Rizzoli & Isles 1. Chapter 1

Jane loved surprises. Unfortunately Maura did not, which is why they were fighting.

"I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of it!"

"How could you say that to me, Jane? You just proposed in front of all of our friends and family!"

"Is that why you're angry? Or are you mad that I asked at all?!" Both decibel and pitch of Jane's voice rose dramatically.

"That's not fair, Jane. You know it's not fair. We've talked about this. Our first date, I told you how I feel. Two months into dating when I met Stacy we talked about this. Our six month anniversary when you 'surprised' me," Maura aggressively air quoted, "by signing a 18 month lease for our first 'joint' apartment, Jane, we talked about this."

"Hey, that's not fair. I said I was sorry. I gave up my $2000 deposit to show you how sorry I was."

"Agh! Jane! And I told you then what I have always told you. It's not that I don't want to be with you! I wouldn't be here tonight if I didn't love you!"

"Well, what is it then, Maura? Because two years is a long time to be with someone without some sort of promise of a future," Jane postured.

"'_Promise'_ of a '_future'_, Jane?" Maura emphasized sarcastically.

"Stop saying Jane," she muttered under her breath.

"What was that?!"

"I said …!" But Jane let the sentence escalate into nowhere. Frustrated hands shoved into unruly curls. "I'm sorry! Ok? It's just that I thought we were doing so well, I thought you had changed…"

"Careful," Maura cut her off. "Think carefully about what you're about to say," she warned.

"What?!" In any other circumstance, Jane's look of faux innocence would have prompted a stifled laugh from Maura. Instead Maura flashed her best, "really, Jane?" raised-eyebrows look, daring her girlfriend to continue her thought.

Jane, the idiot, took the bait: "It's just, admit it, you're a different person than when we started dating."

Jane couldn't quite meet Maura's eyes for the last half of the sentence, but looked up just in time to see Maura's eyes close and chest expand as she slowly sucked in a breath to collect herself.

Not good.

Jane took one step towards her girlfriend, then hesitated as she saw Maura stiffen at the sound.

"Look, I'm sorry." Jane rasped, hands covering her face. "I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did." Eyes still closed.

"I love you just the way you are."

"Do you?" Maura challenged, eyes snapping upward, daggers. Jane's face flashed panic.

"You know I do! Why would I ask you to marry me if I didn't?" Jane wailed.

"I think you tolerate me," Maura spat, "at least this part of me."

Jane threw her hands up in protest, but Maura kept going. "Oh I think you'll hope I'll change, maybe even that I have already. But I haven't, Jane! And it hurts me that you wish I had."

"Wait, Maura, that's not what I meant," Jane tried.

"I've never hidden anything from you," Maura accused with a pointed finger, but the flash of anger was quickly doused in a wave of sadness. "I'm sorry, I'm obviously not what you want," the last syllables muffled by her chin tipping downward and swallowed in sobs.

Jane crossed the room in a few strides to embrace her firmly. "Shh, don't cry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so sorry," she chanted gently, left hand stroking up and down her girlfriend's spine. "I love you, I love you so much. I just… I'd do anything for you. Please. I'm sorry, please don't cry," Jane murmured into her girlfriend's hairline.

Maura tensed just before thrusting her arms between them, fists to Jane's chest, pushing them apart. "I'm sorry too, Jane," her eyes cast down and to the right. Maura held that position for a beat until, almost by reflex, her left hand twitched, clutching Jane's shirt. The action gave Jane hope, but the moment was quickly over as Maura shortly pushed off Jane, spun around, and took a few purposeful strides, separating them.

"Wait," Jane pled, but too late. Maura flung open their bedroom door, to the shocked faces of the few revelers who had the bad sense to remain at the couple's annual holiday party during the row. Jane cringed at both their reactions and her own embarrassment as the details of her recent public humiliation rushed to the forefront of her memory.

Maura hesitated for a second at the threshold of their bedroom, suddenly remembering where and when she was. Jane noticed ruefully that Maura had frozen directly under mistletoe, the same mistletoe that had triggered several festive lovemaking sessions already this season. The moment suddenly became very real, and Jane felt like her knees might give.

Maura regained her poise first. "I'm very sorry to cut the festivities short, but I wish you a very happy holiday season," she addressed the merrymakers. Usually Jane would have smirked at the carefully phrased nondenominational well-wishing, but all she could focus on were the "I's" in the sentence. Not "we," as in "we, as a couple." Was this a subtle declaration of singlehood? And how could Maura be so calm about this?

Maura smoothed her skirt with her palms, crossed the room to the kitchen island to retrieve her purse, and walked out the front door, not once looking back.

Jane flinched at the sound of the door closing and kept her eyes closed as she felt the first edge of a headache laced with nausea hit her.

"Ok friends, party's over!" Jane heard her brother Frankie play damage control while Jane walked into her bathroom, closed and locked the door, shut the lid to the toilet, and collapsed in a heap of lanky limbs.


	2. Chapter 2

Maura wasn't there when Jane woke up the next morning, but there was a text message from Maura's father, Desmond, who was in town for the holidays along with Maura's mother, Constance:

"She's here and safe. Thought you should know. Sorry pal."

Desmond had given Jane his blessing for the proposed nuptials just a few days ago. And maybe she was just imagining it, but Jane detected a hint of gloat in the text message—a suggestion that he had told her so, that he still knew his daughter better than Jane did. Jane couldn't help but recall their last conversation.

"_Jane," Desmond had said with a hint of paternalism, as if he was explaining something too obvious to warrant an explanation "you do know that she's what she calls 'polyamorous'?"_

"_Yeah, I know, and I've accepted that about her." Jane muttered, with more than a hint of defensiveness in her tone. _

"_Have you?" Eyebrows raised, "Because it seems like you if you have, you wouldn't even be asking me for my blessing."_

"_Well, we've been dating for two years now and the last time she was with anyone else was over a year ago."_

"_Jane, look, I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm or speak for Maura when I may be wrong…"_

"_I think I know my own girlfriend, sir," Jane interrupted._

"_Well, ok, that may well be, but just to give you an idea of what _I_ know about Maura's sexual orientation," Jane hated when he took this professorial tone with her, "she came out to us about being polyamorous before she even felt it necessary to tell us she was bisexual. I believe this is a key aspect of her identity, and I just don't think marriage is in the cards for her."_

"_She has never cheated on me, not since we moved in together." Jane had started to pace and speak with her hands. "I know she's thought about it, but she's been faithful," her voice choking with emotion at this last statement as memories of past fights and make-up sessions flashed through her mind. It hadn't been easy, but they had both made compromises and finally gotten to a point where the relationship seemed like it was going to last. _

"_That's just the thing, Jane," Desmond said softly (and a little sadly? Was he feeling sorry for her?). "I don't think she considers it cheating. It's just who she is, and if she can't express herself that way…"_

Jane had been well annoyed by the time the conversation ended with Desmond's caveated "blessing" for their nuptials. But his lecture had not changed her mind, unsurprisingly. Jane had always been one to act on her gut. This trait had served her well in her role as homicide detective with the Boston Police Department. Her impulsivity had also had led to her getting shot, punched, roughed up, or stabbed more often than anyone else on the force.

Maura was the opposite. Her motto was that if something was worth doing, it was worth thinking through every possible scenario, which is why she was such an effective Chief Medical Examiner. Never one to guess, she always made sure that tests were run and theories explored before opining on something even as simple and obvious as cause of death for a gunshot victim. Jane had seen how useful this quality was when the doctor was being cross-examined in murder trials, but the trait could also be maddening in their personal relationship. Jane had often wondered if Maura's aversion to monogamy was more a result of chronic indecision than any real preference—that analysis paralysis was the main hurdle keeping her from entering a more traditional committed relationship. But Jane also thought that Maura had been getting better, less anal about decision-making. Maybe that meant she was willing to formalize what had become a tacit understanding of monogamy between the two of them for the past year. Now Jane didn't know what to think. She woke up not only alone but terrified that she had lost Maura forever.

