Chapter Text
“Marge Gunderson?”
“No.”
“Clarice Starling?”
“No.”
“Dana Scully?”
“I said from a nineties movie, Jane.” Maura’s tone is exasperated.
“There was also a movie, Maura,” Jane mimics that tone right back at her.
“Oh,” Maura says, audibly deflating at the moderate defeat. She recovers quickly. “Well, it’s still not her. And why are you only picking law enforcement characters?”
“You said it was a strong female protagonist.”
“I did. So why are you only picking law enforcement characters?”
Maura has made a good point and Jane pauses rather than taking another stab at it. She’s lying on her back on the couch in Maura’s office, tossing a baseball up in the air over and over. It’s the Friday afternoon before the precinct Halloween party and despite trying to guess it all week, Jane still hasn’t figured out Maura’s costume. She thinks hard, biting at the inside of her cheek.
“Thelma, from Thelma & Louise?”
In her peripheral vision, Jane can tell that Maura pauses her work, looking at Jane over the top of her laptop screen.
“Is that Gena Davis’s character?”
Jane turns her head to look right at Maura, eyes widening. “Yes.”
“Then no.”
Now Jane sits up sharply, propping herself up on her elbows. “Louise??”
“Also no.” Maura goes back to her work.
Jane sputters.
“Jesus Christ, Maura. Then why did—” Jane stops herself and sighs, sinking back down onto the couch. She keeps her eyes on Maura now, rotating through different pitch grips on the baseball instead of throwing it. She’s mad that she cares this much about the costume contest. She’s never actually attended the precinct Halloween party (or the precinct Christmas party, or the precinct St. Paddy’s party, or the—well, you get it) but the prize of this year’s costume contest is of great interest to Jane: two shitty, obstructed view tickets to game six of the goddamn fucking World Series next week, so long as the Sox were still playing.
And Jane just knows they’ll still be playing.
Jane’s also pretty sure she knows who Maura will take if she wins, so Maura’s costume matters almost as much as her own.
Jane pulls in a deep breath, bringing her index finger and thumb together in a circle change grip on the baseball. She watches Maura as she works away at her desk.
“Fine. Okay. Uhh…Oh, I can’t remember the character’s name, but Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman?”
Maura smirks, but she doesn’t pause with whatever she’s writing. “I think that’s more your speed, Tiffany.”
“Hey, that was for work,” Jane grumbles. “Oh! Is it Sandra Bullock in Speed?”
“No, Jane.”
Jane groans loudly. “Maura, why won’t you just tell me. I told you who I was dressing up as.”
“Because I want to know if I actually get it right, Jane.” Maura finishes whatever she was typing and shuts her laptop with a click. “I don’t always trust that you’re telling me the truth about things related to my social insecurities, so I prefer to wait and see if you can guess.”
“God, Maura, I lie about a joke being funny one time…”
“I told it to three other people that day, Jane. Including the governor.”
If there was any chance of Maura telling her, it disappears as soon as Jane is unable to restrain her grin at the thought of Maura repeating that awful joke in the governor’s office. Maura glowers at her, sliding her laptop into its case and then into her bag.
“You want me to pick you up on my way?” Jane asks.
“That won’t be necessary,” Maura says. “I’ll meet you here tonight.”
A few hours later, Jane is standing in the Division One Gymnasium, surrounded by copious dollar store Halloween decorations and the lingering smell of the precinct basketball team’s most recent practice, arguing with Frankie about her shoes.
“No, I remember them distinctly,” Frankie insists. “They were red and grey and had, like, a big velcro strap.”
Jane pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut as she tries to stay calm. “Again, you are thinking of her shoes in Aliens.” Jane stresses the ‘s’ at the end of the word so hard it sounds like she’s saying it with an Italian accent—Alienzzzah. “I am dressed as Ripley from Alien. Just the one single Alien.”
Jane is wearing a beige-y grey flight suit over top of a white tank, with a pair of white-on-white PF Flyer high tops on her feet. She has a futuristic toy gun slung across her back and a stuffed orange cat clutched under her arm. Her costume is perfect. She sustained only three burns from the hot glue gun she used to apply the patches she had purchased off the internet. God, she really wants those fucking tickets.
