A/N: So, I know I'm a bit of a one-trick pony as far as my Rizzles fic: it's all pretty much fluffy first-i-love-you stories and this isn't really different. I'm pretty much captivated by the thought of that ah-hah moment so I'm always imagining it in all these different ways. Hopefully you all will enjoy it.

This story will be 2 parts and was inspired by k.d. lang's version of Cole Porter's "So In Love." The song is beautiful and the lyrics scream Rizzles. If you'd like to hear it there's a link on my tumblr or PM me.

So In Love

Sunday dinner.

Carbs, chianti, and cannoli.

It's the closest thing that Maura can call a family tradition after four years of being best friends with Jane Rizzoli and consequential assimilation into the detective's boisterous Southie family. For the past two years, Sunday dinner was hosted at her Beacon Hill home since the Rizzoli matriarch had taken up residence in the doctor's guest house. The custom had to be as much Maura's now as it was the rest of theirs, right?

"Family tradition," Maura murmurs quietly to herself as she stacks sauce covered plates into the dishwasher. She can't stop the small smile or the flush that pinks her cheeks at the ability to put both of those words together and get to include herself. Just the words "include herself" are enough to cause stomach-clenching giddiness. She pauses to pull in a deep calming breath, then continues to load the rest of the dinner dishes into the machine.

"Where's the remote for the stereo, Maura?"

Jane's voice cuts through the dull hum of conversation and Sports Center on the gigantic television. The entire clan has turned out for dinner today; Frost and Korsak included. A rare day indeed to have all three from homicide plus Frankie off work, so Angela has taken full advantage and made four courses and homemade dessert. Maura tosses a detergent packet into the washer, clicks it on, then pads out to the living room, wine in hand.

"It's on top of the stereo." She points it out to the detective as she sips a bit of the Chianti and settles herself on the arm of the couch next to Frankie. He makes to move over but Maura shakes her head slightly and sets her hand against his shoulder. "Do we need the television on as well?"

"Why?" Jane responds, her back to the gathering, as she pokes around the expensive sound system trying to find where to plug in the auxiliary jack for her iPod. "The current cacophony isn't pleasing to your ears, Doctor?" She peeks back over her shoulder, grin belying her serious tone. Korsak and her partner stifle twin chuckles over the anticipated sparring.

"Actually, no. It's not at all pleasant." The blond arches an eyebrow as Frankie shakes his head and relaxes back into the sofa. "Plus, I'm sure this decibel level isn't conducive to the healthy development of TJ's hearing. Studies have shown that—"

"Really?" Jane stops poking around and turns to face her friend. "Come on Maur, sarcasm?" Then she motions to Angela to cut off the TV and throws up her arms in exasperation. "Where the hell does this plug in, anyway, Dr. Smartypants?"

Maura smiles innocently. "It doesn't plug in."

"Like hell, I've seen you use your iPod with this damn thing several times."

The doctor just continues to smile, winking at Frost as she takes another sip of wine.

Jane rolls her eyes and stomps over to her partner, throwing the device into his lap. "Make this work, while I go and take care of that." She tips her head towards the still grinning blond who is currently whispering conspiratorially with Frankie.

"Yes ma'am." Frost answers, holding up his casted arm to block Jane's jab.

"Don't call me that, Barold." The detective growls and stalks towards Maura, erasing the smirk from the her friend's face.

"And YOU," Jane bumps Maura with a hip and knocks her, squealing, from her roost onto Frankie, "You're supposed to have my back!"

"Oh for the love of– Janie!" Angela stands and hands TJ off to his mother, then walks to the couch to help the Maura get up without spilling her wine on herself or a flailing Frankie. "Maura, honey, you don't have to be her friend just because I live here."

"Really? Just—really? The both of you?" Jane frowns dramatically at first her mother then Maura and snags her iPod from Frost's raised hand. She turns her attention to him. "Will it work now?"

He nods, smirking. "What are we going to do? Play musical chairs?

Memories soften Jane's eyes as she pivots to face her best friend. "Well, it depends on whether or not Dr. Isles will permit us to move her furniture."

The detective, brown eyes full blown puppy dog, walks back to where Maura stands, leaning against the arm of the sofa. Maura cocks her head to the side and holds Jane's gaze expectantly. Jane wrinkles her brow in confusion.

"Janie! Manners!"

"God, Ma…" Jane clasps her hands together and makes a show of dropping to her knees. She's aware she must tread lightly with the royalty jokes. There's a fine line between what tickles Maura's decidedly odd funny bone and what triggers tears. Jane's not always sure on which side her comments will fall.

