'Shipping Up To Boston, Part 2: Occupy Boston

DISCLAIMERS

Rizzoli & Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, TNT, and the host of writers, producers, cast, and crew who create the show we love to watch. We are not any of those people.

Spoilers for Seasons One and Two and the books. Rated T for crime, murder, and a loving relationship with two sexy women.

This story is Part 2 (third) in a series we've called 'Shipping Up to Boston (so if you haven't read that, some of the undertones in this one won't make sense at all):

Part 0: The Trevor Project (URL: bit DOT ly/sutb0 )

Part 1: It Gets Better (URL: bit DOT ly/sutb1 )

The issues of Occupy Wall Street (and Occupy Boston) will be brought up here. Those of you who hate politics, we hope you can look back on our previous work and trust we'll handle that with as much sensitivity to both sides of the story as we gave to religion.

Co-written by Chapsticklez and Googlemouth. You can find us on Twitter as chapsticklez and Googlemouth.

Guest stars in order of appearance: Tahmoh Penikett (Officer Bob Ericson), Garret Dillahunt (Greg Bayless), Billy Burke (Agent Gabriel Dean), Thomas Dekker (Lyle Jenkins), John Slattery (Father Daniel Brophy), Jennifer Tilly (Jennifer Bayless), David Ogden Stiers (Blake Sanden), Stephen Furst (Lawyer).

Chapter One - Anonymous

Like every major city in the United States, Boston had felt the pinch of a downward economy. Call it a depression, recession or just bad luck, unemployment was up. Everyone was hurting. The only bright spot, if it could be called that, was that winter was coming, and the empty houses meant some safety for the expanded homeless of the city.

In one of a hundred empty houses in the area, a collection of run down men and women huddled around the living room of an empty house. It was once, years ago, beautiful. Now, clearly, time and emptiness had taken their toll. Paint was peeling, the floor was chipped and scuffed, windows no longer washed regularly. While the sign out front read 'for sale,' there was not a chance in hell this house would find a buyer any time soon, which made it perfect for a squatter seeking shelter on a cold, crisp, autumn night.

The unauthorized residents didn't light a fire in the fireplace for warmth; that might be seen in a house with no blinds. There was fire, however, its sparkling flames licking at the building's walls. "Fire!" shouted one of the squatters, and quickly they evacuated. It didn't matter if anyone saw them now. All that mattered now was living. They threw open the doors, the windows, and ran. The infusion of fresh oxygen helped the fire to spread that much faster

As the ersatz inhabitants huddled down the block, they watched the night's squat go up in flames, one of the watchers noted, "What the hell causes blue flame?"

They pondered that until the fire department arrived.

Having completed her day's full complement of autopsies and paperwork, Dr. Maura Isles set her evening's away messages, sent a text to one of the detectives at BPD homicide, and drove herself home to get an early start on dinner. Neither she nor said detective could claim to work anything like normal hours, but Maura's were a bit closer to them, when she wasn't on call and had not been beckoned out of her comfortable home in the middle of the night for a case. The most often heard phrase in the middle of the night at the Isles residence, in fact, other than a few select word choices that related to nothing but the two people most likely to be found there and certain hobbies they enjoyed sharing, was often a paraphrase of, "Why can't murderers do their thing in the daytime?"

Maura, perky for a mature woman in her thirties, practically bounced in the door, hung up her Burberry coat, divested herself of her purse, plugged her phone into the charger discreetly housed behind a cabinet, and carried the reusable canvas bag from Whole Foods into her kitchen. She'd found some lovely organic spinach and tart-sweet apples for a salad - three salads, actually - and some impressively large, extremely fresh scallops that she'd decided to pan-sear as well. After washing her hands, she got to work cleaning and chopping the fresh greens, dividing them into three bowls, two on good china (but not the best china) and one on a wide ceramic square with almost no rim, a handmade 'artistic' plate.

Just as she was setting the square in front of a large, greenish-yellowish-brownish lump on the floor, the front door, painted a cheerful seaside blue, opened to reveal Angela Rizzoli, mother of the detective with whom Maura spent much of her free time. The lump, an African spurred tortoise named for William M. Bass, the founder of the first body farm, a boon to modern forensic science, opened its mouth to have a bite of his salad, but swiftly (as much as a tortoise does anything swiftly) withdrew into his shell with the noise that Angela brought with her, the innocuous stomping of feet and the raising of a hoarse, coarse voice.