Frankie squints as he stares down at Jane’s feet. He himself is dressed as one of the Ghostbusters, having gone to the army surplus store with Jane when she went to pick up her jumpsuit. Coincidentally, it’s the same costume he wore when he was eight.
“Maybe you’re right,” Frankie says.
Jane wants to shove him in a locker. “Oh for crying—I know I’m right. Here, let me show you on my phone.”
Jane goes to dig her phone out of the deep pockets of her costume, but then Maura steps into the gym and instead, Jane’s mouth slams open like a broken drawbridge.
“Oh my god,” she breathes, which prompts Frankie to turn to look over at the door.
“Oh my god,” Frankie exclaims.
Without tearing her eyes away from Maura, Jane punches her brother hard in the shoulder. He yelps loudly.
“Ow! What the fuck, Janie.”
“Be respectful,” she commands, watching in a trance as Maura takes a few cautious steps into the gym, clearly not sure which direction to head in.
“Me be respectful?? Jane, you’re practically—ow, fuck!” Frankie rubs his shoulder where Jane hit him twice for good measure.
Frankie grunts in frustration but otherwise falls silent and Jane watches Maura do a full scan of the room. Jane really should flag her down but she cannot move a muscle. Doesn’t matter, because Maura doesn’t need the help. Her face lights up in a smile when she spots Jane. She waves excitedly, then makes her way over.
Jane can only stare.
Maura is wearing loose, high-waisted, black cargo pants, which are tucked into military-issue combat boots and held up by a belt festooned with a large tactical knife. On top, Maura is wearing just a thin, dark grey tank. Her hair is up in a ponytail and on her face rests a pair of round-framed sunglasses with side shields, and she’s slid them down her nose a bit so she can see better in the half-lit gym.
Maura does a very graceful twirl before coming to a stop in front of Jane, revealing she has a plastic AK-47 slung over her shoulder. Her expression is at once both excited and apprehensive.
“Can you tell who I am?” Maura asks.
Jane nods dumbly, but when she doesn’t speak—can’t speak—Maura seems to interpret her silence as Jane being unsure. Jane can see Maura’s brow knit behind the frames of the sunglasses.
“Oh, maybe it’s not that good,” Maura says, dejected. “I thought I nailed it. I’m—”
“Sarah Connor,” Jane finishes hoarsely. “From Terminator 2. The scene with the trucks in the desert.” Jane swallows thickly. “You did—” she clears her throat, her voice way too gravelly. There’s like… really no reason to sound like she hasn’t had to speak to anyone in years.“...Sorry. Uh. You did a really good job. It’s perfect.”
“You nailed it, Maura. Unreal,” Frankie confirms. Jane had completely forgotten he was standing there. God, is Maura not wearing a bra beneath that tank top? Jane is absolutely reeling.
Seemingly oblivious to the extinction-level impact of her costume, Maura grins happily, looking between the two siblings.
“Well, it’s not exactly perfect,” she says. “Do you know the actual model of sunglasses Linda Hamilton wears in the film costs fifteen hundred dollars? Matsuda. It’s a Japanese luxury brand, but it seemed a bit excessive to spend that much in order to win baseball tickets that cost less. But I found these knockoffs online and I figured for one night I could break my rule about designer imposter products.”
If Jane weren’t frozen in place, she’d let Maura know that the face value of the tickets was irrelevant and that people would pay way more than a grand and a half to attend a World Series game at Fenway. But she is frozen in place, so instead, Jane stands there as Maura goes on, happily chatting away about the specifics of her costume.
Honestly, Maura couldn’t have picked a more appropriate way to dress, because Jane absolutely feels like she’s in that nightmare where Sarah Connor’s flesh gets melted off by a nuclear blast.
It’s not like this is brand new information, Maura is an attractive woman, Jane knows that. And she dresses like a million bucks every fucking day. Maura’s casual clothes are a mortgage payment on Jane’s condo. Christ, she’s not even wearing anything that scandalous, but to Jane, it might be the most unnervingly hot outfit that Maura has ever worn. And…is she glistening?
“Maura,” Jane croaks out. Both Frankie and Maura look at her, varying degrees of slightly alarmed. Jane clears her throat again. “Did you…oil your muscles?”
