A/N: I wrote this quickly this morning after hearing Madonna's "Like a Prayer" on the radio. I know I'm aging myself a lot by saying that this was one of my favorite songs in 1989 when it played on the radio all the time (and on MTV, when MTV actually played music videos. Ahem.). I'm not a spiritual person, so it has always surprised me at how much the lyrics in this song affect me whenever I hear it. I usually associate the lyrics more with love than with some kind of omnipotent being, so in hearing the song this morning I thought it would make a good song fic. This is my first song fic.
Like a Prayer is © 2006 WMG, all rights belong to Madonna and Warner Music Group.
Rizzoli and Isles is the property of TNT, Tess Gerritsen and Janet Tamaro.
I didn't think this needed to be said, but now I'm forced to add this to all of my stories:
This work of fiction belongs to me, sociallyawkwardpenguin. The Rizzoli and Isles characters belong to TNT. However this story, and all original characters, belong to me. Absolutely no reposting of this story is permitted (including translations of this story) without my express written permission. If you see this story posted in any other forum besides Archive of our Own or FanFiction, please notify me via private message immediately.
Maura is up with the first light, still too anxious to sleep deeply. The events of yesterday still play over and over in her head, and she can't decide if she's more agitated over the building collapse and all it entailed or the idea of giving up one of her kidneys to a half sister that despises her and a biological mother that only wants her for her kidney.
She shakes her head, trying to clear it. Logically she knows that all of the events of the day before are still causing her elevated cortisol and adrenaline levels, and that is the reason why she can't sleep and can't keep her mind from wandering. Maura gets up and heads to the shower, still feeling gritty despite two showers the night before. She fears she will be washing concrete dust out of her hair for quite a while.
She listens at her door for any sign that Jane is up and stirring. She will make Jane breakfast before showering if she hears Jane awake. There seems to be no movement from the couch, where Jane had crashed last night after her own second shower. Jane had insisted on sleeping there when Maura had asked her to stay, saying the concrete dust still trapped in her unruly curls would ruin Maura's Egyptian cotton pillowcases.
Maura would have preferred that Jane stay in her bed last night. She knows she would have slept better with Jane's comforting presence there with her, but Jane had been insistent and she didn't want to make Jane uncomfortable. She can't help but wonder if Jane's insistence at sleeping downstairs had more to do with sleeping in the same bed with her and less to do with ruining an expensive pillowcase. She wishes she could know for certain where Jane's feelings for her stood. It was something that continually kept Maura off balance, and combined with yesterday's events, was confusing Maura even more.
Maura showers, more for the comfort it brings than anything else. She is amazed that on her third hair washing there is still cement dust in the water that flows down the drain. She wonders how it is possible for there to still be that much grit trapped in there. Maura is nothing if not fastidious in her grooming habits, and cement grit in her hair was simply not acceptable, especially after so many washings. Her scalp is beginning to get irritated though, and she knows she will have to stop this incessant washing for the rest of the day in order to avoid completely ruining her hair or drying out her scalp.
She finishes showering and throws on workout clothes. Maura is going to take advantage of her abundant energy while she has it. When her hormone levels finally drop later, she knows she will be likely to drop with them, so physical activity now is a good idea. She picks up her MP3 player and walks into the guestroom, where she has a tactical dummy just like Jane's. She grins at the memory of Jane discovering it not long after she had been giving her self defense lessons. She told Jane she had purchased it to practice what Jane had taught her, and that was true. But she didn't tell Jane she had also purchased it because she knew Jane would use it in the mornings after she stayed over instead of Jane returning home to her own apartment. Maura liked the idea of giving Jane reasons to stay.
She fires up the MP3 player and warms up to the first few songs. Maura has always had a secret penchant for 80s songs, and she picks that playlist to get started. She warms up to A-Ha's Take On Me. She starts her punching and kicking routines to Olivia Newton-John's Physical. She finds herself deep into her routine, punching and kicking and taking satisfaction out of the physical exertion and the skills she had been developing. She relaxes a bit and lets her mind wander as the songs played on.
She starts wondering how many times she and Jane were going to put themselves in danger together. Yesterday had been terrifying, the risks bigger than she could ever imagine, yet she readily followed Jane into that tunnel. She would have been heartbroken over losing Frost or Tommy, or sweet little TJ. Idly she wonders if danger ran in the Rizzoli blood. Jane seems to actively seek it out, and Frankie isn't far behind her, though somewhat more conservative in his endeavors. Tommy doesn't seem to actively go looking for danger, but yet finds himself in trouble often. Some of that trouble really is dangerous. It definitely seems to be a Rizzoli trait, Maura thinks to herself.
The next song comes on, the opening notes to Madonna's Like a Prayer playing. Maura loves this song, and she flicks the loop button on the MP3 player to keep it playing for a while.
Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name, and it feels like home.
She starts thinking about all of the times Jane had saved her brothers. Protected them. Protected her, and saved her. Brought them all home safely. She shudders and continues punching the dummy. Maura would never be able to do autopsies on Frost, Tommy or TJ if they ever perished. Regulations indicate that Maura is too close, too personally acquainted with decedents like that, so she would have to pass their autopsies onto another medical examiner. But that isn't the only reason she would have been unable to do those autopsies if everything had gone wrong yesterday. She loves each of them, and the idea of their lifeless bodies in the morgue's freezers scares her. It's a fear she will never be able to comprehend. It is a fear she will never be able to overcome. She would never be able to slice into their lifeless bodies. It's too personal, and even someone as professional as she would never be able to perform under those circumstances.
The music loops on, and Maura continues her punches against the dummy's leathery exterior.
When you call my name it's like a little prayer
I'm down on my knees, I wanna take you there
In the midnight hour, I can feel your power
Just like a prayer, you know I'll take you there
She knows that there could come a time when any one of them could end up on that cold metal slab. Unbidden, an image of Jane, lifeless and covered with a sheet on the cold steel slab flutters before Maura's eyes.
"No." she practically yells, punching the dummy harder than she intended to in reaction to the thought. It hurts, hitting the dummy that hard, but she hardly notices it.
Logic tells Maura that though Jane has proven herself invincible every time she has faced danger before, the time would come when fate or nature would take its course. It would happen to Jane. It would happen to her. It happens to everyone eventually.
I hear your voice, it's like an angel sighing
I have no choice, I hear your voice
Feels like flying
I close my eyes. Oh god I think I'm falling
Out of the sky, I close my eyes
Heaven help me!
"No!" she yells again, her punches pounding harder and faster into the dummy. "No, not her. No." Maura says again, not realizing she is speaking out loud. The song drowns out her words, and she continues punching the dummy harder and harder. She feels like the harder she fights the dummy, the longer she can stave off death for Jane. For them both. She knows it isn't rational, that none of these thoughts and reactions are rational, but the music and her thoughts drive her onward regardless.
The idea of Jane dying is too complex, even for Maura's genius brain to comprehend. Jane can't die. She can't leave Maura here alone. She needs Jane. She loves Jane. She loves her and she never tells her, and she doesn't know how to tell her. Jane can't die before she tells her how much she loves her and needs her. She punches again. And again and again and again. She punches the dummy as a penance for being such a coward. She loves Jane and all she needs to do is say those three words to her. Let her know she loves her so that the next time Jane is faced with danger, she knows she has someone waiting for her to come home. Someone who cares for her. Someone who will be devastated if the worst actually happens.
Maura doesn't realize she is crying. She no longer realizes that Jane is safe and asleep on her couch downstairs. All she can focus on is the image of Jane on her autopsy table, and it crushes her. She throws her punches, fighting against the image that her brain just won't let go of. She cries harder, thinking it is quite possible that there will come a time when Jane is simply no longer in her life for any number of reasons. She lets her punches fly, the music pounding louder than it should have been in her ears.
"No!" She yells again, a right hook connecting with the dummy's eye so hard she feels the skin on her knuckles separate. She follows up with a harder left hook that leaves the skin on her left hand equally tattered. "Ow!" She cries loudly, the tears and the pain finally making their presence known over the volume of the music and the depth of her thoughts. She punches through it, the physical pain the only way she can remove the image of Jane being dead from her view.
Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name, and it feels like home.
Maura?" She feels a hand fall gently on her shoulder and stops punching the dummy. She doesn't know when Jane came upstairs. She doesn't know how long Jane has been watching. She relaxes into Jane's touch, letting her hands drop from her ready stance as she continues to sob.
"Maura?" Jane asks again, concern written all over her face as she searches out Maura's eyes. She lets Jane take the headphones out of her ears and wipe away the tears on her cheeks. Jane reaches for her hands, still balled into fists. "You didn't tape up your hands first?" she asks, looking down at Maura's bloody knuckles, questions written all over her face.
Maura looks down at her blood-covered hands. It looks like some sort of reverse stigmata. She unballs her fists and steps forward, cupping Jane's face, not caring that she is bleeding onto Jane's shirt and into Jane's hair as it falls over the hands cupping her cheeks. Reality comes intruding back into Maura's thoughts when her hands make contact with Jane's face, and she feels a flood of relief to see Jane there before her. She is warm to her touch, and her eyes are filled with concern.
"Maura?" Jane asks again softly, reaching out to wipe the tears that continue to fall.
"I love you." Maura whispers and closes the distance between them. "Please don't ever leave me." She leans in and kisses Jane, no longer the coward she had been. "I love you." She murmurs once more, as all of her thoughts of Jane shift and center on the very warm, very alive body wrapped around her in the here and now.