Gauze Pad Crowns and a Kidney

Disclaimer: I do not own Rizzoli and Isles, including the book and the TNT show; Jane Rizzoli belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Angie Harmon, and Maura Isles belongs to Tess Gerritsen and Sasha Alexander. The plot for this story is my own, but that is all I should and will take any credit for. Review if it pleases you, good fellow fans.

Synopsis: Watching Cailin's face through my Maura's-crying-induced tears, I wondered if she might have regretted how Maura had been forced to tell her mother the truth. Post 3x06. "I am not looking to be your daughter." Cailin tries to make things right.

Her mother was at the hospital that morning, probably interrogating the surgeons. Which corticosteroids would they be recommending first? How would their prescriptions of immunosuppressant inhibitors change now that the donor was a family member and not a stranger?

She, of course wouldn't ask any of the important questions.

Cailin wanted to know which one of Maura's kidneys she was getting. If she had a choice, she wanted the left one because she'd rather the scar be on that side of her stomach. She had a tattoo designed for her other hip already.

She also wanted to know what band the surgeon was going to listen to during the operation, because she'd seen Grey's Anatomy, and she wasn't going to stand for anything stupid like One Direction or ABBA. Her mother was obsessed with ABBA. Cailin detested them.

Unfortunately, her mother had chosen to visit the hospital without Cailin—probably aware that her questioning and inevitable need to remind the staff just who she was would be torturously embarrassing for her daughter—leaving the young adult with an afternoon to spare. Left, mercifully, with the car, Cailin had made her way slowly to the Boston Police Department, then parked across the street.

She vividly remembered the look on Maura's face as the older woman choked out the truth of her parentage. Guilt bit at her insides fiercely as she remembered how the doctor's body had trembled and her mother had frozen still at her side. Cailin had not gone to Maura's house with the intention of making her mom hate her sist—hate Maura. She'd gone because she was terrified and she was angry and a whole host of other reasons that seemed stupid now the whole truth was out. But she had been shocked by her mother's complete refusal to listen to Maura that night.

Shocked might have been an understatement.

After what seemed like a lifetime of hearing all about the dead baby that had changed her mother's life, it seemed incomprehensible to Cailin that her mother wouldn't simply jump at the chance to know her daughter hadn't died. Instead, Hope had dragged Cailin away from Maura and into their SUV, leaving Cailin with a final glimpse through the still-open door of the doctor clutching herself around the middle as if she might fly apart into a hundred pieces.

Cailin couldn't get that image out of her head.

The next day, she had told her mother that the donor kidney was Maura's. Unsure and anxious about the kind of reaction the older woman might have to this latest piece of news, Cailin was entirely unprepared for no reaction at all. Hope merely nodded, staring down at her coffee, then explained that Dr. Harrison had called to schedule the pre-surgery appointment for that Thursday. Unable to recall the anger and resentment which had fueled her the night prior, Cailin merely nodded and sought refuge in her bedroom for the rest of the day.

Almost a week later, Cailin had no idea whether her mother had even spoken to Maura since that night.

"I am not looking to be your daughter." That burned through Cailin's conscience, too. She had spent a long time hating her mother's dead baby because Cailin so much wanted to be the daughter that mattered more to Hope than her career, and here she was, not wanting anything from Hope at all.

Maybe that wasn't true.

She had to have wanted something, but not to be Hope's daughter. Not to be Cailin's big sister and make a happy Brady Bunch family out of broken pieces.

That was good. Anything else would have been fake and unrealistic.

But, in nine days, one of Maura's kidneys would be her kidney, and meanwhile the blonde was left believing that half of her biological family hated her. All because Cailin had sorely underestimated Maura's entire personality.

As soon as she stepped foot in BPD, Cailin knew she'd probably be spotted. Angela knew who she was because of the dinner she'd walked out of, and the Doberman detective who was best friends with Maura—well, she'd probably want to throw Cailin out on mere principle. Still, she had to try and see Maura, to try and talk to her.

Crossing the street, the young woman pulled one ear bud out of her ear and lowered the volume on her iPod before yanking open one of the double doors. A quick glance around the lobby confirmed that Angela's café was between her and the elevator down to the morgue, and that she'd have to convince security to let her through. Taking a deep breath to steel her courage, she started across the lobby when the sound of Maura's voice reached her attention. Pausing and edging towards the doors into the café, she saw Maura sitting with Jane and three or four other people at a tall table by the windows. She was wearing some kind of a crown crafted from post-it notes and… Gauze bandages? On the table in front of her sat a large cupcake and a pile of open cards. Maura was laughing.

Only able to catch phrases spoken by the various members of the group, Cailin soon figured out that they were "celebrating" her impending medical leave and offering up bits of advice about nurses and hospital stays. Maura kept shaking her head, trying to explain that her surgery was barely an in-patient surgery, with maybe an overnight of observation, but her friends were not deterred.

Next to Maura, with her arm stretched across the back of the doctor's seat, Jane was refereeing the discussion, encouraging the taunts and Maura's rebuttals in equal measures, and repeatedly gesturing towards the untouched cupcake until the blonde woman finally acquiesced to trying it. Nimble fingers lifted the cake from the table and peeled back a portion of the large wrapper, then lifted it to her mouth for a small bite.