“Oh!” Maura says, and looks down at her arm. She rotates her forearm to inspect the sheen. “Not quite. It’s a tinted moisturizer but perhaps I overdid it.”
“Nah,” Frankie says, looking up from Maura’s lightly bronzed skin to eye Jane with an offputtingly knowing expression. “Looks good to us, right, Janie?”
Suddenly, a lot is coming up for Jane. Hormones are a big one, but feelings are even bigger. All kinds of feelings. And also—oh no. There are the repressed childhood memories. And possibly her lunch. Mind reeling, stomach turning, Jane realizes she has to get away from Maura immediately.
“Bathroom,” she announces loudly, and departs with what is hopefully enough urgency to convince Maura that she absolutely does not want to accompany her on this trip. She gestures wildly towards the bar before heading out through the doors, a small amount of relief washing over her as the bartender acknowledges her frantic waving with a nod of his head. She’s going to need a drink as soon as she gets back to the gym.
Jane bypasses the larger ladies room and heads straight into the unisex, single stall washroom, locking the door behind her, just in case. She’s pretty sure neither of them followed her but she doesn’t need anyone barging in either way.
She exhales noisily, leaning back against the door.
Jane remembers the summer that Terminator 2 came out pretty well, in fact. It was the one that happened in the sweet spot between Ma allowing her some independence and demanding she learn some responsibility with a full-time summer job. It was an unusually good year for her dad’s plumbing business and in exchange for keeping an eye on Tommy and Frankie, she got a decent amount of spending money so that they’d all stay out of their parents’ hair.
They spent a lot of their time sneaking into things. Baseball games were a big one. A kid on their street, Jimmy Van Duzer, had an older brother who worked as a janitor at Fenway. He’d smuggle the neighbourhood kids in through one of the garage entrances on Lansdowne Street for a couple dollars each. They’d spend a few innings wandering around the concourse, but by the end of the fourth, they could easily find unoccupied seats to enjoy the last half of the game.
They also spent a lot of time at the movie theatre, buying tickets for movies they were allowed to see and then ducking into R rated ones. Jane’s pretty sure they’d officially gone to see Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey the day she and Frankie snuck into a half-empty screening of T2: Judgment Day. The movie had been out a couple weeks at that point, so the theatre wasn’t even half full and no one gave a single shit about the two unoccupied kids shushing each other as they headed for the back row.
Jane’s gut flips and she pushes herself away from the door, instead bracing her hands against the counter. Her poor stuffed cat, still gripped in one hand, gets bent in half around the edge of the vanity. She sucks in several deep breaths, trying to settle her tumultuous stomach. She looks up at herself in the mirror and startles. She’s been so distracted by Maura’s costume that she almost forgot about her own—she’s momentarily taken aback to see herself in her hot glued flightsuit, curly hair teased beyond its usual. The sight of herself trying to hold off a panic attack like this—fake patches, fake gun, fake cat—breaks the spell a little bit. The memories fade away and Jane’s stomach calms down.
She can do this. She can survive Maura’s costume.
She leaves the bathroom.
The bartender spots Jane on her way back into the gymnasium and the beer beats Jane to a free spot at the bar by half a second. She snatches it up after tossing her stuffed cat on the bar top in one smooth motion.
Jane guzzles down two thirds of a beer, gesturing at the bartender for another before she even puts the bottle back down on the coaster. It’s stupid, but it feels like the beady, lifeless eyes of the orange stuffed cat are staring right at her, and she feels somehow judged by it. She resists the urge to turn the toy away from herself. Instead, she presses a closed fist to her mouth, trying to stifle a burp without much success.
“Nice one,” Frankie says from behind her. Jane glares over her shoulder.
“Next one will be right in your face,” Jane mutters.
“Okay, alright, I come in peace.” Frankie steps up beside Jane at the bar, ordering his own drink by pointing at Jane’s beer when the bartender looks over at him. Jane says nothing, but a little bit of the tension leaks out of her shoulders. It’s the closest Frankie is going to get to a warm welcome.
“Wicked costume on Maura, huh?” Frankie begins, all too casually.
Jane can feel Frankie’s eyes on her but she doesn’t look over.
“Uh, yeah,” Jane says, finishing the last third of her beer just as her new one arrives along with Frankie’s first. “I dunno why she was worried, she crushed it.”
