Chapter 2
Jane walked into the Robber, still feeling a little dazed. She had been dazed since the night before, when Maura had tried to kiss her.
She knew she hadn't reacted well. The most sensible way to react would have been to let Maura kiss her, but it had come so completely out of left field that she had reacted without thinking. Sure, she wanted to kiss Maura, but she had wanted to kiss her for years and had been telling herself she couldn't do it. So last night, when the opportunity presented itself without warning, she had just reflexively turned away.
She also knew Maura had left thinking her overtures were unwanted, and Jane hated that, but there hadn't been enough time to fix it before Maura had to leave. They clearly needed to have a serious chat, and something like this couldn't be rushed. Jane needed time to think, and then they needed time to sit down and really work this out, decide what to do next. Because if Jane had understood her correctly, what Maura was saying was that she loved Jane, really loved her. As in, she loved Jane the way Jane loved her.
"I can tell something's on your mind," Angela said when Jane sat down at the bar.
"Yeah," admitted Jane. "Ma, can you get me a beer?"
"Can I get you a beer, what?"
"Please?"
Angela chuckled. "Sure, if you'll tell me what's got you looking like that."
"Bring me the beer first." Jane's heart rate sped up. She'd never talked to her mom about the Maura situation before, and she wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but she really needed some solid advice right now, and no one did that better than Ma. Well, no one but Maura, and she couldn't really go to her with this.
Angela put the open bottle in front of her daughter. "Get chugging, and then spill."
Jane took a swig. "If I tell you what's on my mind, you have to promise you'll keep it between the two of us."
"Sure. I can keep a secret."
"Really? When I told you I was pregnant and told you not to tell anyone yet, you told both Frankie and Tommy and said they didn't count because they're not just anyone."
Angela gave her a look. "I won't tell anyone. I swear. I listen to people's stories all the time in this place and don't repeat any of it."
Jane stared down at the bar, taking a deep breath. "Maura tried to kiss me last night."
Angela gasped. "Seriously?"
"Yeah. I didn't see it coming."
"Well, what did you do?"
"I…turned away." She peered up at her mother, who was giving her a hard stare.
"You turned away."
"Yeah. I didn't know how to react. She's never done anything like that before. She was talking about how she didn't love Jack even though he was perfect for her, and then she said there's someone else she does love, but she doesn't know if she can be with them. I thought she was talking about some guy, and I asked who it was, and then she tried to kiss me, but I didn't let her. And then she left, and now she's gone to Atlanta, and I don't know what to say to her."
Angela continued giving her a hard stare. "Jane, you're my only daughter, and I love you very much. But right now I'm going to say what I would say if you were one of my customers."
"Okay."
"You're an idiot."
Jane's mouth fell open. "That's how you talk to your customers?"
"When it's what they need to hear. And you, Jane, are being an idiot. Why didn't you just let her kiss you?"
"Because, I…never thought she would want to kiss me. I don't know, I just reflexively moved back! I was really confused, just like I am right now!"
"If you weren't an idiot, you would have expected it, because you would already know you're the one she's in love with! I never understood why she was dating Jack! I never understood why you were dating Casey! It's so obvious that you two love each other, and one of you finally gets the guts to do something about it, and my own daughter decides to keep being an idiot! I didn't raise you to be stupid!"
Angela's voice had risen to the point that the conversation was no longer just between the two of them. People were staring.
"Ma, keep it down!" Jane hissed.
"I'll keep it down if you stop being stupid!" Angela hissed back.
"Okay! So, you knew all this time, about…Maura?"
"I may not have figured it out right away, but I put it together over time. It's obvious that you love her and would do anything for her, and she clearly feels the same way about you. You two belong together. She's the sweetest thing, Jane. Would it kill you to do something to make her happy?"
"I'd love to make her happy, I just never thought being with her in that way would do it!"
"Because you're blind as a bat when it comes to anything outside your job! How you can be such a good detective and miss what's right in front of you…and Maura, a complete genius, but she couldn't see it either…although I guess she saw it before you did!"
"So, this doesn't bother you? The idea of your only daughter being with another woman?"
"That's what you think? That I'm some kind of homophobe?"
