#they're falling

They’re panhandling the southwest corner of Boston Commons when Jane spots her. It’s the first time she’s seen her in years, but she would know that profile anywhere. The woman is exiting the Cinema with two women around her age, both of them talking excitedly. Next her her, Morgan and Sweet see the threesome too. Sweet licks his lips.

“Bet they got cash on ‘em,” he says, and even though she’s been with him for nearly nine months, the harshness of his transplanted Dominican accent still grates on her.

“Yeah,” Morgan says in his soft voice. “Even coming from the movies and all.” He’s already coming down from his last high, she can tell. He shifts from foot to foot, rubbing his right arm and watching the three women as they make their way down the sidewalk.

Jane makes sure to keep her voice steady, to show the same signs of losing a high that they are.

“Too many people,” she says, looking around pointedly. It is almost dusk, but it is a Friday, and if anything, the Tremont and Boylston are becoming more crowded. “Should get outta here before the cops show anyway.” She speaks to Sweet, the leader of their little sidewalk crew.

Sweet licks his lips again. Jane has seen him stab a man twice his size for skimping on a kilo. She waits, hoping that what she’s learned about body language is working, and that she looks subservient. Ready to do his bidding.

And after a moment Sweet nods, and he drops his gaze away from the retreating threesome. “She right,” he says. “Besides. Bitches dressed like that? They’d pinch us for sure we let any of ‘em walk away. And I’m not up for that tonight. Not with plenty of other choices.”

Jane does not let the sigh of relief out.

She turns away with Sweet and Morgan, and doesn’t look back.

…….

Made contact with two new dealers. tier two. they are suppliers with direct contact.

Panhandled on side street off Tremont

ripped off drunk homeless man who left his vodka unattended.

saw Maura.

saw Maura….Holy fuck.

but she didn’t see me.

…….

“Jane?”

Maura finds her three days later, on the same corner, and although she looks decidedly less upper class, her designer jeans and simple blue blouse give her away on closer inspection.

Jane, on the other hand, looks strung out and homeless. She’s supposed to, but that doesn’t make this any easier. She taps her fingers against the dirty knee of her jeans, and wonders for a moment how this nervous tic has actually become hers.

How did Maura even find her? Did she see Jane the other day as she left the theatre? Is she that recognizable?  

“Jane?”

Speak, dammit. “No,” she says, her voice hoarse. “Wrong person.”

Maura looks like she almost believes this, and then she studies Jane’s face a moment longer and rejects the idea of a mistake completely.

“No,” she says. “No, it is you. I’m Maura. Do you remember me? We spent the summer together when we were kids? God,” she steps closer, and Jane can smell her. She smells so…clean. “I can’t believe it’s you. I can’t believe…” but then she seems to snap out of whatever memory she’s in, and as she comes back to the moment, her face falls. “Oh,” she says quietly. “Jane.”

Sweet is going to come around the corner any second, and if he sees her talking to someone dressed like this, he will jump them both, and her cover will be blown. Everything she’s been working for will be blown.

“Nope,” she says, turning away. “You’ve got the wrong person.”

Maura calls her name once more, but Jane doesn’t turn around. She hopes that she’s been convincing.

……

……

“Yo, Jess! There’s some girl here to see you!”

Jane grumbles, checking her watch. She’s not scheduled for check in for another six hours. Who could possibly be looking for her?

“Who is it?” she calls back, eyes drifting back to the TV.

“She won’t say! Just get out here, would ya?”

Groaning, Jane stands and makes her way into the tiny hallway. There’s her roommate Will, eyes half lidded from whatever narcotic he was shoving up his nose when the doorbell rang. And there, in the doorway, looking back at her with a terrified sort of determination…

Jane nearly chokes on her own tongue.

“Ja-” Maura Isles begins, eyes widening at the sight of her.

“Megan,” Jane cuts her off, stepping in front of Will so he will stop staring at her chest, trying not to notice the way Maura’s face falls at the incorrect name.

“No,” she begins, her voice a little smaller. “It’s-”

But Jane turns towards her roommate, holding up her hand. “Give us a second, Will okay?”

“Only got like…3 more lines worth, Jess.”

Jane shrugs, figuring it’s just as well. This is why she chose Will as a roommate in the first place. Because he can blow through coke like nobody’s business.

“We’ll get more tomorrow. Vito paid me yesterday, and I already covered rent.”

Will’s eyes light up. “How much?” he asks.

Jane shrugs again, trying not to show how eager she is to be done with this conversation. “Couple bags…Whatever I got,” she says vaguely. “Long as you take me directly to Polanco, so that I can see the stuff cut myself.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Maura draw in a breath and hold it.

Will claps her hard on the shoulder. “I got the call in,” he turns away and then turns back. “I’ll try to get Rico to save you a line...no promises.”

