Chapter Text
“You are no longer welcome here!” Frank yelled, his arms flailing around in anger, his cheeks red, his nostrils flared.
“Pop, please,” Jane begged, tears streaming down her face. The back of her head hurt from where he had dragged her into the room by her hair. She could feel the bruises forming on her arm.
This is what she had been scared of. This is why she had tried to hide who she really was. She had spent her eighteen years listening to Frank degrade anyone who loved the same sex. The things he had said had made her feel sick. He had made it clear to his children that if any of them were ever like that, they were no longer part of the family.
Jane had been so scared when she had realised that she liked girls. She had hated herself. She pushed it down inside, hoping it would go away.
It did not.
Now Frank had found out.
She was in trouble.
“You’re no daughter of mine!” Frank snarled before he backhanded Jane across the face, sending her flying to the floor.
Ten year old Tommy burst into tears, clinging to thirteen year old Frankie who was watching with wide eyes. Frank had ordered the boys to stay put, showing them what happened to people like Jane, making sure they never turned out that way.
Jane hated that her brothers were witness to this moment but she couldn’t protect them. Her time for protecting them had run out. She had taken as many punches from Frank for them that she could. She was at the end of the line. She had never seen Frank quite this angry.
For a moment Jane feared that this would be the end of her. That Frank would finally go too far. The look in his eyes told her that was his plan.
“Don’t make them watch,” Jane whispered as she wiped the blood from her mouth. She didn’t dare to look at her brothers, the sight of them watching would break her.
“This, boys, is abnormal.” He pointed a finger at Jane on the floor as he looked back at Frankie and Tommy who trembled in each other’s arms.
Jane was their big sister. The one who protected them from Frank’s anger. The one who distracted them when Frank and Angela fought. The one who played with them. The one who let them be kids.
How could she be as horrible as Frank was making her out to be?
“You are disgusting.” He swung his foot out, colliding with Jane’s side. Jane let out a sob as she doubled over on the floor. “You don’t belong here.”
“Please,” Jane begged. She wished her mother was home. Maybe she would be able to stop this.
Then again, when had Angela ever been able to stop one of Frank’s beatings?
She was never around when he swung for one of the children.
“Pop, please,” Frankie suddenly called, unable to watch any more.
“What? You think this is okay?” Frank rounded on his sons, his hands clenched into fists.
Frankie swallowed before his gaze locked on his sister and she understood what he was doing.
He was creating a distraction.
Jane pushed herself off the floor and ran towards the front door, flinging it open and taking off as fast as she could go. She could hear Frank yelling from the doorway but she didn’t stop. She hoped that Frankie and Tommy would be okay but if she stayed she knew she was dead.
This was her only way to live.
—
Jane stood with her hands on her hips as she studied the murder board in front of her with Frost and Korsak.
She had made it in life. She had graduated from the academy, made her way up to a detective in homicide. She had a wife and two kids. She was happy.
Jane tried not to think about her parents and usually she was very successful. Every now and then she would think about her mother and wonder if she was still surviving at the hands of her father. Now that Jane was a mother herself, she couldn’t understand how Angela didn’t protect them more.
Her childhood could have been so different if only Angela had made a decision.
“I’m going to go down and see Maura, see if she has anything.” Jane ran a hand over her face before she turned to look at the two men.
They were all tired from the case.
“Good idea. I think we all need a reset. I’m going to go get coffee.” Korsak stood from his desk and scratched his cheek as he headed towards the elevators.
Frost plopped down in his own chair before he began to type into his computer. “I’ll see if I can find any other angles.”
Jane gave a nod before she left the bullpen, making her way down to the morgue.
Maura was in her office, her laptop open in front of her when Jane walked in. The brunette walked around to Maura’s chair and leaned back against the desk, stretching her legs out in front of her.
Maura smiled softly up at her wife and ran a hand up and down Jane’s thigh soothingly.
“God, I’m so tired.” Jane let her head drop back as she closed her eyes.
“Sophia’s tooth had cut through the gums this morning. She shouldn't be in so much pain now. We should all be able to sleep tonight,” Maura tried to soothe the detective.
Sophia Annie Rizzoli-Isles was just over one and had been teething and miserable for the past few days. Her brother, four year old Alfie John Rizzoli-Isles, was the only person in the house who had been able to sleep through the night.
“Oh yay, another tooth for her to bite me with.” Jane let out a tired sigh and tilted her head to look at her wife.
Maura let out a soft laugh and swivelled her chair to fully face the brunette. “You don’t have to keep breastfeeding her, you know.”
“Alfie was nearly three by the time you stopped breastfeeding him! I can’t stop at a year!” Jane huffed and then softened at the thought of their daughter. “Plus, the way she looks up at me when I do.”
Maura shook her head in amusement as she stood to kiss Jane. “I’ll remind you of that when you’re complaining she bit you again.”
“Fine,” Jane sighed and pulled Maura closer for another kiss.
They had decided that Maura would be the first one to carry but they would use Jane’s eggs. That was how Alfie came into the world. Sophia was Maura’s egg that Jane carried. That way both of them were involved in each pregnancy.
The sound of Jane’s phone ringing pulled them from their kiss and she grumbled before she answered.
“Rizzolli.” She kept one hand on Maura’s waist, holding her close.
“Janie,” Frankie’s voice floated down the line and instantly Jane knew something was wrong.
Frankie had felt the Rizzoli home when he was nineteen and had found Jane, too afraid to find her before in case Frank found her as well.
“Frankie, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Ma, Janie. She’s in the hospital. Pop beat her pretty badly.”
Jane felt the world around her stop. She thought she would never have to deal with her father’s anger again. She had accepted she would never see her mother. Frankie was out of the home and safe from any abuse. Tommy had landed himself in prison but he was also away from it all.
“I just…I thought you should know. I’m at the hospital. She’s in surgery right now, her leg was badly broken. I just thought you should know. I better go in case the doctor wants me.”
“Okay, thanks.” Jane slowly dropped the phone from her ear as he hung up.
Her mother was in hospital.
“Jane?” Maura questioned. “What’s wrong?”
Jane blinked a few times before she turned her head to look at the blonde. “Uh, my mother, she’s in hospital. Frank beat her up pretty badly.”
Maura let out a breath. She knew all about Frank’s abuse. She had found Jane at her lowest. She had seen exactly what that man could do.
“Frankie’s at the hospital with her.” Jane ran a hand through her curls, her head swimming with a thousand thoughts.
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know.” Jane sighed and her shoulders hunched forward. “Frankie is there alone. He shouldn’t be alone.”
“Will you see her?” Maura moved so that she was standing between Jane’s legs and gently cupped her face. “It’s okay if you want to.”
Jane swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. “She’s my Ma,” she whispered, “but she never protected us. She got the same beatings we did.”
Maura nodded and placed a kiss against the brunette’s forehead. “I’ll come with you.”
“No.” Jane shook her head. “I don’t want you anywhere near that mess, near them. I’ll go check on Frankie and then come back, okay?”
“What if he’s there?”
“He’s not going to try and kill me in a hospital, is he?” Jane rubbed at her eyes, hoping to stop any tears that wanted to fall. Now was not the time to be emotional.
Maura pursed her lips together but didn’t argue. Instead, she leaned forward and gave Jame a comforting kiss. “Text me.”
“I will. I love you, Maur.”
“I love you too.”