"Well no, but I thought…you and Pop were always so traditional…"
"Oh, forget about him. Yeah, he's old-fashioned, but I'm an independent woman now. I can think for myself. And the way I see it, if two people love each other and take care of each other, then it shouldn't matter what gender they are. I think you and Maura are soul mates."
Jane couldn't help smiling. Maura always had felt like a soul mate to her. "I think maybe we are."
"So what's been holding you back? Is it because you thought I wouldn't approve?"
"That might have been part of it, but mostly, it was just that I didn't think she'd ever be into me like that. I've only known of her to date guys, and she's just so…incredible. Why would she want someone like me?"
Angela took Jane's hands in her own. "Baby, listen to me. You are Maura's hero. You are everything she's not, and everything she needs you to be. She absolutely adores you. You are exactly what she wants."
Jane blinked back years. "I just didn't realize."
"Well, now you do. And now that you know, you need to do something about it."
Jane nodded, swallowing down the lump in her throat. "What do I do? Should I call her?"
"Jane, you can't have this sort of conversation over the phone. What day does she come back?"
"She gets in Saturday afternoon."
"So here's what you do. You get her from the airport, bring her home, order in from her favorite French restaurant, light some candles, and tell her how much you love her. Then, kiss her for real! I'll take the evening shift that night so I'm out of your hair. You romance that woman's socks off."
Jane nodded. "Okay. It can be a surprise for her."
"Exactly! You're finally going to give her what she really wanted for Christmas!"
Jane chuckled. "Have you had this talk with Maura?"
Angela shook her head. "Maura talks to me about a lot of things, but not about this. She's never mentioned her feelings for you. But I can see it in her eyes. How happy she is when she's with you, how hurt she is when you don't want to spend more time with her."
Jane's heart sank. "She looks hurt sometimes?"
"Well yeah, especially when you were so eager to get back to your own apartment after you were hurt and you recuperated at her house. She wanted you to stay with her. I could tell she did. The whole thing with the baby was hard for her, because she was just as crushed as you were to lose that baby, but she felt like she had no right to talk about it when you weren't talking about it. You bottle things up, and since it was supposed to be your baby, not hers, she felt like she had to bottle it up too. I could tell it hurt her, and I tried to get her to talk about that, but she wouldn't. I knew, though. She loved that baby like it was her own, because she loves you."
Jane bit her lip. "I guess I haven't been as considerate of her feelings as I should have been."
"No, you haven't. But you can change all that now. You have until Saturday to plan this. You give that woman the most romantic experience of her life."
"But what do I do right now? She seemed really embarrassed. She probably thinks I'm mad at her for trying to kiss me."
"Tell her something vague to let her know you're not mad, but you can't tell her you love her until she gets back. You need to say it while looking her right in the eyes. She deserves that."
Jane smiled a little. "She has the prettiest eyes I've ever seen." It felt good to say that out loud.
"She's a beautiful woman! If my daughter's gonna be attracted to other women, then I want you to be with someone like her."
"Okay." Jane nodded. "Okay. I'll do this. I'll tell her how I feel."
"Go get planning! And pick something nice to wear. Show her you're willing to make an effort for her."
Jane made a face. "Usually she just tells me what to wear if we're doing something fancy."
"Then you already know what she likes to see on you."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Just get out there and make her happy. Don't you dare break her heart!"
"Ma, I won't! Geez." Jane finished her beer and, feeling lighter, headed back home to start working on her plan.
~R&I~
By Saturday afternoon, Jane had everything ready. She was freshly showered, and she'd shaved her legs all the way up, just in case the expected kissing turned into something more (she could feel her cheeks burning at the very thought). She had bought a new dress, although she wasn't planning on putting it on until the very last minute. She'd called ahead to order dinner from Maura's favorite French restaurant, which she would pick up on the way back from the airport. She went over to Maura's house to set the table so it would be ready. She picked up some flowers on the way and put them in a vase. Once Maura saw the setup, she was going to know for sure that this was no ordinary dinner. Jane had a speech prepared. She was going to explain to Maura that she had loved her for years, but had never thought Maura would love her back. Then she would look her right in the eyes and repeat the words: I love you. I'm done being a coward. Let's do this. And they would kiss, for sure they would kiss this time. As for what happened next…well, she supposed she'd find out when the time came. As long as she woke up tomorrow morning with Maura in her arms, she'd be happy, whether they were clothed or unclothed.
