A/N: Well, here it goes. I wanted to try so hard to avoiding starting this story, but it will not leave me alone. I guess I just find studying sexuality in history very interesting, and I thought this one could be intriguing. I'm sorry if the voyeurism in this chapter weirds anyone out; I admit I had Back to the Future in mind when I did it :)
Anyway, I just thought this would be an interesting change from the slow burn in CJ. As I've mentioned/people have pointed out, there wasn't a real vocabulary for homosexuality in the 1800s, much less an opportunity to openly discuss or study it. Our perspective in the '50s was still fairly limited, but it was definitely more acknowledged and more widely known about/recognized for what it was than a century before. So I wondered how teenagers might wrestle with that here, especially with Jane's and Maura's established personalities.

The saddest day in any schoolchild's life is the last one of summer. It marks the end of late mornings and long nights, the end of weekday matinee movies and ice cream cones whenever you could scrounge up enough change. Tongues purpled by popsicles, teeth embedded with cobbed corn, and food-induced slumber would no longer be common. Welcome back schoolwork, welcome back homework, welcome back tests and dress shoes and skirts and hairpins. Welcome back school dances and pins and giggling girls.

It was just after six in the evening, and Jane Rizzoli was trying to soak up as much final enjoyment as she could before dinner. She hated thinking of tomorrow, when she'd be back in loafers and a pressed blue dress for school. In this moment she felt right at home in a pair of dirtied tennis shoes, old jeans, and a sweater from her uncle's alma mater. It'd been three days since she'd washed her hair, and she thought keeping it pulled back would keep her mother from noticing that fact.

She was playing a game of basketball with her brother Frankie in the driveway. Though Jane towered over him, their scores were tied because she couldn't bring herself to destroy him on a regular basis. Even little brothers had pride, and the chance at winning a game against his athletic sister every once a while gave Frankie a tremendous boost.

"Game point, and the crowd goes wild!" he said through deep breaths, dribbling around Jane. She had to smile at his tendency to provide commentary for their games, which he often seemed to do without even being aware of it. "Rizzoli versus Rizzoli—"

"Eat your heart out, NBA!" Jane laughed.

"He goes up for a basket—fakes it—"

Frankie pivoted, and not realizing Jane was already behind him on his right, shifted hard and fast to take a shot. She yelled out in pain when his elbow collided with her nose, and the ball rolled away as he hurried to apologize. Jane professed to be fine, but the blood pouring from her nose indicated otherwise. Frankie ushered her into the house, offering tips—"hold your head up!" "Let's get some ice on it!"—as he got the door. He reached up to touch her nose, and she slapped him away with a scowl. He ran to the kitchen to get her a hand towel, which she proceeded to hold up to her nose.

Jane was not pleased to see their mother, Angela, had walked back with Frankie. "Young man, where are you going with my nice towel?" She yanked the towel out of Jane's hands. "AH! What happened?! How do you always manage to get into scrapes like this before Sunday dinner, and turn it into a circus?"

Incredulous that she was the only one being addressed, Jane asked, "Me?"

Angela whipped the towel at her. "Yeah, you!"

"It was my fault, I did it," Frankie said, though he dodged any further questioning by running to the bathroom to wash his hands.

"Yeah, he did this!" Jane agreed, pointing out to him.

"Nonsense, Frankie!" Angela called. "I know you didn't mean it!"

"So this is my fault?" Jane asked in disbelief.

With the air of one who was tired of repeating herself, Angela said, "Look. I tell you all the time: don't roughhouse with him! And heavens, look at the state of those darn jeans, I thought I'd thrown those out!" She sighed when Jane just rolled her eyes, grabbing the already-bloodied towel back to clean up her face. "Your father didn't fix a hoop to the garage for you to go around like one of the boys, Jane!"

"Oh right, I forgot it's just for Tommy, in case he don't ever do good in school, and all he'll have to fall back on is his lousy basketball playing."

"Where is that boy, anyway? I told him to be home by now," Angela said, using a much calmer tone than she did whenever Jane dared break a rule. "Dinner will be ready soon! Jane, go find him, will you?"

"Of course," Jane grumbled. "I'm nothing if not my brother's damn keeper."

Angela snatched the towel out of Jane's hand and whipped it hard against the counter. "When you get back with your brother, young lady, you'll have soap for an appetizer."

