"So what do you think?" Maura sat, securely belted into the passenger seat, one hand resting on her very swollen womb.
Jane reached down to shift as they approached a hill, but said nothing.
"Jane?" Maura laid her hand over top of Jane's on the gear shift. When Jane finally glanced at her, she said, "You look lost in thought." She couldn't help but smile. "Like you weren't listening to me."
Jane shook her head and returned her eyes to the road. It was late and they were both tired. Jane struggled to concentrate on anything beyond just driving. "Sorry, I…guess I wasn't listening to you." She looked back at Maura. "Forgive me?"
"Always. Now answer my question. What do you think?" She reached up to brace herself as they crested the hill and the car swooped into the next one.
"Sorry…of what?" Jane shifted again.
"Of my ideas for the nursery."
"Maura, you know I'll always agree to any of your redecorating ideas."
Maura laughed. "Yes, but I want to know what you think. I want your opinion, Jane."
Jane braked at a red light and took the opportunity to gaze more fully at her wife. "My opinion?" She cocked an eyebrow.
Maura nodded.
Jane reached her arm out to touch Maura's face. "My opinion is that you're beautiful. That's pretty much the only opinion I have right now." She grinned. Watched a pedestrian sprint through the crosswalk.
Jane moved her hand back from Maura's smiling face and rested it on her neck, beneath her hair.
Maura feigned an exasperated sigh. "Fine, Jane. Then I'll surprise you with some wild color palette and we'll see then if you have an opinion on anything."
Jane just grinned some more, unable to alter her expression one iota.
Maura gasped and looked at her belly.
"Maura?" Jane's voice was urgent, her eyes wide, her brow furrowed. Her gaze darted between the traffic light and her wife.
"Jane, I'm fine," Maura assured her. "It was just a kick." She looked up. "The light's green."
Some driver behind them honked impatiently. Jane softly growled out some curses aimed at the driver, but her hand remained on Maura's neck and began to gently knead the tense muscles there. Her wife was tired, making her impatient to get home.
They rolled into the intersection.
Another honk sounded.
"Jane!" Maura screamed, looking across Jane out the driver's side window.
Jane's hand moved swiftly to Maura's sternum, restraining her as the oncoming truck T-boned their sedan.
The hood and left front wheel well crumpled like tin foil upon impact.
Maura felt herself be jostled about like a ragdoll in a washing machine as the sedan spun out of control.
Then her head struck the doorframe and her senses fled her.
She awoke to sirens and bright lights rotating red, blue, white, orange, white, red, blue, etc. She tried to move in her seat and groaned as the seatbelt pressed painfully against her shoulder and clavicle bone. Probably dislocated, she thought. The airbags for both sides of the vehicle had done their work and were beginning to deflate.
She reached down gingerly and pressed on the seatbelt button. It released slowly. She looked over at Jane.
The detective was slumped, unconscious and bleeding, over the steering wheel. The frame of the car had crumpled around her. Her dark hair concealed her face from view. It didn't look likely that she could get out, even if she was conscious and had Maura's help. She was pinned between the seat and the steering wheel, hemmed in by the mutilated doorframe.
Maura panicked , feeling aimless and inadequate from her position in the passenger seat. She was helpless to do anything for her wife.
White flashlight beams crossed her vision then, waving erratically as a group of silhouettes sprinted towards their totaled car. She heard hers and Jane's name being called by a series of indistinct male voices.
"Doctor Isles!" One man in a firefighter's uniform approached her side of the car.
Maura shook her head, frantic. "No! Jane! Help Jane!"
"We'll get her, I promise. Let's focus on you while they bring over the jaws of life."
While having sustained far less damage than the driver's side of the car, Maura's door was still slightly bent, and required strength and tenacity to yank open. They finally pulled her out, gently as they could. A female firefighter took over, guiding her over to a place just outside the yellow crime scene tape that was already isolating the site of the collision. An ambulance had just arrived on the scene, and a pair of EMTs immediately set to work on Maura, assessing her injuries and administering care.
Maura was in shock and could hardly put together a single coherent thought. All that went through her mind was a series of disjointed fragments, the majority of them having something to do with Jane. Only a part of her mind was on autopilot, and was functioning just enough to answer the EMTs' questions.
Korsak approached a while later to get her statement on what had happened. They had determined that the man driving the truck that had hit them was drunk and had run the red light. Because of his intoxicated state, his body was far more relaxed, and so lacked many of the more serious injuries that result from the body instinctively tensing up just before impact. Maura, for the first time, regretted having this scientifically proven fact at her disposal. She didn't want to know that. It only made her bitter. She didn't have the emotional energy to spare on resenting a complete stranger.
"Looks like they've got the jaws of life and they're gonna put 'em to work." Korsak's face was grim, his voice in a monotone that spoke of the fear he was trying desperately to hide. His former partner was still in that car, and they were going to have peel apart the steel frame to extract her in the hopes that she could be saved.
Maura leapt to her feet and, clutching her pregnant belly, hustled to the crime scene tape. Korsak followed to make sure she didn't try to get any closer. His big hand closed around her arm, drawing her gaze for a moment. They shared a look that expressed all that could not be put into words. Their fear, their hope, the reality of past experiences and the tantalizing possibility that this would not be another tragedy.