In fact, Jane had spent the night dreaming that she and Maura were busy solving a murder case, until both their suspect and Maura went missing. Convinced that Maura had been kidnapped in the dream, Jane had used both her legitimate detective connections and Maura's significantly less legitimate mob family connections to find her, but couldn't come up with anything. Maura had disappeared without a clue. Worse, as the dream progressed, the people that Jane talked to were starting to forget that Maura had ever existed until even Jane began to question whether Maura was just (had always been?) a figment.

Jane had been so relieved to finally wake, to realize it had all been a dream and that Maura hadn't disappeared after all. Until she remembered—Maura was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Jane's partner Frost was the first to reach out.

At the first sound of the doorbell, Jane shrunk further into her position on the couch. When bell chimes gave way to insistent knocking, Jane yanked the blanket up over her head, as if hiding.

"Jane! Let me in," Frost pounded on the door.

"Go away!" Jane yelled from her position on the couch.

"Jane, you know I'm just going to sit out here pounding until you let me in."

"Why are you even here?! Did you lose a bet?"

"Coin flip," Frost muttered to himself. "Jane! There are people who love you that won't stop harassing me until I've seen proof of life. You know how your mother gets."

Jane shuddered at that thought. Maybe it was better to talk to Frost than to risk a visit from her mother.

"Jane! Your neighbors are staring." Jane sighed and shuffled over to the door. The last thing Jane needed right now was to get a domestic disturbance call to her apartment. Perfect fodder for continued police station gossip.

Jane flung the door open and Jane gave Frost a withering look before retreating back to her stronghold on the couch. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. If they were going to have this conversation, she was not going to have it face to face.

Frost sank into the couch next to her. "Jane, there's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Oh Frost, who even cares? What does anything matter anymore?" Jane's fingers moved to her temples and started rubbing circles, eyes clenched.

"Wow, it's that bad, is it?"

"Frost," but she couldn't continue. Her throat tightened to the point where she felt she would gag. Finally she sucked in a few shallow breaths and managed, "I don't think I can live without her."

"Jane," Frost answered soothingly, wrapping his arms around her. "She loves you, I know she does."

"I know, Frost," Jane said through her tears. "I just don't think that's enough."

"Jane," Frost admonished, shaking her lightly. "Do you hear yourself? You can't live without her but her love and devotion aren't enough?"

"Agh!" Jane winced. "Why does this have to be so complicated? Why can't I just be happy with what I have?"

Maura had a similarly emotional morning and her mother Constance was taking the brunt of it. Constance had a sophisticated elegance that seemed to tolerate a limited range of physical affection, from handshakes to air kisses. This morning, however, she had uncharacteristically embraced her daughter half a dozen times and spent the rest of it with Maura sobbing into her lap.

"I love her so much, mother."

"I know you do, darling."

"I never wanted to hurt her!" Maura blubbered.

"Shh, it's ok." Constance's fingernails lightly scratched at Maura's scalp as she ran her fingers through her daughter's hair. Constance hated to see her like this. And despite being an artist herself with an artist's mentality, when Maura had first told her about the polyamory, Constance had predicted that this would cause Maura a great deal of heartache in her life. But Constance had high hopes that Maura's relationship with Jane would prove the exception. Constance loved Jane and hated to see something come between the two if there were any other way to solve the impasse. But Constance herself was uncertain of her daughter's feelings—both about Jane and Maura's own sense of personal identity related to monogamy.

"Maura, love, do you really think it would be so bad to be married to Jane? You've spent the past few months with just Jane, have you not?"

"Over a year," Maura sniffled. "But how do I know it will last? How do I know that I'll be happy?" She cried. "Is it fair to Jane to make a promise that I don't know if I can keep? Would I start to resent her? Would she start to resent me? I can't lose her mother, and I'm terrified that if we change anything it will suddenly stop working," Maura ranted.

Constance decided to take a more aggressive tact. "Maura, which are you more worried about, losing Jane or losing the sense of self that you have carefully constructed over the years?"

"Constructed?!" Maura suddenly lifted her head and made eye contact, shocked that her mother would choose this moment to confront her about her polyamorous orientation. "Mother, I didn't choose to be the way I am."

"No, I know, dear. Why would anyone choose to be that way? Of course not." Feeling Maura stiffen, Constance felt the need to backpedal, "now, don't take that the wrong way, you know your father and I love you just the way you are. I wouldn't change a hair on your head," Constance felt Maura relax at this last statement so she emphasized it by running her fingers through Maura's hair, gently pushing Maura's head back into her lap. "You are precious to me. And all I want is your happiness. And I think that you are happy with Jane, and there is nothing wrong with that."

"I never said I wasn't, mother," Maura snapped, sitting up again, this time setting her feet on the floor, one hand covering her eyes. She was tired. She was also having déjà vu. So many other conversations with loved ones trying to persuade her that she really wasn't this way or that she could change if she just wanted to enough. It often felt like they were trying to reprogram her. The attempts seemed not just like overreaching but also terribly misguided. Wasn't the whole point of life to discover who you are and live true to that self?

Constance's volume retreated, "Well, honey, I'm just saying, often we have to sacrifice something that is important to us for something that we want more." This time Maura didn't just sit up, she stood up, putting space between her and her mother. Constance winced, instantly regretting the remark. Now was not the time to preach, now was the time to cherish the unusual level of intimacy that she was experiencing with her daughter.

"Maura…" She reached out for her, but could see that it was too late.

Eyes still directed forward, Maura stepped sideways, further distancing herself from her mother and by implication the conversation. "I think I'm going to take a walk, mother," she resolved after a moment.

"Honey, I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, no, it's not you, it's just," Maura rolled her shoulders back, composing herself as she finally met her mother's eyes "I believe I need some fresh air."

Constance understood the sudden return to formality as a closing of the emotional bridge between the two. Constance herself had used this trick many times in their mother-daughter interactions; it shouldn't surprise her that Maura had added it to her own repertoire. Still, it stung a little to be on the receiving end. "Yes, dear, that sounds lovely," she politely returned.

As Maura left her parents' hotel suite, she couldn't help but think of her mother's last statement about prioritizing important things. She was annoyed by the platitude. It wasn't as if Maura was intentionally withholding something in her relationship with Jane. If Maura could be any other way, she would. There had been plenty of opportunities and incentives to do so.

Maura's mind went through a highlight reel of her worst break ups—all related to her paramours being unwilling or unable to accommodate Maura. Maura tried to be what they wanted. She tried to love them more, thinking perhaps if she could manage that then one person would be enough. She tried to empathize with them, tried to understand why it hurt them so much to share her, but she couldn't. She had an innocent, almost naïve mind that is rare enough in children and rarer still in adults. She knew nothing of the jealousy or the demanding that motivated her lovers' ultimatums. She herself had never demanded—not from her parents who were too busy with their own lives to notice Maura's silent struggles, not from her childhood classmates who neither recognized nor appreciated Maura's gentle mind, and not from her significant others who demanded that Maura conform to their own view of a proper relationship. So Maura couldn't understand demanding, nor did she understand why her lovers seemed ok sacrificing her happiness for their own. Was that love? No, it couldn't be, she had reasoned. So when the inevitable ultimatums came, Maura always ended the relationship. She was looking for a love so broad that it would include every part about her. She would not compromise.

But her mother was right. There is a difference between compromising and sacrificing. Compromising was a transaction, a bargain struck because you were _afraid_ you could not do better. Sacrifice was a gift given willingly and without strings, because you _knew_ that you could not do better.