"This is Janie's stuff. She said she was coming by here. Will you give this to her?"

Maura blinked as she stood to look at Angela, surprised at the ill-sealed cardboard box, but more surprised at the way the older woman looked. Angela was no supermodel or fashion plate, but generally looked as though she had taken a little care with her appearance. She generally had on clean clothes unless it was housekeeping time, didn't like to wear anything with stains except one of her many cooking aprons, kept her hair tidy, if not exactly what Maura would consider done. Today, therefore, to see her in faded Mom-jeans and a floppy old shirt, with hair mussed, and grease stains on her front, shoulders, knees, and sleeve cuffs... well, it was unsettling. It would have been unsettling on anyone, to Maura's way of thinking, but on Angela it was worthy of a comment.

Not that she could utter it. One did not remark unfavorably upon the appearance of one's secret lover's mother.

Realizing that some response was in order, however, and that she couldn't just stand there staring, Maura quickly nodded. "Of course I'll give her the box, Angela. Will you be coming to dinner as well?" She could not quite stop her eyes from a quick glance over the pleasantly round-bodied woman's appearance, fearful for the condition of her fabric-covered dining chairs.

Huffing, Angela tossed her wild hair out of her face with a toss just like Jane. "No. I'm gonna shower, and I gotta look some stuff up." The mother relented quickly, though. "Thank you for the offer, honey." And with that, Angela stormed out, clearly angry at something, but apparently not at Maura.

"Well I suppose that's an improvement," muttered Maura and she carefully lifted the loose flap of the box to peer within.

Having passed his detective's exam, Frank Rizzoli Jr. had not yet been assigned to the detectives' squad. He hoped that would be any day now, but at the moment he was still, technically, patrol. And while he was a patrolman who often was assigned to the detectives, sometimes he was still a patrolman assigned to places where the police needed a warm body to hold the line.

"Alright already," Frankie growled at the protesters. "Keep out of the street, okay?"

"Shut up, pig," snarled one of the younger protesters.

Frankie rolled his eyes, and grabbed the arm of his temporary partner. "Come on, Ericson, let it go." Bob Ericson had been cursing back at the protesters all night long, and the last thing Frankie wanted was a fight. "They're just exercising their civil rights. Off the street, man, come on, that's a traffic hazard."

It took a while to convince Bob to go take a break, and Frankie ushered the latest idiot back to the sidewalk. Down the line, one of his academy classmates nodded and properly handled the situation. No sticks, no fists, no arrests. That was their goal.

"We! Are! The 99%!" shouted the group, en masse, and Frankie nodded again. As much as he hated being out in the cold November rain, part of him was delighted to see people protesting. Protesting anything, really.

When the chant changed, he muttered along with them, "This is what democracy looks like."

One of the protesters, an older guy, maybe five or ten years older than Janie, gave Frankie a grin. "Hey, man, you want some coffee? It's cold out," asked the protester.

"You don't even know," groaned Frankie, stepping over. "I been here since four." He took the coffee and sucked it down gratefully. "You guys are holding out, though."

The protester nodded, "Yeah, we're trying. I'm Greg, Greg Bayless."

"Frankie Rizzoli." Hands were shaken.

"How long you think we got before you have to kick the campers out?" Evictions of campers had taken place all across the US already, including some pretty horrible bulldozer attacks in Philly and New York. Frankie prayed he'd never be asked to be a part of that.

They both looked at the tent city in Dewey Square. "I dunno, end of the year if you're lucky." Frankie hunched his shoulders, "I hate this sometimes, man. I promise you, I ain't forgetting you're people like me." He glanced back over his shoulder at Ericson.

One of the other protesters sneered at Frankie as he walked past. As one, Frankie and Greg apologized. "I'm sorry about -" They stopped and laughed. Greg went on. "You know, some people don't get it. You're a cop, but you're one of us too."

Frankie looked down at his badge. "My sister, she's a detective, and she tells me I gotta remember that I wear this badge for other people, like you, and when I do, I always represent them. Not me." Frankie did not add that as soon as Janie had heard he was on Occupy Watch, she sat him down and explained that in no way was he to follow an illegal order. Then she explained the difference and told him to do what he thought was right.

