A/N: Wow, congrats on making it this far! Thank you for reading! And a special thank you/shout-out to my friend Erin, who convinced me waaaaay back when I started this story to give it a happy ending. I'm so glad she encouraged me to do that. I studied up and read dozens of amazing firsthand accounts from same-sex couples in decades-long relationships. I have so much affection for their inspiring stories and I also have so much affection for these characters, who I am homesick for every now and then. Thank you again for the gift of this fandom.

Maura got up to join Jane on the balcony. "How are you holding up, honey?" she asked, brushing her fingers against Jane's arm.

Jane chuckled. She brought Maura's hand to her lips for a quick kiss. "Okay. It's just a lot to be going through all at once, y'know? Remembering all of this stuff, and talking about it all, I mean. How about you, you doing okay?"

"I am right now, yes, but I'm better at compartmentalizing than you are. We're helping Peter make a very important historical record, one that will hopefully have a positive impact on his friends and classmates." She shrugged. "The emotional aspects of it all might hit me a bit harder later on."

"Well then," Jane said, putting her arm around Maura and pulling her close. "You'll have to get out your palm pilot and schedule in a lot of cuddling for tonight."

For a few long moments, they stood side-by-side, looking out at Boston. Maura's head rested on Jane's shoulder with their arms around each other. Peter came back with the water, but didn't want to interrupt what looked like a tender moment. He turned the camera on to get some B roll (they were too far away for good audio), then started some other homework while he waited for them to be ready to resume.

"What are you thinking about?" Maura asked.

Jane squeezed her shoulder. "Oh, I'm just picturing all the girls proposing to each other in Massachusetts right now. All the guys getting down on one knee for other guys. I feel like I should be kinda jealous of 'em—even if there's still a lot of BS so many of them have to go through—but I'm just happy for them. And I know," she added, "marriage isn't anything you're interested in, and there's still a ton of other work that still needs to be done. But this is pretty damn exciting."

"Of course it is, Jane. It's a huge step, an important one. It signifies that change is coming. It'll help gay kids, bi and lesbian kids, feel like their desires aren't distasteful or wrong. That's beautiful, and it's worth celebrating."

Jane pulled back a little. "Wow, we haven't talked about marriage in a long time. Your tune has changed!"

Maura shrugged again. "Maybe age is stripping me of my cynicism."

"Mm, what's that? I only heard the word 'stripping," Jane said, giving Maura's neck a quick kiss.

"Jane!" Maura laughed. "Come on. Yes, there is certainly still work to do, and battles to be fought, and I still think wariness should be employed in normalizing …but it's nice. What a beautiful step towards equality."

"Yeah."

"Did you ever think about it? How you might've proposed to me? Or was that one time in the car enough?"

"Sure," Jane snorted. "That would've been the romantic thing to do, huh? Only, you were so against the idea for such a long time and it did not even seem like a remote possibility, so I never bothered to fantasize. Asking you to civil union me wasn't really the same thing. Getting hung up on wanting to marry you seemed like a silly thing, and anyway what did I need to fantasize about technicalities for when I had you by my side all those years? Hell, a wedding ring never guaranteed commitment. Never kept people from splitting up, or staying together but cheating. I already have the best guarantee ever: you."

They shared a brief kiss. "Aw, Jane Rizzoli, you old softie. We have had a good run, haven't we?"

"Are you breaking up with me?" Jane joked.

"No," Maura laughed. "Sorry, I just heard how that sounded. I just think it's something of a miracle that we found each other, and that we've stayed together."

"God, don't I know it," Jane sighed. "I used to give myself panic attacks over nothing, just thinking things like, what if BCU hadn't asked your dad to teach there? What if your parents had had the time to put you in a private school? What if Tommy hadn't had a crush on you and invited you over all the time? I wouldn't have gotten to know you."

"I just keep thinking of your parents," Maura said.

"My—" Jane pulled back to look her in the eye again. "What?"

"Maybe you didn't think about it much in high school, but it was pretty clear to me that they did not have a happy marriage."

"Hell, I knew that. You saw my dad with his mistress, didn't you?"

"Well, right. Think of all your mother put up with. I have no sympathy for your father, but I mean obviously he was unhappy, too. Good Catholics don't get divorced, do they? It just isn't done. Think of the thousands of straight couples like your parents, bound by religion and society into relationships that are abusive at worst, loveless at best. You and I, we're not still together just because we feel obligated, or because anyone told us we had to be. We never had any children we thought we had to stay together for."

