There was moaning. A lot of moaning. And it was coming from the bed Jane and her were currently in. Normally, Maura liked this, loved this even, but there were two problems:
It was the painful kind of moaning. And it was the reason she woke up.
"Jane?" Maura asked, still groggy from being woken up so abruptly. She didn't get a verbal response, only a grunt. "Jane?" Maura asked again, worried. She rolled over and touched Jane's arm. She was burning up. "Baby, wake up." Maura said, now very worried.
"What?" Jane groaned, clutching her stomach. God, she was in so much pain. She felt Maura touch her arm. "Maura, you're freezing!"
Maura knew for a fact that she was not cold, for it was a warm summer night in Boston. She walked over to Jane's side of the bed and kneeled down, so she was on the same eye level as her girlfriend."Jane, tell me what hurts." She asked, placing her hand over Jane's forehead to check her temperature. Maura was right: Jane had a very high fever.
"It's just a stomach ache." Jane managed to say through clenched teeth. "A really fucking bad stomach ache." Maura smoothed Jane's hair back, which was damp with sweat. Jane looked into her worried girlfriend's eyes. "I'll be fine just as soon as this pain and the feeling that I'm about to throw up any second go away. You don't have to worry."
That statement only made Maura worry even more. She didn't like to guess, which is why she never did, but she would narrow things down if there was enough evidence. "You feel nauseous too?" Jane nodded, not liking the look Maura had. "I don't think it is from something you ate, since you weren't hungry to eat dinner." Jane whimpered as she felt a strong pain hit her again, and Maura kissed her forehead in comfort. "Jane, can you show me where the pain is?"
Jane took the hand Maura offered and placed it on her stomach. "There's a constant dull pain there and then every few minutes a sharp one comes." Maura nodded, quickly going over the information in her head. Pain in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen, loss of appetite, high fever and nausea. There was a good reason Maura was called Dr. Isles rather than Ms. Isles.
"Sweetie, we need to go to the hospital." Jane's eyes widened.
"Why?"
"I believe you're suffering from appendicitis." Jane sighed.
"But I don't want to go to the hospital!"
Maura gave her a pointed look. "Really, Jane? A untreated inflamed appendix has a high mortality rate. As a doctor, and more importantly as your partner, I can't allow you to stay in this bed." Jane groaned, but nodded.
"There's something I never thought I'd hear you say." A hard glare. "Fine. Help me up, please."
The car ride to the hospital was eventful, to say the least. Every turn, start, stop, and bump had Jane whimpering and Maura apologizing. When finally reaching the hospital, Maura quickly yet gently maneuvered Jane out of the car and into the hospital waiting room.
"Stay here and I'll get you checked in." Maura said as she went to talk to the nurse. Jane just curled up in the chair, arms wrapped around her abdomen as the pain started to increase. Using a breathing technique Maura had taught her, or tried to teach her as Jane kept lightly teasing her, she tried to separate the pain from her body.
No luck. If anything, the technique just seemed to piss her appendix off.
A shadow appeared next to her and she looked up to see Maura holding some forms, with a nurse and a wheelchair. "Leaving the ER so soon?" Jane quipped.
"Appendicitis can't be kept waiting, Jane." Maura said, seeming calm. She may look calm, but on the inside she was incredibly worried. The sooner the appendectomy, the sooner Jane would be all right, which is just what Maura wanted.
The nurse ushered a protesting Jane into the wheelchair, and walked past the sour looks from the other waiting patients in the ER. "So what happens now?" she asked Maura, grabbing her hand for comfort.
"The doctors will want to confirm that it is in fact appendicitis." Maura said with a hint of irritation. She may be a medical examiner, but she still had the title of doctor. "As soon as they confirm my suspicions, you will hopefully get rushed into surgery." Jane cringed at the last word, and Maura felt the same way. She hated the idea of Jane having to go into surgery again; it brought up the too painful memories of the shooting long ago. She interlaced their fingers, squeezing hard as they reached the room. As Jane was getting settled, Maura sat in the chair next to the bed and started filling out Jane's forms. Jane was just waiting for the questions to start, but to her surprise Maura didn't have any questions. She was touched that Maura knew that much about her… that she cared to remember any of that stuff about her.