How do you live up to someone like Jane? She just did the right thing, every day, no matter what. Frankie knew he wanted to be a cop because he idolized her. But he'd never gotten the courage to ask his big sister what fire was lit under her to make her want to be a cop. What he remembered was a family dinner, with Nonna and their parents, and little nine-year-old Jane announcing she was going to be a police officer when she grew up. Frankie remembered Nonna dropping her fork and praying right there at the table, and Ma glaring at Pop about it. But more than that, he looked up at his big sister and announced, "Me too!"

He played baseball, which he sucked at, because she loved it more than basketball. He learned to play hockey and football so she could have two-a-sides with the Talucci brothers. When she learned to ride a bike, she turned around and taught him right away so they could race together. He was her baby brother, but he knew the best birthday gift he could have ever bought her was that passing grade on the detective's exam. Proof that he learned from her.

So when she told him to think, he thought. "You use that brain, Frankie. If they tell you to take the tents down and evict them, I'm not gonna tell you to do it or not do it. I want you to think about what's right, what's legal, what we stand for, and make your own decision. I'll back you, either way, so long as you think." Jane dumped that burden on him, treating him like any other cop, but also like her beloved baby brother. She trusted him. He had to live up to it.

"Whole family of cops, huh?" grinned Greg. "I know a lot of the guys here hate you, but you know, I don't forget you're people. Where you from?"

"Revere. Pop ran a plumbing business." At Greg's arched eyebrows, Frankie shrugged, "Wasn't the recession. He got... midlife crisis. Ran off to Florida. My ma's a cook, brother's painting houses."

"Oh yeah? I do construction." Greg dug a card out and handed it over. "Your brother know anyone looking to hire? I could use the work."

Frankie grinned and pocketed the card. "Sure thing, man."

The conversation would probably have continued, but for the shouts that suddenly interrupted them, anger and affront variously expressed by the Occupy protesters and a few rude spectators. "Keep your guys off the street, okay? I don't want any hit and runs." Tossing his empty cup into the trash, Frankie hustled down to where Bob was shouting with another small knot of protesters. Crap, Frankie thought, just what we all need. Cop who can't stay neutral or shut up. "Come on, Bob, give it a rest," Frankie objected, shouldering in between the opposing forces.

"Pig!"

"Scum!"

The shouting was only getting worse. The shriek of terror, however, was worse than the shouted insults, and cut across them like an audible version of lightning. "He's dead," screamed a woman.

Bob and Frankie forgot the fight. "Call the EMTs, Bob," ordered Frankie, ignoring the fact that Bob was his superior. Frankie charged the line like a thoroughbred, jumping over seated, arm-linked, protesters, "Move it! Emergency!" He splashed through the muddy grass and skidded to a stop where a shoe-less, suited, man lay on his back. "Who found him? Did you move him?"

The shuddering woman shook her head, "You kidding me? I watch Law & Order. I took his pulse, and that's it."

Kneeling in the wet grass, Frankie pressed two fingers to the man's neck. He smelled of cheap alcohol and something else he couldn't place. Smoke? Dirt? No pulse. Frankie went through the ABCs (airway, breathing, compression), but as he started compressions, chanting 'Stayin' Alive' in his head, his attention was arrested by the dead man's feet.

No shoes. Dry socks. Frankie could feel the soil soaking his knees, and he'd only been there through a chorus of the Bee Gees. This wasn't just a dead guy. This was a body dump. "Bob! Call Dispatch. We need a detective."

It was closer to eight than the promised 'soon' the detective had predicted at five, when Jane finally made it to Maura's. The scent of something warm and comforting carried the lanky, curly-haired detective up the sidewalk. God, I hope that's coming from her place, she hoped, and as it became clear that the fragrance was too strong to be coming from one of the houses further away, started salivating, along with her tiny, scrappy, scruffy dog. You and me, Pavlov. Wait, Pavlov wasn't the dog. That was the science guy, right? I bet the dog was named something like Buster or Spot or some dumbass... Jane's thoughts broke off with guilt as she glanced down at Joe Friday, whom she had not named, but who still had to carry the moniker to which she'd early on decided to answer.

She opened the door and immediately squatted down to release Joe from her leash, hang it up by the hook Maura had discreetly installed for the purpose, and glanced around to locate her lover. There she was, clothing spread all over the couch, most of it on hangers, looking serious. And seriously hot. Thank you, Jesus and Santa Claus. "Sorry," Jane said, taking off boots and jacket at the door. "I stopped to walk Joe. I think she's getting to like it better when I leave her alone. Wonder what she does all day."

