A/N: wrote this one-shot a little while ago... not the happiest of stories, but not the saddest either, so give it a shot! This is in no way related to my other fic SHE.
"Jane Clementine Rizzoli where've you been? I was worried sick!"
Tossing the family car keys on the bench Jane shrugs, her angular shoulders rising to form a hunch around her neck, not completely relaxing when she lets them fall back down again.
"Excuse me?" Angela's eyes harden to a steely grey, "You're over half an hour late Jane, you've completely missed dinner AND your curfew. Where were you?"
"Hockey practice-"
"Ended an hour ago, try again."
Jane's jaw clenches and she turns away from her mother, moving towards the stairs.
"Where do ya think she was," Tommy yelled from the dining room, smirk audible in his voice, "same place she always goes after school and on weekends."
Jane wheeled, eyes flashing, and crossing the kitchen in three steps she lunged for her younger brother, "Tommy I swear to G-"
"Cut it out!" Frank Rizzoli looked up from his newspaper glowering at the room, "Tommy get outta here," the younger boy fled, knowing better than to argue, leaving Jane's silent figure facing both of her parents.
"What's he talkin' about Janie?"
Jane steeled herself, standing straight. She wouldn't lie, that was one of the things she had learned from her, and so raising her face resolutely, she told the truth, "The tree."
Frank looked confused, but Angela seemed to deflate, becoming smaller without her irritation. She swallowed, "Were you there with Frost honey?"
"No." I am rock. I am nothing. I am steel. I am nowhere. She learned that. She learned a lot of things from her but that was the one that Jane remembered most. Your thoughts are more powerful than any weapon.
Angela sighed, "Jane, honey it's been almost a year."
"Ten months and twelve days," she jammed her fists in her pockets. I am water. I am cool and smooth and-
"Don't you think it's time you let go?" Her mother said it soft, like pillows, like trying to soften the blow but-
"No!" She wasn't water, she was fire, and she stood in a blazing glory.
Angela shrank backward, defeated, but Jane advanced, "I told her- I promised her that- and she was here- and she's coming back I know she is- I just-," words tumbled around and around in her head. Nothing she wanted to say would come out, because how does she explain that for ten months and twelve days all she's been able to see is blonde hair and blue eyes the shade that the sky goes after it rains. She can't. And suddenly her flames are extinguished and all that is left is a shell. A hollow, burnt out husk, and she runs.
A siren wails somewhere and Jane's breath condenses, crystallizing right in front of her eyes. Her lungs burn and her heart beats erratically against her ribcage but she doesn't register any of it. She is running but she is all one thought, the rest, as she would've said was muscle memory.
Find her. See her.
She would've known the way even if she was blindfolded. The branches reach for the sky as if they were a ladder to the heavens. Their tree. The darkness has leached away all the color but Jane doesn't even notice.
The laugh that used to send shivers down her spine echoes in her ears and her hands shake as she sinks to the ground. Fifteen meters away and her chest feels like it's made from paper, any closer and it'll rip.
They met here every day for a year until one day she just didn't show. Jane waited under the branches for a week after that, but now the closest she can manage is fifteen meters. She stares without seeing.
"Jane?"
"Mmm?" She rolls over, the speckled sunlight warming her skin through the trees protective branches.
Maura's book is on the ground and her eyes are trained on Jane's face. Jane can't help the breath that escapes her lips at the sight of her. Radiant, Jane's own personal sun.
"You know my Dad isn't a good man right? Like you know that he's done some really awful things and that-"
"Maura, we've been through this," she reaches for Maura's hands, intertwining the smooth fingers with her own rougher ones, "you are nothing like him okay? Your smart and kind and-"
Maura shakes her head, "No. Please, let me finish?"
Jane nods a cold, hard rock forming in her stomach.
"He's done some really awful things and some equally awful people might want to get him back for it." A tear slides down Maura's cheek, "And Jane, if that happens we'll just have to leave. He'll have to disappear and he'll take me with him. I won't be able to write to you, or talk to you or even let you know where I am-"
"No. Listen to me Maura, okay? That. Will. Not. Happen." She brushes away Maura's tears with a finger, willing herself not to cry as well, "and if it does you'll come back. I'll wait here for you, every day."
