Chapter Text
Prologue: Pre-series
Jane Rizzoli didn't quite know what to make of Maura Isles. Doctor Maura Isles, apparently, who had no problem offering both her money and her opinions to suspected prostitutes. Jane wasn't sure if she was more pleased that her "lady of the night" outfit was so believable, offended at the observation that she looked sallow and malnourished, or intrigued by Doctor Isles and her peculiar yet alluring way about her.
She kept nosing through the cafe, in normal clothes this time, drinking gallons more coffee that her body required in the hopes of coming across the annoying and puzzling Maura Isles. Jane liked a good puzzle, although even she couldn't quite figure out what it was about this woman - pretty, no doubt, and kind enough, but nosy and intrusive - had piqued her interest. Someone upstairs must have taken pity on her that first day, with her overworked bladder and nerves nearly shot from the excess of caffeine, because all of a sudden there was a need for a detective from her unit to check in down at the morgue. And because no one in Jane's division particularly liked dealing with the Queen of the Dead, even though her reports were flawless and she seemed to be unflappable on the stand and no one could ever accuse her of being impolite, Jane found herself with a ironclad excuse to do some off-the-book, purely for her own entertainment detective work, so off the morgue Jane went.
The professional talk went easily enough. Dr. Isles didn't bring up their previous awkward encounter, but Jane could tell in the sort of smile in her eyes that she remembered well. And Jane, somehow, found herself transfixed, her own eyes softening a bit as she took in the doctor's much-shorter stature absent of her heels and her petite frame clothed in basic black scrubs. She seemed much different than the well-heeled, high-brow woman Jane had met in the cafe, but no less competent and humbly confident as she walked Jane around the body and through her findings.
"Thanks," Jane offered as the doctor seemingly concluded her run-through. "That's all very helpful, and I'm sure my sergeant will appreciate the update." She checked her watch, noting the late hour. "And I've probably run into your lunch, so I'll let you go. I've taken up enough of your time, Doctor Isles." Jane noted her formal tone and cringed internally. She usually never talked so carefully or politely to anyone and she hoped that it didn't seem forced.
"Please, call me Maura." Dr. Isles - Maura - began washing her hands at the sink, which Jane took as a sure sign to head out until she heard Maura's voice over the rush of the water. "Do you...do you have lunch plans? You're welcome to eat with me. If you want, that is." It was the only moment so far in which Jane detected a hint of vulnerability in the confident young doctor's tone. Jane suspected that Maura had few pleasant visitors in the morgue, and fewer still that Maura had ever asked about any sort of plans, personal or otherwise.
"I don't have plans," Jane answered slowly, flattered and a little giddy and unsure of where all of these feelings were coming from. "And I'd like to eat with you. But under two conditions."
"Such as?" Jane could almost see a raised eyebrow even as Maura's back was turned to her, and she smiled a little at her shoes a bit bashfully. Maybe this could be something after all.
"Well, first of all, as long as we're not eating in here." She was cheered to hear a chuckle and spotted a slight smile angled toward her over a narrow shoulder. "Okay, good. And second, only if you call me Jane. At this point anyone who constantly calls me Detective Rizzoli usually isn't anyone I like and…"
Maura finished drying her hands and turned to face Jane directly, a smile on her face that was so genuine that Jane truly wondered why anyone ever could have thought of her as Queen of the Dead. "Deal," she said earnestly. "Come on, Jane, we can eat in my office."
-R-I-
"So you ended up getting to work in the same community you were raised in," Maura remarked as she and Jane ate their respective lunches. She had changed back into her regular clothes, something that helped her feel a little more at ease, and noted that maybe Detective Rizzoli - Jane - felt the same way. She had been so outrageously dressed when they'd first met that maybe Jane felt better now, too, sitting here in a suit and button down blouse but still giving off an air of approach-ability as she shared about her family and her career with a refreshing openness.
"Yep. Which is mostly a good thing. Not always though." Jane took a sip of her water. "What about you?"
"I grew up here also. Went to college here, but spent time in different places in my twenties. But now I'm settled. I can't really see myself going anywhere else."
