There's a hundred million stories like this, but I wrote this up a long time ago and never had the guts to put it up. It's a two parter, and this chapter took a long time to finish so I hope it was worth it.

On a Sunday, Jane wears pyjamas. It's one of the first things you learn about her. She wears pyjama's and eats dinner on the sofa and forgets about her life as a cop.

On a saturday, she runs.

On a Friday, she chases.

She's complex, you know that much. She doesn't give much away about herself, but she always likes to learn about you. She cares. A lot.

She's hard working. She's smart; smarter than she allows others to believe.

She's beautiful.

You meet her outside the precinct and she is holding two coffees. Her hair is a strangled web of black curls and her face holds its usual stern expression. She's tired, you can always tell when she is tired. You recently learned about Hoyt. You'd always known about him, even before you were friends. But after Jane killed him in the office ward, she took you to her place and told you about everything that had happened. She never talks about him, never opens up about how scared she was. The only reason you knew before was because you asked frost about the scars and he told you, but not much. Recently, she sat you down and she tried her very best not to cry. You held her hands and you told her that it didn't make her any smaller a person.

She's brave.

You know this because you've watched her from the side as she chases down perps. She's been to hell and back, but she will always be a detective. That is who she is.

When you say her name, she looks at you and a grin spreads across her cheeks. She's always happy to see you and that will always make you grateful. Sometimes you have to bite your lips to stop the words you want to say from escaping your mouth. I love you.

"So, Jane Doe, found her this mornin' outside a bar downtown. Thought i'd wait for you and we could ride over together. Apparently it's a messy one."

You nod quietly, take the coffee and follow her to her car. She's tired and she's despondent, you know that no one else will notice, but you always arrive at the scene within 10 minutes and take a moment to find yourself before facing the swarm of press that always wait outside for answers that you never give them. Who are they to wonder about the dead? who are they to hover around these places? Who are they to live a normal life and travel in colonies to the next murder, aching for details so that they get paid? Who are they?

"Jane Doe, looks about 17, GSW to the right shoulder and chest. Probably here a couple of hours before a passerby found her."

You kneel down on the hot cement and look at the young girl for a moment, taking in her delicate features, sighing at her perky blonde hair and running clothes. How could people do this?

When you get back to the morgue, Jane is quieter than when you first met her. She sits down on your sofa in the office and plays with her hands. She always rubs the scars when she's restless. In the summer, they don't hurt too much. You place a chart down on the desk and take a seat across from her. Then you wait.

"Hate seein' them so young." Her voice is raspy and weak and she doesn't look up from the scars on her hands when she talks. "Make's the job that little bit harder."

You know that this isn't what is bothering her, and for a moment you think you should leave her alone, but you can't do that.

"You look tired, Jane."

You watch as the expression on her face changes from stern to sad and her eyes go a little darker. She's been so tired lately, so worn down.

"You don't need to worry about me."

But you do. You always worry. When she's sick, when she's sad, when she's hurt. You always worry and no matter how hard you try not to; you just do.

"Jane."

"I've been having some nightmares." Her voice is lower, sadder.

"Hoyt?"

She sinks in on herself and her legs start to shake.

"It was such a long time ago. Why do I still think about it?"

"It's natural for the human mind to be triggered back to traumatic events over small changes. It's natural for you to be scared, a month after it happens or even a year."

"It's weak."

"Jane, don't do this to yourself. You don't think about him as much now. You haven't had a panic attack in over 4 weeks now. The nightmares aren't every night like they used to be. It's okay to remember and be a little scared."

"I had a panic attack last night." She looks up at you and her eyes are pleading. "What if he comes back? He already did, 2 months ago. Maur, what if he comes back again and finishes it off?"

You want to move closer to her, but you don't trust yourself with this action. You shuffle an inch and extend your arm to take her hand. "Maybe you should go back to Doctor Lockhart, she helped you through so much the last time."

She shakes her head immediately and flashes a desperate look towards you. She hates talking to people. "I don't think one panic attack and 4 nightmares call for therapy, I think I just need sleep."

But you know all to well that she's not telling the truth. Lately, she's been tired and you can see clearly that she is unraveling. Unraveling more than she did the last time, or the time before that. She's coming apart at the places that were already frayed. You want nothing more than to take her into your arms and protect her from everything, but you know that she wont let you. not right now.

She stands up to make her way to the fridge and hide her face from you, but you catch her swaying the moment her feet hit the ground, within a few seconds, you are catching her in your arms and she is limp and heavy against you.

"Jane?" You know that she is tired. You know she probably hasn't bothered to eat all day. You know that this is a mixture of emotions and exhaustion. But you can never help but worry. "Jane, wake up. Come on, open your eyes."

It takes a moment, but she groans lightly and she blinks her eyes open, letting them focus on your face. She stays that way for a while, huddled in your arms, staring into your eyes, and you wonder what she is thinking about.