"Please, oh Queen? Please can we move your furniture?" She sticks her tongue out as all the law enforcement members in the room use their phones to snap pictures of her begging favors.

Maura extends her index finger from her wineglass and taps Jane on the nose, launching into full lecture mode. "Please may we…"

The detective rolls her eyes and gestures for the men to get up and move the couch as the doctor prattles on, oblivious to Jane's inattention, "I'm sure you can, but you're supposed to be asking for permission, not the ability, to do something..."

"Thank you, Miss Manners." Jane cuts Maura off with a hand on her arm. "Since we can, we already did." The doctor drops silent and Jane switches gears, worried that once again she's tread too hard on Maura's feelings. "You're gonna love this. I'll be making a fool of myself all night."

Jane pulls Maura back to where her mother and Lydia sit, walking backwards so she can keep Frankie and Tommy's attention, "Hey, remember staying at Nonna Bracco's when we were little and how she and Nonno would play old music and we would all dance after dinner?"

Tommy laughs and mock-punches Frankie on the shoulder, "Yeah, I remember." The youngest Rizzoli moves in front of his older brother and does his best imitation of their beloved grandfather. He bends a bit at the waist and points a crooked finger at Frankie, thickening his already pronounced Bostonese.

"Ol' Blue eyes, an yah namesake, young Frankie. Girls is always fallin allovah themselves when they heah him sing. I godda remind yah Nonna that singin' is great but dancin', that's where she fell in love. Sinatra himself couldna best me on the dance floah."

Tommy bumps fists with his grinning brother, everyone else in the room is clapping and laughing at the impromptu performance. Tommy bows at their applause and holds his hand out to his mother. Maura has a feeling that she is about to be surprised again at Rizzoli hidden talents. Angela smiles delightedly as her youngest spins her into his arms.

As if cued, Jane taps the iPod and brass and Sinatra pour from Maura's expensive sound system. Tommy and Angela whirl around the widened space and Maura is a bit intimidated by their effortless grace. Jane must sense her mild distress because Maura feels Jane touch her reassuringly on the forearm before she softly hip-checks her again. The blonde offers small smile in thanks. Jane leans down to whisper in Maura's ear.

"If you think Tommy's good, wait until Frankie goes. He was older so he remembers the lessons better. Nonno died when Tommy was ten, so Frankie's got three years of practice on him." Maura turns to question her friend about her own dancing skills and their noses bump. The doctor gasps and jerks back when she realizes that Jane hasn't moved away. She hears Jane's chuckle and her face burns with a blush so fierce she's forgotten what she wanted to ask in the first place. This line that they tiptoe jumbles her insides and while normally she'll flirt right back, she suddenly feels unsettled.

At the end of the song, Frost and Korsak start the whistling and cheering and there's another round of applause.

The next song is faster, a Dean Martin classic. Korsak takes Angela's hand from Tommy, who moves to pull Lydia out on the floor to teach her to mambo. Jane reaches her arms out to take her sleeping nephew and stares pointedly at Frankie, tipping her head in Maura's direction.

"Ask her!" Jane mouths behind the doctor's line of sight and sighs as Maura takes a step back and softly shakes her head as Frankie approaches. He gestures for her to take his hand and glances helplessly at Jane when the blond again refuses.

"Maur, go on. Frankie's a good teacher and the mambo is fun. I'm going to go lay TJ down at Ma's." She bumps her friend into Frankie for a second time tonight, offering a mischievous smile when Maura gives her an apprehensive frown. "Relax Talking Google, just tell my brother where the mambo originated while he teaches you to do it."

Maura brightens at the idea of a mini-lesson, both for herself and Frankie. He's always been much more appreciative of her frequent spouts of random information, or if not appreciative, he at least doesn't mock her for it.

"Come on." Frankie leads her out amongst the laughing and dancing. The blond is astonished that Korsak can mambo; he and Angela dance like contenders for some sort of award. Maura wonders if there is a trophy or ribbon, with the Rizzolis and their competitive streaks she wouldn't be surprised.

"Is there a prize?" Maura murmurs to Frankie, her hands on his shoulders as he palms both of her hips, pushing back and forth to the music. "This isn't the mambo, by the way. It's actually salsa. Instructors in New York decided that the real dance, which originated in Cuba, wasn't disciplined enough so they created regim—"

"A prize?" Frankie interrupts the stream of information with a confused look. Maura's years of formal dance instruction have given her an advantage over Lydia, who is stepping all over Tommy's toes and laughing. A little guidance and she and Frankie are giving the older couple a run for their money.