"Do you have family around here? Or, still, I mean, since you grew up in the city"
"No, my parents travel and spend time in different cities." Maura didn't feel like going into the fact that her parents owned multiple homes throughout Europe and that she herself was fairly wealthy. It was clear from Jane's own easy offerings about her life that she hadn't been, and Maura hated when money somehow always got in the way of things. She took a deep breath, realizing that her words weren't entirely the truth. "But I do have family here. My daughter...she's three."
Maura watched Jane discreetly as the words left her mouth, noting that although Jane made no outward motion of surprise, her eyebrows knitted together for the briefest of seconds. It was unsurprising; Maura never talked about her personal life at work so she doubted that anyone at the BPD ever thought that she had a child. Especially since it was her, the Queen of the Dead. She was well aware of the whispers and side comments even as she pretended not to be.
"I didn't realize you were…" Jane caught herself before the "married" left her lips, but Maura found herself more sympathetic than sensitive. It wasn't this Jane Rizzoli's fault that her life was complicated.
"I'm not." Maura held up her hand to demonstrate the bare ring finger. "I, uh, never was, actually. It wasn't a serious thing, her father and me, and by the time I realized, it just seemed better for her just to be mine."
"That's...that's admirable. Really admirable" Jane looked at Maura with a new kind of respect that instantly made her wary. "It must be hard being a single mother. I know it would be for me."
"Jane," Maura chided a bit firmly even as her eyes were kind. "Don't do that. Please." Jane opened her mouth, probably to apologize, but Maura beat her to it. "I appreciate it, I do. But please, I don't want you to see me as a saint. I'm just...I'm just her mother. Most of the time, I'm not even sure I'm really good at it."
Jane looked at her curiously but without offense. "I'm sorry," she offered. "You must get a lot of that. And it must get annoying."
"It is. Because it's either that I'm some sort of superwoman being a single mother or I'm some sort of...Hester Prynne for having a baby with no father in the picture. It's not usually something I share." Maura looked down at her bare ring finger, tracing it lightly as she spoke.
"Why did you share it with me?"
"I don't know," Maura admitted. "You seem to have a way about you that gets people to open up. It must be what makes you so good at your job" She was met with a smile which she returned.
"So why don't you think you're good at it?" Jane's tone was light enough that Maura had no trouble answering, even as she took a moment to chew on a bite of salad and reflect.
"I'm...I mean, her needs are met and I'm not terrible," she explained. "But she's three, and I'm all she has, basically, so she has nothing to compare me to. When she's a little older and in school with teachers and friends and friends' moms, it'll be different. I'm...I'm really not good with kids. Or people, really." Maura didn't quite know how or why this was all flowing from her mouth, her deepest insecurities about her child laid bare in front of this woman she barely knew. It seemed inappropriate, this oversharing. What was she doing?
But Jane didn't seem to mind in the slightest. She considered Maura's words seriously, as if they had been friends for years rather than friendly acquaintances of a few hours. "But you'll always be her mom," she offered. "And this might sound weird or insincere since, like, we don't really know each other, but I bet you're a better mother than you give yourself credit for."
"Why?" Maura was genuinely curious. It didn't seem like lip service, but how could Jane have gleaned that from a half-hour conversation over salads and soup?
"Because you seem to work hard to be the best at what you do. Your work here is impeccable and everyone knows it. You're the youngest Chief in the office like...ever, right? So I figure if you put even half as much effort into being a good mother, you're probably better than like eighty five percent of the ones out there anyway."
Maura unexpectedly felt her throat tighten. She had expected many things when she'd offered for Jane to eat with her, after Jane had dispelled the initial expectation that Jane would refuse and scurry back upstairs like most of the others would, like some company during her typically solitary lunches and perhaps a friendly face in the department going forward, but she hadn't expected this at all, this quiet understanding and reassurance from this tough as nails, trailblazing young detective. "Thank you," she said softly, meeting Jane's eyes. "That's...I guess I never thought about it that way."
"You should," Jane offered as she began to clear the remains of her lunch. "Your daughter's lucky to have you." She stood then, and Maura was surprised to feel some disappointment at their meal coming to an end. "I wish I could stay but I have to get back upstairs. Maybe tomorrow, if we're not called out, you want to go out somewhere? Get out of the office for a bit?"