Jane groaned but said nothing, walking to the bathroom to get rid of the bloodstains. The only comfort she took was that at least in the realm of what her mother called "salty language," she and her brothers were treated equally—which was to say, there was never room for any forgiveness. Frankie was drying his hands as Jane stalked into the room, leaned over the sink and started to rinse her face.

"Want a tip?" Frankie whispered. "You know that kid Tommy's been hangin' out with a lot from the next neighborhood over?"

"Oh yeah," Jane grunted, taking another towel from Frankie to wipe her face. "What was that pansy's name… Sumner?"

"Yeah, Sumner Fairfield. He said a few hours ago that's where he was gonna be all day."

"Know where he lives?"

"No, but you could look 'em up in the phone book."

Sighing, Jane left the bathroom to do just that, feeling (as she often did) that she deserved a salary for being the oldest sibling in this family. Angela had always been on her case about striving to be more ladylike, something Jane had fought straight from the womb. She hated her lack of independence, and vowed that as soon as she was legally her own citizen, she would live life her own way—not that, at seventeen, she wasn't pushing the envelope already.

Angela had picked out a nice bicycle with ribbons on the handlebars and woven basket attached to the front for Jane to use, and it was rarely taken out of the garage. Tonight, Jane borrowed Frankie's and took off in the direction of what the kids called "Snob Hill."

Jane hadn't ever actually been to this neighborhood, even though she attended school with kids who lived here. She found herself intimidated by the large, looming estates, all of them sprawling with picture-perfect lawns and only the nicest, newest cars in the driveways. The bike felt cheap and rusty beneath her as she pedaled to the Fairfield home, and she laid it on the curb next to a pruned bush, hoping it wouldn't attract too much attention there. For a moment she considered ringing the doorbell, but for once in her life, Jane bowed to fear: she would be embarrassed to approach whoever lived in this house with her torn clothes and dirty face.

So she walked around to the backyard, where she was sure Tommy and Sumner would throwing a football or something. To her surprise, the yard was empty, and she glanced around for any sight of them. It would be dark soon, and she didn't feel like biking up and down town with a bullhorn to call for them. Squinting to the house just south of the Fairfields', Jane thought she recognized Tommy's bike leaning against the fence. She walked over to investigate, then heard some giggling that definitely sounded like her brother. Why did it sound like it was coming from overhead?

Oh, hell no.

"Tommy Rizzoli!" she hissed.

The giggling was replaced by a loud gasp, and Tommy looked down at her from the tree he had climbed, binoculars in hand. She gestured for him to come down, and he glanced around as if hoping to find another option. Finally succumbing to the inevitable, he looped the binoculars around his neck and started the perilous climb down, moving as slowly as possible.

"Hi, Janie!" he chirped, giving her his best innocent expression.

"Uh-uh, Tommy. Ma might fall for that angel act of yours, but you ain't gonna fool me. You were peeping at some girl, weren't you?"

"No!" Tommy said, waving his hands as if no notion could be more disgusting to him. "No way!"

Jane folded her arms. "Oh, really? So what, pray tell, were you looking at just now? Have you taken up bird-watching this summer?"

"Um—uh—it was a, uh… a picture show!" Tommy tried. "Sumner said the family here likes to screen movies with a projector they've got, and this one was real funny, ha, ha!"

"Oh, I bet." She yanked the binoculars off Tommy's neck and held them high up, smirking when Tommy leapt to try and grab them back. "You won't mind if your big sis takes a look then, will you? I mean, if it's just a funny picture show…"

"Ma's gonna want us home for dinner though!" Tommy said. "Boy, we must running late already!" And he ran off, grabbing his bike and pedaling down the street as fast as he could so he'd be the first one home. Jane rolled her eyes, knowing that the baby of the family was Angela's favorite and could get away with the most. If she told Angela that he'd been doing something wrong, she was likely to side with him and accuse Jane of trying to get her brother in trouble.

Still, though…if it was something as bad as peeping at a girl, she might take it seriously…

Before she knew it, Jane found herself scaling the tree, binoculars around her neck. Even if it came down to just her word against Tommy's, she wouldn't feel properly slighted without being able to say for sure that she had caught him in the act.

She considered herself to be in pretty good shape, so it was odd to reach the limb Tommy had been on and feel breathless.

