Title: Fixing It
Author: tika12001 (aka Katie)
Rating: M (for themes, not sexy times... me sowwy)
Warnings: uh, dark. Suicide. Not a happy ending.
Summary: So, I'm back again, and I decided since I haven't written in so long, I'm gonna DO BAD STUFF. Ahem. Don't hate me. This takes place after Maura gets rescued from her kidnapping. NOT A HAPPY ENDING.
Disclaimer: not mine, make no money, but if I ask reeeeally nicely, can someone please send me Maura at least?
A/N: uhh... *hides* (p.s. yes, I will update My Saving Grace, I'm soooo sorry it's been 75 bazillion years!)
R&IR&IR&I
When it was over, Jane was still reeling. It had all happened so suddenly... but then, that was how it normally went, didn't it? That was police work in general. Things went slow... slower... and then suddenly, it all happened. It all happened, and you barely remember it afterwards except for the way your heart pounded so furiously thoughout. This time, though... this time was worse. Because this time, it involved Maura. Maura, Maura's life, not some random stranger who might come back into Jane's life maybe twice more... once for all the paperwork and the trial and everything, and once more, many moons down the track, with a timid smile, a box of chocolates and a 'thank you' on her lips. It was Maura. And so, Jane did what she always did in matters like this.
She fucked it up.
They had found Maura, of course. Jane didn't fuck up that part. She worked with Korsak and Frankie and figured out where Maura was being kept. They found her. They rescued her. They caught the bad guy, and rescued the innocent victim. Jane did her job, and she had rescued Maura, not one mistake in sight. At least... not then.
No, it was afterwards that Jane had fucked it all up.
Maura was there, looking so tiny, so fragile, and Jane had just stared at her blankly. She stared at the blood that dripped from a fresh cut on her forehead, at the congealed blood that had run down her neck and into her shirt, and she stared. It felt like her heart was in her throat... he had done this to her. He knew that taking Maura would mess Jane up, but Jane didn't even realize it was Maura missing. Not until it was too late. Maura had been here for 33 hours.
Korsak re-holstered his weapon and immediately headed over to Maura, as soon as he knew that the other guys were looking after the perp. He knelt behind her and began pulling at the knots that bound her to the chair she sat in, and Jane lifted her gaze momentarily. She barely caught sight of large, watery eyes staring right back at her, before she dropped her gaze once more.
And she stared at the blood.
"Rizzoli! Detective? Hey, Detective Rizzoli!"
She started at the sound of her name and turned slowly, part of her hating to turn from those pleading eyes, another part almost... glad? Yes, she was glad, she realized with a sinking feeling. Because when she looked at Maura... she realized how badly she had messed up. "Ye..." her voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yeah?"
"We're gonna take this guy," the officer jerked his thumb at the kidnapper sitting in the back of the police van, "back to the station. You're gonna ride with the doc, yeah?"
"I, uh..." she half turned in Maura's direction, only getting a faint half image of Maura standing and slowly taking a step in her direction, before turning back to the officer and striding purposefully in his direction. "No. No, I think I'll ride with you and get this guy squared away first."
The officer looked startled for a half second, before quickly schooling his expression into an emotionless mask. Good, Jane mused, even while she thought, he's surprised, because he knows I'm meant to be her friend. "Of course, Detective. Would you like to ride with me, or...?"
"Yes," Jane said, speeding up her pace as she hears a small cry from behind her. "With you would be great."
She doesn't look out the window as they pull away.
R&IR&IR&I
"Hey," Jane said, coming over to her desk and dumping a fresh new lot of paperwork on it. She looked at it and sighed, purposefully trying to forget the way she had, before entering the room, looked about it cautiously for any sign of Maura's presence. She wasn't there, and Jane was pretty sure she wasn't meant to feel this relieved about that fact. "Where's, uh..."
"Maura?" Korsak asked quietly, and Jane became aware of the look of fatherly disapproval on his face. "Your best friend?"
Jane dropped her gaze. "Yeah. Yeah, Maura."
"I don't know," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. "We took her to the hospital and they cleaned her up, but she refused to stay there overnight. I brought her back here but she said she wanted to be alone."
"And you let her? Jesus, Korsak, she could have a concussion or anything!" Jane said, glaring at him with an absurd amount of anger that she was pretty sure she had no right to.
"Yeah. Well, turns out she can be pretty stubborn. I tried to make her stay, but..." he raised his eyebrows, "she gave me the slip."
"Maura did," Jane said, a flat tone of disbelief in her voice.
"Yep. Guess she's picked up a bit from her best friend over the years." The inflection on the words 'best friend' was only slight, but it was very intentional, and Jane flinched. He continued, "I tried to find her... went over to her place and everything, but..."
"Well... I mean, if she's that determined to be alone, I..."
"Jane," Korsak interrupted, and Jane looked up, eyes wide, wondering why she felt so terrified. "I'm pretty sure that when it comes to Maura being alone, you don't count." Jane frowned, confused. "I mean," Korsak went on, "you're pretty much two halves of one whole."
Jane opened her mouth, then shut it again, shaking her head in denial. "No... no, I... if she wants to be alone, I..."
Korsak stood up and came over to Jane and, as always, even though she was actually incrementally taller than him, she felt small beneath his paternal-like gaze. "Go to her, Jane. She needs you now."