"Mmnn-nn," Maura negated the idea absently, still focused on the array of clothing as she stood back to survey the well-organized mess. "She's probably just resigned to it. Almost all Canids are social animals and can't thrive unless they live in groups. Even a pack omega prefers to be a part of the pack rather than a loner." The caramel-haired woman - What was that color? Jane mused as she watched, ostensibly heading to the kitchen for something warm to drink, but really wanting to sneak a peek at whatever was in the oven that smelled so good. Blonde, brown, red? It changed every so often, thanks to a colorist with a willing experimental subject who viewed hair as a toy, or perhaps an object to use as art, fashion, and expression of mood, all in one. Well, whatever the hell it is, it's sexy.

Joe, after sniffing a hello to the obliging Bass, wandered off to gnaw her rope toy on her little designer doggie bed that Maura had purchased. "Must be why she likes coming over here," mused Jane, refilling both canine and geochelone water dishes.

"Joe needs, at the very least, you," Maura was saying. "She'd probably be even happier with access to more creatures. Tortoises feel the same way, you know. They live in family groups called bales... "

Forgoing her own drink, Jane swung back around to where Maura was organizing clothes. "Maura," she sighed, and went for the fastest way to shut the brainiac up. She kissed the side of Maura's neck very, very, lightly. "Hi." Sometimes it was okay to tell your girlfriend you didn't want to get into the nitty gritty details of science. And sometimes it was a better idea to distract her. "What's with the clothes?"

Though Maura seemed committed to the piles of clothes and the rambling about non-human social structures, Jane was gratified to note that her distraction technique worked within seconds. Maura leaned back into her arms and hummed in contentment, tilting her neck for easier access. "Mmm. Mm? Oh. Clothes. Yes. I was sorting out which need to be replaced, last month. Now I'm deciding which things in this pile are probably not going to be worn until the spring, so I can rotate them out of the main closet, and which things in this pile are just about ready to go into my fall and winter rotation so they should come back to the main closet. Oh, that feels nice. Don't stop."

The neck kisses were, in fact, lovely - from both their points of view - but Jane had to stop after all. She did want that hot drink, if she could get it and also steal a view at dinner. Despite Maura's pleading tone, which was usually very effective, Jane released her gently and made for the kitchen again. "This doctor I know keeps telling me to hydrate," teased Jane.

Maura pouted. "Fine. Anyway, where were you? We were supposed to eat an hour ago, and the roast beef might be dry by now."

Jane hesitated as she checked the electric tea kettle, skirting around the box on the counter. Never let on to Korsak I like tea. Maura's tea, at least, she told herself. "I caught a call. Just old case stuff, lawyers and case notes. Nothing new. Some of those guys talk forever, and I really don't want to think about it right now." Jane popped the oven open for a sniff. "Is Ma coming over? I saw her lights on."

"She already came," Maura replied, removing a sweater set from one pile and depositing it into another, then frowning and moving it to a third pile. "She left a box of things for you on the counter."

Oh, right. That thing that was in Jane's way while she made tea probably had an actual purpose for being there. Damned work day and phone calls and crap, screwing up my head. "What's in it?"

"You're asking me?" Maura replied sassily, with a smile. She'd picked up that particular speech pattern from the Rizzolis, and had been eager to try it out.

Jane looked over at Maura, smirking. "Cute." She placed one finger, delicately, under the opened flap of the box. "My keen detective mind shows me that this box has been opened at least once. It also tells me that this is the same kind of box she had at her street sale, which means Ma repacked it at least once. However, years of living with Ma have taught me that she can never get these boxes to fold in on themselves this well, which means my girlfriend was snooping." Smugly, Jane raised one hand in the air. "All the points to me, thank you, I'm in charge tonight." At Maura's huffy look Jane repeated her earlier question, "What's in it? Or should we wait till after dinner?"

"I don't really know," replied Maura, plucking up clothing from the smallest pile of clothing and folding it. "If you're as hungry as I am, let's wait, though. I want to get these things put away, and then have dinner." She lay the first item in a large, empty box marked Give Away, then picked up another.