Was Maura willing to sacrifice her own self to be just Jane's? Was she even capable of sustaining a monogamous relationship? But then again, what was the worst that could happen? Lose Jane? It seemed to her that she was losing Jane anyway. At that thought, Maura turned back towards home—her real home. She had made a decision.


	4. Chapter 4

Jane spent the rest of the morning vacuuming, her own version of active meditation. Frost was right, she knew he was right. Maura was everything to her, what more did she want? What more could she expect from her? Maura had never lied to her, had never been anything but completely direct about this, as with all things. Maura's frank openness was one of the things Jane liked most about her. Jane fought back a blush as she remembered the graphic, yet painfully scientifically accurate descriptions that passed as "pillow talk" for Maura. At the memory, Jane felt the pressure of tears forming and tilted her head back to suppress them.

"God. How can I live without her?" she wondered for the hundredth time that day.

The sound of the vacuum cleaner muffled the shy knocks on the door. Maura felt silly to be knocking. This was her home too. But she was unsure of her place in it now, unsure of the fate of her shared life with Jane. And she suddenly felt foolish about having walked all the way here from her parents' hotel with no way to return and not even her phone or wallet with her. Would Jane want to see her? Would she be able to say what Jane was hoping to hear her say? All she knew is that if there were a chance that things could work out with Jane, she would take that chance.

She was not a risk-seeker naturally, not fearless like Jane. She was not a gambler. She had carefully constructed her life for a particular effect, as she did each day with her clothing ensembles. From her choice in French boarding schools to her decision to attend medical school, she had chosen a path that was most likely to lead to a life of quiet joy, or at least evenly rationed suffering.

Her inability to maintain a monogamous relationship was the biggest threat to a normal life, but she was certain that a degree of satisfaction and contentment could be had through other means. She had often wondered, how full could a life be with just one person to love anyway?

But being in so many relationships takes its toll as well. Every time she invested in a relationship she gave up a part of herself, and in her mid twenties she realized that she was not a renewable resource. There were only so many times she could survive a break up and bounce back to what she was. Break ups took their toll. And as full as she felt having many people to love, she also wondered if she might not feel as full if she were to have children. Jane's children, maybe. No, she was not sure if things would work out, and yes, there were a number of reasons why she might think they wouldn't. But when Maura thought about the "couldn't"s—the things she felt like she absolutely could not do even if pressed—at the top of the list was "break up with Jane." So she knocked, and knocked gently, tentatively, her cautious nature directing her in even this, her boldest decision.

Luckily Jane had been peeking out the window every 5 minutes or so, hoping to see Maura's car parked in the driveway like a child hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa. The difference was that Santa always came, and there was no guarantee of Maura's return. So when Jane looked out the window and saw Maura, her relief and gratitude were overwhelming. It felt miraculous and undeserved, the stuff of weepy black and white Christmas movies.

Jane rushed to the door and swung it open, catching Maura in mid knock.

"Jane," Maura whispered, startled. A beat passed, and Jane swept Maura into her arms, digging her head into Maura's neck. The emotions that Jane had denied herself from acknowledging overcame her.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Jane murmured through her tears. "I love you so much." Jane's voice echoed her words from last night and for a moment Maura questioned her decision again. It was not that she doubted Jane's sincerity. When she wasn't being overtly sarcastic, Jane was truthful almost to a fault, at least with those with whom she felt safe. But it was also true that nothing had changed between last night and this morning, at least nothing that would warrant the complete reversal that Maura was about to make.

"Yes, Jane."

Jane was so caught up in her own sobbing that she didn't hear Maura. Maura was struck with how this small action was a microcosm for some of her broader frustrations with the relationship and Jane's ability to truly hear her.

"I said yes, Jane." More tears. But Maura didn't have tears, she had no more tears left to cry that day. And in that emotionally exhausted state, she couldn't help but reflect, somewhat detachedly, that people were funny when they cried. Especially small children, but even adults. Once they got started crying, they often forgot the reason why they had started crying in the first place. Your lollypop fell into the dirt? Here's another one. But that didn't stop the tears. People could rarely stop crying as quickly as they started, even when they got whatever it was that they had prompted the jag. Was it because the catharsis of emotional release was more valuable to them in that moment than even the thing that they had previously been denied, then granted?

Maura was willing to be patient, but Jane's crying was not running out of steam on its own. If anything it was becoming more hysterical. Maura tried gently tracing circles on her back, but that only renewed Jane's efforts. Jane, who had been despairing all morning that she would never feel Maura's touch, was drowning in sensations. She couldn't catch her breath.

Worried that Jane might start hyperventilating, Maura grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back.

"Jane, honey. Stop it. Stop crying."

Jane hated herself for it, but Maura's sudden hardness caused her to cry harder. Maybe Maura hadn't come back to her after all. Jane was in despair. How could she have allowed herself to become so vulnerable? So weak? Jane was having a sudden crisis of identity, which only fed her despair.

"Jane," Maura said softly, but Jane didn't respond. "Jane," she said firmer. "Jane!" a gently shake for emphasis until Jane finally looked up into her eyes. "Let's go find you a seat on the couch. I'm going to make you some tea." Maura directed Jane to sit, or rather collapse, into the overstuffed sofa.

Maura stayed in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil. She knew she could have gone back to the sitting room. She knew from experience that she could hear the kettle's whistle from any place in their home. But she just needed a moment to think.

She had said yes, but Jane hadn't heard her. She could still change her mind. Did she want to change her mind? How did it feel when she said yes? Relief? Defeat? Anxiety? Maura was no better at identifying her own emotions as she was the emotions of others. It was one of the reasons why she chose to work with dead people rather than the living. Consequently, when faced with a big decision or momentous occasion, she often found herself probing her emotional reactions like a diagnostician, like one might probe a sore tooth, looking for the source and nature of the pain.

And because even then her emotions were often difficult to decode, her rational brain often filled in the gaps. So when she could not identify the particular spectrum of emotions she was experiencing at the thought of marrying Jane, her mind quickly ran through the practical pros and cons of her decision: it was such a small change. She already lived with her. Wasn't this just formalizing their current arrangement? Making it easier to put Jane on her health insurance? Lowering her taxes? Simplifying inheritance and life insurance issues? Allowing her to bypass "family only" restrictions at the hospital? At that thought, Maura felt a wave of nausea remembering the last few times Jane had been seriously hurt. Maura still had nightmares about Jane being shot in front of the police precinct. She had started running towards her even before she had heard the gun discharge. Maura was the first to each her, cradling Jane's head in her lap while applying pressure to the entry wound. Jane's blood had been so hot, so different from the corpses that Maura typically worked with. But Jane's lips had been just as pale, the look of death already revealing itself in Jane's face.

Stop, Maura thought to herself. Stop torturing yourself. But it was too late. She was lightheaded and felt like she would be sick. Maura squatted, putting her head between her knees so she wouldn't pass out. So this was how she felt about Jane. At least that much was clear. Wasn't the rest just details?

When Maura finally made it back out with the tea, Jane was draped over the arm of the couch with her head resting on her forearm, silent. The truth was that Jane was exhausted. She had not spent such a fitful night since the days of being the target of a serial killer, since… since before meeting Maura. Jane's chest ached with overexertion and a deep sense of loss.

"Jane, sweetheart, I made you tea." Maura was reluctant to talk substantively with Jane until she was sure that Jane had calmed down. Maura reached over and stroked Jane's hair, remembering how her mother's fingers had done the same to her not more than an hour ago. Maura suddenly froze. "My mother was stroking my hair," she suddenly realized.

Jane sucked in the spit threatening to pool itself on her sleeve. "What did you say?"