That stung, though Maura hadn't intended it to. Jane took the edge off with a joke: "We wouldn't have wanted to separate the pets, though."

A smile passed over Maura's serious countenance. "You know what I mean, right?"

Jane nodded, taking Maura's hand and giving it a kiss. "Yeah, babe. I do."

"You do?"

"Yes…"

"Shit."

"Hm?"

Maura looked all of a sudden like she was going to cry. "Shit! I had this all planned. I was going to take you to Antonella's tonight and get that manicotti you love, and gelato, and champagne, but now we're talking about it and…"

Jane couldn't remember the last time her heart had raced like this. "Maura?"

"Jane, I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife, and I want to be yours."

"You what?"

"I know we're not twenty-five anymore, but we're both in excellent health, so barring any freak accidents I'd say we've got another good thirty years in us at least. And I'm tired, Jane. I'm sick and tired of calling you my girlfriend, like we're a couple of teenagers. And I'm tired of women our age, older women, younger women, thinking I mean you're my girlfriend like you're a female who is my friend! I'm tired of people assuming we're just co-workers when I call you my partner."

"We are co-workers, though," Jane couldn't help pointing out.

"Dammit Jane, you know what I mean. The next time we're out and we have to introduce ourselves, I want to be able to say 'hello, I'm Maura Isles, and goddammit this is my goddam wife, Jane!"

Jane was unashamed to realize there were tears stinging her eyes. "Wow, a Tourette's outbreak? You're really serious about this."

"If I wasn't before, talking to Peter just now and thinking of all the shit life has put us through—Jane, we deserve this. We shouldn't have had to have a secret funeral for Adamo del Rossi. Roxie should've been able to just be a grieving friend, not a grieving widow. And I still stand by what I've always said: so much of marriage is just a matter of semantics, and legal technicalities. But those words and those legalities matter! I get so damn giddy thinking about calling you my wife. I am overwhelmed thinking about filing our taxes as a married couple, and the entitlements you'd get to my estate if I predecease you, and how I wouldn't get shut out of your hospital room again if, any deity forbid, you got landed in there again."

"You… you want to get married. You, Maura Dorothea Isles, want to marry me. Is that right?"

"I sure as hell don't want to marry anyone else. And I hope you say yes, because I already got the rings specially made."

"What?!"

"Mine is white opal, from that necklace of my great-grandmother's, set in that gaudy gold my mother always hated. And yours is red jasper. Those were the colors of the roses you gave me when you proposed to me on our first Valentine's together. You said the florist told you that red and white combined meant 'unity,' and that entwined together they meant 'marry me.' And when same-sex marriage was legalized here in the state where we live, I thought about how much I wanted to marry you when I was sixteen," Maura said, choking on the last word with tears in her eyes. "I want to get married for us now, for our sakes in the future, but also for them—for our younger selves. Imagine how elated they would be."

It wasn't like Maura to be motivated by her past, but that wasn't the only reason Jane was speechless. When her voice came back to her, all she could think to say was, "I can't believe you remembered the colors of the roses and everything."

"I look at them almost every week," Maura said, to Jane's great surprise. "They've been pressed in my grandmother's copy of Little Women ever since they first started to wilt. Oh, shoot! I was going to bring the book to Antonella's to show you."

"Maura Isles, you romantic son of a bitch," Jane chuckled.

"I was going to be a romantic son of a bitch, and look what happened," Maura groaned. "This should've been a proposal forty years in the making, and I spontaneously popped the question on Tommy's porch."

She moaned and put her face in her hands. Jane gently took them in her own, making space for a kiss. "Maura, don't sweat it. We can go to Antonella's tonight and get anything off the menu you want. Put the rings in a champagne glass, or have 'em baked into the manicotti. Hell, surprise me! Bring the book and the roses, and we'll get dressed up for a real night out on the town." She leaned in for another kiss, then whispered, "And then I'll take you home and make love to you into next week."

Maura laughed, putting her arms around Jane's neck and stealing a kiss. "So just to clarify, you are saying yes?"

"Are you kidding me? Of course I'm saying yes!" Jane cried, picking up Maura and swinging her around as best she could. "Oh, my God! Oh my God, Maura, we're getting married! Can we have a ceremony, or do you just want city hall?"

"Whatever you want, sweetheart," Maura said through her tears. "Anything at all, just as long as my parents can be there."

"Of course they'll be there! Oh—what if your mother got ordained on the Internet or something? She could officiate it! Wouldn't that be amazing?"

