A New Ending

Disclaimer: Rizzoli & Isles and all of its parts belong to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro and TNT.

A/N: Set during the last scene of "Money Maker". Props to those of you who catch the Sex and the City reference.

Cailin's eye briefly caught Maura's as Hope pulled her younger daughter, her only acknowledged daughter, toward the door. Her voice came out as shards, penetrating below Maura's diaphragm as she uttered her final words: "Let's just go."

Maura could offer nothing, instead only jumping at the sound of the door as it slammed behind them. The sudden silence around her was almost as painful as Hope's beleaguered refusal to accept the truth; to accept her. She had never thought that the truth of her mere existence would be met with so much bare, unadulterated pain. Bracing herself against her desk, she let another burning sob sear through her, but this time it was accompanied by an overwhelming nausea that made the floor lurch up to meet her.

"Maura?"

Angela's voice seemed far away, too far away for her to acknowledge, so she simply hung her head, another whimper exiting her throat in a small, shaky sigh. Had she even heard the back door open? The only sound still echoing in her mind, bouncing painfully against her temple was the sound of Hope's scorching words that burned through her chest.

"I saw a police car outside. Is everything okay?"

Maura finally looked up, registering the alarm in Angela's eyes as she stepped tentatively toward her, as if approaching a frightened animal. Maura wiped a fist across her eyes, her words bubbling together in her throat before she could make them make sense. "No," she said, condensing her pain into one truthful word. Her shoulders shook with a pained guilt as she met the older woman's eyes, and she backtracked, realizing the need for some sort of explanation. "Cailin came here because she found out I was related to her. Hope followed her and I – I thought I was doing the right thing when I - " Her voice failed her, thinning into nothingness.

Angela pulled a few tissues out of the box on her desk as she stood in front of her. "You told her?" she confirmed, dread settling into her chest as she watched Maura, a woman who had come to mean as much to her as her own daughter, struggle to reign in another sob. She couldn't help the guilt that swelled in her own chest, remembering how she and Jane had both encouraged Maura to reach out to her biological mother. The guilt, however, turned quickly to anger; it was much easier to blame Hope than herself.

Maura nodded, taking the tissue from her and wiping her nose, and Angela contemplated reaching out for her, but remembered the way the blonde had jerked away from her in the hospital. She had that same wounded, frightened look in her eyes now, and Angela waited, instead offering her a pat on her forearm. "Oh, sweetheart..."

Maura's phone buzzed abruptly from the coffee table, penetrating their reticence with a sudden urgency, and Angela glanced down at it. "That's probably Jane," she said. "I called her after I couldn't reach you."

Maura's reddened eyes cleared fleetingly as she walked over, picking up the phone. Sure enough, Jane's name and smiling image flashed across her screen. "Jane – " she began, but was immediately cut off as the brunette's voice flooded her ear with such aggression that it almost made her smile.

"Maur, what the hell's going on over there? Ma just called and said there was a squad car outside."

She closed her eyes, the thought that mere minutes had passed before a cadre of support reached out to her giving her some comfort. "I told Hope," she said, her voice hoarse, and she said the only thing that seemed to make sense to her: "I need you." She felt Angela's eyes on her back, but she didn't mind the sudden vulnerability; the only thing she needed right now was strength, and she knew Jane would give that to her.

"I'll be there in five minutes," Jane said. "It'll be okay, Maura. Hang in there."

She mumbled a response, then watched as Jane's name flashed away, her screen going dark again. Before turning back to face Angela, she again wiped her hands across her face, hoping to at least make herself somewhat presentable; her tissue was now a wet, disintegrating mess.

"Sweetheart, how about I make you some tea?" Angela offered, wanting to put her hands to work in some comforting manner.

Maura offered her a weak smile, but shook her head, declining politely. "No, thank you," she said, the irony of her manners suddenly striking something inside her. She had tried so hard to take Hope's feelings into account, delaying her revelation, and at times wondering whether to burden her biological mother at all. And yet, in the end, her feelings weren't spared. Cailin's words had hurt her, but Hope's had simply bludgeoned her, destroying a lifetime's worth of imagined meetings and maternal fantasies that she had guiltily indulged in, even as she understood their futility.

She felt the familiar turn in her stomach, bypassing Angela with an apologetic frown and heading for the kitchen sink. The splash of cold water contrasted with the heat of her skin, for the moment fooling her body into ceasing its spiral of tears. It was Angela's hand on her back, however, that crumbled the makeshift wall of ice she tried to erect, and a sob wrenched through her, arching her back with its sudden, painful power.

Angela rubbed small, repetitive circles along her back as Maura shook underneath her touch, her body curled toward the sink as her sobs struck the silence. She gathered the blonde's hair at the back of her neck, hoping the motherly gesture would at least provide some comfort. Maura attempted to regain her composure, splashing her face several more times before straightening slowly. "Thank you," she said quietly, wiping her face with a small towel as she turned. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," Angela said, reaching out and smoothing a piece of damp hair away from her the young woman's forehead. "And before you know it, Hope will be sorry, too. Sometimes we don't know how to do anything but hurt the people we love in order to keep ourselves from hurting. Give her a few days, and she'll realize how lucky she is that you're in her life."

Maura stared at her, the words dulling the sharpness of the pain only slightly, but they were reassuring nonetheless. She nodded, giving her a hopeful smile, unsure of the proper degree of reciprocity required by such matronly attention. "Thank you," she repeated softly. "I just wasn't ready for this."

Breaks squealed loudly outside, followed by the slam of a car door, and Angela frowned. "She had to have broken every traffic law in Boston to get here that fast," she said.