"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize I said that audibly," Maura shook her head, caught up in the memory. Did her mother initiate the contact? She tried to remember. Even if it was Maura who started the embrace, her mother had definitely reciprocated. Maura had craved her mother's affection growing up, but there had been only a handful of equally intimate embraces. Of course they had grown closer recently. All because of…

"Jane," she whispered. She said it so gently that Jane ears strained to hear. She tilted her head up and towards Maura so she could read her lips.

But Maura didn't speak. She was caught up in a thought. Her mother had been a very cold person for years, decades really. Then Jane confronted her about it and Constance changed. She became a better mother. Constance became more of what Maura had always wanted, who Maura had needed. Her mother had changed for Maura—had sacrificed part of her identity for Maura. Maura felt gratitude both for her mother's love and a deeper appreciation for the advice that Constance had been trying to share that morning. Of course her mother knew about the difference between compromise and sacrifice because she had lived both with Maura. And they were in a better place now than ever. If her mother had changed so drastically to fix a relationship, why couldn't Maura?

"Jane, I would love to marry you."


	5. Chapter 5

Jane treated Maura gingerly the next week. Despite Maura's assurances, she couldn't help feeling that Maura was going to change her mind about the engagement.

"Why would she?" Frost was busy looking at his computer screen.

"I don't know! It's just, how can someone go from saying no to yes in less than 12 hours? What changed in those 12 hours?" Jane kicked her office chair for emphasis.

Frost eyed Jane with a look of no-nonsense: "Look man, has anyone ever told you, you have a problem with looking a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Hey, I'm a detective, alright? I know when something doesn't feel right, and this doesn't feel right." Jane was pacing.

"Wow, cold feet already, huh?" Frost joked.

"Shut up, Frost," Jane punched him in the arm. "Listen, I want to be happy, and she seems happy. I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"And how long are you going to be waiting, Jane? All your life? You're going to have kids with her and still be waiting for her to tell you it was all a mistake, that she never should have married you?"

"I don't know Frost!" Jane could hear the logic in what Frost said, but she couldn't keep away her nagging doubt. "Doesn't everyone think things will last when they get married? But half fail. Look at my own parents. Look at your parents. Look at Korsak!"

"Hey, Jane, stop yelling at me." Frost pushed back from his desk to face Jane fully.

"I'm not yelling at you!" Jane yelled.

"Yeah, you are. I'm the only one here. And you're yelling. You're yelling at _me_. And it's harshing my vibe."

"Frost, you have been hanging around Rondo too much. I'm being serious."

"Jane, you've been hanging around Maura too much. You sound just like her with your stupid statistics."

"But maybe she's right!"

"Jane, maybe Maura was 'right' when she said 'yes'. Maybe your dad was 'wrong' to leave your mom. Or _maybe_ your _mom_ was 'wrong' to marry him in the first place. No one can know ahead of time what the future holds. Things just _happen_. And you should be happy that this is _happening_ to you. And just think what would _happen_ if you spent half this nervous energy supporting Maura with the choice she's made rather than questioning her sincerity."

"What do you mean? I already told her it's up to her to plan the wedding to be however she wants…" Jane was confused.

"Are you for real? Do you not know what she is giving up for you?" Frost's patience with his partner was waning and it was showing in his tone of voice.

"Same thing I'm giving up." Jane shrugged.

"Whoa. No. Is that what you think? Wow. Ok. Well, it's not. It's not at all the same thing. You know what? I really shouldn't get involved anymore than I already have…"

"No, Frost, please! What were you going to say?"

"Ok, Jane, but I really shouldn't have to explain this to you. Maura is what people call 'polyamorous'…"

"Agh! This again! Frost, I know already, why do I have to keep hearing this?"

"Yes, this again, Jane. And I think it's very telling that you're so bothered by the very mention of this. It's clear that you haven't made peace with this aspect of who Maura is, and if the screaming match from your bedroom the night of your holiday party is any indication of Maura's feelings on the subject, she can tell what you really think about her. Listen, Jane, you have to think about it in some way that's going to make sense to you. Like how would you like it if she asked you to give up your work for her? Because she didn't feel comfortable with you putting yourself in danger every day."

"That's different, Frost." Jane countered.

"Yeah, only in the sense that no two situations will ever be exactly the same. I'm just saying—you wouldn't want to give up being a detective because you feel that is the truest expression of who you are. You feel most 'you' as a detective. And maybe you could quit your job and do something safe like be a mall cop instead, but then you wouldn't feel like you anymore."

"Get real, Frost. Can you imagine me as a mall cop? I'd go crazy," Jane responded.

"Whatever. The point is that you are essentially asking Maura to give up something that has always been important to her—something that predates you and that is core to her identity. You're asking her to give up something for you that she has never given up for anyone before."

Jane thought about it. How would she feel if she Maura had asked her to give up something important? Something core to her identity? Something she had never considered giving up before? Something that she wasn't entirely sure she could happily live without. Or that didn't seem absolutely necessary to give up? Jane had to admit that she didn't know what she would do or how she would feel if she were in that situation instead of Maura. To Jane's credit, she had been trying to understand Maura's perspective the whole time that they had been dating, but only now did she see things from Maura's point of view. And Jane felt hopeless.

"Oh my god Frost! What am I going to do? I can't ask her to do this!" Jane's face turned ashen. Jane crumpled in her chair, hands cradling her head. She started breathing fast, too fast, as the true source of her anxiety was revealed to her.

"Ok, Jane, calm down. It's ok. Maura loves you." Jane shot to her feet and started pacing. She did not look reassured. Frost continued, "Ok Jane, look at it this way—you invited her to be your wife, and she said yes. Of course it's not going to be completely costless for her, nothing is. She's going to have to adjust, make compromises, and put up with you for the rest of her life. But she's happy to do it because she wants to be with you so badly."

Frost was making Jane feel worse. She felt sick, thinking about how much Maura was willing to sacrifice for her. Maura loved her so much and so well, and Jane was an ass, she thought. For the umpteenth time, Jane realized that she did not deserve Maura. Jane sat back down and covered her face with her hands.

"I can't, Frost. I can't let her do this for me."

"Jane, pull your head out. Maura is her own person. She can make her own decisions and she has. You made the invitation, she accepted, and the worst thing you could do to her now would be to retract it. All you can do now is man up and make it as easy on her as possible."

Jane was still shaken by her conversation with Frost hours later. She felt guilty—guilty for not accepting this part of Maura, guilty for not even trying to understand it, guilty for giving Maura a hard time about it, and guilty for asking Maura in front of all of their family and friends to deny this aspect of her identity until death do they part just because Jane couldn't deal.

On the other hand, it was true that Jane couldn't deal. As much as she could intellectually understand Maura's feelings about monogamy, and could even recognize how significant they were to her, Jane didn't think she could commit to something like an open marriage. Jane was uncertain with how to proceed, but she was at least starting to have a more open mind.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Regarding the revision, I didn't like the way the previous chapter ended (nor did anyone else), so I changed it. The first half of the last chapter has remained the same (see previous chapter). This chapter is what was the second half of last chapter, completely revised (or just Chapter 6, if you've started reading after 3/7/14). Sorry again for any confusion and thanks for your comments and patience!**

Weeks later, Jane found herself sitting across her fiancée at their kitchen table, surrounded by empty take out containers, beer bottles, and address books. As much as they had both tried to keep the guest list to a manageable number, the task seemed impossible due to Jane's big Catholic family and their joint desire to be as inclusive as possible.

"You know, Maura, your side of the chapel is going to seem a little sparse compared to the Rizzoli clan, even if we put all of our mutual friends on your side. Are you sure there aren't any other people you'd like to invite?"

"There's only one person I care about being there, Jane." Jane started grinning in anticipation of Maura's response, "and that's Sergeant Korsak."