There was no sense in pretending she wasn't hoping for unclothed. But whatever Maura wanted was fine with her.
Jane was just setting up the candlesticks on the table when her phone buzzed. It was a text message from Maura. Jane frowned. Was her flight delayed? She should be halfway home by now.
Jane opened the message. All it said was I love you.
Jane frowned even harder. Why would Maura text her that? She was on her way home. Why not wait until she got here?
Is everything okay? Jane texted back. A minute later, a little message popped up telling her that her text had not been delivered.
Then her phone rang. It was Angela, who had already gone to the Dirty Robber for her evening shift.
"Hey, Ma," she said as she answered. "I just got—"
"Jane, turn on the TV," said Angela. Her voice sounded tight.
Jane went for the remote. "Okay, what channel?"
"Any channel that shows news."
Jane's stomach tightened. She turned on the TV and immediately saw a passenger jet quickly losing altitude. At the bottom of the screen were the words BREAKING NEWS, and under that, Flight 528 Atlanta to Boston losing altitude near Roanoke, VA after engine explodes.
"Is that Maura's flight?" Angela asked.
Jane's mouth was dry. "Let me check. She wrote her flight number down somewhere." She looked around Maura's desk. "Yes, here it is. It's…"
"Jane? Is it her plane?"
Jane couldn't get the words to come out. She looked back up at the TV screen, where some expert was explaining that the rear engine had exploded and taken out the whole steering system, the plane was leaking fuel, the pilots had little control but were communicating with flight control and had been trying to move the plane in the direction of the airport at Roanoke by selectively cutting the engines on either side on and off in order to move the plane very imprecisely in the direction they wanted. The plane seemed to be over a field now, but it was going down quickly. The expert pointed out, unnecessarily, that the plane was not going to make it to the airport and would be crashing into the field. He applauded the pilots for successfully avoiding the nearby town.
"It's her plane, isn't it?" said Angela. "Jane?"
The plane hit the ground, bounced, hit again, flipped over, and broke into pieces, a huge fireball going up from one part. Jane dropped the phone.
For a moment, no one on the news said anything. Finally the news anchor cleared his throat. "It says here there are 194 passengers on that plane. Franklin, in your opinion, do you think…are we likely to see many survivors?"
"I haven't seen a crash this bad in years," said the expert, his voice wavering.
"The last time you saw one like this, were there any survivors?"
"No sir, no. And I will quite frankly be surprised if there are any today. But I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong."
Jane heard a strange sound, like the cry of a wounded animal, and realized it was coming from her. She sank to her knees, both hands pressed over her mouth to keep any more sounds from coming out, but they wouldn't stop.
The smoke began to clear a little, and more of the plane became visible on the screen. The fuselage had broken into several pieces. One wing had broken off and was lying some distance away from the rest of the plane, burning. The other wing was still attached to the fuselage, but the entire section of the plane was upside down and smashed, very smashed. And that was the only part that was easily identifiable as a passenger plane. The other parts were all either burning or smashed into so many pieces that you couldn't even tell what part of the plane they had been. Jane realized that first class, where Maura always sat, had to be one of those unidentifiable pieces. There was debris everywhere, but no people. No one. No one was crawling out from the wreckage, and no rescue crews had arrived yet.
"Maura," Jane whispered, searching desperately for the place where Maura might be. She thought she could make out part of what might be the cockpit, but everything between that and the part with the wing still attached was in flames. Jane felt something come undone inside of her. "MAURA!" she screamed desperately, as if she could summon her back from wherever she was if she could scream loudly enough. "MAURA! MAURA!" The screams tore through her throat painfully, but she couldn't stop. "MAURA! My Maura!"
"Jane!" She looked up to see Angela running into the house. "Jane, baby, stop that screaming!"
Jane stared at her, out of her mind with grief. "I need her!" she said hoarsely. "She can't-"
"Jane." Angela helped her up and onto the couch. "Let's listen to the news right now, okay? Maybe they'll find her when they get the survivors!"
Jane looked at the TV, feeling her mother's arms encircle her. Rescue crews were finally starting to arrive and go through the wreckage in search of survivors while firefighters worked on putting out the parts of the plane that were burning. The survivor search seemed to be entirely focused on the part of the plane with the wing still attached, but that wasn't where Maura would be. The expert they'd brought on was still babbling about similar plane crashes and the unlikelihood that any survivors would be found on a crash this bad. But Maura had to be there somewhere. Jane hadn't even told her that she loved her yet. Why weren't they looking for her?