Maura could forgive the abuse of power if it got Jane to her sooner, but her response was cut off by the sound of the front door opening and Jane's heavy boots entering the small foyer. As she rounded the corner, and caught a glimpse of Maura's reddened, strained face, her own expression crumbled and she made her way quickly towards her with outstretched arms.

The tacit communication, just a shared glance communicated more than Jane could have said with words, and Maura met her halfway, melting into the pair of strong arms that enveloped her. Jane glanced at her mother over the blonde's shoulder, mouthing a quick 'thank you' before glancing toward the back door in a silent request. Angela nodded, for once understanding the need for their privacy, and she closed the door softly behind her.

"Maura, I'm so sorry," Jane said, recognizing the duality of the expression, as she had encouraged Maura to break the news to Hope in the first place. "Tell me what happened," she requested, slowly pulling back and letting her hands gently rub Maura's arms as she led her toward the couch. "What was Hope even doing here?"

"Cailin knew about the kidney," Maura explained, taking refuge in the act of simply relaying the facts of their encounter, finding them less painful than the emotion behind them. "She came over to confront me, but Hope was right behind her." She shook her head at the inevitability of the night, wondering why she hadn't seen such a thing coming.

"Why was there a cop car?"

Maura reversed course, offering some context. "Cailin took Hope's car, so she tracked her down by calling the police." She picked up another tissue, immediately fraying it in her fingers. "That's what mothers do, right?"

Jane didn't respond, but instead patted her knee. "And you told her? What did she say?"

"She said that she didn't know who I was. Or what I wanted from her." She shook her head, guilt weighing it down towards her lap, her hair falling over her shoulders. "I shouldn't have told her. It was selfish of me."

"Maura, that's not true," Jane said, bending down to try and capture her eye. "If anything, it's selfish to keep such a secret from her. It was selfish of Paddy to lie to her in the first place. You're innocent in all of this, you hear me?"

"So was Cailin," Maura replied, pressing her face into her hands as her voice broke. "She's innocent, too, and she hates me so much that she won't even let me help her. I just wanted to help them because – " she inhaled sharply – "that's what you do with family, right? But how would I know?"

Jane wrapped a hand around her shoulder, pulling the shorter woman into her and pressing a kiss against the crown of her head. "Maura, you did the right thing," she said, uncertain that her words would make any difference in lessening any of the pain, but all she could do was simply try. "And remember, you have a family. You have Constance and Phillip. And you have me and Ma, and Tommy and Frankie, and even a no-good Pop whose marrying a woman half his age."

She heard something that resembled a sighed chuckle, and felt Maura nod against her shoulder. She couldn't undo Hope's words, but she could at least counter them with her own. "I can't promise it's the perfect family, or even a normal one, but we're here," she continued, pulling the soft body even closer into her. "We love you." She pressed her lips against Maura's temple, letting them linger longer than she ever had before, but it felt natural. "I love you."

Maura shifted in her arms, raising her head and meeting Jane's gaze with red-rimmed, but sincere eyes. "I love you, too," she said. "Do you know, I never would have had the courage to even reach out to Hope without you encouraging – " she cocked her head thoughtfully, correcting herself – "forcing me to do so."

Jane grinned. "I'm glad my aggression helps you stretch your limits," she said, grateful to see a sudden, slight smile cross Maura's face.

Maura sighed heavily, her chest still shaky, but she wiped her eyes once again, unafraid of Jane's gaze. She felt exposed, vulnerable, and completely raw with emotion, but as Jane's fingers laced with her own, giving them a small, buoyant squeeze, she felt a sense of peace spring from a place inside her. She wanted that feeling to permeate her entirely. "Can you help me with something?" she asked resolutely, tossing her last tissue aside.

"Of course."

"Can you please help me change this ending? This can't be the night that my biological mother completely denied my existence. It has to be the night that something else happened."

Jane raised her eyebrows, surprised by the challenge, but detecting a certain shift of mood that she was more than willing to go along with, as long as it put a smile on Maura's face. "Well, that's quite a tough order, now isn't it?" she asked, feigning concentration and putting a finger to her lips. She quickly turned back to her, pursing her lips. "I am not going tagging with you."

Maura chuckled, her tear-streaked cheeks upturning with momentary glee at the memory. "I won't ask you to do that," she assured her, rubbing her thumb along the inside of Jane's wrist in a gesture so tender that it surprised both of them.

They sat, their hands still casually intertwined, until their eyes fell on each other again, recognizing that something had finally altered between them. Maura leaned forward, pausing as her eyes fell softly over Jane's mouth, and pressed a soft kiss onto her parted lips. Jane wasn't surprised by the action itself, but was taken by the softness of Maura's tongue as it teased lightly against her own, and she quickly reciprocated, wrapping a hand through her hair. Maura only pulled back after a needed breath, gauging Jane's reaction, but she felt her body inevitably pulled forward, the magnet of attraction that had always been between them now undeniably prescient.

Jane's fingers pulled ever so slightly at Maura's necklace before moving upward, cupping her jaw and searching her eyes, which were now shining with something other than tears. "This is the night…" she began, articulating the beginnings of a fantasy she had only imagined, but didn't allow herself to complete the thought.

"This is the night everything changes," Maura whispered, pushing her back against the pillows and pressing her body fully against her, finally cementing the connection that had grown so deeply between them for so long. One dream may have disintegrated underneath her, but fortunately another had been waiting.

Just a quick Rizzles exercise during lunch. Hope you enjoyed. I could be persuaded to take it further. My track record hasn't been great with one-shots. :)

Thank you for reading!