A/N: My thanks to those responsible for these characters that are not my own. This is the beginning of what I hope to be an epic adventure in life and love between our favourite detective and medical examiner. This is just a short prologue, to catch people up on what they need to know - as this is the Reckoning, a sequel to Payback. Also if anyone could tell me how to do those lines that I sometimes see between parts of text in other stories that would be great. I'm still very new to using this site.

Prologue: The Prison

The sentence has been read everything is done
I wish I could say goodbye to you
Wish I could hold the sun
My eyes are dull and burnt
And they lie to me sometimes
Cause I thought I saw you cryin'

-Melissa Etheridge, "The Prison" from the Album "Skin".

Relief was what she felt when she heard the sentence for her crime. Firstly because she knew she deserved to be punished and secondly because the length of the sentence gave her reason to hope that one day soon she would be back in the arms of the one she loved. Three years, she could survive that.

As the bailiffs started to lead her away she searched the crowd for the eyes she needed to hold onto; her dark eyes landed on hazel and while the glistening of tears broke her heart she knew that she would return to this woman. She would come home again. She tried to hold off so that she could savour those eyes just a little longer but the bailiffs hauled her through the exit.

Detective Jane Rizzoli was going to prison for killing a man out of unadulterated rage at the misinformed belief her best friend had been taken from her permanently. He had been one of Doctor Maura Isles' abductors and the life threatening injuries sustained by her best friend were beyond comprehension. For Jane though a crime that her defence attorney had argued down to voluntary manslaughter was truly cold blooded murder; a murder that while she regretted she wouldn't hesitate to commit again if it meant protecting Maura. She deserved to do more than three years with good behaviour, but she was relieved that she hopefully wouldn't be.

Within days of her incarceration Jane had received a letter from Maura and it held the most important of acknowledgements. She would wait for Jane; wait for her to be free so that they could explore the feelings that they had spent years denying. It was exactly the tonic the inmate needed to get through the lonely nights, it gave her hope.

It had taken a couple of months of shared letters before Jane had agreed to allow Maura to visit her in prison. Despite receiving the forgiveness she had yearned for from her friend; her love, she hadn't wanted her to see her the way she was; a criminal. Once she had acceded to the demand the first time she had fallen into a painful desire to see the Medical Examiner every week. For a short while this had satisfied Jane, but then life behind bars had started to get difficult and she was on the wrong end of several beat downs. Maura's concern and sadness over the injuries she witnessed had become too much for Jane and so she forbade Maura from visiting again.

Jane had known the decision would hurt her friend, but she really didn't anticipate the way their written communication dwindled over time. The frustration that stemmed from this caused Jane to fight back against one of the regular attacks she had been targeted by and this incident ensured that her three years with good behaviour became four years before parole became a possibility. By this time though Jane's heart had hardened to the point that she didn't care; she chose not to tell Maura what had happened and had in fact decided to cease all communication all together. Maura was better off without her; at least that is what she told herself.

When Jane's parole hearing came around she didn't contact Maura and she only contacted her brother Frankie out of necessity; someone had to speak on her behalf. Two and a half years after the last time she had looked into those hazel eyes Jane Rizzoli was a free woman; a free woman who had lost her job, her best friend and given up on love.