If she closed her eyes, she would feel him above her; almost taste the metal scraping against her palms. Maura would wake her then, holding her close, as if she could consume her fears with kisses-
Jane Rizzoli is pretty sure she's in love.
She doesn't tell Maura so, because it'll only make it all harder-maybe it doesn't even matter.
Every night she dreams of him. She even considers going to him. And then she reminds herself that he tried to kill her, but for the life of her, she can't help the fascination, the way she's drawn to him. Like he is her own brand of self-destruction.
They all stare at her-they think she's changed, that one bullet has rearranged all her fragments. Maura says something about trauma, says it's perfectly normal to feel this way. Like the world is hidden behind glass, and no matter what she does, she can't touch it, Jane wants to ask, but she doesn't. She can't find the words.
So she's ended up in the same situation again-driving, driving endlessly through the flashing streets, false stars blotting out the real. Taking random turns, because somehow if she gets lost, she might get found-
She's never wondered who she is. She's always known.
So when her ma is adamant that she quits the force: she yells back, trying to recapture that certainty. Her ma screams that her heart stopped twice on the way to the hospital. Jane leaves out the bit where policing is the only thing she's good at. She's too tired to rebuild her life.
She walks out on gnocchi night, and as she does, she slams her fist against the wall. Her hand screams a protest that it never agreed to such things and her ma is crying-Jane doesn't feel anything but everything closing in around her. She knows then she has to run.
Jane Rizzoli has never run before-she's never been afraid of anything enough to. Now she realizes that she just never took a proper look in the mirror.
Maura knows, she knows damnit, when Jane comes to her apartment in the middle of the night. Her eyes are sad and despairing. She kisses her and it tastes like goodbye, even though Jane desperately wants it not to be. Maura doesn't ask her to stay, and that kind of hurts. She does ask if Jane is coming back-
She can only say she doesn't know.
All she knows is that she has to go somewhere, anywhere, where they won't ask what she's running from. She can't outrun the scars on her hands, on her stomach. She can't outrun herself.
But somehow, she has to try.