“I’m surprised she’s seen that movie,” Frankie muses, and takes a swig of his drink.
Jane huffs a short laugh and pulls her new beer in front of her, rubbing her thumb over the raised letters just below the neck of the bottle. “I made her watch it.”
“Of course you did,” Frankie says. “Did she like it?”
Jane thinks about that night, the two of them curled up on Jane’s sofa, Maura’s brow creased as she tried to puzzle out whatever a ‘causal loop’ is for the film series. She claimed it was self-perpetuating, and Jane just enjoyed her frustration.
While it’s definitely not the case that Jane always finds it cute when Maura takes entertainment too seriously, it was definitely cute that night. Most people just wonder why a robot has an Austrian accent.
She remembers that Frankie just asked her a question and shrugs in response. “I think so. I mean, I had to hear a lot about artificial intelligence and time travel paradoxes that night. She loves when a movie presents issues.”
Frankie chuckles in response, then his voice turns a little more serious.
“I still remember when you took me to see it, Janie.”
“I remember, too,” Jane says, the memories she’d just gone through in the bathroom fighting to come back up again. “That was the first summer you were even remotely cool.”
Frankie rolls his eyes but Jane can tell by his expression that he thinks so, too. Jane was a few months shy of 15 that summer. Frankie had turned 12 at the beginning of it. Tommy was still a kid and decidedly uncool but he’d stayed home with a stomach ache that day. He was always a bit of a narc when they let him watch a grown up movie, confessing it all when he asked to sleep with their parents because he was scared, so Jane and Frankie knew it was the perfect afternoon to go to the theatre. The two of them exchanged awed whispers throughout the beginning of the movie, marvelling at the special effects that began the film, but both of them went very still when Linda Hamilton first appeared on the screen.
Jane remembers it so clearly, which really just—it’s all so obvious. But she remembers the way Hamilton—no, the way Sarah Connor’s sweat glistened on her lean, developed muscles, the way she grunted softly as she pulled herself up on the repurposed bed frame she was using to do chin ups, her thin white shirt and her breathlessness when she finished. Jane’s breathlessness when she finished.
The only thing on her Christmas list for that year was asking for a chin up bar installed in their basement. Her dad had been bemused at the request, but mostly seemed happy that she had chosen something so affordable. But then when the family rented the film that December, she remembered the feeling of someone staring at her during that scene. She’d looked over her shoulder to find her father staring at her, face set like stone. Jane still remembers the humiliation she felt, the cold shock of being caught.
She never got that chin up bar.
“I’m glad he’s gone,” Frankie says, snapping Jane out of her thoughts. She blinks, looking over at him without bothering to hide her surprise. How does he know she’s been thinking about their dad? Did she accidentally say something out loud?
“Really?”
Frankie shrugs, taking a swig of his beer. “He was bad for Ma. He was a shitty plumber. Pretty mediocre dad, too.” Frankie takes another sip, swirling the beer around his mouth as he levels Jane with an inscrutable look. He points the neck of the bottle at Jane as he swallows.
“She fought him about that pull up bar, right? You know that?”
Jane tenses up. She hasn’t thought about this in a long time. Forced herself not to think about how much her mother might have been implicated. “What do you mean?”
“She thought they should have gotten it for you,” Frankie says, and a big long crack forms in the foundation upon which Jane has built nearly every aspect of her adult life. Everything shifts a couple inches to the left.
“How do you know that?” Jane says, staring at Frankie. “How could you know that?”
Frankie snorts loudly.
“What, like they were so good at keeping their fights some big secret? They fucking fought about it after one of my fall ball games.” Frankie says, then shrugs at her when Jane’s eyes go wide in disbelief. “Yeah, I dunno, they always seemed to forget I was in the car. But I remember it ‘cause I struck out twelve batters that game and all they could talk about was your Christmas list.”
“Jesus, Frankie,” Jane says. It’s too easy to imagine the scene. “I’m sorry, I really am.”
She reaches out to give his shoulder a squeeze, and it’s not lost on her that it’s the one that would have gotten him drafted—maybe even could have gotten him to the show.
“Ah, it’s fine,” Frankie says, then clears his throat, staring into the hard plastic eyes of the stuffed cat perched on the bar. Jane gets the sense he’s about to unload something he’s been carrying a long time.