Conceding, due to the volume of her growling stomach, Jane left the box alone. "Aw, I like that black dress! It makes your curves look all... " Jane trailed off, making a gesture with both hands, clearly indicating appreciation for Maura's form. "Curvy. Sexy. Not that you're not always sexy, but that's like extra sexy."

Though she smiled, Maura seemed a touch uncomfortable as she said, "I liked that one, too." Nevertheless, the dress went into the charity box, a gesture of finality as if laying it to rest. In fact, as Jane mused over it, hadn't she done the same with every garment that wound up in that box?

"What's wrong with all of these?" the detective wanted to know as she lifted the dress back out, followed by a sweater, a pair of trousers, two more dresses - and it was the detective, not the girlfriend, asking. Maura would not meet Jane's eyes. "Maura?" Jane ducked her head to force visual contact. "What's wrong with these clothes?"

Fortunately, during the time they had been together, Maura had learned to shorthand some things. "Associations."

Jane paused; so did Maura. "Okaaaay," Jane hesitated. "So... Okay, this one you wore to Paddy Doyle's funeral." Inwardly, Jane winced. Hadn't meant to bring up Maura's biological father, the mob hitman Jane herself had shot. "I get that. This one, you were dating Lucky Schmucky -"

"Byron Slucky," Maura corrected, "and not just dating him. This one, he... " She took a moment to choose discreet wording. "... particularly liked." Those, and the others, she took back and began to fold. Others, she folded with even greater speed, picking up the rhythm.

Tilting her head to watch Maura sort clothes, Jane mentally kicked herself for bringing up Maura's father and the doctor she'd been dating after Jane was shot. Why not go for the trifecta and bring up Brophy? she asked herself and then froze as Maura turned slightly away from her, folding a black dress Jane viewed - rather, had viewed, before just now - with particular fondness. Oh. Brophy. Slucky. Ian, too, I bet. That would make sense. Jane sighed and then forced herself to find that normal, Rizzoli flippancy. "Whatever you've gotta do, Maura." And Jane went to set the table with the good, not the best, dishes. "I'm on call tonight, but you can drink if you want to."

Maura replied without looking back at Jane, "Whatever you're having." And Jane resigned herself to having a slightly awkward dinner.

It didn't go as badly as she'd feared, though. Once the box of ex-boyfriend and father funeral clothes was out of sight, Maura relaxed a little, which helped Jane. Not fully; the conversation wasn't entirely easy, but at least they could talk about the portions of their day that they hadn't spent together, which became particularly amusing when a certain dispatcher's remarks were reviewed. "Yeah, I ran into her in the elevator," Jane said over the last few bites of roasted carrot and potato. "Just us, so you know she had to give me guff about the last time she called you and got me answering the phone. I swear, we're going to have to put one of her kids through college, one of these days, to keep that mouth shut."

"Not really," Maura replied with a gleam in her hazel eyes. "As it happens, she asked me for medical advice about a subject she wouldn't want to get around, either. Since she asked advice from a friend who's a doctor, and not from a doctor treating her, I'm not bound by doctor-patient confidentiality on that issue. A fact of which I reminded her only last week."

Jane snickered, then looked a bit alarmed. "So, the stuff I ask you -"

The smaller woman's hand stretched forth to lay reassuringly atop Jane's. "No. I consider myself bound, even if the law doesn't require it, when I discuss medical issues. But Caroline doesn't know that, does she?"

Exhaling in relief, Jane squeezed Maura's hand. "Good, cause some of that stuff... I should really be asking my doctor, huh?" Chagrined, Jane poked the last, lonely, carrot on her plate. "Okay, I wanna see what's in my box. Maybe it's more clothes we can donate." Jane popped to her feet, scooping up both empty plates. "Did I tell you she dumped all my kid clothes off at my place? Talk about heavy hinting for grandkids."

Maura took advantage of Jane's antics to admire her athletic form. "Considering that as far as she knows you're not dating anyone, perhaps she just wanted more space in her home. The cottage really isn't much bigger than your apartment, you know." While Maura attempted to keep the annoyance of Jane's reticence to 'out' their relationship out of her voice, it was still pitched a bit whiny.

"Probably," muttered Jane, avoiding the subject of babies and closets all together for a bit. She hunched her shoulders a little, like a turtle, and loaded the dishwasher. "Go open my box!"