"I don't even know where to...!" Jane protested, but stopped abruptly at the look on his face.
"You'll find her, Jane. You always do. You're her best friend."
Jane's eyes filled with tears. "I... she's going to be so angry at me, Vince. I let her be taken. I was... I was so worried about me and about Ma and... I let her be taken!" She shook her head, slowly sinking down onto the chair that had been somehow placed behind her just in time. "She's gonna hate me."
Korsak crouched in front of her and rested his hands on her knees. Jane rubbed her eyes and avoided his gaze for as long as possible, but she couldn't do it forever. "Janey... I don't think it's possible for that woman to hate you."
"She's done it before," Jane replied almost petulantly, and Korsak shook his head.
"I think she learnt from that. I think you both did." He stood, holding a hand out to Jane. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. "Go find her, Jane. She needs you."
R&IR&IR&I
It was only 20 minutes later that found Jane opening up the door to the roof of the BPD building. She wasn't sure why she hadn't gone to Maura's house after finding the morgue empty, or even her own apartment... call it a gut instinct... but when she opened the door and found Maura standing on the roof, uncomfortably close to the edge, Jane was unsurprised.
"I... uh... hey," Jane stuttered and stumbled, staring at the fresh bandages on Maura's neck, head, leg and both arms.
Maura didn't move. She just kept staring at the sky.
"Careful," Jane said, and finally, Maura looked over at her. "You're uh... you're gonna get dizzy." She gestured to the edge that Maura was only inches from – a part of the roof's concrete barrier that had broken, and was barely half a foot high. Jane shrugged slightly. "I don't want you to fall."
"Don't you?" Maura asked, her voice so quiet that Jane almost missed it.
"What? No, of course I don't...!" Jane stepped forward and Maura stepped back, her steady, dry-eyed gaze now focused purely on Jane's own. Thankfully, Jane noted with some relief, the step back had at least moved her further away from the edge. "Maura, I... I'm sorry I didn't... I didn't come back with you, and go to the hospital with you, I just... you know, I wanted to make sure that I could tell you that the man who did this to you, that he was safely behind bars, and he is, Maura, he is, I made sure of that, and..."
Maura's gaze had dropped during Jane's little tirade, but now she lifted it once more, staring up at the sky. Jane followed her gaze and looked with surprise at the stars. She didn't realize it was that late.
"Do you ever wonder," Maura asked softly, so softly that Jane eased herself forward to hear, "if the world would be better off without you?"
Jane drew in a startled breath. "I... Maura?"
"It's just something I think about," Maura replied, looking down at her feet and stepping to the edge of the building. She lifted one foot and put it on the crumbling barrier, not stepping up yet.
"Maura!" Jane gasped, taking one instinctive step forward before forcibly stopping herself. Remember your training, she berated herself. None of that training ever included my best friend standing on the ledge though, a small voice whispered.
"Did you know the statistics of suicide, Jane?"
Jane shook her head. "It's too high though," she murmured softly. Remember your training. What are you supposed to do? WHAT?
"Suicide rates are consistently higher among men than women. Many studies have been done about this, most proving inconclusive, but I believe it's because men are advised to hide their emotions, while women are able to be more demonstrative."
"All of which would be highly soothing to me if my female best friend wasn't standing on a 5 storey high ledge right now."
Maura continued as though Jane hadn't interrupted, leaning over slightly to look at the ground. "Caucasians are more likely to commit suicide than any other culture in America, accounting for 14.2 deaths out of 100,000."
"I... I still can't believe you're able to recite these figures off by heart, Maura. It's amazing, you know," Jane murmured, wondering where the hell everyone was, why weren't they helping her, and why couldn't she remember a damn thing?
"American Indians were the second highest, accounting for 11.7 deaths," Maura continued, her voice droning on without inflection or any of her normal excitement and delight. Jane put a hand to her heart, feeling desperately hopeless.
"Maura..."
"Montana and Alasks had the highest rate of suicide. Massachusetts was one of the lowest."
"That's... comforting."
"I find it interesting."
"Do you?" Jane stepped forward slightly. "Why?"
Maura looked up at the sky. "I never could understand it. Why someone would want to take their own life. Even with my life of loneliness, I loved being alive. I loved learning, and trying new things, and speaking to new people. I loved it all."
Jane didn't miss the past tense. "And now?"
"Now..." Maura looked down at the ground again, and her foot twitched on the barrier, "now, I understand."
Jane felt tears spilling over onto her cheeks. "Maura... Maura, please," she whispered, and Maura looked at her, her own eyes completely dry.
"I'm sorry, Jane."
R&IR&IR&I
Firearms count for 51.5% of all suicide deaths in America. Suffocation: 24.4. Then there's poisoning, at 16.1% and the rest is simply classed as 'other'... 8.0%.
Maura, you didn't finish your statistics. So I finished them for you.
I wonder what mine will be classed as. Poisoning, or suffocation. What happens when a person does two things? I don't suppose it matters.
I'm sorry, Maura.
I love you.
-Jane
END
I don't even know. Like, I am so ridiculously happy and loving life at the moment, and yet this comes out? Like ? what? Anyway. You're all gonna hate me so I'm just gonna go hide somewhere and you can all eat some cookies *offers plate of cookies* and then hopefully with sugary goodness you won't wanna murder me and stuff. hehe bye! Love to all! xoxo -Katie