Jane makes a sort of half salute with her hand, and then turns back to the girl in the hall.

Maura is looking at her with a mixture of devastation and horror and something else too. Jane steps up close to her so that she can shut the door behind them, and the blond does not move. Her eyes stay on Jane’s face, searching.

“Hey, Maura,” Jane says, as much to break the silence as to prove she hasn’t forgotten.

Maura starts slightly, blinking, and then she frowns.

“Why do they call you Jess?” She asks.

Jane shrugs her shoulders. “Because that’s my name.”

“No, it isn’t,” Maura says quickly. “I know your name, Jane.”

Jane prays that the two guys in her apartment are too far gone to be listening at the door. Maura crosses her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?” she asks.

Jane sighs. “I feel like it should be obvious. How did you find out where I live?”

“I followed you.”

Jane stares at her, heart pounding. “You followed me?”

“Yes,” Maura says, her voice studiously neutral. “I watched you and your…friends…obtain drugs from that man in Back Bay…I watched you break into that condemned building, ostensibly to do said drugs, and then I watched you all make your way back here.”

Jane blinks confusedly, realizing that this makes her look stoned.  Maura’s face gets a little stonier.

“Jane-”

“You have to get out of here,” Jane cuts her off. “Seriously, Maura, you can’t be here.”

“Why did you pretend not to know me the other day? Do you know that I’ve been looking for you every since I came to BU?”

This brings Jane up short. “B…wait…You go to Boston University?” Maura nods. “We talked about going there…do you remember?”

The way she says ‘do you remember’ makes Jane angry and ashamed at the same time. Maura is here, in Boston, permanently, and there is nothing the brunette can do about it.

“We talked about a lot of things,” Jane says roughly. The faster she wounds, the faster she can be free of this. “We were just kids.”

“Seventeen isn’t so young,” Maura says. “I don’t think I’ve changed all that much…I don’t think you have either, down deep.”

Jane snorts. “You don’t know anything about my down deep.”

“I’d like to.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I love Boston,” Maura says, and Jane looks up at her, momentarily confused by the change in subject. “I love BU, but I can’t pretend that I don’t look for you, subconsciously at least, when I go places. I can’t pretend you weren’t at least a small part of the reason I moved here.”

“JESS!” Will calls out from inside the apartment. “Sweet’s on his way! Where’s your dough at?”

Jane rolls her shoulders. “ONE SEC,” she calls back. “Look, Maura. You’ve got to go?”

“I could call the police on you,” She says this as though it is the worse possible thing she can think of. Jane thinks it might be, if she were really a drug addict.

“Call ‘em,” she snarls, trying to put extra venom in her voice. “See if I care. Just…call them from somewhere else.”

“You’re afraid of Sweet,” Maura peers at Jane. “You’re afraid of him seeing me. Why?”

Jane blinks at her. “Do I need to spell it out, genius?”

Maura looks hurt, and then confused. “I don’t-”

“Christ!” Jane slaps a hand against her thigh, making the smaller girl jump. “Can you just get the fuck out of here, Maura? Please? Don’t you get I don’t want to see you?”

“What’s happened to you?” Maura asks, taking a step back. “What happened to the girl who was saving up to go to the Police Academy? Who was kind and sweet and brave and…” Maura stops herself, shaking her head. “What happened to my very first friend?”

At that moment, Jane would give anything in the world to tell her the truth. Anything.

But she squares her shoulders, and stands up straight, noticing that she still has a good four inches on Maura. “Things change,” she says firmly. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

Maura doesn’t move. “I looked you up at the Academy, you know. About a year ago, when I first got here.”

Jane shakes her head.

“Your brother was just entering. Frankie? But they didn’t have any record of you, Jane. Did you even go?”

Jane balls her hands up into fists, and then flattens them out on her jeans. “Maura,” she says, striving to keep her voice steady. “You should go. You should go back to campus and just…forget about me.”

But Maura steps closer instead. “What happened?” She asks quietly. “Did something happen? I’ve read about the catalysts to drug addiction. Did someone die? Did you not make the Academy? Did…did you suffer some kind of att-”

But Jane cannot bear it any longer. She throws her hands up and shakes her head. Maura retreats a bit, looking shocked.

“God, enough! Enough, Maura, Jesus. You think I got mugged on the way home from work, and that’s why I’m a crackhead now?”

“You’re…not…” Maura looks down at her hands, unable to lie about the evidence piling up. “I can get you help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Jane snarls, hating herself, hating the way Maura’s hands knot in front of her. “I don’t need annnyoneshelp,” these words slur, and Jane is unsure if she’s just that good an actress or if her emotions are getting the best of her. “Get out of here.”

Maura takes a breath, and Jane knows she’s going to try again, one more time. She can tell by the way the shorter girl bites her lip, the way she looks up, strong chin. And Jane knows that if she allows Maura to speak, she will blow her cover for this girl, and she might not even regret it.