The doctor looks up into Frankie's baffled brown eyes, eyes that look so much like Jane's when Maura is being especially non-sequitur. She sighs and tries to clarify.

"You Rizzolis are always competing over something. I figured there would be a prize of some sort..."

Frankie still looks befuddled, but he hasn't lost a step. Distracted, he raises their clasped hands to spin her, and despite the fact she's a quick study, Maura isn't prepared for the shift in momentum. The five inch heels she's wearing aren't much of a help as she tries to catch her balance.

"Oh, OH..FRANKIE!" Maura shrieks, hoping that he'll have enough of a grasp to keep her from landing flat on her back. Her eyes squeeze shut and she sucks in a breath she is sure will be knocked from her body upon impact.

Strong fingers grab her wrist and a long arm is around her waist, and she is caught up against a bony hip. Concern swirls in familiar brown eyes that flick over her frame, checking for damage. Maura realizes with an unbidden thrill that Jane has her clutched close to help her stabilize on her towering shoes. Maura bites her lip and throws caution to the wind, slipping her arm up around Jane's shoulders. She throws a little wobble in for good measure.

"God, Frankie, I said teach her to mambo, not drop her on the floor." Sarcasm so heavy that even the doctor can discern it drips from the husky voice.

Frankie holds his hands up in surrender and shrugs sheepishly. Maura has to stifle a giggle at the expression on the middle Rizzoli's face. Her proximity to Jane, her relief at not falling, and that third glass of wine have left her feeling a bit tipsy, and she drops her head against the Jane's shoulder. Jane squeezes her slightly and tips her own dark head to rest for a moment against the Maura's.

"Dance with me Janie?" The glint in Frankie's eyes dares her to refuse. Jane shifts uncomfortably, stepping out from under Maura's arm. Maura struggles to hide the discontent that immediately kills her buzz.

Maura is an expert at masking emotions, but tonight her control isn't in top form. Last weekend had been a test of her ability to keep up appearances: first working with Hope in the field doing triage, then in the crumbling building terrified not only for Frost, TJ, and Tommy but also for Jane and herself. Furthermore, she still hasn't told Jane that she was going through with the kidney donation. She's too afraid of seeing her friend's disappointment no matter how ephemeral. Hiding information from Jane has made the entire week a roller coaster of ups and downs with Maura just trying to hang on.

"Hey – Maur?" The doctor blinks owlishly and Jane's concerned face is level with her own. "You alright?"

Maura notices the music has changed and that Frankie has stepped to the couch to joke with Frost. Jane's partner broke his arm in the building collapse, and the bent positioning of the cast made dancing awkward. His annoyance at his bystander-only role is telegraphed by his rhythmic tapping on the obnoxious kelly-green and clover-covered cast. Jane spent an afternoon with a pack of new black Sharpies decorating the cast to try to draw him from his desk-duty gloom with her unofficial Celtics embellishments.

"I'm fine." Maura tries her best to smile, the product tremulous at best, and Jane looks unconvinced and slightly guilty. "Go. Go and dance with Frankie. I'd like to see you both."

"Nah, I don't feel like it right now."

If Maura didn't know her better, she would have said that Jane was being shy. But she does know her and…well, one thing Jane Rizzoli isn't is shy. Maura frowns at the evasion, her eyes undoubtedly full of questions. A slight blush blooms across the detective's cheeks and she looks away from her friend to watch the two couples dance. The gesture strikes Maura as a bit odd, but so has everything about this week, plus she's never really been a great judge of odd anyway. Jane seems to snap out of it and pushes the doctor towards her middle brother again.

"Why don't you give Frankie another chance to demonstrate his talents?" Before Maura can protest, Jane calls over to the men who are both pointing at Tommy and Lydia and laughing. "Frankie, come whirl Maura around again? This time I'll confiscate her shoes."

The men bump fists, both sporting conspiratorial grins, and Frankie shakes his head. "Naw, Janie, I barely escaped that last debacle with my balls. I don't want to have to deal with you a second time." Frost cracks up, and they knuck-up again, high-5s impossible with the detective's cast. Jane arches an eyebrow threateningly, but her brother doesn't even flinch. She sighs and turns to see heartbreak all over Maura's face.

