Speaking a Dead Language (2/?)
Title: Speaking a Dead Language (2/?)
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles
Summary: 'I would've called, but I didn't think you would've taken it.'
Disclaimer: We don't own Rizzoli & Isles, this is not a part of the Jai Chronicles. Warning of domestic violence!
She dreamed about it sometimes.
Boston. Life with Jane. Jane period.
That was a long time ago, though.
Being back in the city didn’t change that at all, and stepping into the Boston Police Department was easier than she had thought it would be.
For the first time in a long time Frost, Korsak and Jane weren’t an awkward partnership of three. A couple years ago Frankie got his Detective’s Shield but now he was officially a homicide detective, just like his sister. But even though Jane ragged on Frankie, she trusted him to have Korsak’s back.
The four of them walked back in from lunch, laughing about something someone had said that one time. Walking in to the precinct Jane frozen, causing the three men behind her to collide in an effort not to hit the female detective. “What the hell, Rizzoli? Forget how to walk?”
“I would‘ve called, but I didn‘t think you would‘ve taken it,” the familiar voice was just as beautiful as it had been all those years ago, if not a little more subdued. Maura Isles was standing in the middle of the bullpen with her hair up in a ponytail, wearing comfortable blue jeans and a silk shirt. For a moment, it was almost as if nothing had changed, except that everything had changed.
Frost took pity on his partner and nodded to their desks, making the other detectives give the two a little space. “Good to see you again, Doc,” he muttered, wondering if they should be here for this.
“Yeah…” Jane didn’t know what to say because she didn’t know how she would have reacted, or even how she should be reacting now. “You’re looking good, Maura,” she blurt out finally, not knowing what else to say to her one time best friend. One time girlfriend. And constant source of heartbreak.
“You too,” Maura stated softly, the look on her face so different than it had been when she walked out of Jane’s apartment almost five years ago and just kept walking. She started to step forward, but paused, remembering that she wasn’t alone. Turning back, Maura bent down and picked up a little boy of about the age of three that had been hiding behind her legs. He was black haired and blue eyed, and clung to Maura like his life depended on it.
Frankie whistled from his desk before he could stop himself. “Wow, Maura. Is he yours?”
She just nodded, smiling over at Frankie the best she could. “He belongs to my husband.”
Jane didn’t know what to say to Maura. How to tell her that she was sorry for the way they left things. How to say that Maura was right, that she had indeed had a problem with alcohol. How to say that she had screwed up the best thing going for her. Hearing Frankie’s statement, Jane looked down at the young boy hiding behind Maura’s knees.
“You’re married?” Jane stammered out the question. She didn’t know what she had expected for Maura, or why it was shocking that Maura was married. After all, Jane had gotten married, and divorced, within the last five years.
Maura just nodded, feeling her throat tighten. This was a lot harder than she had thought it would be. Clutching her son tighter to her, she shifted him so that he was resting on her hip. “For the better part of four years,” she admitted softly. She had married Michael when he proposed, because she was still trying to forget Jane and Boston, but it hadn’t worked.
“Congratulations, Doc.” Korsak offered from his desk, wondering if it was really appropriate in the situation. She paused for a moment, feeling the boy on her hip shift.
“I’m not a Doctor at the moment,” she confessed after a moment. She had worked as an ME for almost two years before letting it go. Maura had promised herself she would go back to it eventually, but the years had started to slip away from her in more ways than one.
There was a little kid clinging to Maura. Maura had a kid. It was difficult for Jane to wrap her head around that fact. “He’s adorable, Maura.” She wanted to badly to fall in to the old habit of calling the blonde woman ‘M’ as she always used to, but it didn’t seem right or appropriate anymore, given the circumstances.
“You aren’t a doctor anymore? You love…you loved being a doctor.” Obviously Jane didn’t know Maura anymore. Married with a kid? But Jane was hardly the same either, now into her first year of divorce.
Maura bit her bottom lip, a nervous habit she had picked up when she couldn’t fidget. She could feel everyone looking at her and her son and she wondered if coming back here had been the right thing to do.