Finally her mind cleared a little, and she stood up.
"Where are you going?" Angela demanded. Jane realized there were tears on her mother's face.
"I'm going to the airport."
The elder Rizzoli woman stood up. "What do you think you're going to do there?"
"Get on the first plane to Roanoke. I'm going to go find Maura."
"But you heard them, they don't think there are any survivors."
"They don't know that for sure, but either way, I'm bringing Maura back home." Jane blinked back tears. "If she is alive, she's gonna need me. I have power of attorney, to make decisions for her if she's not able. She sat me down a few years ago and made me sign a bunch of forms." She sniffed. "And she put me in charge of arrangements, if she…"
Angela nodded, her face crumpling. "Then go find her. I'm going to go to church, and pray for a miracle."
"Thank you." Jane hugged her mother, and then she grabbed her things and headed to Logan.
~R&I~
There was only one flight left going to Roanoke that day, and the cost was ridiculous, but it still had some empty seats, and that was all that mattered. The news in the airport lobby was tuned in to the plane crash footage. Jane watched nervously while she waited for her flight to board. Still no mention of any survivors being found.
There was no wi-fi on the plane, and Jane knew her jitteriness had to be aggravating the woman next to her, but there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. She had to change flights in Philadelphia, so as soon as her plane landed, she dashed around looking for the nearest TV.
The crash was still being covered, but since the sun had set, there wasn't much to see at the crash site but a bunch of search lights. The TV was on mute, but Jane could see the words at the bottom: FLIGHT 528 CRASH: ONLY ONE SURVIVOR FOUND SO FAR, BUT SEARCH CONTINUES.
One survivor. It could be Maura. She was going to pray that it was.
When her second plane landed in Roanoke, she asked to be directed to the car rental kiosk. Convincing the woman behind the counter that she didn't give a fuck what kind of car it was as long as she could get it now went about as well as convincing the guy back at Logan that she intended to board a plane with no luggage had, but soon she was on the road in her rented Chevy, following the directions she'd looked up to the crash site.
She could see it from a long way off. There were flashing lights everywhere, and helicopters up above shining lights down. She twisted through country roads, moving towards the lights, until she finally came to a police roadblock. She got out of the car.
"Ma'am, you can't be here," said an officer, approaching her.
"I'm looking for someone," she told him, shivering in the cold air.
"Everyone who's here is either searching for survivors or securing the area. No one has time to talk, and we can't have civilians running around here."
"Please," she said, holding up her badge. "I'm police too. I'm trying to find a passenger from the plane."
"Where are you from?" asked another cop, a woman.
"Boston," Jane admitted. "Look, I'm not here on police business, but the woman I love is on that plane. I came all the way from Boston to find her, and I am not leaving without her."
"Officer—"
"Detective. Rizzoli."
"Detective, we've been searching for hours, and only one person has been found alive so far. We're now looking in the dark, and we haven't IDed anyone yet, but—"
"What can you tell me about the person who was found alive?"
"Only that it was a woman. And there were probably a hundred women on this plane, so that doesn't narrow it down much."
"Did you see what she looked like?"
The female officer sighed. "She was in pretty rough shape. They had her intubated when they loaded her on the helicopter, and she was covered in blood. Out cold. All I can tell you is that she was a Caucasian woman. I couldn't tell you age, hair color, anything."
"Do you know what hospital she was taken to?"
"They would have taken her to Roanoke Memorial."
"Okay, thanks." Jane got back in the car before they could say anything else and put the hospital into the GPS. She was just turning the car around when her phone rang. Seeing an unfamiliar number, she answered it.
"Is this Jane Rizzoli?" said a woman's voice.
"Yes," said Jane.
"This is Roanoke Hospital. We have a patient here with your phone number written on her hand and the words 'power of attorney.' Her driver's license says her name is Maura Isles?"
Tears of relief slipped down Jane's face. "Yes. She's my – yes. Is she…"
"She was in a plane crash today. We've been trying to figure out who to notify. Looks like she's from Boston. Is that where you are?"