"I feel like you're trying to avoid me." The doctor comments softly, just barely able to be heard over the din of music and laughter. She feels something is amiss, but can't for the life of her figure out what it is. Their orbit is off, that constant circling that they do when they're together. Maura feels like she is on a collision course with something large and inevitable and she hasn't the skills to adjust her trajectory.

"No!" Jane exclaims as her hand slides up into her wild curls, tugging for a moment in frustration before she repeats herself, softer and less defensive. "No, no, no, I just thought…you know, that you would want to dance too." She seems baffled by Maura's swing in demeanor and this sudden tension between them.

Flustered brown eyes meet hazel and Maura is sure, now, that Jane is uncomfortable and that it has something to do with her. Maura feels her stomach clench and her throat tighten. She drops her eyes as the familiar burn of tears begins. She doesn't even know what she's so upset about: dinner was wonderful, plus she's surrounded by happy people and the best friend she's ever had.

"Hey…hey?! Are you crying?" Jane looks at her incredulously, her voice low enough that only Maura can hear. Long-fingered hands reach for Maura's shoulders, but she ducks under the embrace and walks, sniffling, into the kitchen. Frankie and Frost catcall at what they think is a commonplace tiff between the two women and Maura hopes it's enough to distract Jane and to give her a chance to get her bearings.

"Oh get bent, you two!"

The detective's husky voice carries over the music and teasing as she stomps from the living room to follow Maura's retreating form. The blonde dabs hastily at the tears that managed to escape, hoping to fool her friend and, once they've all gone home, deal with whatever existential crisis she is having, alone, with the rest of that bottle of Chianti. Jane pins her into the corner between stovetop and sink with just her dark gaze, long arms crossed expectantly. Their orbit may be off, but that uncanny ability to practically read one another's mind hasn't changed. Maura crumbles a bit under the detective's scrutiny.

The open floor plan seemed like a good idea when Maura bought this house, but now she wishes there were a partition, or a wall, or even a guarded drawbridge with a moat to protect her from having this conversation. She shakes her head at her friend, eyes pleading for a delay in questioning. Any of the crowd in the living room could walk back to the kitchen, hell they could just turn around and look and see the normally composed doctor on the verge of losing her shit.

"Janie!" Angela's voice cuts through Sinatra and both women flinch. "I haven't seen you out here yet. Your Nonno is rolling in his grave as this music plays and you stand around."

Jane frowns slightly, but doesn't take her eyes from Maura.

"I'll be in in a minute, Ma."

She steps toward Maura, just enough to lean in and be heard. "We need to talk, but I get it, another time. Why don't you hang back and I'll tell everyone you're not feeling well. Then go up to bed. You've been a bit off all week, so no one will question it." Jane tilts her head to meet Maura's eyes, "I'll straighten up and see everyone out."

Maura bites her lip to stop its wobbling and nods almost imperceptibly, fighting the compulsion to reach out for comfort. She wants to grab Jane's hand and lace their fingers together, suddenly desperate to recapture that moment where they stood in the middle of the street, chaos roaring around them, their hands clasped. She wants to ask Jane to stay with her tonight, to confess her decision about the donation and to get rid of this residual anxiety. Maura hates feeling out of control.

Jane walks over to the improvised dance floor and although Maura cannot hear her, she can tell from the gestures that Jane is exaggerating Maura's "condition." When Maura steps out of the kitchen to say her goodnights, Angela wraps her in a hug, kissing her on the forehead and patting her cheek as she pulls away. The rest of her company waves their goodbyes as she walks to the steps. Maura feels Jane's eyes on her as she climbs the stairs and she turns and offers her friend a hesitant but genuine smile. Jane winks at her and gestures that she's up next to dance. When Maura reaches the landing, she moves to lean against the wall and observe. Jane turns her attention to her brother as he leans down to rabbitpunch Frost on his good arm. Frankie holds his hand out to her and their mother unpauses the music and the two of them transform into people that Maura would never believe she knew. She is speechless.

They salsa and spin, movements so precise and perfect that Maura cannot fathom that they don't meet weekly to practice. The room is silent except for the music and footfalls on her floor. Unable to fight the compulsion, Maura closes her eyes and imagines herself in Jane's arms, moving across the hardwood in time with the beat. Just holding her friend's hand doesn't seem to be enough anymore, and Maura is floored by this sudden surge of neediness. Imagining is an indulgence she will no longer allow herself to have; she just cannot handle any more disappointment. Steeling herself against the longing brought on by the clapping and whistling below, she steps farther back into the shadows of the landing then turns and retreats to her bedroom.