I usually say that playing with other peoples toys was always more fun... but this time it wasn't.

The Cold Hard Truth

Jane couldn't look at Maura.

"Janie!" They found her on curled in on herself meters away from where their shooter had dropped. Frankie was there, and Korsak.

"Janie, are you hit?" She didn't respond, just coughed and gasped for breath through desperate tears of pain and fear and regret. But through all that she had managed to a look up to check on Tasha, still as she had left her, slumped on the elevator floor.

"Shit," Korsak said from above, "Get the medics in here. Now!" he shouted to the cops clearing the scene their focus on the gunman and the kid. "Go check on the girl," he said to Frankie.

"But she's my sister!" he said indignant, his temper ignited. A Look passed between them - when he wanted it, Korsak still possessed the 1000 yard stare perfected in the Corps. Frankie obeyed.

Korsak hunkered down next to her, offering comforting contact and reassuring words, not for the first time. "They're coming Jane, hold on. It's gonna be ok."

That got through. She nodded weakly and grasped his large hand when he sought out hers, his grip strong and sure. "Hold on Jane."

After that things greyed out again, until the medics arrived and the prodding and questioning began. She heard snippets of information being passed "Det. Rizzoli, Jane…" the conversation floating over her head, on another plane to the one she currently existed on. "Thirty eight." She felt submerged somehow, trapped in a soupish atmosphere where everything was slow and thick and just breathing was immeasurably hard. She was heavy within that space, where her thoughts were a whirlpool dragging her down and fear reigned absolute.

The medics opened her shirt, and gloved fingers traced her ribs and down. That brought her back with a jolt - fear response and rising dread. "Significant bruising to the lower quadrant, possible broken ribs. Was she wearing a vest?"

"Yes. I think so, I ordered her to, but the perp was going for her with a length of pipe. She gave her vest to…" his voice dropped, plummeting along with the penny. She saw the look on his face, and wishes she hadn't as the connotations sunk in. She closed her eyes, willing herself back down, she knew what was coming next. "She's pregnant."

"How far?" More probing gentle fingers in the area she knew she had been hit first by the bullet and then by the bar. She used her pain - it gave her a level to descend below, in to numbness and oblivion.

She felt herself being jostled as they loaded her up on to the stretcher and the volume faded once more, but not before she heard Korsak's reply, "I don't know. First trimester still, I think. Oh god…"

'Oh God.'

Dark silhouetted figures against startling light, gathered around her moving stretcher. She was out in bright sunshine, squinting against the slicing rays as she groggily came to. Mercifully they moved into shadow as they came to a halt beside a waiting EMS bus and the world came back into focus.

"Hey." Frankie there again, he shot a concerned look over her, to someone on her right side.

She managed half a question, "Where's…?" she looked for answers from those around her, still confused. That's when she found Maura.

The ME understood the mumbled query. "The EMT's are working on her Jane," she answered with a positive nod, but a deep frown touched her friend's brow.

Jane nodded her understanding, swallowing against rising nausea. "I'll see you at the hospital," Frankie said and took his leave, pulling away a little too hurriedly, again passing a look towards Maura. She tracked his path, vision still blurring in and out of focus, but she saw the gurney coming in on the same vector, carrying Tasha looking just as dazed as she felt. But deep brown eyes met as they paused momentarily next to her. Jane reached for the girl's hand intertwining their fingers giving as much of a squeeze as she could summon, aiming to impart comfort and reassurance through the simplest human touch, as she was already receiving from Maura on her other side.

The contact was broken all too quickly and Tasha was rolled on. Jane looked longingly after her, maternal instincts kicking in, as they had since she figured out their witness was a kid, whom she knew was in imminent danger. Jane's throat clenched at the realization, at cruel timing and twisted fate. To save a child at the cost of…

She attempted to clamp those thoughts down. As she had been doing since the moment she took the round to her vest. But she knew all too well the forces involved.

She shook her head, 'No! Not thinking about it.'

But as they made preparations to load the gurney, Maura of course still right beside her spoke, "You did good Jane, you did really good." Jane read her friend's face and nodded but had to turn away.

For as long as she didn't see the pain in her golden brown eyes, pain for her - she didn't have to believe it was there.

As long as she didn't ask the question of her friend - which had been flashing red and threatening to consume her mind since that second shot knocked her on her back, Maura would not be forced to tell the truth, and it could not escape unbidden from her expression alone, even if the words failed to come.

If she didn't have confirmation that the cramping she was experiencing meant what she was terrified it might mean, then she didn't have to accept it. Hope would still exist. But if she looked at Maura, she knew she would find the truth there, and it would be cold and hard.

She screwed her eyes closed tighter still and silvered tears broke free of the tight leash she had until then used to control them.

I saw a few posts on the R&I Facebook page attached to the teaser for this ep, and I was struck by how glib and cold some of the responses were to the prospect of a miscarriage, as a child would present a barrier to the fabled 'Rizzles'.

Yes I know it's only TV, but still sometimes I wonder why people watch.

For the record, I hope that what I fear does not turn out to be & I am annoyed at the writers who seem to be about to take this away from Rizzoli (and damn it the books demand they do not!). I don't know one way or the other, but this is me being way too invested and trying to wrap my poor head around it all.

Now that I have opened a potential can of worms, I bid you all adieu.