Title: Sweet Nothing

Category: TV Shows » Rizzoli Isles

Author: Light My Words

Language: English, Rating: Fiction Rated: T

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance

Summary: She'd been to crime scenes, found torture chambers and murder dungeons, but never anything like this. A woman who shouldn't be alive, cowering in a corner with nothing more than the embrace of a terrified little boy. For Jane, the only obvious option was to take the pair in and show them that life was more than the hell they've known.

Authors Note: Trigger warning for kidnapping, abuse and imprisonment. This story is being re-written, so this is a kind of updated.

This hasn't been beta'd, so all mistakes are mine.

It wasn't just dark, it was entirely devoid of light. There was nothing shining through cracks under doors or between the joins of curtains to highlight the room, nothing but her flashlight and the beams of the two men behind her. They were 44 miles out of Boston, a drive that had taken them roughly an hour and arrived them at the property on Highland Road in Rockport, at just after 9PM. It was well concealed by a dense green growth and from the road, hadn't initially been visible. The low bearing trees swallowed the glow from the streetlights and left them in a pitch black that turned Jane's stomach with unease. The house was all dark wood and crumbling roof, windows double-boarded and the property was humming with generator-run electricity. Inside smelt musty, like one too many storms had sent water trickling through the facade to rot the plaster, and the floorboards beneath her feet were bouncing as if made from something elastic. Behind her she heard a crack, bang! and a softly muttered 'fuck' as her partner's foot went through a slat that caved under his weight. The bright of her flashlight emphasised the puff of her breath, visible as smoke in the chill of a winter's night in a town by the coast.

"You right?" She threw over her shoulder in a gravel whisper, and moments later was granted a displeased 'mm' in return. They cleared the house with haste to find only one bedroom actually furnished, a filthy bathroom that accommodated for at least half the smell of the house and a kitchen whose only working appliance was a microwave. The door to the basement was hidden behind a curtain in the laundry, solid steal and cold to the touch, and it had taken Jane five tedious minutes to pick the lock.

She almost wished she hadn't been able to when they pushed the door in on its hinges.

They found a narrow staircase, foreboding in nature and lit by a single hanging bulb whose chain Frost had to tug twice before it flickered to life. At the base of the stairs there was another door and another lock, which took her considerably less time than the first, and when they pushed the door open they were met with a small room, encased in darkness and cold. A moments search with the beam of her flashlight, which was struggling to cut through the absolute black, found Jane a light switch that she flicked with her index finger. A ceiling light flashed once, twice, before humming a soft yellow glow and brightening the five by five cemented room. Movement to her right caught her attention and, behind the wrought iron of a single bed, she found a mop of blonde curls.

"Boston Police," she called, although quietly because her voice seemed to bound off the walls. "Are you hurt?"

A head shake was the answer she received, and before she had a chance to step closer to investigate, her eyes caught brilliant green and gold orbs that had sunken into a pale face. It was only then that she realised the long brown hair clutched to her chest, and the little body it belonged to.

"Are you real, is this real?" The woman's voice was soft, as if unsure of its own sound and Jane found herself nodding as she stepped around the bed and knelt down.

The small room was immaculate in comparison to the house upstairs, the single bed had an old quilt smoothed over the sheet-covered mattress and the pillow plumped. To the other side of the woman, a pace or two away was a small bar fridge, plastered with a child's artwork and the bench atop it held a microwave oven, three stacked cube shelves holding non-perishable food and a sink with plastic dishes on the drying rack. A small bathtub was beside that, no longer the white it may have once been. The wall opposite the single bed saw a pale pink toilet scrubbed as clean as its age would allow and a stand-alone wardrobe with white paint flaking from its double doors. The centre of the room was home to an old woven rug, a small round table and two foldable chairs. Jane was particularly struck by the trolley beside the wardrobe that held a small television no doubt as old as herself, and even further struck with the realisation that this was their home.

"Yes, yes I'm real. My name is Detective Jane Rizzoli and I'm with the Boston Police Department. Are you hurt, are either of you hurt?" She kept her voice low, observing in silence how the little body in the woman's arms curled tighter.

"Not badly. It's cold–he… he switched off the power as punishment and now Angus has a fever." The blonde's voice was so soft that Jane barely caught it, but she did note the well of tears forming in hazel eyes.

"We've called paramedics, we'll get Angus to a hospital, both of you. Can you tell me your name?" With soft carob eyes, Jane titled her head and offered out a hand to help her stand. The other woman used the wall to push herself to her feet, muscles that shouldn't have been so capable given the small space she'd been confined to, holding her steady.

"Maura," she croaked, before clearing her throat. "Maura Isles."

Jane froze, and she felt the surprised shuffle of both her sergeant and her partner behind her. Everyone knew the name Maura Isles, remembered the missing persons report and the year long investigation into her sudden disappearance. The adoptive daughter of wealthy parents, the pictures of a composed young woman with clear porcelain skin, blonde curls and golden green eyes had circulated the media for months and haunted the detectives of Boston Police. She'd last been seen driving toward Boston Cambridge University – of which she attended – when she'd vanished into apparent thin air. Her car had been found on the side of the road, handbag untouched and keys still in the ignition and absolutely no sign of a struggle or suggestion of what had happened to her. Jane had been in the academy when it had all happened, and she'd followed the investigation with rapt attention.

Now Maura Isles stood in front of her, a good head shorter than Jane and eight years older than she had been when she'd gone missing. Neither woman appeared to quite believe it.

