Author's Note: Thanks to all of you who have read, reviewed, faved & followed, and finally a chapter that is not a repost!


Officer down.

The two words ricocheted through the headquarters of the Boston Police Department like a stray bullet, turning the generally controlled chaos of every day operations into a buzzing hornet's nest of barely leashed anger and fear. The memories of the previous year's siege were too fresh, the wounds still barely healed. Feet pounded on linoleum tile, voices rang up and down the halls. As reinforcements were dispatched, weapons were checked, doors secured, protocols reviewed. If this was a prelude to a copycat attack on the HQ, they would not be taken by surprise again.

Inside her office, Maura Isles forced herself to keep typing the autopsy report before her, trying hard not to acknowledge the adrenaline that was coursing through her blood, speeding her heart and respiration rates, making her muscles tense in preparation for a burst of lifesaving activity. It served no purpose now, and despite the illogic of it, she held to the desperate hope that if she did not acknowledge the reports, seek more information, that the name that she dreaded hearing would not be involved. It simply couldn't be. Not again, not so soon. The odds of a police officer being shot on the job were surprisingly low; statistically speaking, construction work was a more dangerous job, so being shot more than once doubled already long odds, which meant -

"Doc?"

Lieutenant Cavanaugh stood in the door to her office, and she felt her heart plummet at the expression on his face. "No. God, no. Not Jane?" Her eyes pleaded with him, but he nodded heavily.

"No details yet, but she's alive, and they've taken her to Mass Gen." He hesitated, then added, "Did you want to ride with me?"

"Yes." Her hands were shaking as she reached for her purse; trying to drive right now would be foolish, but she still felt the urge to run to her car and race to Massachusetts General Hospital. It couldn't end like this, not when she hadn't apologized to Jane for being so awful to her, not when they hadn't spoken a word to each other outside of those required on the job for two weeks. "How...how quickly can we get there?"

The lieutenant's blue eyes were understanding. "I'll use the siren, Doc."


She'd spent much of the last two weeks trapped in the chaotic storm of emotions that had swept over her that day in the warehouse, that had been building ever since she had learned that her biological father was one of the most notorious criminals in Boston.

She'd been conflicted; how could she be otherwise? Patrick Doyle was a mobster, a murderer several times over, and yet he had pictures that he had taken of her from infancy onward, newspaper clippings that he had saved over the years. Unseen, he had been present at nearly every milestone in her life, from kindergarten graduation to her Distinguished Fellowship award from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and her appointment to her current job as Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Even things that her adoptive parents had not been present for.

It had been an overwhelming revelation to a woman who could most kindly describe her childhood as one of 'benign neglect'. Her father had been there. Watching her. Proud of her. Loving her.

But he was a killer, a thief, an extortionist and God only knew what else. His blood ran in her veins. His DNA accounted for fifty percent of hers, and there was scientific evidence that criminal behaviors could be inherited. Was her affinity for the dead a signal of more sinister potential within her? His behavior toward her hadn't helped her ambivalence. Kidnapping her. Forcing his way into her house and using a thug to coerce her at gunpoint to treat a bullet wound. Asking for her help to murder the man who had killed his son. Was this really love, and if it was, did she want it?

Add to that the sick awareness that if the truth of her paternity became public knowledge, her career in Boston could be at stake, and worse; any case she had worked on where Paddy Doyle was even tangentially involved could be called into question, reversed on appeal. Guilty men set free because of something she had no control over.

Then the warehouse, and what had started out as an exciting adventure, a chance to really be part of the world that Jane inhabited with such enviable ease, had turned into terror as Kevin Flynn pulled a gun on her.

And her father had saved her, shooting Flynn.

And Gabriel Dean, who should not have even been there, had shot her father.

And her father had shot Agent Dean.

And Jane had shot her father.

And anything remotely resembling reason and logic had shattered as Patrick Doyle had tumbled from the catwalk to crash onto the floor.

Don't touch him! I mean it! Don't you dare touch him!

She had said that to Jane...that and so, so much worse, and the most terrible part was that she had meant every word, hadn't cared about the hurt in the detective's eyes, the way she flinched as Maura had hurled each accusation. She had hated her for telling Dean about Doyle, betraying her trust and using Maura as bait to lure Doyle into an FBI trap. Hated Jane for shooting her father.

Reason had returned all too slowly, its merciless light revealing her hysterical assumptions for what they had been, even without the confirmation of the final incident report. Jane hadn't known that Dean would be there; he had put a GPS tracker on her car. Jane hadn't been expecting Doyle; she hadn't even been expecting Flynn to be armed. Maura knew Jane; she would never have knowingly put her at that kind of risk. Jane was her best friend.

She'd proven that, hadn't she? Risking her career to keep Maura's secret, along with Barry and Vince, and even Tommy. Risking even more to -

No. She had promised herself not to think too deeply on that, for all their sakes. She let it go; it wasn't as though she didn't have plenty to feel guilty about without it.