True to form, however, not only did Maura entirely miss what Jane considered a golden moment for a that's what SHE said mention, but she actually put away the leftovers and cleared the dishes to the dishwasher before actually approaching the big cardboard container - which, by that time, Jane had already decided was her own purview.

"Sorry!" exclaimed the dark-haired woman as her scarred hands drew out a smaller box from the larger one.

Maura's head tilted as she sat down nearby. "Sorry for what?"

"No, the game. Sorry! is a board game. You know." Jane glanced up and, catching Maura's puzzled expression, felt her stomach clench. How would Maura know anything about these classic American childhood games? Probably nobody in her acquaintance had ever played them. "Well. No, you probably don't know. This is what the 'other half' does for fun, instead of taking a weekend jaunt to Europe. Oh, look, and there's Clue!, and Life, and Risk, and - Oh, my God, look at that! Twister!"

Maura's expression failed to change. She simply waited expectantly for any illuminating, usable information to be thrown her way.

"I might as well be speaking Chinese," Jane reflected aloud, then shook her head as Maura started in on her.

There were, apparently, a huge variety of languages spoken in China, and while Chinese was a nationality, there was no single Chinese language, any more than there was a single Chinese ethnicity. The languages in particular were... something about groupings, Jane didn't listen... Speech characteristics, still not listening... Hunan, Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Hakka, Jin, Kejia, Xiang, Yue, Gan, Guan - Jane broke in. "Yeah, some of 'em do speak Guano," she waved it away, getting it wrong for the sheer joy of watching Maura having to decide between wanting to correct a simple mispronunciation, continue her impromptu dissertation on languages and dialects spoken in China, and distaste at the notion of one of those beautiful languages being misnamed as a synonym for bird poop. Mentally she counted points for having made Maura make that face.

"Okay, look," Jane leaped up, short-circuiting the entire process. "We're going to play this one. Help me move the table out of the way. We need some floor space." With no alternative to acquiescence, Maura stood as well and assisted as Jane directed. Soon the floor was cleared, then covered with a big plastic mat. "Now, just gimme a minute to check," Jane said, then dove for her phone. "I'm pretty sure... " Her voice trailed off, then exploded in triumph. "Aha! There is an app for this!"

"For what? What are you downloading?"

The glee on Jane's face, Maura decided, had a decidedly unholy glow. "Socks off, Isles," declared Jane, taking the time to yank hers off and roll the cuffs of her pants up just a bit. Reluctantly, her girlfriend followed suit. "Spin," she told the phone, and it made a rattling, plastic on plastic, sound.

"Right. Hand. Green," said the phone, in a somewhat polite, if disjointed, female voice.

Without hesitating, Jane slapped her right hand on a green circle and waited. And waited. "Maur, come on. Right hand, green," demanded Jane, ignorant of the fact that her tush was in the air, aimed at Maura.

It took a long moment for Maura to respond, first because of the angle of sight, and then because even when she decided to pay attention, she wasn't certain what the words meant. Jane's insistent pointing at her right hand, then at the row of green circles, helped. "Oh! Of course." She walked around Jane to the section of mat with more space, in front of her, and dropped to a squat to put her hand on one of the circles. "Okay. Now what? When does the game start?"

Clueless.

Jane hung her head for a moment, letting her hair obscure her face. "Spin!" she said, loudly, and the phone did its thing again. This time is was right foot red. "Okay, so you follow the cues, Maura. Put your right foot - the other foot, sweetie - on a red circle." As Maura did so, Jane teased her, "Which one of us is the genius again?"

"I was looking at you," Maura retorted, primly. "I don't understand why this is supposed to be a fun children's game, Jane. It's simply following directions and putting hands and feet on colors."

"It's for young adults, Maura, not little kids. Spin!" This time it was left foot on blue. Jane frowned and carefully pulled her left foot in and stuck it on the blue dot between Maura's leg and arm.

Maura complained. "Hey, that's my circle. I had it first."

"You can use the same dot as I do, if you have to," Jane informed her, realizing that her girlfriend not knowing any of the rules could play to Jane's advantage.

"But you're getting in my way," Maura pouted, and chose a different dot. "Does yellow come next?" she asked, twisting into a position that would have impressed Brock, their yoga instructor.