"It's alright Maura, you're free now." The detective held her arm out and when the blonde pushed from the wall, she shrugged out of her leather jacket and gently draped it over narrow shoulders.

"Free," she sighed, ducking her head to burrow into the neck of the child in her arms. "We're going to see Outside, Gus. Clouds and grass and dogs! Our rocket ship has come." Her voice was so muffled that Jane barely caught her words, but when she did she felt her heart clench in her chest.

Maura may not have seen daylight in seven years, and the boy in her arms with a near waist length mop of brown hair may never have seen the sky.

Their days had been the same since the moment Angus had been born, with exceptions made for his age. He'd come on a Thursday night, 11:34pm and the air conditioner had been on and pumping refrigerated air into the small room as she clenched her teeth through the throws of labour. The moment she'd laid her eyes on him, she'd cried. Eye-burning, soul-wrenching sobs because he had been perfect, and he was never going to see a normal life. He had been her one strength from the moment she'd delivered him on her only towel spread across the concrete flooring, and she'd named him just so.

Angus. He'd been a forgiving baby, forgiving of her shortcomings and the days she'd barely wanted to roll out of bed. A rambunctious toddler that loved the bath tub and jumping on the bed until his laughter caught in his lungs and stole the air needed to continue. A smart and inquisitive little boy, with an imagination that carried him far beyond the confides of their small room. He could recite the alphabet by the age of three, and read with little difficulty by the time he'd turned five – four weeks ago. His intelligence didn't know the bounds that his physical being did, and their conversations left Maura enlightened and laughing more often than they left her drained.

Mornings came with the beep beep of her wrist watch and the cheerful 'good morning mama' from the little body sharing the single bed. They ate breakfast together, generally whatever cereal had been cheaper for their captor and vitamins that Maura requested each month. By ten in the morning they were dressed for the day and pushing the dining room table against the wardrobe and folding the chairs under the bed. Maura had been undeniably aware of how important it was for their muscles to see regular use and exercise, so for an hour they did star jumps and push ups and as many yoga poses as she could recall from her life before the room. They ate lunch together and while Maura washed their clothes in hot water from the kitchenette sink, Gus read to her from their newest chapter book, one they'd received six months ago and was missing no doubt a few pages – The Secret Garden. They practiced writing together, and Angus drew her beautiful pictures and narrated stories of the planet known as the 'Outside' and the adventures they would have there once they managed to build a rocket ship.

Maura had found it easier to explain the outside world to Angus as something completely unachievable, like a planet far away rather than simply on the other side of the cold steel door. It hurt more than she could fathom to watch her son describe to her the texture of grass and the nature of dogs and the blue of the ocean as if she'd never seen. She watched him bound from wall to wall as if it were a marathon between the barriers, as if their shoebox room was so big and spacious, and she supposed it was if it was all he'd ever known.

She'd never been allowed scissors to trim his hair, and hadn't been desperate enough to try with the plastic knives she had been granted.

He still thought the people he watched on that small television lived in there.

He was still so innocent.

At night they bathed together in the tub, splashed water and washed each others hair and Angus swished from side to side quickly enough to create small waves. "It's like the ocean, mama!" He'd scream every time, and she'd nod. "Except the ocean wouldn't fit in here, only on Outside." And his face would fall at his own words, just for a moment.

The wardrobe floor was obscured by an impromptu mattress that she'd rest him on every Friday night and close the doors. On those nights, her single bed was taken up by a much larger body and she went to great lengths to ensure that the only two people in her life never saw each other. It was shame, disgust and fear that he'd ruin her son too, and he never showed an interest in seeing the life he'd helped to create. He came for her body, and he left every Friday night when he'd taken what he wanted and she had stopped crying three years ago.

Night was an opportune time for them to be found, because the sunlight would have surely blinded them. Jane watched as Maura froze on the front porch, as the cold night air hit her like a wall of memories and the only thing that stopped the woman and her son from crumbling to the ground was the detectives arm around her thin midsection. She felt before she heard, a quiet sob wrack her small frame and when Jane chanced a glance down at her, she caught a hot trail of tears running down her cheeks in the light of the moon. The sky was clear out here, littered with stars that appeared to be nothing more than thousands of twinkling fairy lights scattered across a rippling black canvas. Jane helped the blonde down the stairs of the porch before allowing her to sit in the grass, little boy still bolted to her front like an extension of herself. Behind her, Korsak muttered that the ambulance was five minutes out, and in front of her Maura had her sons hand in her own, running his small palm over the lush green.

"This is grass, my love." She heard her mutter, and for the first time, Gus peeled his face from her chest to meet his mother's eyes. His face was soft and pale, and even in the poor lighting Jane could see the dark rings beneath his eyes that suggested a lack of nutrients.

"We didn't fly in a rocket ship mama. There's only grass on Outside." He frowned in what appeared to be confusion.

"Look up, Gus. Look at the stars, do you feel the wind on your face?"

"Stars?" He tipped his head back to look where Maura had been pointing, and suddenly Jane felt like an intruder on a most private moment. "Is there ocean? Did we get to Outside?"

Before Maura could reply, flashing lights of red and blue appeared in the driveway and double doors swung outward on their hinges. Angus buried his face back into the worn polyester blend of her shirt and Jane was climbing into the bus with them.

This woman – Maura Isles, and her son Angus – they felt like her responsibility now.

Jane Rizzoli did not shirk her responsibilities.