"No, I'm in Virginia, looking for her." Jane's voice wavered as she spoke.
"She's here at Roanoke Memorial, but she's in critical condition. We need next of kin here to give permission for some things."
"That's me. I have power of attorney. I can contact her regular hospital, get you anything you need. I'm on my way there now." She began speeding through country lanes, desperate to reach Maura's side. She was alive! She was the survivor they'd found in the wreckage! But she was critical, and clearly not up to making any decisions. Jane wasn't sure what that meant. She called her mother as she drove.
"Ma, she's alive, but she's in critical condition. I'm on my way to the hospital now."
"Oh, thank the Lord! I've been praying for hours—"
"Ma, listen to me. I need you to look on her desk. She's got a little leather address book. I need you to look in there and find her lawyer's emergency number. Call her and tell her to fax Maura's power of attorney forms to Roanoke Memorial right away. We need that so I can sign off on any care she needs."
"Okay." Angela sounded crestfallen. "So she must be in pretty bad shape."
"I'll update you more when I know more, okay? I just need to get to her right now, and we need those forms."
"I'm on it."
Jane hung up and followed the GPS instructions to the hospital. Once there, she pulled into the first parking spot she saw and dashed into the building, demanding to know where Maura was. After a lot of arguing with hospital staff, she finally found herself at the Critical Care Unit, sitting in a waiting room while someone was supposedly "looking into it." Jane paced around the room, but she couldn't stop thinking about the woman who had called her saying that Maura was "critical" and that they needed "next of kin." If she was that bad off, shouldn't they be getting her to sign something immediately? She decided this must be a mistake, and she charged back down the hallway until she located a nurses' station.
"Look," she said. "I need to talk to whoever is treating Maura Isles right now. The papers from her attorney should be here by now, you should know I'm the one who can sign whatever you need signed to take care of her, and if she dies because you people are fucking around taking too long to get everything in order, I am going to sue this hospital for every damn penny it's worth."
"Are you Jane Rizzoli?" said a serene voice to her right. She turned to see a woman in her fifties with clear blue eyes and a tranquil smile. She looked like the leader of a cult that encouraged people to meditate all day.
"Yeah, that's me," Jane said.
"Great! I'm Sue, I'm a nurse here on the Critical Care Unit. We got the forms from Maura's attorney, and we just have some general paperwork we need you to fill out."
"Please," Jane pleaded, "where is Maura?"
"She's getting settled into a room right now, and you'll be able to see her once the doctor has had a chance to come out and talk to you. She's already getting the most urgent treatment she needs, and we have you here to give consent if she ends up needing any kind of procedure, but all we need you to do right now is fill out her admissions paperwork for her since she can't do it herself. Can you do that?"
Jane might just be ready to sign up for that meditation cult after all, because Sue's serene voice was actually making her feel calmer. What mattered most, though, was the knowledge that Maura was alive, that she was getting what she needed for the moment, and that Jane was being given a task. There was something Jane could do to help Maura right now.
Jane cleared her throat, holding back tears. "Can you tell me what's wrong with Maura?"
"The doctor will be out very soon to talk to you, and she can explain everything. You just work on the paperwork for now." She turned as if to go and then turned back, hesitating. "But I will say one thing. When we heard there had been a plane crash nearby, we prepared ourselves for an influx of patients. We're the only Level One trauma center in the area, so we knew the survivors would all be brought here." For just a moment, her serene smile wavered. "But it's been hours since the crash, and we've only gotten one patient. All the other passengers they've located are deceased. Maura is our miracle. We will do everything in our power to keep her alive."
"Maura has always been a miracle," Jane whispered. "You'll understand when you get to know her."
"I look forward to getting to know her."
Sue left, and Jane got busy with the paperwork. As she did so, she thought about what little she knew of the situation. Maura was possibly the only survivor of the crash, and she was unconscious, in critical condition. Jane realized she needed to prepare herself for a lot of grim possibilities. Maura could have severe burns, horrible cuts, limb loss, paralysis, serious brain trauma. She had no idea what she was going to be faced with when she finally saw the woman she loved, so she had to be ready for anything.
No matter what she looks like, I'm going to tell her she'd beautiful, she decided. She's Maura. She could never not be beautiful.
No matter how long it takes for her to get better, I will stay by her side the entire time, even if I have to quit my job.
