So... a little different from what I normally write, but I thought I'd throw it out there and see how it goes! Hope you enjoy, and that you'll let me know if you do :). It will be a multi-chapter fic, and I'll try and update as often as I can. I should maybe also mention that I've never worked with MSF or been in those kinds of situations. I've done as much research as I can, but I apologise in advance if I've got anything wrong!
And - on a different note - a massive THANK YOU to whoever nominated me for the Rizzles fanfic awards :). It really means a lot.
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Rizzoli & Isles, or any of the characters (unfortunately).
When anyone mentioned the word 'Africa' to Dr. Maura Isles, the first thing that she remembered was the sun.
During the day, it was searing. It never seemed to rise so much as march over the horizon every morning, already radiating a fierce heat that just got more intense as the day wore on. With little or no natural shade outside, the only escape was into the run-down, tin or mud shacks of the village, and the camp that had sprung up around it, but they offered little respite. In fact, Maura had often thought that the walls actually seemed to suck in warmth from the sweltering air surrounding them. It didn't help that the hospital, such as it was, had no air conditioning. Every last bit of electricity had to be used for running the few machines that they had, and Maura couldn't remember a day going past when she wasn't dripping with sweat by mid-morning. The other doctors had told her that she would soon get used to it, but she never had. And, in her memories, the sun was always glaring. She knew that there would have been cloudy days, and she even had some flashing images of the dirt and sand turning to mud - so there had to have been rain. But she could never remember that properly. It was always the sun.
She remembered that the heat did not get any more bearable at night. The harsh temperatures of the day cooled slightly when the sun dropped below the horizon, but the air always seemed to stay sticky and oppressive. Maura could recall lying on her back on the small camp-style bed that was shrouded in a mosquito net, trying not to move too much because movement generated yet more heat. Her room, shared with two other doctors, was directly above what they optimistically called the 'ward', and so nights were filled with indeterminate sounds from the sick and injured. Crying, the odd moan from someone in pain or who couldn't sleep. And hushed, muffled noises from the rest of the camp, and the scrubby African bush beyond.
The other thing that immediately came to mind about Africa was the flies. She had never known anything like it. Some days it wasn't so bad, but other days there were clouds of them - and, instead of being repelled by her extra-strength DEET lotions and sprays, they actually seemed to like them. In the end, like the other medical aid workers who had been there for far longer, she just gave up. Anti-malarial precautions were the most important, and as long as she didn't attract mosquitoes, she could cope with a few flies.
It couldn't have been any more different to where she was working now.
The sun never penetrated down to the morgue in the Boston Police headquarters. There were no windows, and so Maura never even knew whether the sun was shining or not unless she went upstairs. The temperature was strictly controlled, and instead of spending her working day drenched in sweat, she was neither too hot nor too cold. There were no flies. No sandy dirt that turned to mud in the rain. Instead of pulling on the nearest pair of khaki shorts and tank top to go to work in, she was able to indulge her love of designer clothes, knowing that she had the luxury of scrubs to change into, and a lab coat, and a dry cleaner down the street. And her patients never moaned in distress. They never writhed in pain on the cold steel tables, never screamed in terror when she gave an injection or made an incision, and Maura could help them. She could speak for them when no one else could - or would.
Help was what she had wanted to give in Africa. And yet, for the six months that she was there, she had never felt so helpless in her life.
Of course, she remembered other things as well. She often thought of the doctors and nurses who had worked alongside her, and she thought of the people that she had treated, or tried to treat. Although most of them had merged into a faceless, shifting mass in her memory, a few stood out clearly - faces, illnesses or injuries, sometimes even names. And always their voices. Sometimes, in the middle of the night when sleep eluded her, she could still hear them. Lying on cool, crisp sheets, surrounded by all the comfort and luxury of the home that she had created for herself before she left, she would find that the memory consumed her whether she wanted it to or not. Often it would be several minutes before the harsh African sun turned back into the darkness of her bedroom, and then she would be left with a vaguely unsettled, guilty feeling that would keep her awake until the grey dawn broke through the curtains.
But there was one voice that she heard more than the others.
