly feels drunk, there is no other way to put it. Drunk with how she’d announced they were engaged and fielded the congratulatory jokes left and right, how she had dressed for pictures her mother wanted and posed for quite a few of them with a genuine smile on her face and despite the second heaping of jokes coming from the window, with how she’d held her hand throughout the meal and held the rest of her body throughout the conversation in the living room, with how she had done the dishes right after. With how she directs conversation, and settles disputes between her brothers, and swiftly deals with her mother’s and TJ’s tantrums; with how she has the admiration of her brothers and the respect of her parents and the love of her friends; with how she somehow doesn’t see that. She shifts her hand some more as she eyes her with a smile, the silver of the belt buckle cold against her fingers, “What I have always enjoyed most of these evenings is seeing you lead your family.”

“Wrangle, you mean.” She huffs as she takes another drag of her bottle and the shrill sound of the sneakers on hardwood resumes on screen and pulls her eyes away.

“Lead.” She reiterates, hand working out of its own volition to pull that belt open, she truly cannot wait for that game to be fucking over, Jane's barely realized she has her buckle half undone. “You're the firstborn, and it truly shows." She hums "First marriage, first grandchild... it should’ve been us.”

“What, are you into the divine right of kings or something?” She starts jokingly, but turns to lock eyes with her once she swiftly finishes removing barriers and slips her hand inside the pressed slacks, feeling the heat over the cotton “Maur… the game...” she whines, the voice now low, scratching its way out of her

Maura’s skin breaks out into goosebumps as she hears the sound, slips her hand lower, watching her wild hair and her blown out pupils, her skin glowing with the warm light. How she ever managed to let this woman think she didn’t want her, inability to lie or not, will forever be a mystery. “You can keep watching,” she tells her and it has the expected effect, drawing out a groan, “you’ve earned it.”

She’s barely made contact with the underwear under her palm when Jane’s lips fall open, she chases the gasp with an admission, voice sarcastic still “I super duper hyper enjoyed myself tonight cause I’ve always wanted you on my arm for this kind of stuff.” It’s evident how much she enjoyed herself indeed, Maura applies pressure again and she groans, all emotional armor falling away “Doesn’t matter who got what first, I got the best wife and I bet I’ll get the best kids too.” Maura laughs, so easy, truly.

She tosses the iPad off her hip with her free hand and surges forward to kiss her for a moment before she maneuvers herself to her knees between Jane’s conveniently spread legs, pulling at the fabric between them “Keep watching your game.”

She does her the favor of lifting her hips as she groans, arms thrown wide on the back of the couch and beer held precariously by now. The sight spurring her forward with even more urgency than the croaked “Fuck, Maur, I don’t think I can.”

"The confidence on the meals being whipped up on this kitchen is at an all time low" Jane says, with a huff, from her perch on her navel, like she's not the reason that she's spread on her kitchen island with her robe askew slowly losing the bodily fluids she had seeked to replenish when walking into the kitchen on the first place. She stands up to full height, uselessly tugging on the opened and wrinkled shirt Maura has insisted she continued wearing throughout the night, but only to be able to drape herself over her better, chin falling to her chest, it bobs up and down her field of vision with every deep restorative breath she takes, while her heart rate regulates. Jane keeps her grin intact "You have medical grade windex, right?"

"This type of session might call for the entire slab of stone to be replaced." She breathes out, lifting one of her feet to the surface for comfort, the least of the sanitary issues by now, and letting her hand come up to tangle on the mane of dark curls.

Jane gasps exaggeratedly, lifting her head enough to do it "With how much I liked doing this just now, we'll go through the kids' college fund in a year if you're gonna do that every time." She follows her joke up with a blinding smile and Maura moves her hair out of the way to admire her besotted expression some more, but before she can answer the jarring sound of the ringtone makes them whip their heads to the side.

Jane stretches her long arm to pick up the first phone "Jesus, what time is it? did we actually do this until dawn?" She looks horrified at the time on the screen, at the confirmation that it is indeed dispatch, and they're now on call, and hands Maura the phone. She traces her aggrieved cheek for a second with a smile as she picks up in the best mood she ever has "Isles."

"Rizzoli," Jane chimes onto the other phone she had contorted to retrieve from the opposite counter, "wait a sec." she mutes the call and turns, standing to her full height and looking down at her, hand tracing down her bent leg absentmindedly, ring dragging against her skin deliciously "That sounds very wrong by the way, we're hyphenating Rizzoli-Isles."

Maura laughs incredulously, pushing herself up from the counter to be able to hold on to her better, this woman that 72 hours ago was going red in the face saying they were just friends and now keeps bringing their wedding and non-existent children up, who toys with the edge of her robe as she focuses back into the call. Maura tunes back into hers as well, with her free hand reaching out to hold onto her fiancée's to stop her before she decides to drag it open, she interrupts the young man on the other end of the phone "Officer Brown, can you call Dr. Drake? We're unable to come in today," Jane raises one of her eyebrows and Maura smiles "yes, both Detective Rizzoli and I, we are overly fatigued. I will make sure she informs Officer Wills right now. Yes, usually when one member of the family falls ill the other inhabitants of the house do too. Thank you, Officer Brown. Goodbye."

The conversation on their side of the calls is swift as always because in a matter of seconds Jane is left off the hook, she tosses her now silent phone with no regard for it and gapes, dragging her hands under the silk "Now you did just lie, to play hooky."

"I did not! The sun is almost up and we have not slept. We are overly fatigued. It would compromise the quality of our work." She replies, head tilting back to look up at her fully "He did assume one of us had contracted something and passed it on to the other, something about his wife and a virus. I simply agreed on the likelihood of the scenario."

"Jesus Christ," Jane laughs reaching behind her to pull her off the surface with a strength she should not be able to gather sleep deprived and dehydrated, making her wrap her legs around her as she moves back towards softer surfaces "I love you honey, but I'm scared you might be too good at that now."

Maura preens at the utter lack of sarcasm on the word, oh how the mighty have fallen.