The window into which he'd been peering was in the next yard over, and a teenage girl was towel-drying her hair. Jane's mouth fell open and she scrambled to press the binoculars to her eyes, straddling the branch and moving as far out as she dared.

The girl had another towel secured around her, barely reaching her thighs. Jane figured a record had to be on, because she was swaying as if to a beat as she shook out her hair. It seemed she was mouthing lyrics to something, and when she licked her lips, Jane unconsciously mirrored the move. For a while the girl stood still, reaching for a brush and combing it through her hair.

After a minute or two the girl walked out of view, and Jane swore under her breath. She was lying flat-out on the branch now, twisting from left to right in an attempt to get a new angle on the window. A minute in change passed and she was about to get down when she almost fell out of the tree anyway because the girl reappeared in front of the window, towel gone.

She was wearing a knee-length pink skirt but no top, and her back was to the window. Jane clamped her mouth shut, feeling its dryness spreading out from the roof, and she squirmed further down the branch. At the moment, she was oblivious to the pain of digging the binoculars so close into the skin by the bridge of her wounded nose, not to mention the rings it was burning around her eyes. Never had she seen anything so enchanting as this girl's back, the way her muscles played as she stretched and shifted to start braiding her hair. She was all peaches and cream and gentle curves and alabaster skin, and involuntary thoughts pummeled to the front of Jane's mind—

turn around turn around turn around turn around for the love all that is good and Holy in the world TURN AROUND

Her wish was halfway granted, as the girl turned to exit Jane's voyeuristic view yet again. This time Jane knew to wait, although not with much patience. When the girl was visible again, she had finished dressing, wearing a white shirt. She smoothed her skirt and left the room, hitting the light on her way out.

Jane wasn't sure how long she sat in the tree afterwards. She was aware of the burning between her legs only when she started her retreat along the thick branch. Nervously she hurried to get back to the ground, jumping down once she had gone far enough. The binoculars swung around her neck as she fought to stay balanced on her feet, and only then did it register with her that nobody in her family owned binoculars—these must have been someone else's. Figuring Tommy had borrowed them from the Fairfields, Jane left the item slung around their mailbox before grabbing her bike and gunning it back home.

Realizing quickly how sensitive her crotch felt, Jane rode most of the way without sitting fully down on the seat of the bike. Though her pants were covered in sticky sap from the tree, that did not account for the substance she felt at the apex of her thighs. Jane might not get stellar grades in school, but it didn't take an egghead to figure out what this all meant.

She had wanted to see that girl naked. All of her. Not from curiosity, not from envy, but from unadulterated lust. Her heart was racing, sweat had made the hair closest to her forehead curl in the summer breeze, and just—her brain would not stop conjuring images of that girl!

Oh God, if Ma could see into my head right now, she'd hook a tube into my ears and pump soap into it all night.

When she got home, she decided to let Tommy sweat a little to see if she'd rat him out. Ultimately deciding it would be hypocritical to do so, she remained quiet about the issue, and went to bed not long after dinner.

"But honey, the game's on!" said her dad (who, incidentally, had intervened on her behalf and asked Angela not to wash out her mouth as a final summer present). "Don't you wanna watch it with me and the boys?"

"Not tonight, Pop," Jane muttered. She kissed him on the cheek. "See you tomorrow."

"Knock 'em dead, sweetheart!" he said with a grin, bumping his fist under her chin to make her smile. "Can you believe it, Ange? Our girl's gonna be a senior!"

"Time does fly," Angela sighed, clearing the dinner table as Frankie and Tommy hurried to turn on the television.

"Sure does. Summer was gone like that," Jane said, snapping her fingers. "Tell me about the game in the morning?"

"You got it, kiddo."

As Jane got ready for bed, she started to rationalize to herself: that thing with the girl was just a fluke. Maybe Ma was right, maybe she did roughhouse with the boys too much. Yeah. Maybe she'd just automatically adopted the mindset Tommy must've had in that tree. What was so wrong in thinking other girls were beautiful? Girls were beautiful. Nothing wrong with that. She shrugged and turned off the light, getting into bed.

Lying in the dark, a more harrowing thought occurred to her: maybe she was a girl version of that guy her dad had been in the army with, the one he called a queer. A fairy. One night a few years back, she'd snuck downstairs to get a drink of water when she woke up from a nightmare...