"Har, har, Maura. Very funny," Jane rolled her eyes. "Seriously, though, your address book is full of names." Jane started pawing through the pages. "What about this one? It looks like she's an old classmate of yours? Dana?"

Maura hesitated.

"Is she not an old classmate of yours? BCU medical school alumni email address? A Quantico address? Is she FBI?"

Maura paused one more moment before carefully answering, "Yes, she is a former classmate and yes, she is currently affiliated with the FBI."

Jane's look spoke confusion before she did, "Ah, then, what's the problem? Should we invite her?"

"I'm not sure she would come. She's very busy nowadays," Maura responded, as her hands started fidgeting with the guest cards in front of her.

"Well, only one way to find out, right, Maura?" Jane wasn't pushing the issue so much as teasing her about her carefully crafted non-answers. Was Dana an old school rival? Did they once fight over some nerdy internship, and Dana won out? Jane chuckled a little at the thought. "Don't worry Maura, whatever it is, there's no shame."

"She's my ex," Maura blurted out.

Jane's expression of mirth froze for just a second before she tried to cover up her surprise with words spoken too quickly, "Oh yeah, of course, well isn't that nice for her. And for you! I assume," she stammered, "if she's cute, at least. She's cute, right? Well, not like it is any of my business, but she'd have to be to detract you from all of that important medical journal reading, right?" Jane said that last part out of breath. Her pulse had increased substantially during her monologue and her palms started to get slightly damp. Was she getting nervous? Pull yourself together, Rizzoli, she chastised. Although they had never really spoken of Maura's exes before, Jane knew enough to guess at some basic truths. Maura was an attractive woman. Of course she would have had many relationships. It was just not the most comfortable thought to her in that moment.

Jane's nervousness prodded her on, "Ha, well, good times. Anyway, I didn't know you got out that much in school. But I guess that makes sense. I bet you've had dozens of relationships."

Maura immediately corrected her, "hundreds."

"Hundreds?" Jane mocked surprise.

Maura looked as if she is doing mental math before answering with a straight face, "yeah, hundreds." Jane laughed at the movie reference. It had taken several viewings for Maura to understand the dry humor in _Best in Show_ (she had been particularly confused about the concept of a mockumentary), but now she was a pro.

"I did not know that," Jane drew out the syllables, teasing. "Not that... Not that I didn't have quite the reputation myself. I was known by, you know, 'some', to be quite the Casanova."

"Casanova was a famous Frenchman known for having hundreds of lovers." Maura recited back to her.

Maura waited just a beat before continuing, "We don't have to invite her Jane."

But Jane had recovered from her nervousness enough to say sincerely, "Maura, if these are people that you still like or love, you should feel free to invite them to spend this special day with us. Don't 'not' invite them on my account."

"I'd love to see them again, but I don't know. To be honest, I don't keep in touch with them." Maura got up and distractedly started collecting beer bottles, hooking her fingers in their mouths and depositing them in the recycling bin.

"Hm, none of them? Really?" Jane gently pressed, distracted just a little by the dexterity of Maura's fingers in the bottles—the curl, the strength, and the independence of motion required to maintain such a constant pressure...

Maura looked up, reflecting on Jane's question, but the small motion was enough to jolt Jane out of the small fantasy she was indulging. "Actually, it's been one of the bigger sorrows of my life, being left behind by people for whom I had genuine feelings," Maura observed without much emotion. Those hurts were too old for Maura to shed new tears over, but Jane had her own emotional reaction. Maura's words were like a cold shower on Jane's steamy thoughts, and she flinched in reflexive pain.

Jane knew that Maura didn't have many friends before the two of them had met. Jane also knew that Maura's feelings about monogamy were the cause of most of her break ups, but she couldn't help but be struck with how sad Maura's last comment sounded, especially put in context of what Jane knew about Maura's family. Maura was abandoned by her birth parents. Maura was then adopted by two emotionally distant people who had again abandoned her to house staff and governesses for months at a time while they traveled the world. Jane had once thought it strange that Maura had chosen to attend a boarding school halfway around the world in France and that her parents agreed to it. The more she learned about Maura's upbringing, however, the more it became clear that this type of social and familial isolation wasn't a blip, but rather part of a larger pattern in the story of Maura's life—a pattern that had continued through Maura's adult life in the form of her romantic attachments. Jane was sad. She was angry. She wished that she had been there for young Maura, improbably underappreciated and undervalued by all with whom she had formed deep emotional connections. But she remembered Frost's words. Maura had already endured that sadness and moved on. There was nothing Jane could do now for Maura except to try to make this relationship the exception.

"Jane?" Maura interrupted Jane's reverie. Jane looked up to see her in the doorway. "I'm going to take a shower, do you mind finishing up here? They're mostly your people anyway?" Maura petitioned without bitterness.

"Yeah, Maura." Jane said reflexively. "I'll be up in just a little while."

Distracted by her thoughts, Jane thumbed through the guest list. She was so happy with Maura. Jane loved these quiet evenings together, couldn't imagine her life without them. It seemed odd to her that anyone would willingly give Maura up. Maybe that was just the love blindness talking, but Maura seemed the perfect woman—genius smart, strikingly beautiful, loyal and compassionate? Jane could continue this list for a very long time. Maura was the Mary Poppins of the dating world—practically perfect in every way. Well, almost every way, she thought, remembering her conversation with Frost.

Frost was right, she thought. Jane knew that she still hadn't completely come to terms with Maura's past, particularly if her reaction to Dana was any indication. If Frost was right about that, he must also be right that Jane's uncertainty and lack of faith in Maura could be the death of them. And they had overcome too much to let something as simple as jealousy and suspicion bring them down. Jane would not let that happen. Of course she didn't love the fact that Maura had been involved with and loved people before her (and perhaps still had feelings for them?), but Jane thought of what her mother had said about divorcing Jane's' father—

"_Do you regret marrying him in the first place, Ma?" Jane had asked._

"_No, of course not, baby." Angela soothed. "If I had never married your father, I would have never had you or Frankie or Tommy. I wouldn't change anything about my past."_

Jane thought about that. If anything had changed about Maura's past, would they have ended up together as they had? Would Maura be the charming person that Jane was in love with today? Life was so delicate sometimes. Maura's exes had all been part of her life, contributed to who she was today, and had presumably met important needs for her in the past. Maybe even met them better than she, Jane did? Jane knew (to her shame) that there were still things about Maura that she preferred not to acknowledge, much less accommodate.

As Jane's fingers traced the name and contact information of another name that Maura had intentionally glossed over (there hadn't actually been hundreds, but there were at least a dozen that Jane had noticed), Jane found herself finally feeling grateful for these strangers and what they had meant to Maura, rather than her usual possessive jealousy. And in that moment she decided that if Maura was willing to change so much for Jane, Jane was going to prove that she was worth it by accepting Maura, and all of her (up to and including seven evil exes, she joked to herself). Jane would invite them to the wedding. It would be her special surprise for Maura.

Not only that, Jane wanted to demonstrate to Maura that she too was willing to change for the good of their relationship. Jane remembered Frost's suggestion about trying to make the transition to monogamy and marriage as easy on Maura as possible. Jane figured that if Maura couldn't go to multiple people in a relationship, then she, Jane, would do her best to provide what multiple people would or could in their relationship. Jane wasn't sure yet what that might look like, but she was pretty sure that Maura's exes would hold the key. If she could understand what valuable thing each one of them provided Maura and what void they had filled, maybe she could learn to do those things for Maura herself. Jane was willing to try.


	7. Chapter 7

Jane's knee bounced nervously in her seat. Her legs were too long to fit comfortably in coach, but her credit cards were still maxed out from buying Maura's ring. Jane hated flying, and it was such a long flight from Boston to San Diego (a quick stopover before her elite training in counterterrorism in Los Angeles).