Jane almost laughed as she explained that the spinner was random, so yellow might or might not come first. Almost. Instead, she stammered something about the matter which she hoped was helpful, while noticing that she was just about nose-first in her girlfriend's abs. Lord bless the pervert that created that crop-top thing she wears around the house. "Uh. Yeah, maybe. The spinner gets to decide what part and where it goes." Please, please... "Spin!"

The spinner's neutral female voice handed out the next instruction. Left. Hand. Green.

"Oh. Oh, dear."

"Just move your hand, Maur."

"Yes, but... "

"Do it."

"I'll be backwards."

"It's allowed. Just move your hand."

Maura tentatively flipped her body position so that she was in a crablike posture, torso facing the ceiling, weight on her hands behind her and her feet in front of her. "I'm backwards," she noted, as predicted. "Are you sure I'm doing this right?"

Jane, having a lovely up-shot view of Maura's body, just grinned ear to ear. "Perfectly. You sure you've never played before?" Unlike Maura, Jane had positioned herself so she was facing downward. This seemed like a great idea, until she called out, "Spin!" again and had a rude awakening.

Left. Hand. Blue.

Both women paused and stared at the row of blue dots. Maura's face puckered into a tightly grim frown. "Is this really how you play the game?" she asked, in her most serious tone.

"Honestly, the last time I played it, we were kinda drunk." Jane hitched up her shoulder and squirmed until she wedged her hand on blue. And her face right there, with a clear view of Maura's abs and boobs. Hello, nurse, sighed Jane, mentally. "Right. Blue, left hand. Do it or lose it, Maur."

With far more skill than Jane possessed, and with silent thanks sent to years of ballet and yoga instructors, Maura did not attempt to try and put her left hand further underneath her. Instead, she pivoted and flipped over, her hand landing neatly on the blue dot under Jane's torso. "Oh," she said, surprised. "Suddenly I see the appeal." Maura's face was within range of Jane's neck. She inhaled deeply. Even a full workday couldn't quite overpower the warm, comforting scent of just pure Jane emanating from her lover's throat. Maura poked her head forward to get a little closer, just wanting to put a little lip print on that long neck.

She failed to take her height, or Jane's, into account.

She also failed to understand that, while in good shape, Jane wasn't in quite the same shape Maura was. A position Maura could have held for another two or three minutes was making Jane very uncomfortable. She lifted her rear end slightly, wanting to straighten her legs before one or both of them started to cramp. The problem was, Jane was a good five inches taller than Maura, which meant that when she lifted, not only were Maura's feet no longer on the mat at all, but also, her weight had nowhere to rest but on Jane's back.

"Oh, shit," Jane grunted, then squealed as Maura's arms left the mat too, wrapping around her waist and holding on for dear life. A leg followed, bracing itself around Jane's.

There was a squeal at the tickling, then another at the sensation of falling, then a thud of two bodies hitting the mat.

As they lay there, panting and laughing, Maura chose not to resist the impulse to entangle them further, going in for the cuddle. "Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey." Jane was smiling, clearly not upset at the results of the game.

"I like this game."

"Told you."

A few very pleasant minutes later, when each of the women was about to voice a distinct apathy towards a return to the official rules of Twister in favor of an even more interesting game, perhaps in a softer location, "Five O'Clock World" rang out from one of the iPhones nearby; another, with "Body Beautiful" by Salt 'n' Pepa. Both showed images of the precinct rather than individual faces. "Drat," Maura muttered as she picked up one of the phones. "Isles."

Slightly more vocal in her displeasure, Jane growled, "Damn it!" Snatching the other phone, she announced herself, "Rizzoli."

There was a brief pause of confusion before Jane, silently, held the phone in her hand up to Maura. Trading phones, they repeated their names and listened to the information from dispatch. A body was found in Dewey Park, where the Occupy Boston campsite was located. Officer Rizzoli suspected a murder.

"Have CSU meet me there," directed Maura, carefully getting off of Jane. "Is it still raining? No? Alright, thank you."

"Tell Korsak and Frost I'll be there with Dr. Isles." Jane thumbed her phone off without further comment, but did not move to get up.

Maura stretched and then mused, "Perhaps getting you the same phone I have was a poor choice, Jane."

"Ya think!" grumbled the detective. "Swear to god, Caroline's going to clean up in the pool, one of these days."

"Caroline's house has a pool?"

Review, and Twister makes a comeback.