This is my first fanfic in five or six years, so I apologize if it's sub-par. I just want to thank all of you wonderful Rizzles fans who have posted magnificent stories. You've inspired me to no end.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own anything Rizzoli and Isles...but damn do they own me!
Jane watched as Maura quaveringly hunched over the body of the fast-dying Patty Doyle. The man she had just shot. The biological father of her best friend, the woman she had just betrayed.
Jane knelt just a yard away, frozen and unaware of anything but the echo of Maura's scream in her ears and the feeling of her heart compressing to nonentity.
Seeing the other detectives inching closer, Maura's eyes grew wild. She opened her mouth to scream something else, looked down at the mobster, then closed it again.
She took a deep breath. "Get me a car, please," she said quietly to Frost. "We can't take him to a regular hospital. He has too many enemies."
Frost cast a questioning glance to Korsak and Gabriel. Both nodded their approval. While the exchange was going on, Maura's hand slipped unseen underneath Doyle's body, into the front of her waistband, and back to her side again.
Jane saw Doyle shake his head no at Maura, and she wondered vaguely what he was telling his daughter not to do.
Jane watched, still immobile, as Frost and Frankie helped lift Doyle up and out of the factory. She heard them lift him into the vehicle according to Maura's calm instructions. And then she heard Maura's voice.
"Now none of you move. I mean none of you. I will shoot you if I have to, and we all know that's not something I want to have to do. I'm sorry. You don't understand, but I have to do this."
And with that, Jane heard a door slam shut and a car peal off. In the few seconds of silence that followed, Jane felt a stone settle in the place her heart had, only minutes before, resided.
It smelled like rotting fish and petroleum. Jane crumpled up the beer can in her fist and hurled it with as much force as she could into the water that was quietly lapping against the dock. She was pretty sure she had almost just stepped on a rat.
A rat. Maura autopsied one of those for her in the heroin case. Necropsy. Maura had called it a necropsy.
"Fuck," Jane rasped, kicking at the muddy puddle under her feet.
It had been two years and fifty-seven days since Maura had disappeared on her. The hateful expression on Maura's face flooded her vision, causing the stone in her chest to sink painfully lower.
"FUCK!" Jane screamed, looking around for anyone she could use as her personal punching bag.
She couldn't even find the rat that had invaded her space. Instead, she punched the wall she was leaning up against and barely winced as she felt a knuckle fracture.
Nothing a bottle of Jack wouldn't take care of.
She began walking toward the 24-hour liquor store. She kept her hand on her gun, ready for any of the drunkards and perverts she would undoubtedly encounter.
"Hey, Vanilla," a voice said from somewhere in the darkness. In this part of town, working lampposts were few and far between, something Jane was rather appreciative of because she couldn't remember the last time she had taken a shower.
"Whoa, whoa. Don't shoot. It's your boy," Rondo said, coming out with his hands up from the alley next to the Grab-n-Go. "Just got a bottle. I know you be wantin' some."
"Give it."
She took a swig. "Have you heard anything?"
"Well…I don't know…I might have…"
Jane shoved a Hamilton into his shirt pocket. She took another swig.
"I heard that Madden has stepped down."
Jane shoved a Jackson into the pocket. Another swig.
"And that someone else has taken over."
Another Jackson. He paused.
"Well?" Jane demanded.
"My memory's a little fuzzy. I think I need something to help me remember the rest…"
She pulled three bills at random out from her pocket, shoved them in his pocket and grabbed his shirt collar.
"Tell me. Is this someone a woman?"
"Okay, okay. It is."
"And is this someone a certain Doctor Maura Isles?"
He paused, took one look at Jane's set jaw, and nodded slowly. "It's Maura Doyle now."
Her eyes flashed briefly in victory, but she maintained her grip on him, "Where is she?"
"I don't know, Vanilla."
She shook him. The scotch sloshed out of the bottle and onto his hand.
"I'll see what I can do! Jeeze. You'd think you were in love with her or somethin."
The look that passed across Jane's face was unmistakable.
"Well, well, well, Vanilla. You do! Well I'll be. Vanilla's battin for the other team."
Jane balled her fist to punch him.
"Naw, naw, it's cool. I find it hot."
