Pink shoes. Vomit!

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor do I own a pair of pink shoes.

Summary: A dark one shot of a missing scene after Jane's rescue from the kidnapping, and before the couch scene (episode 3x7). Jane is still in hospital. Frankie takes a very shaken Maura home and informs his mother of what happened.

I'm hearing everything through a layer of cotton wool. Frankie's voice is sing-songing from afar. "Hey Ma, you have to listen to the whole story before talking, promise?"

"My baby! What's happened to my baby!" Angela's voice shrieks through the layers of fluffy cotton. I look up, over Frankie's shoulder. Her panicked expression is too much for me though. I turn around and put one foot in front of the other towards my own door. "Where is Jane? Frank, Frankie! Is she alright?!" The voice keeps shrieking.

I reach my door while Frankie tries to calm his mother down. Keys. I must have keys. I used to always have keys to this door. I stand in front of the door and sigh.

"Jane is alright," I hear Frankie say. But it's a lie.
"Tommy is with her. She has been in a hostage situation, but we've got her now and she's fine." Not true.
"Some doctors are checking her out to make sure, but she's good." Not good.
"We got her," he says. But we don't. A hospital room has her. In those hideous clothes. In fear. It sickens me to think that strangers will be touching her to tend to the wounds that must be inevitable from the hand cuffs. It is my job.

"My door…" I mumble. "I need…" But I don't know what I need, or if I've ever needed anything. In the background Frankie keeps explaining Jane's situation in terms of good and okay. It feels like someone is slapping me with a metal rod. But then, suddenly, he's at my side.

"Hey, let's get you inside." He takes my purse. Oh. My purse is where my keys live. I only briefly acknowledge that I anthropomorphized my rather inanimate keys. Angela is at my side too now. "Are you okay, honey? Sweetheart, are you okay? Why won't you talk to me? Why doesn't anyone talk to me?" Her voice grates on the dullness surrounding me.

"Ma, this is not about you, alright? One thing at a time, yeah?" Frankie produces my keys, and hands them to me, but I forget to reach out for them. They fall to the ground. I see them go in slow motion. As they hit the floor and their tinkling reaches my ears, it suddenly seems like a veil is lifted in my head and I have a mission. As clear as day, I understand what needs to happen.

I grab the keys off of the tiles, and the next thing I know is that I am in my walk-in closet, screaming at the walls. "Where are they?! Where are they?!"

I pull down all of the P section boxes of my shoe collection. Cream colored shoes tumble out of their boxes, black shoes, white shoes, even a pair made from clear see-through material that have been out of fashion for at least twenty years. Where in the living hell are they?

I must still be screaming because Frankie and Angela are at my side holding me back, but I need to find the shoes.

"Where is what, Maura?"

"My pink shoes! Where are they! Why are they not filed under P?!"

"P is for peeptoes and … honey. Maura sweetheart, sit down. Come on. "

"NO! Don't touch me! DON'T , I mean it!" I swat at both of them. "Where are they? Where are they!"

"Did you look under the B?"

"B! Why, where is B?"

"Over there, sweetie. Please calm down. Here we go. Bubble gum pink."

"More! I have three more!" I scream. I know I'm making a scene, but I can't help it. Not yet. Not until my house is clean.

"Three more pair? Frankie, hold these." Angela reaches up in the B section. "…Bright pink of course, Begonia and…" she reaches over and pulls one more box out of the closet, "Baby pink."

"Okay. Okay. Disgusting." I calm down marginally, shake the shoes out of their boxes. "Out, they need to be out."

"I get it. I'll help you," says Frankie. At first I think he's lying, because he's looking at Angela and they are silently communicating something. But when I see his serious eyes back on me, I think he really does get it. "Shall I put them in the shed for you?"

I shake my head. "Trash."

"Okay. Here, look, I'm taking them." He gathers them all in one of the boxes, all on top of each other, asymmetrically. Their different shades of pink clash and touch. Disgusting. "They're going into the trash, okay. I'm going there now." He walks out of the room, and I realize the boxes disgust me also. The names on the sides. Begonia, Fuchsia and Primrose, ugh. I gather the boxes and even the brown paper that has touched them, and go after Frankie.

I tremble as I hear the shoes hit the bottom of the trashcan. The trash was collected just this morning. They will be here all week. It's not good enough. I throw the boxes in and proceed to carry the trash can out onto the curb. Angela comes out of the house and is looking at me. Frankie whispers to her. I know I am making a spectacle of myself, I know I am scaring them, but these dirty shoes need to be off my property. I put the garbage can down on the other side of the road. Then I throw up into the can. Why not.
As I stand trembling on the side of the road, Angela's hand is suddenly on my back. Soothing me, not berating me. I look up into her worried eyes and realize that she is the only one that can even come close to understanding how I feel right now. "Jane..," I say before a sob wrecks through me. And with complete disregard of my mental and physical state I wrap myself around Angela and let her hold me as I cry. "You saw everything?" she says into my hair. "Frankie says that you helped to find her and that you saw everything. My poor, brave girl. My poor, brave girl."