"Are you allergic to any pain medication?" Jane was about to ask the nurse which ones, but Maura answered first.
"No, she doesn't have any negative side effects to pain medication." The nurse nodded and left. Hopefully to hook me up with the pain meds She turned to Maura and smiled. Maura smiled back and interlaced their fingers. "What?"
"You really know me." Jane said. "Thank you." Before Maura could respond, the nurse returned and hooked Jane up to some medicine. Jane sighed as she felt some of the pain disappear.
Maura kissed her palm. "You're the only one I've really wanted to know."
The doctor walked into the room a few minutes later. "Hello, Ms Rizzoli. I'm Doctor June Avery," the older gray haired woman introduced herself. She couldn't be any taller than five foot three.
"It's Detective." Jane said, sitting up. "I actually feel much better. Let's head back home, Maura."
Maura just shook her head and held her down on the bed. "Your appendix has just probably ruptured." she informed Jane, trying to keep her cool.
In agreement, the doctor nodded. "If that is the case, Detective Rizzoli, once the lining of your abdominal cavity becomes infected and inflamed, it will cause you unbearable pain again and you will get sicker. A condition called Peritonitis. So as I said, if that's the case, we need to diagnose it immediately and rush you into surgery."
Jane exhaled a deep puff of air as she lay back on the uncomfortable Emergency Room bed again. "Okay, do what you must."
"Okay." the doctor replied and pulled on a pair of Latex gloves before standing beside the bed.
Taking Jane's hand in hers again, Maura whispered into her lover's ear. "This will probably hurt, baby."
Jane just nodded, not believing Maura, but as soon as Doctor Avery pushed into the lower right quadrant of her abdomen, she cried out in pain. "Damn it!"
After the tests were done, the doctor frowned. "You were right, Doctor Isles. It seems Detective Rizzoli, here, has a case of Appendicitis. And I'm afraid it has ruptured. While we wait for an operating room, I'm going to have to put you on antibiotics, Detective." she said and hooked Jane up to another IV. Jane didn't want to talk. Despite all this, she felt if she showed emotion, she would be seen as weak and she couldn't have that.
The doctor disappeared in a desperate bid to get the next available operating room and Maura took this time to lean forward and caress her girlfriend's cheek to comfort her. "You're going to be okay, baby. I'll see if I can watch from the observation room, okay?"
Feeling she could open up to Maura, Jane sniffled. "I want you in there with me, please!" she practically begged and it broke Maura's heart. Jane was actually terrified but didn't want to admit it in so many words. She hated surgery. Even hated the word. She needed someone she trusted in the room, who could look out for her, while she was incapacitated. And she wanted that person to be her girlfriend.
"Okay, I'll see what I can do. I'll just talk to your doctor quickly, okay?" said Maura, brushing back Jane's damp, sweaty hair before pressing a kiss to her lips.
"I'll be okay." Jane tried to assure Maura before, her girlfriend walked out of the room.
Maura found the doctor at the desk, on the phone. Once Dr. Avery hung up the receiver she looked up at Maura and spoke. "Is Detective Rizzoli okay?"
"Well, as well she can be, I guess." replied Maura. "She wants me in the operating room with her. I'll stay out the way, I'll stay by her head, hold her hand. That's all she wants. She hates to feel vulnerable. Is that possible, please? I am a doctor myself."
The doctor sighed but eventually nodded. "As long as you stay out of the way, I don't see a problem. Only because you're a doctor. Let's get her prepped for surgery."
Upon entering Jane's room again, they found her in extreme pain.
"Maura!" she cried, clutching her abdomen, tears running down her cheek. Sweat running down her brow.