"I just don't understand how you can abandon your bride like this, Jane, just a month before the wedding. Weddings don't plan themselves you know!" Jane's mother Angela chastised just a few days before.

Jane felt a little badly. She was a little excited about the training, but she had mainly wanted to get away from Boston to figure things out.

"Ma, I know, ok? What do you not understand about 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity?"

That comment earned Jane a swat to the arm, "What do _**you**_ not understand about 'once-in-a-lifetime'?! What, you think you're going to get married a few more times after this?"

"Of course I didn't want it to be this way, Ma, but it is, so leave it. Maura understands."

And Maura did understand. She had protested, but not too much. And that worried Jane a little. Maura's reaction was one of genuine sadness, yes, but also did Jane notice a hint of relief? Things between them had improved a little during the short engagement, but there was still a pall over what should otherwise have been a happy event. Both of them were afraid. For Maura the thought of relying on just one person to be there for her was overwhelming. Maura never had a relationship like that before, she didn't know if she was even capable. For Jane, her fear was still that she might not be enough. She was also afraid her plan wouldn't work. Did she really expect to learn anything from Maura's exes? Would Maura understand Jane's intentions, or would she assume Jane tracking down her exes was just evidence of Jane's jealousy and possessiveness?

In the face of uncertainty, Jane decided to play things by ear and let her gut dictate whether she should continue. So although Jane had addressed wedding invitations to all of Maura's exes, she had decided against sending them—for now. Instead, she hid them behind her junk food in the kitchen cabinet, a place that Maura would never look. She had also only contacted two of Maura's exes that happened to be in the Southern California area. She figured that if she found the encounters helpful, fine, she could expand her efforts. If not, no harm no foul.

Legs twitching from the long flight, Jane decided to open up Frost's "care package," a folder filled with articles on monogamy. Frost had even highlighted passages, relevant facts like cheating occurrs in 40-76% of marriages. Or this quote from "Modern Love" editor Daniel Jones: "Among my fifty thousand strangers, I've heard from only a handful of couples who claim to have maintained sexually charged marriages through the decades." Jones believed that everyone else fit into three categories of coping strategies: "quashers," who resign themselves to a sexless marriage, either bitterly or channeling those energies into other pursuits; "sneakers," who engage in emotional (or actual affairs), often online; and "restorers". Jane thought that the last category sounded most appealing, until reading on:

"To figure out how to proceed, they'll do what they've always done when faced with a thorny problem: conduct extensive research on the topic and then come up with a plan of action. And it won't take long before they find out that, ironically, the most recommended strategies for reigniting passion in one's marriage—passion that has waned in part due to the deadening weight of its routines—involves loading up the relationship with even more routines, albeit of an ostensibly restorative nature: date nights, couples counseling, dance classes, scheduled sex, ten for tens (committing to 10 hugs of at least 10 seconds in duration every single day), Fresh Flower Fridays (a boon to the local florist, if not your marriage), required kisses upon parting, lunchtime exchanges of erotic texts or e-mails, and possibly some creative midday play at the local Holiday Inn involving nipple clamps, silk scarves, and an eye patch."

Hm, Jane thought to herself. Would that be her and Maura in a decade or two? Couples counseling and date nights? Drudgery and spice?

Jane continued mulling over this new information through the plane landing, picking up the rental car, and checking into her hotel. By the time Jane's first meeting rolled around, she was actually relieved to finally escape her thoughts. His name was Lee and he was not just Maura's ex, but coincidentally a former military buddy of Casey, who had arranged for a casual dinner to welcome Jane to Southern California. He was also gay and currently in a relationship, Jane was happy to learn.

When he arrived, Jane was not surprised to see a man with dark hair, a strong jaw and exquisite musculature. Maura definitely had a type. Over dinner he explained how they met, but more importantly why they broke up.

"I just couldn't handle it at the time, you know? I was young. I was military. I was macho. I made it all about me, you know? Like her being that way was basically telling me that I wasn't enough of a man to keep her. That's how I had been raised, or that's what I thought. My dad is an admiral, you know? The pressure was enormous. At that point in my life, I couldn't see Maura's interest in other people as being anything but a complete rejection of who I was as a person. And as you know, this was a very sensitive topic for me, what with denying my own sexuality. You know it's odd, but I think in a lot of ways my experience with her helped me eventually to openly acknowledge my own secrets. Maura just wouldn't budge on her beliefs about who she was, you know? As much as I hated it at the time, I really admired that about her later. She sort of gave me the courage to come out to my dad. And now look at me! As gay as the day is long."

Dinner became drinks and Jane didn't remember much about the rest of the night, apart from a vague recollection of belting out Elton John's "Your Song" at a karaoke bar in Hillcrest after meeting up with Lee's boyfriend. Somehow she had made it back to his mid-century modern apartment building to sleep it off. She tried to sleep in the next morning, but the combination of being in a three-hours different time zone, the California sun glaring through the drapeless windows, and a deep and abiding need to pee woke her up shortly after 8 am. Lee was still asleep. Probably better this way, she thought, scribbling a quick note thanking him for his help. She brushed her teeth with her finger and twisted her curls into a ponytail. Jane took a moment to appraise her reflection. She looked like hell.

"You are getting too old for all of this," she chided herself before gathering her things and heading back to her hotel.

Thirty minutes later she was on I-5 headed up the coast for Los Angeles to meet her next interviewee, Alice. Cruise control set, she glanced down at her phone (a bad habit Maura had yet to persuade her to abandon) and noticed a two hour long voice memo. Apparently her detective skills had kicked in and she had the good sense to record her conversation with Lee, even if she didn't remember much of it. She wasn't able to listen to the whole thing (and most of what she did hear was unhelpful) but she was touched to hear of his struggles with family and the military upon coming out. "We can't always choose our circumstances, but we can choose how we handle them," he had told her, and she had thought at the time he was talking about himself. Now, driving up the coast of California, she realized that he had actually been giving her relationship advice.

As smoothly as her meeting with Lee went, her meeting with Alice went the opposite. Alice Morgan was in her early thirties, recently widowed from a wealthy Hollywood producer (her previous marriage also ended in the husband's death), and living in the hills of Los Angeles. She was also a certified genius, having graduated with her PhD in astrophysics at age 18. As straightforward as those facts were, everything else about Alice was a puzzle.

"But aren't you British?" Jane asked, 30 minutes into the meeting and no closer to solving that puzzle.

"Yes, I am."

"I'm sorry," Jane shook her, confused. "I guess I had just assumed that you two met at boarding school in Europe."

"No, actually, we met on a plane."

"Really? Like you were sitting next to each other?"

"Hm, not quite," Alice purred. "I saw her watching me as I was lifting my bags into the overhead bin. Later I got up to use the loo, when I opened the door she was standing there waiting. I asked her,

'Did you come here for sex?'"

"'No,' she replied.

"But I ended up getting her off in the bathroom anyway."

"What?! Really? That doesn't sound like Maura," Jane frowned.

"Oh you would be surprised how much and how often your 'fiancée'," Alice air-quoted, "enjoyed being an exhibitionist. But maybe that's not something she's shared with you because she knows you can't handle it," Alice smirked.

"She _is_ my fiancée, no air quotes, and I can handle her fine."

"Ah, that is your error then," Alice mock sympathized. "No one wants to be 'handled' by her lover, least of all, I imagine, Maura." Jane did not like the way Alice drew out Maura's name, as if she relished saying it again after so many years.

"Do you wish to put her in a cage?" Alice continued.

"No of course not," Jane flushed red, in embarrassment and anger. She was not enjoying this conversation.

"Then why are you marrying her?" Alice prodded, in that moment looking and sounding like the imperious red queen from her namesake's Wonderland.