Jane Rizzoli likes beer after a long day.

She likes to beat her brother at chess.

She can play piano. You never got to hear her play, she quit after Hoyt because her hands hurt too much and she never continued because it reminded her of how hurt she had been. But you like to imagine her hands playing soft arpeggios up and down the piano, you like to imagine her mind wandering away as she played some of the greats. All you could ever do was imagine.

She starts to shake and you rub your hands up and down her arms, trying to focus on showing her that you're there and that she's going to be okay. Hoyt is gone. He's not coming back.

"You're going to be okay, Jane. You're exhausted, I'm driving you back to my house, you can sleep in the guest bedroom and that way you will be able to get a good sleep."

Jane simply nods and you realise that she's completely given up. You realise that she finally realises that arguing is beyond the point. You realise that someone has taken the Jane Rizzoli you have come to love and carved out all of the emotions from inside of her. You realise that this is something you have to fix.

You're good at a lot of things. You're an academic marvel and your parents have spent your whole life talking about how unbelievably proud of their little Genius they are. You know numbers like normal people know song lyrics and you can define nearly every word in the oxford dictionary. You've travelled the world and you've seen more hurt and more beauty than most people would get to see in a lifetime. You're good at english and science and talking about the human body. When it comes to people though, you're not a genius. You don't understand human emotions as much as other people do. You don't understand why they so willingly cling to one another. You don't get the attachment they look for every day. You don't comprehend what it's like to need a best friend or what the point in relying on other people is. That is, until Jane came along.

The moment you met Jane Rizzoli, something inside of you shifted and changed, a gap filled up with something you'd never felt before. You began to communicate, with words instead of formula's and numbers. You began to tell her about your life and you began to realise how beautiful it was to listen to her talk about her own. You realised that, the second you met Jane Rizzoli, a part of you was filled with love. A kind of love you'd never been able to understand because, yes, you loved other people before, but those fireworks people talked about did not exist. But you met her and bright lights sparked inside of you, just by looking at her eyes. You felt a connection every second of every day and you realised that it was to her, that you wanted to touch her and be near her. You realised that you wanted to kiss her, but you also knew that there was a possibility that she couldn't feel the same way.

For exactly 8 months, you knew that Jane loved you back. You just never talked about it.

She was quiet when you pulled back the covers for her, and she barely smiled a thank you before getting under them and turning away from you. You could tell that she wanted you to stay, she was just too proud to say those words. You did though, you slept next to her and in the middle of the night, she took your hand into hers. Like she needed to feel your skin.

It was 3:20am when she jumped up in the bed, her face was covered in a light sheen of sweat and she was gasping, trying to grab any shred of air she could. You tried to talk to her to calm her, but she wasn't hearing you. Her face paled as she began to slump forward, lack of oxygen to the brain was making her pass out and you wouldn't let that happen again. So you sat in front of her, face to face, arms around her back, your legs around her waist and you talked to her.

"Jane, you're not in the basement with Hoyt. You're not in the room with Hoyt. You're here with me, Maura. You're safe. Come on, there's air and you can breathe it and you're safe with me. Don't go vasovagal on me."

She looked up, her eyes completely unfocused and you realised that she was searching for something. She was looking for something inside of you, and it didn't take you long to realise what she was looking for: Hope.

"That's good, You're doing good." You say as she begins to breathe easily and she sits up more confidently, and she's looking down at her shaking hands as if she's ashamed of something, or sorry for something. You're not sure, but you know that, whatever it is, it's not something she should worry about. You take both her hands into your own and she looks up at you with those large brown eyes full of emotion and you reach up and cup her cheek in your hand.

"You're a fighter, Jane."

"I'm a failure."

"You've come so far."

"I've fallen so many times."

"You are a fighter."

The second time you say it, a new look flashes across her eyes and her brows crease with confusion. As if she's been denying the true facts for a long time. As if she was never getting any better to begin with.

"He won, Maur."

You've never given anyone such a demanding look in your life and you shake your head with such force that it hurts. "No he did not. Remember what Korsak said, Jane. No one can break Jane Rizzoli unless you let them. You're so strong, so so strong. You've been so brave and you've been through so much, but you're here. You had a gunshot wound and you refused to let it stop you from being the detective you've always been, you walked when the doctors told you the pain would be too much. You used your hands two whole weeks before you should have. You've always been strong, you've always been a fighter."

"But that's not true, is it? From the moment I was taken by Hoyt, to the moment he left, I was his victim. Hell, i'm still his victim. He weakened me in life and then he tortured me in my dreams. How many apprentices has he trained, Maur? How many more people has he taught to hurt me? How many more people has he trained to kill me? How many times will he come to me in my sleep and stick those scalpels in me again…how many more times do I have to watch…" She stops mid sentence and looks back down to her hands, she doesn't bother to stop the tear that trails down her cheek, because there's no point in pretending now.

"Watch what, Jane?"

"watch him hurt you."