"Sure." Maura worked to keep the excitement out of her voice. She felt a bit like her little girl, coming home from her comfortable in-home daycare and telling her enthusiastically that she'd made a friend. She watched as Jane headed for the door and then stopped suddenly to turn back to face her.
"I never even asked you...what's your daughter's name?"
Maura hesitated for a moment before speaking, realizing that she'd never spoken her daughter's name aloud in the entire time she'd been in the ME's office. "Sasha," she said gently, her daughter's name filling her mouth and the air around them like a burst of the sweetest fruit. "Sasha Elizabeth."
"That's beautiful," Jane said sincerely, seeming to grasp the seriousness of the moment. "How did she get her name?" She noted Maura's confused look and explained. "I had a teacher once that made us explain how we got our names on the first day of class as an icebreaker."
"Clever. You and I ought to try that out sometime." Maura thought back then, remembering her unexpected pregnancy and Sasha's arrival, stirred a bit by the memories. "I always liked Sasha for some reason, even though it really has no origins in terms of my family history. And Elizabeth is for Elizabeth Stern, the pathologist."
"Naturally," Jane teased, and it emboldened Maura to continue.
"I really wanted to name her something with a M so that we'd both have that in common. But I couldn't find one that I liked. And I loved Nora but I couldn't do that to her. It seemed cruel."
"Why...oh. Maura and Nora." Jane snorted. "Good choice. So Sasha's not a family name? Did your parents want you to name her something else?"
Maura looked away then. "My parents weren't exactly thrilled," she explained. "This sort of thing is frowned upon in their kind of circles and even though I wasn't young or destitute or without career prospects, they still had a hard time with it."
"I'm sorry," Jane murmured, looking apologetic as she kept inadvertently edging into sensitive waters. "That must have been difficult."
Maura managed a smile of sorts. "We were never close, my parents and I, so it wasn't so much a huge falling out. And they do love Sasha. She's...I'm more than a bit biased because she's mine, of course, but I think it was hard for them not to love her. Plus, I was adopted, so even though the circumstances were not ideal, they sort of took to the idea of being her grandparents even more than I think they took to the idea of being my actual parents." She still couldn't believe herself. These were the sort of thoughts she had late at night as she hovered at the edge of sleep, sometimes with her daughter wrapped tightly in her arms. Maura couldn't fathom how she was somehow spilling it all to Jane Rizzoli, a complete stranger though a nice enough one at that. "So her name was the least of their worries. Anything I picked probably would have disappointed them anyway."
Jane seemed startled by the bluntness of Maura's statements, but recovered quickly. "I think it's pretty," she said, and Maura was surprised to find that she was touched by the little hint of loyalty in her voice. "Like yours. I don't think I knew any Mauras growing up, but it's nice. It suits you."
Maura tried awkwardly to return the compliment. "Thank you. And yours is…"
"Terrible," Jane groaned. "I mean, I don't dislike it, but I have to hear about it every time we get a damn Jane Doe upstairs."
"I wouldn't say that," Maura tried again, remembering Jane's unexpected kindness and understanding and trying to repay it in some way. "I think you make a good Jane."
Jane groaned again, more playfully this time, as she turned to leave. "Maura, somehow, in some weird way, we managed to bare our souls over mediocre soup and salad at least a day past its prime. We're practically best friends now. So you can do away with the formalities and save yourself the trouble. Out of the two of us, you clearly have the best name." She hesitated in the doorway to toss a grin over her shoulder. "Or, more accurately, your baby wins. Sasha beats both of us out, although you're a close second."
Maura found herself smiling back, a warm feeling flooding her body at Jane's casual mention of her baby. Sasha was three, sure, and Maura spent most of her days emphasizing that Sasha was a big girl who could try new, hard things, but she privately still thought of her as her baby more often than not. "So, since we're practically best friends," she teased. "Same time tomorrow?"
"It's a date." Jane called the last part back, almost in partial song, as she headed for the elevator, so Maura couldn't catch her face and was glad that Jane hadn't caught hers. A date, was it? Maura could only wonder and was glad to be able to do it with both Jane and her daughter safely out of sight but still looming large in the back of her mind.