Jane Rizzoli hadn't been a patient, or a colleague. She had been an American army officer, and had arrived with the international peacekeeping force three months into Maura's stint with Médicins Sans Frontières. To start with, Maura had tried to ignore the presence of the soldiers. It was just another reminder of how close she was to the civil war that had created the camp in the first place, and she preferred not to think about that. Her priority was caring for anyone that needed her help, not the reasons that they were there. But slowly, day by day, week by week, Jane Rizzoli had seeped into her consciousness. There were regular patrols around the hospital - part of the peacekeeping mandate to secure a safe environment for humanitarian assistance - and, after a while, she had begun to notice a small smile of recognition on the Lieutenant's face whenever they passed each other. Tentatively, Maura had begun to return it. Smiles had turned into greetings, snatches of conversation had extended into longer chats over coffee - or what passed for coffee - and then coffee had become meals that were lingered over not because of the food, but because of the company and the luxury of having a spare hour to try and relax. And gradually, Maura's hesitancy and uncertainty around her new companion had melted away.
She had often thought how ironic it was, that she had made her first real friend in such uncompromising, difficult circumstances. But, when she thought of Africa, it wasn't just the heat and the flies and the hospital that came to her mind.
It was Lieutenant Jane Rizzoli.
She couldn't pretend that she hadn't begun, secretly, slightly guiltily, to think about more than friendship. She couldn't deny that she had found Jane very attractive, and there had been times when she thought that she had felt the same vibe coming from Jane. And even when she hadn't been able to shower, and her hair was greasy and she was exhausted and suffering from the perpetual upset stomachs that plagued everyone, Jane had managed to make her feel better. Jane had made her feel wanted. Jane had, somehow, known what to say to make her laugh when she had been ready to cry. And Jane had - perhaps without meaning to - made her feel like a woman again, in a place where all femininity had been stripped away.
But Maura had never had the chance to find out whether Jane had meant it or not. Like so many other things, their friendship - along with whatever else it might have grown into - had ended abruptly late one night in November, after days of escalating rumours and heightening tensions. No one had really known until that morning that the rebels were definitely heading for the area and, after that, things had happened so quickly that Maura hadn't had a chance to really take in what was happening until it was too late. She had realised that an evacuation order had been given for all American citizens in the region. But, for some reason, it hadn't registered that 'American citizen' meant her too. She had thought that her status as an aid worker would protect her. She had thought, as a doctor and as a member of an international charity, that she would be safe.
It wasn't until she had been ordered to leave, or lose her diplomatic protection, that she had finally understood. She didn't have a choice.
She had known, deep down, that Jane hadn't had a choice either. She had given Maura the order as an officer in the United States Army, not as Maura's friend. But, at the time, it had felt like a betrayal. Jane had been the only one who knew how much this work really meant to Maura. Maura had come to Africa to make a difference, and, after six months, she hadn't even scratched the surface. And yes, if she was honest, she felt like she had something to prove. Everyone who knew her had been horrified when she had announced that she was leaving for a war-torn refugee camp, and so she wanted to show that she could do it, and that she could stick it out and not just run home when things got tough.
And she had grown to really care.
She had told Jane to leave without her. She had expected some opposition, but ultimately a recognition that Maura was a grown woman who could make her own decisions, however stupid they were. What she hadn't expected was for the ultimatum to be delivered quite so harshly. Neither had she expected Jane to threaten to pack Maura's things for her before throwing her personally into a UN Jeep that was headed for the airport, two hundred kilometres away. Stunned, Maura had eventually complied. But she had also been too astonished, too hurt, too bewildered - and then, too angry - to speak to Jane on the journey. Six hours in a Jeep followed by another eight in a Boeing 747 cargo plane with turbulence...all without speaking a word to Jane. She had pretended to sleep, although sleep was impossible. She had, uncharacteristically, chatted to the three Belgian peacekeepers who were travelling with them, communicating seamlessly in French and leaving Jane out of the conversation entirely. She had tried to read the one book that she had brought with her, although that had soon started making her feel sick and she was forced to stop. Anything to avoid having to face the woman whom Maura had thought of as her best friend.
When they had landed in Germany, Maura hadn't seen Jane at the airport. She had disappeared, Maura assumed to a UN debriefing. She had had to go through a debrief of her own before being allowed onto a commercial flight back to Boston two days later...but still, no Jane. By that time, Maura's anger had started to dissipate somewhat. She had wanted to see Jane, to apologise, and to try and explain why she had reacted the way that she had. She had wanted to see if their friendship could survive a change in location and circumstances - if it might develop into something more. But, although she asked around, she hadn't been able to pin Jane down. And it wasn't until she was on a plane heading for home that she had realised that she would probably never see Jane again.