"She would be thrilled and honored."

"Do you have your cellphone with you? We should call and tell her, she should be the first to know!"

They both jumped at the sound of a loud sob from inside the house: Peter was weeping over his math homework. They had both forgotten he was there.

"Well, your mom will be the second, I guess."

The following article was printed as the first newsletter of Central High School's Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), founded by senior Peter Rizzoli. There are many copies of it on bookshelves and desk drawers of his aunts' home, with the actual newsletter folded and tucked into the back of their wedding album. It is looked at almost as regularly as the wedding video Peter shot for them, which helped form the basis of his article.

It is a beautiful autumn day at Fenway Park, a place where many Bostonians would tell you miracles happen. Today, however, that miracle is not an athletic one but rather a miracle of matrimony: Jane Rizzoli, 62, and Maura Isles, 60, are getting married almost 45 years (to the day!) after their first kiss. Jane is quick to point out that while Maura is dressed in a red silk Cassandra Strickenberg dress, she herself is wearing a Ted Williams jersey under her white pantsuit: "I mean, it's Fenway! Gotta respect Fenway, c'mon."

The couple met in high school, where Jane was a senior and Maura was a transfer sophomore student. When asked how they knew it was safe to broach the possibility of a relationship past friendship, Jane—who has been loathe to release her wife's hand all day—laughs and says, "It felt inevitable. I selflessly offered to teach her how to kiss and it didn't take us long to realize we didn't want to kiss anybody else."

"Don't let her fool you into thinking it wasn't a long time coming," Maura chimes in. "She's wanted me from the first time she saw me. She caught her brother peeping in my window and then took a look herself."

"I waited three decades to finally admit that, and I think it's gonna take three more for her to forget it."

It's clear there are many happy memories from that initial courting period of the early 1960s, but each is accompanied by at least one harrowing memory as well. These incidents range from worrying how it might look to hold hands in public, to cop-raided parties, to (in Jane's case) familial estrangement.

Maura says she thanks the universe every day for her mother, who was her first confidant and ally. In fact, when the first lesbian club Jane and Maura ever frequented was raided and shut down by cops on Valentine's Day 1960, Constance Isles offered her studio for weekly get-togethers of the club's former patrons.

Constance, who recently celebrated her 86th birthday, officiated today's ceremony. She was granted a one-day designation certificate by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to perform the service, and made the flight from Paris with her husband earlier this week. Considering her age she is in remarkable shape, of sound body and mind and very high spirits. She kept her remarks short, reading a selection of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry before turning the time over for Jane and Maura to exchange their vows.

The brides say picking Constance to officiate was a no-brainer, and she had no qualms about providing the service. "I never fantasized about my daughter's wedding day, like some mothers do," she says. "But it was still something I expected to attend one day, until she told me about Jane. My husband and I were thrilled to be able to fly out here for this ceremony. Marriage is what you make it. I've always thought Jane and Maura were more married than many actual married people I know, and to see that legally validated is tremendously moving."

Maura's father, Desmond, feels the same. Essential tremors affecting his voice box have greatly minimized his ability to speak, but as he watches the proceedings he points at the brides and proudly says, "This is what love looks like."

As Jane and Maura have their first dance as a married couple (to Doris Day's "They Say It's Wonderful"), I sit with members of the wedding party. This includes three of the brides' oldest friends: Roxie del Rossi, 65, who is herself engaged to be married to her long-time partner Susan next month and is proud to say she was the first woman to ever make a move on Jane Rizzoli. Betty McRae and Kate Andrews have been together for 47 years and have chosen not to get married, despite their ability to do so in their native Ontario.

When I was impetuous enough to ask why not, Betty shot me a look as if to say it really wasn't my business (and I guess it's not) but she answered me anyway: "I've been told I should get married ever since I turned nineteen, and before that, I was told it was something I should be busy fantasizing about. It's a word that's been used to hound me my entire life by people who were in the dark about how close I was with my 'roommate.' Now the tables have turned and the people who DO know about me and Kate are the ones harassing me about getting married! I understand why Jane and princess are tying the knot, and I'm very happy for them, but a commitment ceremony was just fine for us."

The men in the wedding party are Tommy Rizzoli Senior, Barold (Barry) Frost, and Kent Drake. Maura met Kent during two years she spent working in Washington DC in the 1970s, and they have maintained a close friendship ever since. A Scotsman, he is dressed in a kilt, and Tommy sobbingly embraced him before the ceremony began and said "I am so glad you can live your truth," apparently mistaking Ken for transsexual. (It should be noted Ken is not a transsexual but does enjoy cross-dressing, although that has nothing to do with the kilt. If you're looking for a roguish cross-dressing Scottish silver fox, I regret to inform you he is taken!)

