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Nathaniel Rizzoli-Isles has been told a million times not to stray from the front steps of his palatial Beacon Hill townhome without a mom immediately at his side. That doesn’t keep him, however, from flirting with the edge of the bottom step as his mommy fastens the millions of buttons of her new fall coat back in the foyer.
It’s just so nice; it hasn’t rained in a few days, so the vivid leaves on the ground are crisp and utterly tempting to play in. His own pea coat fastened tight up to his neck (but miraculously free from November’s dreaded, choking scarf), he balances on the step, careful not to fall over the edge, and when and if he does, he quickly checks around to see if he has been caught.
On the third such slip landing him a whole stride out of bounds, he looks back over his shoulder and sees a man, solid but aging, stooped with the pain of a hard-fought life.
“Careful there,” the man says, sending half a jolt of fear down to Nate’s gut. He wants to be nice, but Ma and Uncle Barry and Uncle Frankie are always lecturing him on not talking to strangers, especially if you do not have one of your grownups with you. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Nate says tentatively, eyes flashing back towards the house. What is taking Mommy so long?
“You’re Nate, right?”
That sounds some alarms, but Nate still tries to be polite with a smile.
“I know your mom.”
“Which one?”
The man grins wryly at the questions. “Well put, kid. I’m your grandpa.”
“Nuh-huh,” Nate says insistently. “I know my grandpas.”
“Mm. I guess you’re right. Still, had my eye on you. You might be Beacon Hill now, boy, but you’ve got Charlestown in you, and I want you to use it if the time comes.”
“What time?” Nate asks innocently, still inching back towards the stairs. Stranger danger, his Uncle Frankie’s voice rings in his ears. He’s not quite sure what that means, but it means he probably needs a mom.
“Get away from him.”
“Sorry,” the stranger grumbles, backing away, as Nate looks up sharply at his mother’s tone.
“Nathaniel,” Maura orders him to her side, harsher than usual. Her new demeanor sets him on edge, and he slips up the few steps to her side, positioning himself between his mommy and the stranger, back against her legs.
“He’s got good instincts,” the old man praises, still eying him. “’Heard you adopted a boy from the ‘Town. Looked into his family-.”
“We’re his family,” Maura cuts him off, hands holding tight to Nate’s little chest. Nate lifts his hands to grip her wrists.
“Right. You’ll be happy to know he won’t have anyone like me coming looking for him. Doesn’t look like the girl either, but I don’t have the same connections on that side of town.”
“C’mon. We’ll go right out here and find Mommy and Nate and- What the hell!”
Jane pushes out the front door with Olivia on her hip and pulls up short at the scene in front of her. She all but throws Livvy into Maura’s arms and steps forcibly in front of her entire family.
Livvy wails at the sudden aggressive movement, and Nate moves closer to Maura’s knee.
“I’m just here to check in, Detective.”
“Bullshit.”
“Jane, language.”
Jane shoots Maura a brief ‘Really? Now?’ glare out of the corner of her eye, and Maura looks between the children.
“This is our home, and while you’re not trespassing yet, I don’t think the patrolmen I could have here in three minutes will care so much about technicalities.”
Maura tries desperately to soothe the sobbing two-year-old on her hip, because it seems infinitely better than attempting to deal with whatever is going on in front of her right now. She keeps one hand flat against Nate’s steadily rising chest. Despite the palpable tension of the scene, her six-year-old son is exceptionally calm, standing strong against her, eyes curiously surveying the confrontation between his ma and the old man, his hands gripping her wrist as much for her support as his. She decides not to think about that, instead burying her face in Livvy’s neck and murmuring softly to calm her.
“I get it, Detective,” Doyle relents, stepping back, hands spread to prove he is no threat.
But he so is.
“You asked me to take care of her.”
“I can-” Maura speaks up weakly.
“So we’re taking care of each other,” Jane assures, another sidelong glance at her wife. “And our family. We’ve got it covered. She’s gone her whole life without you; we can make it the rest, too.”