Two weeks after she had returned, she had opened an email from MSF to see photos of a massacre. The camp where she had been working, caught in the crossfire when the rebels passed through. Hundreds dead, hundreds more injured.
She had been physically sick.
In the weeks that followed, Maura had been clinical and detached enough to recognise the signs that she was struggling. The sleepless nights. The overwhelming feelings of guilt - guilt that she had treated Jane the way that she had, when Jane had probably saved her life by forcing her to leave, and guilt over not having stayed. Logically, she had known that it was a ridiculous notion to have, but she hadn't been able to shake the feeling that, if she had only stayed, she might have been able to save more lives. She might at least have been able to help her colleagues who were still there.
She had been offered counselling from MSF. But the only person that she had really wanted to talk to had been Jane. Somehow, she had felt like only Jane would really get what she was going through. Only Jane would be able to help her through it properly. But she had pushed Jane away, and she had no way of making it right.
So she had got herself through it like she always had done. She had worked. God, she had worked. She had carried on with her life where she had left off, moved back into her house and taken the dust sheets off all the furniture, and buried herself in work. No longer able to face the emotional turmoil that came with treating live patients, she had taken a job as assistant to the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She never went out. She didn't really make any friends. She was always the first to arrive in the mornings, and the last to leave at night, always the one to volunteer to work on weekends and holidays when her colleagues just wanted to be at home with their families. And now, five years later, she had replaced the retired Chief, and she thought that she could probably be proud of what she had achieved. The title was hers. The smart office was hers. She was successful. Respected. And, finally, she felt like she was really making a difference.
But she also felt alone.
Lonely.
Maura always tried hard not to think about Jane. It had been an episode in her life, that was all. It was over. She had made mistakes, but there was nothing she could do about them now. She couldn't change the past, no matter how much she wished, in those early morning hours when she couldn't sleep, that she could.
And there had been times when she had wished really, really hard. Like a child closing their eyes on Christmas Eve and wishing for Santa to come down the chimney and bring exactly the right gift, Maura had squeezed her eyes shut as she buried her face into her pillow and wished for time to turn back, for a second chance. For something to bring Jane Rizzoli back into her life again. For some kind of miracle.
But, being a scientist, Maura didn't believe in such things.
Yet today, some kind of miracle had happened. Someone, somewhere, had seen fit to give her a second chance.
She wondered if she would remember this day in years to come, like she could still remember that day she had left Africa. Today was also a November day. A cold one, though, drizzly and slightly misty - or at least, it had been when she had arrived at work that morning. It was now mid-afternoon, and she hadn't left the morgue to see if it was still as miserable outside. A normal day in many respects, with paperwork and coffee and lab results. The morgue was quiet, a good third of the refrigerator space unfilled. They had a car crash victim. A stabbing. The unclaimed body of a homeless man who had died on a park bench. And a soldier - a cadet who had been washed up in Boston harbour two days before. It had saddened Maura beyond belief to have to do that autopsy. Normally, she didn't - couldn't- let it affect her. But something about that cadet had touched a nerve. Maybe it had been the fact that he had no family that they could trace, or the fact that he was only twenty. But when the DoD had called with a request to release the body, she had been only too glad to agree. Besides, there was no reason not to. It had been a simple drowning, a suicide while he had been in Boston visiting friends on a three-day leave. And now the army wanted the paperwork verified and the matter closed, and had notified Maura that a liaison would be coming from the West Point Military Academy, where the cadet had been training, to sort out whatever needed to be sorted.
Maura hadn't even blinked that morning when she had read, in the email, the name of the liaison who would be coming. Perhaps it hadn't registered properly. Or perhaps she hadn't quite believed it. But now her heart was thudding in her chest as she straightened up in her office chair. She felt the nerves gathering in her stomach as she stripped off the top sheet of the notepad she had been writing on, and carefully placed it into the waste bin before turning to face the entrance to her office, and the tall, khaki-clad figure who filled the doorway. Willing her voice to stay steady, balling her hands into fists on her lap and digging her fingernails into her palms, she took a deep breath.
'Lieutenant Rizzoli'. She swallowed. 'It's been a long time'.