Her dad was playing cards in the sitting room with some old buddies from the army. Cigar smoke weaved its way into the kitchen, mingling with the deep, masculine laughs as Jane got her glass of water and returned to the stairs. She'd sat there on the bottom step for a while to listen, smiling as she heard the men reminisce about their bravery and the valor they had witnessed. Then-

"Say Frank."

"Yeah?"

"Whatever happened to that bum, that uh… that guy Del Rossi?"

Frank snorted. "That fairy?" Jane frowned in confusion; she'd never heard that term used to refer to a man before. The other men sounded interested, and Frank elaborated: "I saw that fruit in a foxhole porking some German civilian."

"Another man?"

"Whaddya think, fairies are normal and go for girls? Yeah, it was a man!"

Sounds of general disgust. "You report him?"

"Course I did! I almost shot 'em both on sight! You think it's safe trusting your life in the hands of a fag? I'm surprised he could even hold up a rifle with those weak arms!" The other men laughed, and Jane figured she was supposed to smile, too. "And I mean, I hope that German queer was a civilian! Can you imagine if they had spies to get intel from our fairy boys? It's why we don't let women in combat, either; you'd have 'em turn Benedict Arnold the first time they saw a handsome man in uniform."

"Disgusting," one man muttered.

"I'll say. Anyhow, I ain't seen him since the war. Never kept in touch. Why should I?"

"Just curious."

Jane had never admitted to overhearing this conversation, and she hadn't thought about it much until now other than to share in her father's disgust at two men being intimate together. It just seemed creepy. So why didn't it feel as creepy to her that she was feeling attracted to another girl? She'd felt attracted to boys too, right?

Of course I have! That fairy in the army probably never even kissed a girl.

All in all, it was not a restful night.

As she headed for school the next morning, Jane resolved to stick to her father's motto: don't give into fear. She'd never obsessed over women before; why worry about it now? Maybe all girls went through a phase like this. They seemed to be closer and more affectionate with each other than boys did. That probably factored in there somewhere. It had to.

The denial was only barely working, and Jane was loathe to admit to herself that it wouldn't take much to bust it. Just seeing the girl again might be enough to burst the argument she'd been building—and a chance meeting happened much sooner than she'd have liked.

Her home period teacher, an old spinster by the name of Ms. Winifred, stopped Jane with a ruler when the girl tried to walk to her desk. "Ah, ah, ah, Ms. Rizzoli."

"What?" Jane whined, looking down to make sure all her clothes were school-appropriate. They were.

Ms. Winifred shifted the ruler dangerously close to Jane's bruised nose. "What happened here?"

"It was yesterday. I didn't do nothin' on school grounds."

"I should say you certainly seem to do nothing on school grounds," Ms. Winifred said in a haughty voice, eliciting laughter from some of Jane's classmates. "Unless you count loitering and ruining your perfectly nice clothes."

"Can I sit down, please?" Jane asked with a scowl. "Ma'am?"

"You may go see the nurse," Ms. Winifred replied, handing her a note. "I don't care to have it on my conscience that you went a full day without having that attended to."

Jane snatched the note and stalked back down the empty hallway, books held by her side. She turned a corner to see the principal going on his morning inspection around the school; he cleared his throat, and she lifted the books more demurely to her chest as he passed. Going down the staircase to the nurse's office, Jane made her footsteps fall as loudly as possible.

Everything's always my fault… Frankie elbows me in the face, my fault. The bus is late, my fault. Tommy doesn't come home on time, my fault. I oversleep 'cause of bad dreams, my fault!

As far as Jane was concerned, the person responsible for most of her torment right now was that girl she'd seen yesterday. She'd kept her up all night, making her question herself, making her worry. Jane did not like dents in her confidence. Ma she could argue with, teachers she could roll her eyes at—but this? It was different, it was strange.

She opened the door to the nurse's office, and there was that girl, sitting next to the desk. They made eye contact, and Jane felt herself blushing. Her lip curled as she attempted to fight it, as she did fight it. Sure this girl looked like an angel with her smooth skin, her honey-colored hair, her hazel eyes.

But underneath that innocent outer layer was somebody who had made Jane Rizzoli doubt herself, and that could not go without retribution.

A/N: Don't worry, Jane won't be a total ass for this whole story. I just thought she was the type who might try blaming her confusion on the person who instigated it, not on herself. She'll learn pretty quick that Maura doesn't deserve to be treated like a jerk.