She had let them lie for her, expected Jane to lie to Dean for her, when she herself couldn't even utter an untruth without experiencing vasovagal syncope and hives. If Doyle hadn't been shot, arrested, she would have been asking Jane and Frost to cover up the murder of the only suspect in the investigation. More than their jobs would have been at stake; prison would have been a very real possibility. Only Doyle's arrest, and the subsequent uncovering of his list of dirty cops, had saved Jane's career, and still Maura had let the storm of irrational anger and betrayal rule her, tangled in the unexpected intensity of her emotions. Was it any wonder that Jane had begun to return her hateful remarks with barbs of her own, had stopped trying to bridge the distance that had opened between them? And even that had felt like another betrayal, an abandonment by the one person she had believed would never leave her.

She'd always kept her emotions tightly controlled, barely even allowing herself to feel them, much less display her feelings. Jane had changed that, looking past her idiosyncrasies and insecurities to find someone that Maura hadn't known was inside her. She'd been able to laugh with the detective or cry; watch a baseball game or a documentary on neuroscience with equal pleasure, because it was Jane watching with her, teaching her about the game or making snarky comments about geeky science shows while absorbing facts that came out at unexpected times; to talk all night or say nothing at all, drowsing in front of the TV and leaning on Jane's shoulder; to go out to drink with a group of detectives and be treated as one of them, because Jane had shown her how to interact appropriately, and never gave up on her when she forgot and embarrassed herself with some socially inappropriate observation.

Patrick Doyle had given her life, but Jane Rizzoli had taught her to live. The Rizzoli clan had taken her in as one of their own; Angela was everything she had ever wanted her own mother to be. And Maura had repaid them by treating Jane like the criminal and murderer that her father really was. It had only been in the last few days that something resembling sanity had returned, bringing with it a wash of shame and fear that had paralyzed her as completely as the anger had overwhelmed her. She'd been fighting for the courage to approach Jane, apologize, beg for forgiveness if she had to, because she had never felt more alone in her life, never missed anyone the way she missed her best friend, but she'd been held back by the bleak certainty that Jane would turn away from her, and now...

Silent tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared unseeing out the passenger window of Cavanaugh's city-issued sedan, the siren wailing and traffic pulling over to let them fly past. She'd been terrified before, when Jane had been hovering at death's door after shooting herself, but the addition of the crushing weight of guilt now made it nearly unbearable. If she died -

"Rizzoli's tough, Doc," Cavanaugh offered without taking his eyes off the road. "She'll be fine."

She nodded without looking at him. She didn't want to know whether he was trying to convince her or himself. Jane worked hard to project that air of invincibility, of the badass cop, but Maura had seen her doubts, seen her afraid, talked her through panic attacks after Hoyt, seen the grief that tore at her every time they worked a case where the victim was a child, witnessed her frustration as she battled her way through rehabilitation last year, terrified that she would never regain the ground she had lost. She wasn't invincible, and no one was immortal, and Maura felt a sudden surge of anger at the men who would accept the facade, let her put herself into harm's way time and again when they knew the danger. The anger collapsed swiftly beneath the guilt. She had known it as well, known that she was the only one that Jane trusted enough to show any vulnerability to, known that Jane could be reckless when she was angry or hurt, and she had cut her off. She had been angry at her best friend for supposedly choosing Agent Dean over their friendship, but she had chosen Patrick Doyle over Jane, hadn't she?

She was out of the car almost before it had stopped, Cavanaugh forgotten as she ran through the doors of the emergency room. Korsak and Frost were in the waiting area. Barry saw her first, and his handsome, gentle features hardened into something that made her breath catch in her chest in the instant before he turned away from her.

"Barry?" Her voice wavered. Her estrangement had not just been with Jane; she'd barely dealt with any of the homicide detectives, letting Susie deliver her written reports. She'd seen Barry angry before, but never this angry, and never at her. "Barry, please, is she -" She couldn't finish the question, couldn't even think it.

Korsak had turned to her as Frost had turned away, and while his expression was not as coldly hostile as the younger man's, there was no misreading the emotion there. Vince Korsak was a gentle soul who rescued lost animals and watched YouTube clips of puppies and kittens, but that gentleness was nowhere to be seen now, buried beneath a grim resolve.

"Sounds like she'll be all right," he told her in a clipped voice, striding toward her. "But before you get to say another damn word to her, you and I are gonna talk." He grabbed her upper arm, pulling her unceremoniously back toward the doors. They encountered Cavanaugh coming in; the lieutenant looked to be on the verge of reprimanding the sergeant, but after locking eyes with Korsak for a long moment, he nodded and stepped aside, leaving the detective to haul the doctor outside.


A.N. - No worries, Vince would never hit a lady, but he is going to give voice to some thoughts that I had after 3x01.