"Ok, we're done here." Jane closed her file folder and started packing up her things.

"Weren't you here to learn how to finally please your lover?" Alice goaded. "I'm not sure you've made much, if any progress. I bet you're the type to blush when you even hear the word 'sex'. Am I right?"

Jane ignored her, counting out twenties to pay the check.

"I must say, I had higher hopes for you, higher hopes for Maura. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why you are insecure enough in your relationship that you would come track me down?"

Jane flinched, but kept her eyes down and hands busy.

"You know you don't deserve her, don't you. That's what this is all about, isn't it?" Alice was relentless. "Look at you," she spat. "Blue collar. I bet you didn't even graduate college. Did you know that Maura is a genius?

Jane froze. Alice had seen through to her biggest fear—inadequacy.

"You wouldn't even understand a tenth of what goes on in her head. No wonder you can't get in there enough to discover what would really please her." Alice's face had turned hard, her reptilian eyes staring back at Jane. "She's not like you Jane, she's like me."

…

For the first few days that Jane was away, Maura spent most of her time catching up on work. She had the suspicion that Jane was feeling ignored, but Maura felt so overwhelmed by all of the last minute wedding planning that she was uncertain of how to address Jane's concerns on top of all of that. Maura just had to get through the next few weeks, she thought. Then things would be better. Then she would be able to devote the time and attention to Jane that she wanted to, she reasoned with herself on the way to her favorite Ethiopian place for take out. But she stopped short upon pushing through the door to the restaurant, her jaw dropping at whom she saw standing there.

"Wotcher, Maura." Alice smirked.

"Alice," Maura gasped, her bag slipping from her grasp to the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

"What an unexpected _pleasure_," Alice emphasized. "Would you join me for dinner?" The last phrase was put so casually that Maura almost didn't realize that a request had been made, and one that demanded an answer.

"Alice, what are you doing here?!" Maura gasped, dumbfounded.

"Oh dear, it is so good to see you!" Alice advanced, embracing Maura and kissing her on both cheeks, allowing a hint of a sly smile. Alice's hand lingered on Maura's shoulder.

Maura felt a small sensory jolt at the embrace, whether from surprise, attraction, or what could have been a faint sense of foreboding, Maura could not tell.

"Your table is ready," the hostess interrupted, "please follow me."

Maura stood still. Her mind had helplessly locked up, unable to process the inapposite appearance of someone whom she had never expected to see again. Alice took advantage of Maura's hesitancy by pushing Maura gently in the direction the hostess had gone. Maura followed on instinct.

After they were seated Alice quickly explained, "I'm so sorry, my presence must be a shock. I got the invitation, you see, and I'm afraid I can't make it, but I still wanted to see you."

"You what?"

"Got the wedding invitation?"

"How?" was all Maura could wonder.

"Oh, it was easy, rather. I saw you listed online as the Chief Medical Examiner, congratulations by the way darling, I wouldn't have expected any less from a mind as brilliant as yours," Alice stringed her sentences together too fast for Maura to catch up. Or was it Alice's intoxicating British lilt that made it so tempting to focus on form over substance? "Any way, I happened to be in town just today and tomorrow and I didn't want to miss the chance to _reconnect_," Alice's hand clasped Maura's for emphasis, "before I leave so I called up your assistant Susie."

"She's not my assistant," Maura said automatically and wondered at it. Really Maura? This is what you take issue with, out of everything that has been done and said in the last ten minutes?

"Hm, well she identified herself as your assistant," Alice continued, questioning.

Maura was off-kilter. Why did Alice always have this effect on her, she thought dumbly. Maura looked down at her place setting and took in a breath to collect herself.

"I mean, she's not that sort of assistant," she said to her plate.

"Oh, well, no matter, she told me exactly where I would find you tonight. A bit of a creature of habit? I would have thought that I had disrupted your craving for routine a little more permanently" Maura identified this last comment as a subtle dig at her lifestyle choices. "But please, tell me all about Jane," Alice continued.

Except Maura's mind was still reeling. "How?" Maura repeated, her mind a blur but vaguely realizing that the key to understanding any of this lay in that one word.

"I'm sorry," Alice looked quizzically back at Maura, as if she doubted Maura's ability to understand even the most basic of facts of her circumstances. "Did you say how?"

Maura cleared her throat and tried again to intelligibly elicit an explanation for what she would have considered, only an hour ago, to be an extremely unlikely occurrence - sitting across from Alice and having being asked about her upcoming wedding to Jane. Serendipitously seeing an old acquaintance, Maura could understand. Having an old acquaintance seek out a meeting, however aggressively, she could still understand. Running into exes was also bound to happen. But if Alice was to be believed, and Maura was not quite sure that was true, given their history, something even more highly improbable had happened. "How did you get an invitation?" Maura managed, and followed it up with a quick clearing of her throat, as if to soften the implicit harshness of the question.

Alice gave her a look of (faux?) insult. "Wow, I remember you being blunt, but I don't remember you being quite this bad."

Maura felt a little shamed by being caught in this small faux pas, memories of her mother's (or more often her governess's) long instructions on proper manners causing her to blush slightly in embarrassment. "I'm sorry," she smoothed her hands on her slacks, collecting herself, "I'm just so surprised to see you."

"Oh dear! Of course, I'm sorry, you must be frazzled, what with all you've been up to! Did I already tell you how pleased I am for you?" Alice prodded on.

"Thanks, we're both…," Maura started to say but Alice cut her off.

"I mean really, not just a medical examiner but 'chief'? That must give you some great satisfaction." Alice beamed at her and once again grasped Maura's hands.

Maura had lived a life filled with awkward conversations in which she had misinterpreted signs and social cues enough to earn her various negative nicknames. But this particular conversation was one of the most bewildering she had ever endured. Just when she felt like she understood what Alice was talking about, she was thrown for another loop. And Maura couldn't help the suspicion that her confusion was Alice's goal.

Their relationship had been brief, but intense. Part of that intensity came from Alice's unpredictability. From their first chance meeting on the plane, Alice always had made Maura feel a little off-kilter, a little like she was behind the 8-ball. But there was also something so seductive about Alice that kept drawing Maura in. It wasn't just that Alice had an easy charm about her, she was also compelling - the same way a hypnotist is. And it was that sense of being compelled that made Maura feel like Alice was actively manipulating all of their interactions, then and now.

It was true that they had made a real connection, once upon a time. They were both smart, and in the same way—prioritizing rational thought over the messiness of emotions. They were both unconventional. Maura thought little of bucking social norms or conventions and didn't typically experience strong feelings of guilt. It was partly these tendencies that led her to question whether she was more like her father, the sociopathic killer, than she would have liked to believe. But that wasn't the first time she had considered whether the term "sociopath" applied to her. She had actually first explored the diagnostic criterion for "sociopath" during one of her first cases as a medical examiner. The case remained unsolved but the primary suspect - the one everyone knew was the killer but nobody could prove - had reminded her eerily of Alice. Could it be, she had wondered? And what did that suggest about Maura herself, that she and Alice shared so much in common?

Perhaps Alice noticed this sudden turn in Maura's demeanor. Or perhaps Alice was trying to push Maura further off-balance as she suddenly stood up from the table, "But here I am chatting your ear off when we both have things to get to." Their food had arrived not more than five minutes ago, but Alice started packing her things."

Dumbfounded, Maura reached for her bag to pull her wallet out.

"Oh no, I already gave the hostess my card while I was waiting for you and instructed her charge it by 8 pm. And look at the time, 8:06 and I'm sure I'll be late." Alice started threading her arms through her coat. "But I'm so sorry we didn't get a chance to speak more."

Maura shook her head in reply.

"Say," she said, with all the subtlety of a child actor, "my flight isn't until noon. Could I swing by your office and buy you a cup of coffee?"