“It was just a summer,” she says, before Maura can open her mouth. “Fuck, it wasn’t even a full summer. Just like…three stupid weeks in the middle of July. You think it meant something to me? You think I cared?”

Maura takes a step back like Jane has hit her. The brunette swallows enough guilt to make her full. “Get out.” She says.

Maura turns on her heel, and heads back the way she’s come. She doesn’t look back.

……

Tonight. Called it in already. It’s going down tonight.

We’ll have Polanco and 19 of his dealers if I counted right.

I counted right.

Tonight. It’s going down. I don’t believe in god.

But I sure hope he believes in me.

…….

“Eat, Janie!” Angela nudges Jane’s plate towards her with a nervous smile. “You can’t have had anything good to eat since you went undercover.”

Jane snaps herself back to reality and looks down at the heaping plate of manicotti her mother has just placed in front of her.

“This is enough food to feed Somalia, Ma. I can’t eat all of this.”

“Try,” her mother says firmly. “Your uniform will be hanging off you at the ceremony if you don’t. If you’d let me take it in-”

Jane rolls her eyes for what feels like the hundredth time that evening. “You can’t take it in, Ma, because I’m going to fill it out again. I’m already up six pounds in the last two weeks.”

Angela huffs, and spoons a heaping side of green beans onto Jane’s plate. “I still don’t see why they can’t do weekly food drops or-”

But Frankie intervenes here, laughing as he spoons half of Jane’s manicotti onto his own plate. “Yeah, Ma, that wouldn’t look weird at all. “Oh, excuse me, crack addict I’ve never met before? Here is some homemade pasta e fagiole!”

Jane laughs too. “Why thank you, kind officer I’ve never met before!” They half bow to each other across the table, and when Frank and Tommy start to laugh too, Angela swats at Jane halfheartedly before sinking into her own seat with a resigned head shake.

“EAT!” She says, pointing at Jane, and Jane does, sighing in approval on the first bite.

“I did miss your cooking, Ma,” she says. “Thank you for making this tonight.”

“You’re a hero,” Angela says proudly. “And tomorrow, you’re a detective!”

“16 months undercover to bust the biggest drug ring in the city, she better be making detective,” Frank grunts proudly. “They should give her the key to the damn governor’s mansion.”

Jane dips her head so he doesn’t see how that comment makes her blush. “Thanks, Pop,” she mumbles. Frankie kicks her under the table.

Later, at the sink, the three sibling take up their usual spots, Frankie scraping, Jane washing, Tommy drying. There is something comforting about falling into the routines of their childhood. After a year and a half of shitty apartment and affecting the shakes, the warmth and familiarity of her relatives is almost stifling.

“Hey,” Frankie says after about five minutes of washing in silence. “Some girl came looking for you at the precinct.”

Jane sighs heavily. It’s been almost three months since she sent Maura away from her fake apartment, and she has been mostly successful in blocking the blonde’s face from her thoughts and dreams.

“Yeah,” she says. “I know. We met the summer I worked in the Hamptons.”

Frankie nods. “I thought it might be her…Maura, right?” He waits until Jane nods. “You really sold drug addict, you know? She begged me to help you.”

Jane stops washing to grip the side of the sink. “It was the right thing to do.”

“I know,” Frankie says apologetically. “Sorry for bringing it up, Jay.”

Jane shrugs, and they wash for a second longer in silence until Tommy makes a disgruntled noise.

“Something to share with the class there, bud?” Jane asks.

Tommy shrugs, reminding Jane of herself. “I remember when you got back that fall,” he says finally. “You talked about Maura constantly for like…two months.” He looks at Jane through his long lashes, “Literally, you talked about nothing else. Ma and Pop might not have got it…but me and Frankie aren’t stupid.”

Frankie reaches around Jane to smack Tommy on the back of the head, and Jane puts her hand out to stop him automatically.

“What are you saying?” she asks, turning back to Tommy, hands on her hips. “I should have blown my cover for a girl I…might have had a crush on like…a million years-”

“Three,” Tommy says with another shrug. “And I dunnah, Jane. I’m just saying… You’re not undercover anymore. And she cared enough about you to go to Frankie…that must be worth something.”

Jane opens her mouth, but then shuts it again without speaking. She doesn’t have anything to say to that.

……

Rookie cop Jane Rizzoli is a rookie no more. After more than twelve months under cover, Rizzoli, 22, has brought down one of the largest drug rings in the Metro area. Totaling nineteen arrests in total, Rizzoli has managed to bring in Michel Polanco, who has been rumored to have run the ring for the last seven years. “This is the biggest bust this city has seen in over two decades,” Chief of Police Sean Cavanaugh told the Globe. “Rizzoli is moving to Homicide, and if she’s as effective there as she has been, then the city’s criminals had better watch out.”