“I have a right-”
Maura finally musters a strong response: “You gave me up. You have no rights unless I give them to you. And I most certainly haven’t.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Jane echoes him. “Now, go.” She removes her phone and starts dialing. “Yes, this is Detective Jane Rizzoli. I’d like three units at my address...”
Doyle knows exactly what she’s doing. He respects his daughter’s wife enough to expect it, which is why he has an untraceable car around the corner, but he has to risk just a few seconds to study the woman his daughter has grown into, the mother he always imagined hers would be.
“You look just like her,” he says to Maura.
Maura sets her jaw, hikes finally quiet Olivia further up her hip, and moves her hand to Nathaniel’s shoulder.
“You stay away from her,” she says, protective of the mother he stole her from.
He gives pretty little Livvy a warm smile and locks his eyes on Nate again.
“Remember what I said, Nate,” Doyle says firmly.
The boy’s hazel eyes stay locked on the old man as he moves away, until his mommy all but pushes him into the house and the familiar sirens grow louder.
***
Inside, it’s a little chaotic.
One of the officers comes in to take statements, and Jane and Maura dismiss him quickly afterwards. Jane is pacing, and Maura is on the couch, idly holding one of Livvy’s stuffed animals and desperately trying to keep herself from staring at Nate.
“What the he...ck did Paddy Doyle say to him?” Jane bursts, casting her eyes over to the side of the living room where Nate rolls a ball that Livvy chases after and retrieves. “Nate.”
Nate’s eyes snap up to meet his ma’s, but she can’t bear to make him any uneasier than he already seems to be.
She softens and orders: “Stop playing fetch with your baby sister. She’s not a puppy.”
“Can I have a puppy?” Nate asks hopefully.
“No,” Jane answers quickly, just as Maura says:
“Not yet.”
Nate gives them a tentative grin, and, sensing the momentary calm in the storm, Livvy speaks up:
“Park, Mommy?”
Jane watches Maura nearly break at the sweet obliviousness of Olivia, and she stoops down to pick their daughter up and deposit her in Maura’s lap.
“Park, please?” Livvy tries again, patiently.
Maura looks torn, and Jane takes a calming breath.
“I think everyone was promised a park trip, so I say we get our butts down to the Common before all the leaves have been jumped in.”
Nate jumps up to reclaim his discarded coat, and Livvy squirms in the same direction. Maura lets her down with a kiss.
“Get your sister’s coat, too, Nathaniel,” Maura calls, voice only shaking a little.
“Yes, Mother,” Nate sings back.
Maura looks up towards Jane, taking in shuddering breath.
“I don’t know if I can-”
“He can’t break us, Maura. We’re stronger than that. Let’s get them out of here, some fresh air and some distance. Then tonight. Tonight, we’ll talk, okay?”
“Yes, you’re right, we shouldn’t put added stress on their environment after a morning like this one.”
“Right,” Jane musters a smile and pulls Maura up off the couch, leaning in close to kiss her softly, arms encircling her waist for a quick squeeze of support. “We’ll let them get a little more normal.”
“Less kissing, more walking,” Nate calls, tiny fingers flying over the Velcro of Livvy’s mary-janes and then fumbling with his own laces.
“Need help, little man?”
“I got it,” Nate insists, shooing his moms away before they can even begin to interfere.
***
It is an absolutely lovely fall day in Boston, but Doyle has gone and ruined that for the older two members of the Rizzoli-Isles family.
The younger two, however, are barely affected, chasing each other through the carpets of leaves in the Boston Common. Jane never ceases to be amazed at how Nate can go all rough and tumble with her, his uncles, and his schoolmates, and yet be so innately gentle with his baby sister, picking her up after he has softly knocked her over and brushing the leaves from her hair.
After the leaves grow old, they move to the playground alongside the Frog Pond, which Nate eyes forlornly.
“When can we ice skate?” he asks, fingers laced in his mommy’s.
“Not til Thanksgiving,” Jane answers.
The boy makes a face but accepts it.
“Froggy?” Livvy asks, headed over to the bronze frog statues at the base of the sometime swimming pool, sometime skating rink.
“Hey Liv, do you think you’re ready to start ice skating?”