If there are some things that never get better – if she never walks again, or is left with some other disability – then I will adapt and take care of her in whatever way she needs me to.
And if she has brain damage and is no longer the Maura I knew, then I will learn to love whoever she is now.
Turning her back was not an option, not after all the years she'd allowed Maura to walk around believing she didn't love her. If it took the rest of her life to make it up to her, she would do it, whatever it took.
"Ms. Rizzoli?"
Jane looked up to see a young woman in a white coat looking down at her with a kind smile.
"Yeah," she said, clearing her throat. "Um, Jane. You can call me Jane. I filled out the forms."
"I'm Dr. Khan." She shook Jane's hand and then sat down, taking the forms from her. "I'm treating Maura Isles. And you're her...?"
"I'm her…" Jane hesitated. She knew what she was to Maura, but she had been poised to become so much more before this crash. She knew Maura wanted her to be more. Would it be lying to say they were together, even though they weren't quite yet?
"We don't judge here," Dr Khan said gently, resting a hand on Jane's.
Jane let out her breath. "I'm her best friend. We've been friends for years. But…I love her, and she doesn't know it yet. I just found out that she loves me, and I was going to tell her when she got home, but…she didn't make it home." She closed her eyes. "She sent me a text while the plane was going down that said she loved me. And I didn't say it back."
Dr. Khan squeezed her hand. "Well Maura is the only survivor we've gotten from this crash, so she must have something worth fighting to stay alive for."
"How is she?"
"She has some pretty serious injuries. She's in a coma at the moment, completely unresponsive. The reason for this is a hairline skull fracture with a subdural hematoma and some brain swelling, which we are monitoring. We are hoping the hematoma will get better on its own, and if it does, she'll slowly come out of the coma as the hematoma gets smaller. If it gets any worse, we can do surgery to remove it. She also has several broken bones, including some of her ribs. Her left lung is punctured, and she will need surgery to pin together the bones in her right arm, hip, and leg, but we will wait about that until she's out of her coma, so we have temporary splints on for now. She has some internal bleeding we're keeping an eye on as well. It could end up requiring surgery, but we prefer to avoid that if possible. She has several lacerations, a few of which required stitching or gluing. The worst one is on the left side of her neck. That one came within a few millimeters of severing her carotid artery, which would have caused her to bleed out before help could arrive, so she was extremely lucky there."
Tears slipped down Jane's face. "Is she going to live?" she asked quietly.
Dr. Khan hesitated. "It'll be easier to make a prognosis once we've had a chance to see what happens with the swelling in her brain. By this time tomorrow, I might be able to give you a better answer to that question. Even then, I can't make any promises. I want to make that clear. Sometimes trauma patients show improvement and then develop complications. But I can tell you that this is survivable, and that we are doing all we can, and that she has already made it clear that she wants very much to live just by hanging on this long."
"She deserves to live," said Jane. "Can I see her now?"
"Yes, but let me prepare you a little for what you're going to see."
Jane held her breath.
"She has a lot of things connected to her right now, and that can be hard for loved ones to see, so I just want you to know what to expect and what the purpose of everything is. The most obvious thing will be that she's on a ventilator. Breathing can be very difficult for people in comas, so this is just to make sure she gets enough oxygen right now. There's also a needle in her brain to monitor swelling—"
Jane started. "In her brain?"
"Yes, but don't worry, it's not hurting her, and we should be able to remove it before she wakes up. She has a feeding tube inserted through her nose, since she can't eat, and an IV central line in her neck. She also has a tube in her chest to drain air from her pneumothorax. If you want to hold her hand, her left hand is not hurt, but I'd stay away from the right side of her body. You will notice that she looks very bruised-up, and her face is swollen. You may feel like she doesn't look like herself at all right now. It's okay if you don't feel like you can be around her much tonight."
"No," said Jane. "I'm going to stay, no matter what."
"Okay. I'll get someone to walk you to her room."
A moment later, Sue reappeared and led Jane down the hall, around a few turns, and into a room with big windows facing the hallway. No privacy here.
Maura lay in the bed, with all the crazy tubes and wires Jane had been warned about. The ventilator was wheezing rhythmically, pumping air in and out of Maura's lungs for her. Her face was puffy and discolored, but she was still Maura, and she was alive.