"Go," Jane ordered. "Find her, and I'll make it worth your while."
"Mmmhmm. I've always wanted to see two ladies get it on," he said when he knew he was out of her reach.
"SHUT IT."
She walked slowly into the graveyard, two large, expensive bouquets nestled into the crook of her left arm. She wandered among the headstones until she found the two that she was looking for: Paddy Doyle and Constance Isles.
Each already had a fresh bouquet of flowers.
"Daddy, I'm back," Maura said, laying one of the bouquets down in front of the headstone.
Jane watched as a dark figure entered the cemetery. She heard familiar clack of the heels against the asphalt, saw the tantalizing sway of figure's hips and felt the familiar clench in her chest.
Maura.
Jane watched as the woman kneeled in front of the two headstones she knew so well. She had visited them every day for over two years, waiting impatiently for the day that she would see the vision in front of her.
She heard the soft, calm voice of the doctor break through the stillness of the night and felt herself engulfed in all of the emotions she had used a bottle to keep at bay for so long.
She turned and ran.
A sob pealed through the night air. Maura's head shot up and she spotted a lanky, womanly figure sprinting toward the back gate of the cemetery.
Jane.
Maura stood up to shout her name, but it died on her lips, a place it hadn't passed for two years and fifty-eight days. She put a hand over her aching heart and collapsed to the ground, shocked to feel her resolve disintegrate so quickly.
Maybe I'm not ready, after all.
"It's about respect, Maura! It's about honor! He was your father." Madden sat back in his chair and looked closely at the woman sitting in front of him, wondering if the doctor actually had the guts to go through with it. "It's the only way."
They must die, and I am the one that needs to do it. They killed my father.
Maura repeated the mantra over and over in her head until she felt her resolve slowly return. She was a fugitive, wanted in most of the world's countries.
It was this, or jail. She had given up on the law when she chose her father. This was the only way.
She looked at the scalpel resting innocuously in her hands. She imagined the Y incision on Gabriel's chest and felt a thrill of satisfaction.
"He dies first. Where is he?"
"Come right this way."
Maura allowed herself to be led into the back of a car. Her bodyguard, Sam, settled himself in the passenger's seat and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Over the past couple of years, she'd grown to really trust the man who had once protected her father. He had proven himself to be loyal to her time and again, and was the only one who knew the secret that was corroding her heart.
He gave her a curt nod, one she knew that conveyed the sincerest encouragement, and she tightened her hold on the scalpel in her hand.
The car drove up to a small airplane hangar. As she sat in the car, a small plane taxied out. Sam climbed out and held the door open for Maura, who took his hand. He squeezed it reassuringly and she smiled gratefully at him.
BAM!
A round of gunshots sprayed wildly in the air, and before Maura could register what was happening, Sam was shoving her back inside the vehicle and closing the door.
The car raced flush up against the plane and Sam pulled her back out, shielding her petite body with his much larger one. The plane was taking off before the door was even closed.
What was that? Maura wondered.
Sam and her driver were trying to shout at each other over the din of the plane. They were looking out the windows over their shoulders, trying to figure out who fired the shots.
Maura picked up the remaining two headsets and placed them in the two men's' laps, motioning them to put them on. She motioned toward the microphone.
"Well, fuck, this is better," Sam said over the radio.
"Glad to be of help." Maura said. She let the now-muted sound of the airplane slowly calm her nerves. "Now please explain what that was."
"Maura…what does Jane Rizzoli look like?"
Maura winced at the name.
"Tall. Lanky. Brown curly hair. A constant fashion disaster."
Sam and the driver exchanged a look that Maura didn't miss.
"Was it her?"
"Maura, pilot, please take off your headsets," Sam requested.
"TELL ME," Maura insisted, turning fully to face her friend.
"Maura, please, I need to speak with him for a second. Then I'll tell you."
Maura slowly took off the headset and placed it by her feet. The pilot followed suit.
The two men exchanged heated words for a minute or two. Finally, Sam heaved a defeated sigh and took off the headphones.
He placed a comforting hand on Maura's shoulder and motioned for both her and the pilot to put their headsets back on.
"Well?"
"Jane was there. Clutching an AK-47."