Tears slipped down Maura's cheeks without her knowledge as she turned back to watch the crushed car get pried open. One man braced his foot against the doorframe to apply more leverage. Maura knew they were doing everything they could, but she couldn't help but feel that it wasn't enough. They weren't working fast enough, they weren't strong enough to get her Jane out of that car. Sobs now wracked her body, and she placed one hand over her racing heart. Her dislocated shoulder normally would have had her in agony, but she was numb to everything but the fear of losing Jane.
"Jane," she choked out. She had never been one given to prayer, but in that moment, Maura pled to God that Jane would come out of this alive.
Korsak held her up, tears sliding unwittingly down his cheeks as well. Excited, anxious cries arose from the group working on the car. They had created an opening wide enough to pull Jane out. Maura dashed tears from her eyes, needing to see them lift Jane's body from the wreckage.
As deftly and carefully as possible, Jane's body was maneuvered from the totaled car and onto a gurney. Maura couldn't be certain, but she thought she saw her beloved lift an arm for a moment.
They wheeled Jane swiftly over to the paramedic van, and Maura sprinted over with a quickness that belied how large her belly was. Korsak was right behind her. She got there just as the EMTs paused to fold the wheels of the gurney and lift it into the back of the ambulance. She went straight to Jane's head, seeking her eyes, longing for any signs of life. Jane's eyes fluttered open for a moment above the oxygen mask.
"Maur," she mouthed from behind the clear, molded plastic. One hand lifted feebly, seeming to point at the bruising gash on Maura's temple, barely being held shut by butterfly closures.
"Jane, angel. Hold on for me." Maura grasped Jane's hand for a split second, just long enough to bring those slender fingers to her lips and kiss them tearfully.
Then Jane was lifted into the back of the ambulance. Maura never stopped looking at her wife's eyes, and she thought for a moment that Jane's gaze moved to Maura's belly just a moment before she disappeared into a cluster of waiting paramedics. As they shut the doors, Maura became confused. "I'm family!" she said to the ambulance driver.
He looked sympathetic. "I understand, Doctor Isles. Normally you would be allowed to ride along. But there is honestly no room back there for you. She needs a bunch of them back there to monitor her. She's critical."
She started to argue, started to tell him that she is Jane's wife and a doctor, too, and that she should be in there taking care of Jane. But Korsak's hand was on her arm again, restraining her. She realized she was being irrational.
As the ambulance started to pull away with sirens blaring and lights whirling, Maura felt herself crumble. She was bent double, collapsing to her knees on the pavement before she could figure out how she got there. Korsak was right at her side, kneeling with her, speaking gently in between her heart-wrenching sobs as she wept.
"I'll take you there myself. We'll be right behind them the whole way," Korsak insisted, leading her to his cruiser. He flicked on his police lights the moment they were both in the car. Sped all the way to the hospital.
They arrived almost exactly as the ambulance did, and Maura was just able to see them move her Jane into the building.
The waiting felt terminal.
Maura was not often given to pacing, and it was difficult with her swollen womb, but sitting still was impossible. Her thoughts could catch up with her if she sat down and rested.
Jane's mother, Angela, had given up trying to convince her to sit.
Maura alternated between feeling absolutely no sensation at all in any part of her body, to a pain in her chest so intense it nearly floored her. Jane, her beloved warrior, was the reason she and the baby inside her were still alive. Maura couldn't bear to entertain the cruel possibility that Jane could be torn from her after such a sacrifice.
The double doors separating the Urgent Care hallway from the rest of the corridor swung open, and Maura's head swiveled.
But it was only a tech in scrubs, and not the presiding trauma surgeon she so desperately needed to talk to. She resumed her pacing, hand on her stomach.
It seemed at once like hours and mere seconds had passed when the doors swung open again, this time revealing the trauma surgeon.
Maura mentally tried to brace herself, only to find that she didn't know if she wanted the reality check that came with straight facts or the optimistic pap that was usually fed to families waiting in hospitals.
When he reached her, all she could say was a hoarse, whispered, "How is she?"
His expression said he was prepared to level with her, but she wasn't sure if she imagined the look of relief that his news for her wasn't nearly as bad as she expected.
"She has a fractured tibia; severe lacerations to her right arm." Maura nodded. Jane had reached out instinctively to protect Maura, to keep her flying through the windshield, so her body bore the brunt of the punishment for it. "She sustained several fractured ribs. One of them snapped and actually punctured her lung."
Maura sighed. With that kind of a collision, broken ribs and punctured lungs were to be expected.
"Fortunately, the airbag did its job; her sternum is bruised, but intact. Remarkably no fractures there. In some cases, I've seen ribcages get crushed completely. She's very lucky, Doctor Isles. You both are. I'm – frankly – surprised that you walked away as relatively unscathed as you did. That's not to say, of course –"
Maura held up a hand. "I understand, Doctor. And I agree." Her lacrimal gland went to work again. "I am very lucky."
He nodded, his expression apologetic for his momentary breach of tact. "The long and the short of it is, she's pretty beat up, but we've got her stable. She's strong, a fighter. It will take some time, but she'll pull through. Completely." He looked up to address Korsak and Angela, as well. "I'm very confident about this, in all honesty."
"Thank you, Doctor," she managed to say, shaking the man's hand as fresh tears slid down her cheeks. "Thank you."
"You'll be able to see her in a little while after we get her moved from Urgent Care to ICU. We'll keep you updated."
A sob of relief escaped her lips as he left her standing there, trying to process.
She's going to live. My Jane is going to live. "She'll make it," she whispered to her womb. "Your mother is going to make it."
The child inside her kicked in reply.