.

.

you seep in the windows and the vents,
while i lay in the grass and i lose your scent,
well, if god gave me grace, then why aren't i graceful?
my joints are frozen, cold, old, and idle.
- coca-cola / brand new

.

.

Fragments of her curl behind your eyelids, so young and small.

Isabelle.

You squeeze your eyes shut, your breath stopping completely. You can almost hear the shallow laughter that carried her through her last days with you. The days spent with faltering smiles and sympathetic shakes of the head in the break room. Everyone knew. Everyone knew she was fading. You told yourself everything was fine.

Your head drops into your hands, fingers pressing into your temples, seeking some kind of relief.

The cold around you is unrelenting. Like teeth sinking into your exposed flesh, your bare arms and neck. The sting doesn't faze you. Doesn't jar you. Your body buzzes like white noise trying to distract you from the blood frozen in your veins.

You promised her life.

Played god when you had no place.

You failed her.

..

.

You're so late.

A late night blackout reset your alarm clock, making you later than you've ever been in all your years of attending. You get dressed in less that thirty seconds and grab a granola bar for the drive, knowing full well that you're going to be kicking yourself later.

.

Someone stole your spot. You would never guess, but you're willing to bet your entire paycheck it was Dr. Pike. He's your only competition for the chief resident position and you just know he's doing everything in his power to make you crack under pressure.

You tighten your grip on the steering wheel as you circle around to the back. He won't get to you. You won't let him.

.

Despite your rush, you tread carefully on the sidewalks. Ice tends to be unforgiving, and the last thing you need today is to lose your footing. You thank your lucky stars you remembered a jacket in your hurry this morning. You may have forgotten to lock the front door, but hey, at least you have a coat.

This job is tearing you apart. It's been tearing you apart for almost ten years. You could fill a series of novels with reasons why you should give it all up, but the reasons you need to stay can be counted out on one hand.

Isabelle.

She's one of them. The only one that matters.

The sweetest little princess. Her smile... it makes your day that smile. Each and every day it breaks through the hazy drear clinging to the Oncology Ward. Your little ball of light, so happy despite her body's best efforts to drag her down.

You're not supposed to choose favorites.

You're really not.

But little Isabelle stole your heart months ago, and now it's hers forever.

You stay in it for her. You endure forty-eight-hour shifts and sexist doctors who think you're a woman in a man's world. In over your head... you do it all because at the end of the day you get to check on her before she goes to sleep. You get to see the new picture she drew for you or listen to her pretend to read you a book one of the nurses brought for her if she's feeling well enough.

Other times she sees you, but you're unsure she really sees you at all. Sometimes the only thing you can do is squeeze her hand and whisper reassurances. 'You'll feel better tomorrow, beautiful.' or 'Maybe your mother with visit you, would you like that?'

You jam your hands further into your pockets. The mere thought of her mother lights a fire inside of you that burns on your exhaustion. That woman stopped visiting two months ago. She calls on Thursdays... sometimes. It's completely awful of you, but you're relieved when she doesn't. She doesn't do anything but work up the little girl.

You love her, and you tell her. You really shouldn't. It's unprofessional, but one day she asked, and lying to those big brown eyes simply wasn't an option.

You love her enough to make up for her mother's absence, but that doesn't stop you from wondering about the woman. Do the letters ALL mean nothing to her? Does Isabelle mean nothing to her?

A wave of heat washes over you as the automatic doors slide open, pulling you back to your element. You feel the same as you did when you left: exhausted. But you have to pull yourself together. You just know Tierney favors you over Pike for the position. Now all you have to do is prove you can handle anything.

.

You're the only one in the locker room, but you prefer it that way. You can get your head on right in the silence. You're late, not dying. It's okay. You haven't sabotaged your career. It happens to the best of them, and you're Maura Isles. You're the best there is.

Pulling your sleeves up a little at the elbows, you start to head out, stopping for just a moment. Overcome with the feeling you've forgotten something, you pat your pockets, but it never hits you.

It probably wasn't important anyway.

.

Upstairs, the halls are for the most part empty, and you get that feeling of unease again. The base of your spine tingles as you hurry to the nurse's station. Maybe you're missing something.

You recognize the nurse behind the counter as Gladys. She's one of your favorites solely for the reason she can tell the difference between a fibula and an esophagus. She's a sharp one, she'll know what's going on.

"Good morning, Gladys, you wou-"

"Dr. Isles?! What...?" She stands and leans over the counter to peer down the hall. "Shouldn't you be down there?"

"What? I- I was running late. What's going on?"

She crosses herself and you already know what she's going to say. You take off at a run- no, a full-on sprint.