“But uh, yeah, Pops said—” Frankie sighs. “He said he wasn’t gonna let you look like some butch, uh…d-word.”
Jane winces. Frankie finally looks over at her, his face creased with concern, the dip of his big sad eyes projecting some guilt about holding this back for so long.
“That was when they really got into it. It sounded like it wasn’t the first time they fought about it. I fucking hated it, I wanted to defend you but I didn’t know how… I didn’t know what to defend you from, I guess. I had my own—but you’ve never—ah Christ.” He scrubs his hand down his face and heaves another sigh. He starts again.
“I’m never gonna ask you, Janie. That’s your business. But I guess…I think you should know that dad said some really awful shit but at the end of it all, Ma said to him, ‘We can’t stop her from being who she’s supposed to be.’ And I guess maybe I should have figured out a way to say this a long time ago, but I really need you to know that all I want is for that to be true”
Frankie takes a big breath before finishing, staring right at Jane when he says it.
“Whoever you are, I don’t want him or anyone else to stop you from being that.”
Jane regrets drinking that first beer so fast. She squeezes her eyes shut, unable to handle the sincerity in Frankie’s eyes, and tries to reconcile two dueling emotions about her mom’s acceptance and her mom’s total lack of communicating that acceptance.
And of course, her fucking dad.
The whole thing is a lot for Jane to take in, but it’s not exactly surprising to hear this about her dad. She remembers very clearly all the bigoted things he said while she was growing up, but she’d always hoped that maybe his mind would have been changed if it was one of his own kids. When it was one of his own kids. But that Christmas she knew that would never be the case.
But knowing her mom fought him on it… That helps. But it’s bittersweet, too. As far as Jane can recall, her mom never corrected her dad in front of the kids, never made it clear to them that she didn’t agree with him. Jane is pretty fucking sure she’d remember if she did. And that could have gone a long way. Her mother should have told her all this herself.
Instead, poor fucking Frankie has been carrying it around his whole life.
Jane opens her eyes.
Poor, sweet Frankie, with his good heart and no clue how to use it, especially not back then.
“I’m sorry you had to be there for that, Frankie,” Jane says, her voice coming out stronger than she was expecting it to be. “But please don’t beat yourself up for not telling me, though. You didn’t do anything wrong. There’d have been no way to tell me Ma would be okay with it without telling me that Pops really, really wouldn’t be, and that’s not on you. That was never on you.”
“I coulda told you I’d be okay with it,” Frankie says, his features twisting up in regret, his eyes a little wet. He’s been peeling the label from his beer bottle and he grunts with frustration as rubs his fingers together to try and get rid of the gunky paper that’s caught under his fingernail. He finally wipes his hand on his pants. “But I didn’t want you to think I thought—like, it was a huge insult back then, right? Fuck, Jane, I just—” Frankie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Jane presses her lips together, taking her time figuring out what she wants to say, because she’s toeing the line right up at the point of no return.
“I never worried about you,” Jane says softly.
Frankie’s eyes fly open, then go wide at the implication.
“So you—uhh, like, that’s you saying…” He trails off, and Jane throws him a lifeline with a simple nod.
Frankie’s big dumb mug erupts into a big dumb grin. This whole moment is really special, objectively speaking, but they’ve never been a feelings kind of family so everything welling up inside of Jane just makes her want to pick on Frankie for his earnestness. She just nudges him hard with her shoulder instead.
“Okay, get a grip,” Jane says.
Frankie is undeterred.
“Nah, man… Fuck you, this is great. That’s so—and I mean, obviously you, uh…” He nods his head in the direction of Maura.
”Obviously,” Jane confirms.
It’s amazing how few words it’s taking to own up to something that’s going to change her whole fucking life.
“Yeah, I mean, you’d be fucking stupid not to.”
“Don’t be gross.”
”How is that gross?” Frankie says.
“The tone of your voice was gross.”
Frankie rolls his eyes again. “When did you tell her? You guys are keeping a hell of a secret.”
“Oh,” Jane says, realizing they have a misunderstanding. “No, I meant, uh, obviously I feel… But uh, I haven’t said—she doesn’t know.”