Tommy is the only member of Jane's immediate family who is present. Their father and brother have passed, and their mother is not in contact with her. Although the estrangement took some time to get over, Jane says she had not been hung up on it in some time. She has recently been in touch with a cousin she was close to growing up, whose son came out of the closet last year. She sends her regrets about being unable to fly east for the wedding, and the flowers are here courtesy of her and her husband.

Barry Frost is Jane's oldest friend. He and his wife Tess are Jane and Maura's favorite couple to travel with. In fact, after Jane and Maura's honeymoon in Greece (Maura's childhood fantasy wedding took place on Santorini), Barry and Tess will be meeting them for a vacation in Italy.

"Did I know they'd make it? Hell, no!" Barry laughs when I asked what it was like to watch true love unfurl before his very eyes. "They are perfect for each other, though. They really balance out, yin and yang and the whole deal."

At this point, Maura is dancing with her mother and Jane is dancing with Barry's mother Camille, who I'm embarrassed to say looks like a much smoother dancer at 85 than I ever will be. Jane has told me she's had no choice but to stay close to Barry's family, as Camille was the first adult she ever came out to. Camille herself was in a relationship with her partner Robin for over 40 years before Robin passed away four years ago. Were it not for her passing, Camille says she is certain that she and Robin would have been first in line to get married in Boston once same-sex marriage was legalized.

"Camille has been my guidepost, my rock, ever since I was seventeen," Jane says, now sitting and letting the guests do the dancing. "Robin was too. Theirs was the relationship I aspired to have, and I am beyond lucky to have had it."

"I can't believe we're a pair of old married ladies, now," Maura snickers. She tips her champagne glass at me. "Well, old relative to some at least."

"You're both children," Constance says, passing by the table. "You, my dear Maura, and your wife."

"God, I hope I never get tired of that! I've been called every name in the book," says Jane. "Most of 'em lousy, ever since I was a kid—screw-up, freak, weirdo, and those are the ones fit for print. But Lordy, I never thought anyone would be able to call me someone's wife!"

"Wait till she starts calling you her old lady," Kate says, getting an affectionate eye roll from Betty in return.

The guests (who include colleagues, friends, neighbors, and several admiring students from my class) are snacking on bags of peanuts put on each table in lieu of Jordan almonds. Among a spread of fabulous looking food, the most decadent of all is a three-tiered cake with Hazelnut almond, chocolate ganache, and mocha layers. It sits untouched for most of the afternoon until Maura's father (only semi-jokingly, I'm told) yells "CAKE!"

"Let's be honest, this is the real reason you wanted to get married," Maura says to Jane as two slices are cut.

"What, cake? Hell, you're the one who picked it out!"

"No, I mean because you wanted to do this!" Maura laughs, and she beats Jane to the punch by smashing some cake in her face.

Jane retaliates by dipping her finger in some frosting and smudging it across Maura's cheek. "I'm not gonna endanger that dress for anything."

As the evening draws to a close, the brides look a tad worn out from giving parting guests their thanks and farewells. But they graciously allow me a moment, sitting at a table and leaning against each other for support. I ask how they feel.

"This is probably the happiest I have ever been," Jane says with a tired grin. "I don't think I've smiled this much in one day, maybe ever."

"If you mean how does it feel to be married, I don't feel any different," Maura says, and Jane nods in agreement. "Tomorrow I'll still be Dr. Isles, and she'll still be Jane Rizzoli, and we'll wake up in the same house we've lived in for the last twenty years. But today? I hope I never forget today. A celebration of love like this, with your family and closest friends around you—that is such a gift. I hope it's a gift everyone in America will be able to enjoy someday soon."

Jane tips an empty champagne glass and echoes the sentiment. "We used to joke that Constance's middle name should've been vigilance—Constance Vigilance! Enjoy what comes as it does, but always remember there's work to be done. Today we celebrate, tomorrow we roll up our sleeves. Here's to the future."

At this point I'm just thanking God that I'm not diabetic because I have never seen my badass aunt be so sugary. Maura calls her a softie and gives her a kiss and then whispers what I can only assume was something inappropriate in her ear. I take that as my cue to leave.

Till next time, ladies!

The End