"Coffee?" Maura stuttered, also rising to her feet.

"Great idea, I'll meet you tomorrow." Before she left, Alice looked Maura up and down like she was a delectable dish. Alice gave Maura a few seconds of too-intense eye contract before leaning over and gently kissing her cheeks again, this time with the last kiss just glancing off the edge of Maura's mouth. Alice's fingers gently caressed Maura's shoulder. Maura felt her insides squirm under the sudden wave of seductive energies emanating from Alice. Alice leaned in one more time to whisper in Maura's ear, lips grazing her sensitive lobe, "I'll see you tomorrow."

...

When the phone rang, Jane had been holed up in her hotel room reading some more of Frost's "materials," including a quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?"

"Hey babe!" Jane answered.

"Jane, I'm so glad you picked up," Maura said breathlessly. Maura started explaining everything that had happened that evening as best as she could, but it all came out in a jumble largely incomprehensible to Jane. The one concept that did stick out to Jane was… But how could it be?

"You what?!" Jane exclaimed.


	9. Chapter 9

After getting off the phone with Maura, Jane immediately dialed her mother. Pacific time was 9:12 pm, which meant it was just past midnight in Boston. Angela was almost certainly asleep, but this couldn't wait. The conversation with Maura had been a shock, but even as Maura had nervously posited her own theory of how her personal assistant must have accidentally included Alice on the guest list, Jane had started putting the pieces together of what had actually happened.

"Jane! You better be dying or dead to wake me up at this hour," her mother clucked into the phone.

"Ma, I wish it were just that." Jane asked calmly.

"Jane, I'm not in the mood for riddles."

"Do you know anything about wedding invitations being sent to non-invitees?"

"Jane, really. I have no idea…"

And as she hesitated mid thought, another theory occurred to Jane.

"You found them in the cupboard,"

"Do you mean the ones in the cupboard?"

They said at the same time.

"Oh, Jane. I'm so sorry," Angela keened. "Were those not meant to get sent? I just found them there with your junk food when I was organizing Maura's cabinets,"

"Ma! I told you to cool it with the organizing," Jane interrupted, frustrated.

"Well, I wouldn't have to if you weren't such a slob. You know I didn't raise you to be that way," but Jane interrupted her before she swung into full lecture mode.

"Ma, the cabinets?"

"Yeah, well I found the box of invitations there squirreled away with your junk food and thought, hmm, my Jane is so absentminded with this rushed wedding (and I told you there was no rush _**by the way**_). But there they were, these invitations that you had _**obviously**_ misplaced with your junk food in your overtaxed state, and (_**God forgive me for trying to be a good mother!**_) but I thought I could _**finally**_ help you both out with some of the wedding plans, since neither of you seemed to want to ask for my help anytime soon (despite the wedding being almost here!…)" Angela continued peppering her narrative with commentary, but Jane could only focus on the reality of her situation. Because of her indecision on the matter, all of Maura's exes had been invited to the wedding.

"I need to figure out some way to come clean to Maura," Jane groaned. Tomorrow, Jane thought.

Maura was waiting outside her therapist's office for an hour before he arrived. Maura knew that her appointment wasn't until 8 a.m. She knew that she was Dr. Valant's first appointment of the day and that he didn't arrive at his office until a quarter till, but her mind was still spinning from her unexpected encounter with Alice the evening before and Dr. Valant had become a safety net for her in processing her increasingly perplexing emotional world.

Maura had initially seen Dr. Valant after arriving in Boston and being slapped with the label "Dr. Death" by her co-workers. He was helpful then in dealing with her feelings of isolation, but even more therapeutic had been her daily interactions with Jane. As much as Maura had always been seen (and largely believed herself to be) a cold and emotionally unapproachable person, Jane made friendship (and later love) seem so easy. And with Jane, Maura discovered the salubrious effects of not just physical intimacy for one's health, but emotional intimacy.

But now that her issues directly involved Jane, and Maura decided it wasn't fair for Jane to continue to bear the brunt of her petite identity crisis triggered by the engagement. Actually, none of it was fair to Jane, she realized, but she was determined to do the best that she could, which for her meant going back to therapy.

As she sat in her car, she played with a pamphlet Dr. Valant had given her, fingering the words to a Robert Frost poem that graced its cover:

The Armful

For every parcel I stoop down to seize

I lose some other off my arms and knees,

And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,

Extremes too hard to comprehend at. once

Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.

With all I have to hold with hand and mind

And heart, if need be, I will do my best.

To keep their building balanced at my breast.

I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;

Then sit down in the middle of them all.

I had to drop the armful in the road

And try to stack them in a better load.

Maura felt like she had already tried to balance her needs with everyone else's. And she had definitely let them all fall, more than once. She had tried doing things her way and she wasn't happy with the results, so she was trying something else—trying to stack a better load.

And Maura was optimistic about her chances. Psychology had come a long way in the past few decades and the discipline was rich with empirical evidence about what might constitute "a better load." For instance, Maura had remembered from her psych classes that in the healthiest of couples, each mate had a strong sense of his or her own identity. If not, that person would often seek to control his mate as a way of imposing personal boundaries that he lacked. Maura had also learned that the strongest of couples do not lose themselves in a relationship—i.e., they don't define themselves primarily in terms of the other person. Finally, Maura learned that happy couples do not assume the other's personal responsibility or try to push off their personal responsibility on the other. In other words, successful couples allow each other to work through their own issues with only support, not interference, enabling, or bailouts. Long-lasting couples willingly offer up the best parts of themselves as gift to the other. They don't forcefully "take" the worst parts from each other and make those their business. What she took away from this research was that a thriving relationship depended on each mate preserving the integrity of the individual identity of the other.

Maura understood the research; she just didn't completely understand the application. Particularly, she didn't know the answer to the question—how much could or should one compromise oneself in a relationship? Should one try to always be true to oneself?

That's where Dr. Valant was so helpful, at least as Maura attempted to rebalance her long time polyamorous identity with her desire to pursue a monogamous relationship with Jane. He was the perfect man for this task because he didn't believe that you "find yourself" and then spend the rest of your life remaining true to that identity. He had convinced Maura that we are not the sum of our Facebook profile, résumé, or buzz feed personality quizzes. We are not defined by the brands we buy, the schools we matriculated from, the church's we attend, or the way we vote. As much as the world tempts us to label ourselves in a thousand different ways—liberal, educated, upper class, fashion-forward, bisexual, polyamorous—and find not just community but freedom in associating with those labels, Dr. Valant was getting Maura to see how restrictive identifying with those labels could be.

"Imagine, Maura, who you would have been 150 years ago. Would you have been a doctor? Would you have been open to the idea of loving Jane? Would you have married her? What if you had been born 500 years ago in sub-Saharan Africa, or 500 years in the future on a space station? You would have still been you, but different. What if you had never been given up for adoption, but raised by your birth parents, or put up for adoption but stuck in foster care? What if you were to become sick? Or handicapped? You would change, certainly. So many aspects about you would change, but you would still be you. I don't believe that your feelings of inner conflict aren't coming from your inability to remain true to the "real you", but rather a societal pressure to conform to expectations based on the labels that apply to you. 'Polyamorous' may explain certain aspects of your feelings and behavior better than any other single word can, but if you're not careful it can lock you into that particular version of you when another version may be just as authentic. You should feel free to be any version of yourself, Maura."

Maura usually felt her most hopeful during these sessions—like the marriage wasn't doomed to fail before it even got started. This renewed sense of optimism was what she was craving that morning, engine and heater running, until she received a text blast. Dr. Valant was sick and wouldn't be coming in. She would have to face Alice and her life on her own today.


End file.

Rizzoli & Isles, Angst, Romance