Cailin watched with barely checked laughter as Jane, smiling triumphantly, reached up to tap the underside of the cupcake so it pressed against a good portion of Maura's face. When the shocked blonde lowered her treat, her mouth, lips, nose, and the front of her cheeks were plastered with icing. Jane roared with laughter as a cute African American man snapped a picture with his iPhone. Maura was momentarily frozen before she began laughing as well, reaching for a napkin to wipe away the icing.

It made sense, Cailin began to understand, that Maura didn't need a new family. This impromptu celebration looked more like the families in novels and on sitcoms than Cailin's real one ever had, even before the divorce. And yet the look on Maura's face haunted her.

"You know, there's an extra chair over there." Angela's voice shocked Cailin who jumped and spun away from the door into the café. Clad in her green apron, Angela tucked her hands into the front pockets and observed Cailin with a tilted head. "I'm sure Maura would love it if you joined them."

"Oh, no. She—" Cailin wasn't sure what to say. What did Angela know? If she knew what had happened, why wasn't she angry? Why would she think Maura would want to see her? "I haven't… I was hoping I could just talk to her." Angela glanced over to the table to see Jane wiping a napkin over Maura's cheek.

"You're gonna have surgery, too, aren't you? Why don't you join them. I have another cupcake and this time you'll be prepared when my five year old daughter tries to shove it up your nose." Cailin cracked a small smile, but shook her head.

"No, thank you. I don't think she—" Cailin's attempts to back away from the offer were interrupted by a weasley male voice.

"Rizzoli, this ain't your coffee hour. What the hell are you doing by the door?" Angela rolled her eyes and spun on the spot.

"I'm sorry Mr. Stanley, I was just assisting a new customer." Angela's voice carried back into the café, and most of the patrons turned to look at the fuss. Almost immediately, Maura and Jane spotted Cailin. The blonde hopped out of her seat and made to move towards the door, then stopped herself, looking unsure. Cailin remained frozen.

"Are you sure, honey? I made the cupcakes especially for girls losing body parts." Angela winked down at her, but Cailin was focused on Maura, desperate for some kind of sign that she wouldn't just be turned away.

Across the café, Jane had slid out of her seat and come up behind Maura, one hand resting against the doctor's lower back. Words were spoken gently into one ear, making Maura blink and shrug, her face turning towards Jane's. Cailin wondered what the brunette was saying. Whatever it was, Maura was now walking towards Angela and Cailin, a tentative smile on her face. The young woman hastily ripped the other earbud out of her ear and fumbled to pause her iPod.

"Cailin." Maura's hands reached out, then were retracted. For some reason, her caution made Cailin feel better about her own anxiety.

"Hey." The simple greeting seemed inadequate, even to her ears, and she hurried to continue. "I was hoping I would find you in your office. I wanted to… talk." Maura's head tilted to one side.

"We could go down to the morgue if you'd like." The blonde's face lightened with the possibility of a task and she turned, one arm outstretched around Cailin as if to usher her towards the elevators. Cailin took a quick half step backwards.

"No! I mean—" Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat hastily. "Maybe this was a bad idea." Maura froze, her face awash with something Cailin had seen after dinner that night, and Cailin couldn't bring herself to walk away although every flight instinct in her told her to.

"Cailin, how are you?" Jane's voice was a surprise and Cailin looked blankly at her for a second before shaking herself out of it.

"Um, I'm okay." The brunette detective waved an errant hand towards the café behind them, her grin wide if a bit hesitant.

"Look, there's another set of cupcakes in there and if I eat them, Maura won't let me hear the end of it for a week. Why don't you join us?" Cailin glanced at the table and was comforted to see that almost everyone but the cute African American man had cleared away. Against her better judgment, she nodded slowly.

"Okay." Maura looked relieved and the three women made their way to the remnants of the doctor's celebration. Before they reached the table, Cailin touched Maura's forearm, pulling her back. "Look, before we sit, I just… I wanted to apologize." Maura's face spread into a smile that Cailin realized, startled, looked like her mother's smile.

"Cailin, there's no need for you to apologize. I never meant for any of this to happen like this. I—"

"No." Cailin interrupted her, gripping her iPod hard enough to feel its rounded corners pressing into her palm. "No, I didn't want that to happen either. I didn't know Mom would follow me to your house." Maura nodded.

"I know," she responded quietly, risking the conversation enough to place a hand lightly on Cailin's arm.

"You shouldn't have had to tell her like that." Maura looked away, blinking, but her hand remained where it was. When she made eye contact again, the blonde shrugged.

"No, that wasn't how I had planned to tell her. But she knows now, and you know. The most important thing is that you will let me help you, even in just this way." Cailin snorted.

"Just this way? Maura, you're giving me a kidney." The blonde laughed lightly.

"I have an extra, don't worry." The siblings exchanged a smile, and Jane appeared at Maura's side.

"C'mon, we have a cupcake for each of the kidneys involved in this equation." Settling in at the table, Jane introduced her partner and Cailin slipped her iPod into her pocket.

The End.

Thank you for reading, as always. I'd like to see more of Cailin in the future, although I think it will be a disservice to her character if she is suddenly Maura's best friend. Here's to hoping JTam and the writers get better at sticking with characterization…