A/N: This is based on a book, I started reading The Best of Me by Sparks and couldn't finish it because every line read Jane and Maura to me. I took the premise and changed it to fit the RI story line it is all my own except for a few lines that just screamed Jane and Maura. It is an A/U as you will come to read. Mistakes are probably laced throughout this whole chapter so I am sorry for that.
Mornings were always the hardest; it was the time most people used for peace and reflection. Not Jane Rizzoli, it was the time she struggled to keep the memories hidden. During the days she worked, she busied her mind and shut out all thoughts of the past. When she came home at night to her small and quiet town house she was so tired from over working that she was able to fall asleep quickly enough to hide from her own mind. By morning she was recharged and that's when her thoughts would swiftly return, she tried to fight them off with her morning runs and hitting the punching bag but nothing would rid her subconscious of Boston.
Jane's prior life haunted her and any good memory she had of growing up. She hated it because she didn't have many joyful moments of her childhood. As a child her life was not a happy one. She was brought up with nothing and was alone for most of what she could remember which is why she was able to survive without any friends, well if you consider Vince Korsak a friend, which she didn't really classify him as one. They never talked on the phone because Korsak didn't own one and neither would Jane if it wasn't for her job. Occasionally, they did write each other letters but nothing more then that.
Jane didn't need anymore than what she had, she felt content to live this way. It was the life she came to know. She woke. She ran. She went to work. On the rare days that she did find off from work, she would go for drives with a book and when she found a spot that looked appealing she would stop and read. Life was easy and quiet. She didn't own a TV or a computer. Jane only bought necessities in life and she always thought if it for her own promise she wouldn't even own a home. When Jane was young, she was always moving from rental to rental, she never had a bedroom and so she promised herself that when she got older she would have a permanent place to call home and Jane Rizzoli never broke a promise.
It was late July and work was always busy this time of year so she didn't even think twice when she got a call on her cell. When Jane hung up she rubbed her face and let the thoughts she kept at bay wash over her. Home. She was going home to Boston. You see, Jane Rizzoli never classified Korsak as a friend because he was much more than that to her. To her, he was like a father, he was her savior in her darkest times and the only person left in her life had just passed away.
…
Sitting on the plane Jane let the past come forth as she neared Boston. She didn't know where she was going to stay or what she would do with her time off in her hometown. She didn't have anybody worth seeing back there.
Her father had been a heavy drinker and left right after her younger brother had been born. Her mother had moved so much when Jane left she never knew how to reach her and when she did have the means to find her mother, Jane decided that she was better off with that door closed. Her younger brother Tommy took the route of most kids in the neighborhoods she grew up in. The kids she herself expected to end up like, but she escaped that fate as well as her older brother Frankie, who turned out was a cop like her.
He was five years older and when she was 12 he had taken off one day and never came back. Not that long ago, Jane had found out all about Frankie's new life and she felt like she wanted to contact him and reconnect but she also learned that he had started a family. She knew that if she were to contact him she would only taint the happiness he created and Jane would never take away that from him.
Frankie got out unlike Tommy who was spending time in an alcohol treatment facility in Bridgewater. Tommy followed in their father's footsteps and her brother's drinking problem left a priest with a couple broken legs and some tire tracks he couldn't wash off his clothes. This latest incident was Tommy's second strike and his next would land him in Walpole.
Jane would always have a part of her that hated Tommy for what he did but she knew it wasn't solely his fault. What he did was minor in the whole grand scheme. She would always love her brother for what he had given her as well, and a part of her wanted to fall back into old times and go down to the treatment center and straighten him up herself but again she knew that door was best left closed as well.
Growing up, Jane never felt like she belonged in South Boston. It wasn't because she didn't want to be lower class; it was because of what the lower class did to survive. Sure, she stole and got into fights but it didn't harden her like it did most. It made her want to get out and become a better person who worked for things and was happy for others when they succeeded. She wanted to get away from Jamaica Plains to be a good person and continue to fight, but to fight those who did the wrong she saw day in and day out.
All the pressure of fitting in and doing the right thing weighed on Jane when she was young. She tried to keep a low profile but when you had Tommy as a brother and the biggest drunk as a father it was hard to make it out without the stares and whispers that attention could get someone. The way she was able to balance her life was her instincts. She was probably the only kid who studied (secretly) hard enough to fail a test on purpose but pass with just a high enough grade to not be beaten up for.
Jane was highly intelligent, which wasn't a good thing to be when she ran with the crowd she did. She knew that if she showed signs that she was smart and had potential of getting out one day, her life would be made hell.
While the other kids wasted their nights getting drunk she would secretly empty her beer cans when no one would be looking and wait for the moment no one would realize she was gone. It was then she would go home to wherever her mother had moved her to that month and study. Sometimes she would head to the public library if she didn't want to be bothered. This way of life worked for years, until Tommy started hanging around with her crowd. It was harder to sneak around when all Tommy wanted to do was impress the ringleader, Joey Grant.
It all started with Tommy, he was the catalyst for the moment that changed her life. Tommy didn't mean to rat out his sister but when Joey had asked where his sister was, Tommy not wanting to lie to Joey, told him about her studying; which led to more and more and before Tommy knew that he had royally messed up he had given up all the secrets his sister had been hiding.
The night Tommy had ratted her out, Joey and his friend Charles had found her at the library and when they all got outside they jumped her. She was scared to walk home, so instead she walked the opposite way. She walked until the old boarded homes and buildings became leveled pieces of land awaiting new beginnings. She walked until small white streetlights became bright beacons guiding the way to nice small family homes. It was then she saw a police car sitting in the driveway of a home. With her blood soaked clothes and hair she made her way to the porch of the cop. It looked inviting to Jane, it was decorated with animal statues and it had a bench and most of all, it looked safe. Not wanting to knock, Jane decided she would sleep on the bench and leave before sunrise.
Sunrise came and went that next morning and the cop that lived there had been just as surprised to see this scrawny dark haired girl asleep on his porch as Jane was when she was awoken by the stocky police officer. He had asked her what had happened and Jane kept silent. He seemed nice and so she had let him drive her home that morning in his cruiser. Before getting out he handed her his card and told her if she needed anything she could call him. After that she had noticed more police cruisers on her street and that sufficed for some time but Joey was cunning and he found ways of getting to her unnoticed.
Weeks later she had found herself on the porch of the officer's home and she thought she had gone unseen but the third time she had showed up the bench had a new cushion cover on it and pillows on each side. The next time there was a bottle of water and a granola bar. After a month of showing up each night, the garage started to be left open and inside was a cot. After a few weeks, she had shown up one night and a man in his late 30's sat waiting for her. Her first thought was to run but she didn't, he explained as he scratched at his graying goatee, that he needed his garage back and Jane feared that the little sanctuary would be gone forever but he tossed her a key.
"I work a lot and I'm never home. My wife and stepson left for that reason, you can have my stepson's old room all that is in there is a bed. I have a lot of pets; you can earn your stay with taking care of them. If you don't life these arrangements leave the key, other than that the name's Korsak." And with that, he left. For the following weeks she never saw him but the cupboards and fridge were stocked regularly. A few weeks later he showed up and they didn't talk he went about his day and Jane was sure to stay clear of him.
Shaking her head, Jane tried not to go down that road full of memories. They always took her to the ones she hated and those memories were wrapped around the ones she loved. They led to the ones that reminded her of the pain she was inflicted with and it tainted the memory of the only person she had loved. The thing that had broke Jane's heart but not her promise, her promise to love Maura Isles until the day she died.