"We have what we could salvage of her things in this bag," Sue informed her. "She had her driver's license and phone in her pockets, and she was wearing a necklace that we were able to clean."
Jane looked into the bag. It was the necklace she had given Maura for Christmas. Wiping tears away, she turned to Sue.
"It's going to take a long time for her to get better, isn't it?"
Sue nodded. "It is. People with this much trauma need a lot of time and therapy to get back to their lives, and often their lives aren't the same as they were before. But with a lot of love and support, they still lead happy, fulfilling lives."
"What will she be like, when she wakes up?"
"In my experience, most people with head injuries are a bit confused and disoriented when they first wake up. She won't be able to remember the crash, so we'll have to explain why she's here. But in situations like this, you just have to take it one day at a time. Right now she just needs you to be here."
"Can she hear me if I talk to her?"
Sue let out a small sigh. "That's something medical science can't really answer yet, but it's certainly possible, so I would encourage you to talk to her if you want to."
Jane nodded and sat down at Maura's bedside. Sue left the two of them alone.
Jane sat looking at Maura, listening to the rhythmic sound of the ventilator. She took Maura's hand and looked at the bruised, swollen face. Maura was in there, and hopefully she would reemerge. It was hard to see her like this, but she would not turn away. She owed Maura this much.
Finally, she drew in her breath and began to speak. "We all do stupid things," she began, "but this has to be the stupidest, for me. I should have been the one to figure it out. I'm the detective. I'm the one you always said understands people so well. I can figure out when someone's lying, when someone's hiding something. I should be able to figure out if someone's in love with me. I couldn't have expected you to be the one to figure it out. You're the one who can rattle off the dictionary definition of sarcasm but can't tell when someone is actually using it on you. How could you know someone's secretly in love with you? That's not really your area. And I knew that. I was counting on that."
She paused to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. The ventilator continued its rhythmic wheeze.
"I'm still not being completely honest," she admitted at last. "I did have an inkling about how you felt. I wasn't sure, but I wondered. The way you looked at me sometimes, the way you always wanted me around, and weird little things like you canceling that date with 'BT the BT' so you could watch me try to eat kale at the Dirty Robber. I had my suspicions, but I didn't do anything. I told myself I couldn't, I might be wrong, it would ruin our friendship. And it's true, I was afraid of being wrong, and maybe I didn't want to hear it. I didn't want to hear you say that you didn't want me. I wanted to keep believing you felt something and that someday it would all come out. But I was never scared I would lose your friendship if I told you how I felt. You're not like that. You would have been completely understanding. I'm not sure you would even realize that the situation was supposed to be awkward. You would probably have been more fascinated than disturbed."
Jane swallowed around the lump in her throat. Maura didn't stir. There was no eyelid flutter, no twitch of her fingers.
"I guess the truth is, I was scared," Jane said hoarsely. "I wasn't just scared that you wouldn't feel the same way. I was scared of how I felt for you, how strong this feeling is, how vulnerable it makes me. The way I love you, Maura, it's not the kind of thing you get over. It's not some fleeting thing. The way I feel, it made me understand why they call it falling in love. It does feel like falling, like falling off a cliff. It makes me feel like I have no control, and you know I'm the kind of person who always wants to be in control. It's absolutely terrifying to me, Maura, and I felt like if you loved me back, if we jumped into a relationship, the thing I wanted most, that it would be like going over a waterfall, that I would lose control forever. Not only that, but I would lose the person I was before, the person who didn't need anyone. I wanted you so much, but I was still so scared of being with you. I kept telling myself, 'later. Maybe later, when I'm stronger. I'm not ready for that yet.'"
Jane paused to get a tissue. The ventilator kept pumping air in and out of Maura's lungs. Jane really wasn't sure Maura could hear her at all, but she needed to say this.
"Well it's over," she said, sitting back down. "I'm done now. I don't even care about the person I was before, because she was a coward, and I don't want to be her anymore. I'm ready to go over that waterfall. I'm yours to do whatever you want with, for as long as you want to. I'm not fighting it anymore. I surrender."
Jane felt a weight lifted from her as she said the words, and she almost expected Maura's eyes to flutter open in response. But the blonde continued to lie motionless, the machine breathing for her. So telling someone you loved them didn't make miracles happen after all.