Only it's been ten months and twelve days and she still hasn't come back.
The choked sob that escapes Jane's throat is raw and wet. Her body aches and her skin is frozen but her insides are fire. She fights an internal war and even as she curses herself for being weak she stumbles to her feet and lurches towards the tree.
She can't help it. She has to see her.
Fingers trembling Jane scrabbles under a root. Her heart pounds in her ears and one hundred different memories clamour for her attention.
Maura. Smiling and laughing, shying away as Jane squirts a drink bottle towards her.
Maura. An ivory statue, reading with her head in Jane's lap.
Maura. Crinkle in her brow, pencil in her mouth, bent over a textbook.
Maura. Legs swinging, eyes twinkling, on a branch just out of Jane's reach.
Maura. Covered in hives, leaning against the trunk after telling Jane she didn't want to kiss her.
Maura. Eyes brighter than the stars and hair molten gold after Jane did kiss her.
Maura. Maura. Maura. Maura. Maura.
Her fingers wrap around something solid and desperately Jane pulls the little black book out from underneath one of the tree's gnarled roots. Moonlight shines, illuminating the white pages and the spindly scrawl covering them.
She'd started it the same day Maura had told her that she might just disappear without a trace. She'd rummaged through her room looking for the empty notebook her mother had bought her, the one she swore she'd never use, and she wrote. Anything, everything. She wrote about the way that Maura played with her lip when she was nervous. She wrote about the fact that when Maura said her name a certain way she got tingles all down her spine. She wrote every random fact Maura spouted, everything that Maura ever taught her she wrote, because Jane would be damned if she ever forgot even the slightest detail about that girl.
Tears drip down Jane's cheeks and land on the dirt but she doesn't take any notice. She skips the physical descriptions, as if she'd ever forget what Maura looked like. Instead she flips to the middle, to the page with the heading 'Thing's She's Taught You', and then Jane is immersed, drowning, and finally she can see her.
'Lesson Number 1. She has your back.'
'Lesson Number 2. Thoughts are the most powerful weapon.'
'Lesson Number 3. She owns a tortoise, not a turtle.'
'Lesson Number 4. Talking is always better than not talking.'
'Lesson Number 5. The world is beautiful.'
'Lesson Number 6. Don't lie.'
'Lesson Number 7. She will never leave you.'
Only she did.
Tears drip down Jane's chin and ink runs down the pages, you never taught her anything. She gasps at the realization; Maura won't have anything to remember her by. A lump, harder than tar seems to have lodged itself in her throat she cranes her neck to look at the stars, wondering if Maura can see them wherever she may be.
"Look, no over there," Maura reaches for Jane's hand and guides it with her own, pointing up at the sky, "that one, is Andromeda. Greek mythology states that Andromeda was a princess who-"
Jane glances at the collection of stars for less than a second, turning instead to marvel at the girl next to her. She knows it isn't true but she could swear that all the stars in the galaxy shine for Maura Isles.
The grass underneath Jane feels like needlepoint's, each individual blade slicing at her skin. She wants to pluck Andromeda out of the sky and cast it away forever. It doesn't seem right that anything in the world should be beautiful unless Maura is right next to her to see it too. She looks down at the small book in her hands and wants to scream. It isn't enough.
She tears through the pages, looking for something, anything she might've missed. With each flick and every blank page her heart sinks even further into her chest. Finally she reaches the last page and her tears are falling so hard that she can hardly see, but she stops. There is writing there. Only it's not her spindly scrawl she is staring at.
'Dear Jane, thank you, for teaching me how to love.'
Jane's hand whips up to her mouth, her unruly curls falling over her face. She reads this sentence over and over before seeing the tiny print in the bottom corner, written like an afterthought, written like a plea;
'Please don't give up on me.'
And there's no one around to hear the silent whisper that leaves Jane's lips.
"Never."