“Oh Jane, I don’t think she’s acquired the proper motor skills for-”
“Froggy!” Livvy repeats.
“I’m sure we can try,” Maura sighs, and Jane gives her her first genuine smile since their run-in with Doyle.
“And soon enough we’ll have you both playin’ hockey.”
“Cool!” Nate exclaims. “Hey, Ma! I’m six now. You said when I was six you’d teach me!”
“Oh, you did, did you?” Maura questions.
“I was four,” Jane shrugs. “Don’t worry. He’ll wear a helmet.”
“You’ll both wear helmets.”
“Yes, dear.”
***
That night, Nate and Livvy tucked into bed, Jane finds Maura going through her night time rituals, which only seem to get longer the older she is, no matter how often Jane assures her she’s just as beautiful without it. Maybe even more so.
Sometimes Maura relaxes the beauty regimen, but on a night like tonight it is done with military precision. Maura needs control in a chaotic world, and this is one of the little ways she finds it.
With her hair neatly collected at the nape of her neck and one of her perfectly fitted nightgowns clinging to her, Maura is the picture of calm, cool, and collected (and gorgeous). Jane knows better, though. She can see the tiny tremors, the tension pulling at the lines of her eyes.
Jane approaches her slowly, making sure to meet her eyes in the mirror and not startle her. She slides her arms around Maura’s waist and presses a kiss onto her bare shoulder.
“Hey,”
“Did they go down okay?” Maura asks, maintaining the eyes contact until Jane’s gaze turns too searching and she flicks her eyes aside.
“They did,” Jane says gently, kissing Maura’s shoulder again and waiting her out.
“He said he looked into Nate’s birth family.”
Jane waits again.
“He said that there was no one to come looking for him like he did with me... I was relieved,” Maura admits guiltily.
“Me too,” Jane laughs a little. “One surprise mobster is enough for me, thanks.”
“We shouldn’t be relieved. Or thankful. Nate is ours, no matter what,” Maura scolds.
“I know, I know,” Jane soothes. “But I’ve seen what seeing Doyle does to you, Maura, and I don’t think it is wrong for us to be grateful that Nate won’t have to go through that.”
“But I don’t want to be grateful for anything that man gives us.”
“He’s saved you life. More than once. I’m grateful for that,” Jane says softly.
Maura’s rigid spine relaxes a fraction and she catches Jane’s eyes again. She leans back against Jane’s tall frame, releasing a soft sigh as Jane’s embrace tightens.
“I just want to know what Doyle said to Nate. He’s been quiet all day. Did he say anything when you were putting him to bed?”
Jane lifts her face from Maura’s neck and sighs.
“He asked what Doyle meant when he told him that he still had Charlestown in him.”
Maura has this look, this one of perfectly poised rage, and it is in full effect.
“I told him that was where he was born. And then he asked why Doyle said he might have to use it.”
“He’s six!!!” Maura cries.
“I know. I wanna throttle that man, too.”
“What does that mean?” Maura frets.
“Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jane insists. “He’s an old man that loves to cause trouble.”
“Is it a warning?”
“I don’t know, Maura. But I know that I will protect you from whatever, and we’ll protect our family, okay?”
“Okay,” Maura nods, turning in Jane’s arms and wrapping her into her own embrace. “Okay.”
Jane kisses her hair and holds her tight.
“Don’t let him get to you. He doesn’t have that much power over us, okay?”
Maura doesn’t answer, just clinging tighter.
***
Maura wakes early and gets started on breakfast.
Twenty minutes later (and twenty minutes too early), Nathaniel joins her, already dressed in his uniform for the day. He clambers up onto a stool at the breakfast bar with a “Morning, Mommy.”
“Good morning, darling,” Maura greets, coming around to kiss him and adjust his crooked tie. She notes that while he is fully dressed, neither his hair nor his teeth are brushed. She reminds herself to double check that before they leave the house.
“Are you hungry, Nate?”
“Yeah,” the boy grins.
“Well, I think I can do something about that,” Maura laughs, dropping one last kiss on his temple before returning to the egg whites in the frying pan.