“Things change,” she offered up softly. Maura had stayed at home to raise the boy in her arms. He was her entire world now. The little boy tugged on her shirt, looking up at her with blue eyes that were exactly like his father’s. Rubbing his back, she pulled him closer. He was uneasy about being in an unfamiliar place and she could knew that.
“Is your old man around?” Frankie asked. He honestly was interested in meeting the man that Maura had married. For a long time, he had assumed his sister would end up with the medical examiner, but as she had said just moments ago, things change.
Shaking her head, Maura looked over at Frankie. It was easier to talk to them than it was to talk to Jane.
Jane gave her brother a look; if she had been next to him Frankie would have gotten hit. Being partners with Korsak was a bad influence on her brother, his jaw was more easily unhinged and at all of the wrong times. It was none of his business, despite how much Jane wanted to know as well, if Maura’s husband was around or not.
“If Jane can get married, why can’t Maura?” Korsak asked, half in joke. Jane looked at her ex-partner in shock. This was not sharing time but still secrets were seeping out of the cracks here and there. But Jane swore that if Frost opened his mouth to say something unpleasant, like her brother and Korsak, she might very well shoot him here and now.
“You guys have no manners,” Frost pointed out, knowing when to keep his mouth shut. He would rather not have to ride around in the cruiser with an angry Jane for the rest of their shift.
“You’re married?” Maura asked, slightly surprised by this. Jane had never seemed the type for a wedding, but if the medical examiner had to think of one person that would pursue the detective just as much as she had… “Gabriel?”
“Uh…actually divorced. But yeah, Gabe.” Maybe six months after Maura left Boston the FBI agent came back. He had tried to woo her and this time Jane let him. Their relationship hadn’t progressed quickly until Gabriel got an assignment out of Boston. But a relationship that had survived because of distance making the heart grow fonder, had wilted under constant care. Less than a year after giving her mother the white wedding she wanted Jane was testing separation from her almost too perfect husband.
Divorce had followed shortly after the separation. And Jane’s only reaction was to throw herself back in to work. Not knowing what else to do.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Maura whispered softly. She had always hoped that Jane would be happy, because the detective would always mean that much to her. When her phone started going off, a ring tone that she knew well enough, the blonde tensed slightly before reaching into her pocket and silencing it.
“I’d love to stay, but I really should be going,” she voiced after a moment. She still had a lot to go before it got too late and staying here was only bringing up old wounds that were still trying to heal.
The little boy in her arms tugged at her shirt, whispering soft enough that it was hard to make out what he was saying. “Can we come back to the police station sometime?”
Maura nodded at him, watching as Frankie, Korsak, and Frost stood up to say goodbye. “We’ll see Nicholas,” she replied softly, saying goodbye without any hugs to the guys. Turning back to Jane though, she felt her throat close up.
“… It was nice seeing you again, Jane.”
“It happens,” Jane admitted with a shrug, going for nonchalance. None of the involved had been all that broken up over the divorce, even the queen of overreactions: Angela Rizzoli. She and Gabe just didn’t have that can't eat, can't sleep, reach for the stars, over the fence, World Series kind of love. And they both knew it.
Jane felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Yeah….we’ve got to get back to work as well. Murders just don’t solve themselves.” Jane raised her arms, almost as if she wanted to hug Maura but thought better of it. Lowering one arm she might have made it in to a handshake but that didn’t feel right either. “We’ll be seeing you?” she managed, finally, more asking than telling and with an awkward half wave, half salute.
“Take care, Maura.” “Don’t be a stranger.” “Good seeing you, Doc.”
Maura just nodded, looking at Jane a moment more before she ducked her head and walked out of the precinct with the little boy still in her arms. The bullpen was quiet for a long moment after the doctor was gone, and it was finally Frost that spoke up.
“Did anyone else notice that she wouldn’t let us touch her?”
Staring out the door for another long moment before turning back to the other three detectives. “What? It’s been five years, you can’t expect…things change. People change.” With a sigh Jane looked towards the elevator and wished that things hadn’t changed.
“Come on, we have to get back to work.” The three men decided not to get in to it, leaving Jane staring at the door a moment longer before she threw all of her efforts in to work. After all, it was the best way to deal with heartache.