……

She is descending the steps from the stage, clutching the little box holding her medal, face tired from all the smiling, when for the fourth time in two months, Maura Isles is standing in front of her. She’s dressed in a blue dress. It fits in all the right places. Jane feels lumpy and hot in her full uniform.

“Can I call you Jane now?” A smile tugs at the corner of Maura’s mouth.

“How did you-”

“I read the paper,” Maura cuts her off. “Front to back, though, you were right there on the cover.”

Jane can’t think of anything to say in response to this. Does she apologize? Crack a joke? Run away? All three options seem equally viable at the moment. Jane swallows and reaches up to take her hat off, the most she can do to make herself look a little less idiotic.

“You lied to me.” Maura breaks the silence first.

Jane nods, trying to make her brain find any words besides how pretty Maura is. An apology seems fitting. “I’m…sorry.”

“They didn’t have your name at the front because you were…undercover?” Maura looks up into Jane’s face, as if trying to read confirmation there.

“You’re so beautiful,” Jane says before she can stop herself. “Like…you got so much more beautiful, Maura.” She blushes furiously at the end of this, but Maura laughs lightly.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “It is good to see you, Jane. Even better now that I know you’re not in danger.”

“I’m sorry I was such a jerk.”

“It’s okay.”

“Sweet…that’s Polanco’s like…right hand…I’d seen him really hurt people who got in his way…or who looked like they had money, and I just. I didn’t think I could let him-”

“It’s okay,” Maura says again.

“I just couldn’t blow my cover, and I couldn’t let you stand there trying to save me when I knew he was coming and so I-”

“Jane,” Maura raises her voice slightly, and Jane falls silent. “It’s alright. Honestly.”

“Yeah? I’m forgiven?”

Maura chuckles. “You’re forgiven.”

Jane grins. “Frankie told me you went to see him,” she says after a moment, and when Maura flushes, Jane feels some of her confidence return. “You really cared about me that much?”

Maura nods, looking serious. “Care,” she says simply. “I care about you very much, even if that does seem silly, after all this time.”

Jane can’t stop looking at her. She’s not even sure she’s registered all that Maura has said to her. “Yeah,” she says, and then when Maura looks a little crestfallen, Jane replays the moment in her head.

“No!” she says quickly, and she reaches out and takes Maura’s hand. “No, I mean…me too.”

Maura looks from Jane’s hand on hers to Jane’s eyes.

“You too?”

Jane squeezes Maura’s hand.

“Me too.”

There is more she wants to say, but at that moment Tommy shows up by her shoulder, flanked by Barry Frost and Vince Korsak. Jane drops Maura’s hands to make introductions.

“Woo!” Tommy cheers. “Homicide!”

“Congratulations, Jane,” Frost says, glancing at Maura, “and welcome back to the land of the living.”

Jane resists the urge to tap her fingers against her thigh. Three weeks and she still moves a bit like a junkie. It’s going to take time.

“You’re going to be a detective before you know it,” Korsak puts in, thumping Jane on the back.

Jane ducks her head, embarrassed.

“Is that what you’re aiming for?” Maura puts her hand on Jane’s arm. “Detective?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane sees Frost and Tommy exchange a look, but she doesn’t shake Maura off. She owes her at least that. “Fingers crossed,” she says.

They are all silent for a moment, and it is about to tip from comfortable into awkward when Korsak clears his throat. “I see your mother over there, Jane. I think I’ll go say hi.”

“Yeah,” Frost agrees, nearly dragging Tommy off with him. “Nice to meet you Maura.”

Maura smiles after the three men as they make their way across the room to where Angela and Frankie are standing.

Jane watches them go. “I should probably…go say hey to my Ma.”

Maura nods, and then nods again with greater understanding. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to…well, see you get your medal. And to make sure you knew that I knew you were okay.”

“That’s important to me,” Jane says. “That you know that.”

Maura smiles widely. “I was hoping it would be.”  She steps back then, and her expression is expectant, like she’s giving Jane one last chance.

Jane rubs the back of her neck. “So…are you like…do you want to…maybe, if you’re not too busy with school or…extracurriculars…would you want-”

“What’s happened to you?” Maura asks, closing the space between them again. She laughs at Jane’s confusion. “What’s happened to the Jane who was confident and brave and…” Maura stops herself, shaking her head. “What happened to the girl who gave me my very first kiss?”

Jane grins. “Can I call you?” she asks. “Can I take you out? We’re in the same city now…want to see if we can make it past three weeks?”

Maura looks like she could throw her arms around Jane’s neck, but she reaches into her bag and pulls out a piece of paper instead. Her phone number pre-printed, like she’d been waiting for this exact moment.

“When you get home, Officer,” she whispers. “Don’t make me wait.”