A/N: This is a spin-off from the last part in the story "Did you Say it?" by cupoftea1 (with permission, and thanks!). The first five lines are from cupoftea1's story. The rest is my own development. (read "Did You Say it?"! Very good!)
WARNING: This is awful; the storyline contains intense, painful events that may be triggering for some. If death and loss disturb you, don't read it.
I'd been gnawing at this idea for days and I dreamed the plot for this story - actually dreamed it, while asleep, and woke to a vivid and demanding memory of it. I had to write it, and I hated doing it. I hope I've gotten rid of it.
Don't worry. I think I'm out of the dumps now (too many Jane/Maura death stories lately). Next one will be more optimistic.
Special thanks to Tracy for advice, support, and encourgement!
It might all be gone tomorrow.
.
"This is Doctor Isles."
"Excuse me, Doctor Isles. This is Doctor Lawson at Boston General; there's been an accident involving one Detective Jane Rizzoli…"
Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale… inhale, and exhale.
"You've been listed as her Emergency Contact."
Oh my God. "I...is...she...she still..."
"Yes, she's alive, but she's in critical condition. You should..."
"I'm on my way."
She punched the Bluetooth in her car. "Please speak the name of your party". Maura hadn't changed the mechanically flat voice; she didn't feel like being friendly with a machine. "Officer Frankie Rizzoli".
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Maura had never believed in a god; never believed in a devil; never gave homage to the mythology of angels or demons. But standing at Jane's emergency bedside, she felt forces gathering around her, behind her, pricking her skin, shadows moving at the edge of her vision, muffling the sounds of the world outside the aura formed by her grief and fear. There was evil in the world, and it was taking the source of her life and joy. Maura had never believed in hell, or a soul, but at this moment she wished she had, so she could consign the soul of he who had done this thing to an eternity of torment there.
They stood outside the small cubicle, the three of them, as Maura heard everything in a lower register, as if the doctor was playing his diagnosis at half the normal speed. Rumbles penetrated her consciousness, by far, now, the lesser part of her. Skull fractures. Hematomas. Cerebral hemorrhage. Cervical, lumbar vertebral fractures. Spinal dislocation. Many, many broken bones, several compound fractures. Pericardial bruising. Bleeding from many, many ruptured vessels. Collapsed lung. Macerated kidney. And on. And on.
She couldn't go back in. The ER team was swarming around Jane, like bees repairing broken honeycomb, platelets clotting around a wound. Dr. Lawson took her by the shoulder, Frankie also, she holding Tommy's hand leading them all to the doors to the waiting room. Low tones, almost subsonic words, nothing they can do, nothing to do but wait, try not to break down, try not to feed each other's fears, try not to mourn prematurely.
"What happened, Frankie? I didn't get here to hear the doctor..."
"She fell, Tommy. Five stories. They say she chased a perp up the stairs, and he ducked through an open window onto a scaffold. When she came through the window he grabbed her, tried to push her over, and she grabbed him and they both went down together. He landed on top of her, there was a pile of construction debris at the bottom, perp was killed instantly, and Jane...Jesus. This can't be happening. Not now. Not so soon." She put her arms around Frankie and let him give up his strength, just for now, let him be supported by the sister she had become.
Tomorrow would have been the day she asked Jane to marry her. She had become impatient with waiting for Jane to make what had become the obvious next step. The ring was in the top drawer of the dresser. The reservations had been made.
Maura had always believed in justice. The first quality she learned to admire in Jane, aside from her stunning beauty, was her relentless pursuit of justice, her boundless sympathy for the victimized of humanity, her willingness to give everything she had to see that the right thing was done when nothing could really right such a wrong. But now, six months after the massive heart attack that had taken Angela, and with Jane on the edge of oblivion, her faith in justice was fading and leaving a foul, bitter taste that she knew would never dissipate. The clouds of demons crushed closer, and she clung to Frankie, and Tommy clung to her, and they formed a shelter, a bubble of flesh and spirit that kept the darknesses at bay for the time. She feared those shadows as she had never feared anything in her life, for if the shadowy demons broke through their mutual protection, she would be consumed, and never emerge from hell. The hell that she was weaving from her grief. Her heart told her to hope. Her trained mind told her hope was forlorn.
They waited.
She slept.
She awoke to Frankie's gentle shake.
Doctor Lawson came through the double doors. Maura looked up, recognized the expression on the doctor's face. It was that expression. That expressionless expression, the one she herself had tried to cultivate in training, unsuccessfully, practicing before a mirror, to be ready when she had to communicate the worst news a doctor could give to a family. The very worst news.
The very worst.
Then tears blinded her eyes and all she could do was hear. And wish that she couldn't.
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She put the triangular bundle that Frankie had given her at the funeral, as hundreds watched, in the top dresser drawer, where she could touch it when she wanted, but didn't have to see it every day; she needed no material reminders of what was a profound collapse of her spirit.
On the fifth day, and the second day after the funeral, Maura awoke, always reminded by the emptiness of the bed. She'd considered sleeping on the couch, but that was as bad; too many times she'd awakened there, her legs entwined with Maura's own, their mutual warmth mixing under the blanket.
Nothing in her life was free of the taint of death; everything reminded her, because her life had been completely immersed in what had been lost.
The entire world tasted of bitterness; the very air around her reeked of grief and anger.
She dressed with exaggerated care, even more that was her wont, because she did not wish anyone to assume that her grief had made her inattentive. No one must know how injured she truly was. After packing her instrument bag meticulously, she left for her first day back at work. She ate no breakfast today. She left extra food for Bass.
She was able to work through the morning; there were no autopsies this day, and her morning was a routine that she would find boring, if she wasn't, in a strange way, buzzing with anticipation. A few conversations with her subordinates, devoid of meaning, another couple of signatures, and the morgue was empty, the staff gone to lunch.
She locked the office door.
She stepped to the sofa in her office, piled the pillows comfortably at one end. She took out her compact, checked her hair and makeup, refreshed her lipstick. She opened the water bottle in her instrument bag, and, with a swallow, took her "medication". Two pills.
Maura lay back on the sofa, her head softly cradled on the pillows. The pills were fast-acting; as a physician and a pathologist she knew exactly the right substances that would achieve the desired effect. It would be over in an hour, without pain.
It was, perhaps, cruel, that she do this in her office, and put her coworkers through the trauma. But had she chosen her home, no one might have visited for days. She wouldn't want Jane to know that she'd been found in an advanced state of decomposition.
Better this way. Her will and final instructions were on her desk; the portrait of Jane with which she wished to be interred was cradled in her left arm. Also, on the desk, were instructions to her successor regarding disposition of the remains.
Sleep and numbness began to steal over her mind and body. As she descended, she remembered the note she'd written on the back of the portrait: "I know it's cowardly. I know you'd hate what I'm doing. But what I said in the hospital is true; I cannot live without you. You complete me. There can never be anyone else. I love you. Jane. My love."
There would be an end. Of the anger, the emptiness. The loneliness.