“Mommy?” he asks, tearing into the banana she left at his usual seat.
“Yes, Nate?”
“Who was that man?”
Sweet, observant Nathaniel was always going to ask. It was just a matter of time. So far, honesty has always worked with the boy, and she is not capable of much else.
“Well, you know I was adopted, much like you and Olivia.”
Nate nods, mouth full of food.
“That was my biological father. My... birth father.”
They have discussed the concept a few times, but never very seriously. Nate knows his birth parents could not care for him. He doesn’t know that his father voluntarily surrendered his rights, and was subsequently killed in a petty drug dispute. Or that his mother had him taken by the state for leaving him unattended for almost two days, until a neighbor checked in on the intermittently screaming six-month-old. Or that she eventually had her rights terminated after eighteen months of disastrous attempts at rehab. The last any one of Jane’s contacts had word of her, she was still losing those struggles.
She just doesn’t think he is ready at six to hear any of that.
“Why was he here?” Nate asks, instead of going in the direction Maura expects.
“I don’t know, Nate. I have asked him to stay out of my life.”
She wants him to know that he can do that, even though Doyle assured her no one would come looking for him. She wants him to know his heart can pick his family.
“He wanted somethin’ from me,” Nate says, happily taking the plate she slides toward him, a healthy egg white omelet waiting for him.
Maura grips her spatula tightly but keeps her voice calm.
“What do you mean, Nathaniel?”
“Wanted me to do somethin’,” Nate clarifies, mouth full of eggs. “Mother,” he adds with a messy, mischievous grin.
“What?” Maura asks lightly.
Nate shrugs.
“He didn’t say nothing.”
“Anything,” Maura corrects instinctively.
“Right, sorry.”
Maura shakes his apology off.
“You do not have to do anything for him, do you understand?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
“And if you ever see him again, I want you to tell your mother and I immediately.”
“Of course,” Nate nods. His eyes drop. “I’m sorry I talked to him today.”
“Oh, Nate, no,” Maura breathes, hurrying around the island to hug him close. “Well, I do not like you talking to any strangers, but you stayed at the door. You did well.”
“Good mornin’,” a groggy Jane announces from the bottom of the steps, Livvy on her hip and equally sleepy. “The grumps’re up, morning people.”
“Good morning, Olivia,” Maura says after giving Nate another squeeze. She releases her son and scoops her daughter out of her wife’s arms. She kisses the toddler’s cheek, and Livvy barely tolerates it. She kisses Jane, too, and she takes it a little better.
“Hungry, Mommy,” Livvy announces, letting her head fall onto Maura’s shoulder.
“Mm, smells good,” Jane echoes. Taking a cup of coffee from the pot Maura has left brewing, Jane takes a sip and then lets out a relieved sigh that makes Nate giggle. “Morning, dude. How’d you sleep?”
“Good- Well! You, Ma?”
Maura grins that she didn’t even have to correct him. Jane smiles, meeting Maura’s eyes.
“I had the funniest dream.”
“Me too!” Nate exclaims.
“Well, I said it first.”
Still stuffing his face, Nate gestures for his mother to go ahead. Maura listens as she settles Livvy into her high chair and cuts up her banana.
“Well, Mommy was there.”
“O’ course,” Nate shrugs.
Maura arches an eyebrow.
“Me, Ma?” Livvy asks.
“Nope, Liv. You and Nate must’ve been at Nonna’s.”
“Oh.”
Nate giggles.
“And Bass could talk! He was bossing us around. But politely, ‘cause he’s a turtle.”
“Tortoise!!!” the rest of her family corrects.
“Okay, okay. Tortoise.”
“Ma, that’s a silly dream.”
“Very,” Maura agrees.
“I told you! So what about yours, Nate? What happened?”
“I rode a t-rex! It was awesome.”
Maura keeps an eye on the clock. She listens to the goofy morning chatter and lets Paddy Doyle drift from her mind.
If he ever gets near her family again, though, she makes no promises that she won’t do with a scalpel what he famously does with an ice pick.
***
fin