“...Are you fucking kidding? Jesus christ, Jane, you gotta tell her! Go tell her!”
“Frankie, oh my god, keep it down.” Jane looks around in a bit of a panic, but the room is noisy and no one is paying attention to her and Frankie at the end of the makeshift bar. “I can’t tell her tonight,” Jane says.
“Why the hell not?”
Jane responds by making a sweeping gesture at her costumed self. “Come on. Dressed like this? At a Halloween party in our stinky cop gym? She deserves better than this.”
Frankie makes a derisive noise and takes another swig of his neglected beer. “Listen: you saying it and her knowing it are two different things, and she knows it, and she’s been waiting for it. So like…she deserves to not have to wait any longer, is what she deserves,” Frankie says, and locks eyes with Jane.
His point lands like a sharp left hook. Jane even winces.
“Christ, When did you get so smart?” Jane asks, rubbing her jaw.
“I’ve been smart this whole time, but thank you for finally noticing. Go talk to her.”
Jane opens her mouth to object, but sighs instead. She calls the bartender over and orders a glass of chardonnay she knows Maura won’t hate. It’s easy to pick one out because the night’s bar service was being provided by the Dirty Robber, and they brought a bottle of the stuff they keep on hand just for Maura.
Then Frankie physically shoos her away and suddenly Jane is in the middle of the room trying to figure out the best way to upend her whole fucking life.
She spots Maura on the far side of the room, standing alone, bopping along to the Monster Mash. She has a small smile on her face which turns into a big one when she spots Jane heading in her direction. Jane’s heart constricts like it’s getting sucked down a drain pipe.
“Hey!” Maura says, reaching gratefully for the glass of wine. “Are you okay? Do you feel better? You look worried. Is it because you saw Susie’s costume?”
Jane blinks, looking around the room. “What? No, I haven’t—”
“Everyone says she’s going to win,” Maura continues, “but I think that’s ridiculous. It’s barely more than a wig and a trip to T.J. Maxx.”
Jane’s confusion evaporates when she spots Susie on the other side of the room, standing nervously in a circle of rookie cops who are yukking it up about something. She’s wearing a cheap pantsuit over a scoop-neck t-shirt and she has a fake badge clipped at her waist. The wig that Maura just referenced is thick, dark, and curly. When Susie realizes Jane is staring at her from across the room, she turns beet red.
“I’ll give her credit for somehow finding that exact belt you always wear, though,” Maura muses.
“Huh,” Jane says, a little bewildered. She lifts a hand to give Susie a little wave, who remains stock still, like a prey animal deciding between fight or flight. “She really did.”
Jane can’t even remember where she got her belt. Susie definitely didn’t get that information from her. Should she be mad about this? It feels like the kind of thing she’d usually be mad about, but she can’t find it in her right now.
“Maybe she’ll give it to you when she’s done,” Maura says playfully. “Yours is getting a little worse for wear.”
“Oh yeah?” Jane looks back at Maura, lofting one eyebrow. “You keeping tabs on my belt?”
Maura doesn’t blush as much as Susie just did, but her cheeks pinken the way they always do when she’s caught paying too much attention to Jane. She stammers a little when she answers.
“I–no. Well, yes. But not specifically about your belt. Just, uh, in general. I notice.”
“You notice me in general?” Jane asks, and for the first time she’s ready to own up to the fact that her tone is flirtatious.
Maura’s blush deepens. “I notice things in general. I’m very perceptive.”
Frankie’s right. Maura doesn’t deserve to have to wait for Jane any longer. Jane smiles fondly at Maura, who offers her own curious smile in return.
“What?” Maura says, and it’s that cautious tone she uses when she’s worried she missed a social cue but knows that it’s safe for her to admit it. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I left something in my desk, you wanna walk to the bullpen with me?” Jane asks, tilting her head in the direction of the doors that will lead back to the rest of the precinct, to rooms and hallways where they might find some privacy. The building is staffed twenty-four seven, of course. Plenty of people drew the short straw and had to work tonight. But Jane has spent enough nights on the third floor to know that they’ll be the only ones up there this late.
Maura presses her lips together as she stares at Jane, and Jane can practically see the smoke as she tries to figure out what exactly Jane is up to.
“Yeah, sure,” Maura finally says. “I’d love to.”