"102," she calls after you, confirming the horror in your mind.

Isabelle.

.

You run. You run so fast you nearly miss her room.

Your fingers catch the door jam and you force yourself to take those two steps back. And as the frantic mess of blue and white clouds your vision, the urgency in Pike's voice and the cries of the machines have your world toppling out of balance.

A nurse moves out of your way, and you see her. You see her body moving only with Pike's compressions.

"... thirteen, fourteen, fifteen."

A pause.

"One, two, three-" you can no longer hear them. Instead, you rush to her. Your baby is fading.

"Where were you? I paged you a dozen times!" someone says. Someone yells at you, and it hits you like a ton of bricks.

Your pager. It must have fallen out in the locker room.

She's dying.

You wait for Pike to complete his compressions before you shove him away from her and resume where he left off. He wouldn't save her right. He doesn't care. He doesn't love her. It wouldn't matter to him if she died.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

You think of her laugh. On her good days, she sounds so much like the children you hear in when you jog past the park- happy and full of life. "Isabelle, baby please."

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

"Come on, beautiful. It's okay."

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen...

"C'mon, it's okay. You're okay," you promise her even though you know full well you have no right to promise her anything. You never did.

Fifteen.

You stop for a moment. You've done this a million times. But it's never felt like this- you start compressions again. You can sense the droop in shoulders around you, but you can't stop. You won't stop. There's a chance.

She'll come back to you.

She will.

"C'mon, Isabelle," you beg. A tear lands on your hand and you know you must be hysterical, but you can't lose her. She's all you have. You're all each other have.

.

Someone pulls you off of her.

You're not sure who, but you still lash out. They're taking her from you.

"Let me go! I can save her!" you try to break out of the arms that hold you at bay, but you're exhausted and weak. "Let me go!"

"Dr. Isles! You have to let her go! You have to calm down!"

But you can't.

You fight.

"You're not even trying!"

He lets you go, and you spin around to go back to her, but he grabs your shoulders and forces you to look him in the eyes, "There's nothing we can do, Maura. You have to let her go." Tierney. Your boss. The man with the greatest medical mind you've ever seen, and he's giving up?

"There has to be something!"

"There's nothing. Maura, I'm sorry. She's gone."

You argue until you're removed from the room. Tierney tries again to apologize and explain to you what you already know. But you're stuck: He didn't save her.

"Maura," he puts a hand on your shoulder, but you step away letting it fall back to his side.

"You could have done something. There's always something."

And with that, you leave. You walk right out into the December deep-freeze with those words hanging as your last. But what you really meant was 'I should have been here.'

..

.

Your teeth are chattering now.

You're our of adrenaline, but you don't care. You just keep replaying everything over and over again in your head. The frantic nurses. Your sweet girl beneath Pike's hands. Your heart clenches, and you know the feeling. Like a fresh wound reopened for no good reason. The emotional ache that feels anything but in your head.

It makes you think of Jane.

But thinking of her reminds you of cracked ribs and stolen lungs. Of speeding trucks and collision. The thought is far too much to bear. Especially now. But you can't stop. Your fingers dig further into your temples, breath swirling out of you a column of thin vapor.

Jane Rizzoli is a topic you've left unthought-of for much longer than you care to admit. Because you don't like to remember a certain sort of tragedy. The kind where it's your fault.

Where it's all your fault.

.

You feel a hand on your shoulder, and you want to scream. You want them to leave you alone. All of them.

"Maura, come on let's get you inside." It's Gladys. Such a caring woman. You wish you never befriended her. That way she'd leave you out here to rot.

But you go with her, not because you want to, but because your brain knows you don't want to die out in the cold tonight.

"I've already called your wife, honey. She's on her way," she says, squeezing your hand before letting you take your pick of waiting room furniture.

It takes you a moment to register what she's told you, but you still don't have it all, "I'm sorry?"

"Your wife. I called her. She's on her way."

"My wife?"

"Yes. I called Jane... Dr. Isles are you alright?"

Jane.

You drop your head into your hands again. She called Jane. Of course, she did. Her number is still your top emergency contact. She's still your wife. Only you haven't seen her in almost two years, and something tells you she's only doing this because she still cares enough that you get home safe.

"I'm sorry about Isabella."

"Isabelle," you correct, wanting to tell her she doesn't even know the half of it, but you can't summon the energy. "Her name is Isabelle."

..

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A/N: For detectiveisles, we had a good run, but I do a lot of idiotic things. Thanks for your help. It meant the world.

For everyone else, I know it seems dreary, but it looks up... I promise.