"Okay," the doctor said rushing over to the door, she used some hand signals to get a couple of nurses in the hall. "We need to get you into surgery right now, Detective Rizzoli."
In response, Jane just grunted and tightened her grip on Maura's hand.
"I'm coming into the operating room, baby." she whispered, pushing back Jane's sweaty black locks and began to run beside the gurney as they began to push it toward the elevators. "You're going to be okay, sweetie. You're tough and stubborn. Just two of the things that I fell in love with about you." The elevator dinged and they pushed Jane's gurney into the small metal box and headed up to the surgery room.
As Jane was given the meds to make her sleep for the surgery, Maura made sure that she was the last one Jane saw before drifting off. "I love you, baby. You'll be okay. I'll be here when you wake up." whispered Maura and kiss her on the lips, just as Jane's eyes closed.
Maura did as promised. She stood by Jane's head, holding her hand, dressed in the usual sterile garb. Being the Chief Medical Examiner, Maura should not have been bothered by watching the surgeon cut Jane's lower abdomen open, but Jane was her girlfriend, so in this case, she was. She heard the surgeon sigh and shake his head, and it snapped her out of her thoughts, but she didn't stop the slow rubbing of circles she was doing on the back of Jane's hand, as if it was comforting her in her unconscious state.
"What? What's wrong?" Maura asked.
"The appendix definitely burst." he replied, beginning to clean out Jane's lower abdomen. "It perfed her good. It's an absolute mess in here. This is going to take a while to clean out."
Maura tried to keep her tears back as she leaned over and kissed Jane's forehead. She wished she could kiss her mouth but the oxygen mask covering her mouth and nose was preventing that. "Oh, baby, why didn't you tell me about the pain before it got so bad, huh? Why didn't you wake me?" she whispered in her girlfriend's ear. "We might have been able to get you into surgery before it burst." She sighed and stood up again.
"Is there an abscess in her abdominal cavity?" Maura asked the surgeon, wanting to know all the details of her beloved's surgery. The doctor nodded.
"A large one. We are going to have to drain it immediately to avoid other complications." As the doctor asked the nurses for the required tools, Maura closed her eyes and held Jane's hand to her.
"I'm right here, sweetheart. We will get through this." Maura may have been a doctor, but it still unnerved her when Jane's hand didn't respond.
Jane had been moved to the hospital's intensive care unit for her recovery in order to monitor her progress more carefully. After the abscess had been sufficiently drained, the rest of the surgery had gone smoothly, much to Maura's relief. For the past few hours, Maura had been sitting by Jane's bedside, refusing to leave even though she knew Jane was still too heavily under the influence of medication to wake up soon. She had a book to read, and Jane's hand in hers and all was content when
"Oh my God!" yelled Maura, dropping her book. She then quickly covered her mouth, partly to not wake Jane up so harshly, and partly because she couldn't believe she forgot something so important! How could she have forgotten? Part of her understood that from bringing Jane to the hospital to being in the operating room with her, it would be normal to forget such a thing, but she had been sitting here for two hours and it never came up.
How could she have forgotten to call Jane's mother?
The question went around in circles in her mind and Maura just shook her head. Whispering "I'll be right back" while kissing Jane's cheek, she grabbed her purse and walked to the hospital's designated cell phone area. Dialing the number, she sighed as she heard the sleepy Italian voice of an overprotective lioness. "Angela? It's Maura. I think you should come to the hospital…"
Angela and Frank reached in fifteen minutes. Quite a feat considering their house was half an hour away. "How is she?" Angela asked, running over to her daughter. Frank kissed Maura's cheek in greeting, and then took the chair that was by the foot of Jane's bed and briefly grasped her ankle.
"She will be fine. She'll be in recovery in the intensive care unit until she wakes up. For now they want to keep a close watch on her. I'm so sorry I didn't call sooner, I was just with Jane the whole time and-" Angela cut her off.
"Maura," she said, patting the younger woman's shoulder, "I understand. You've been with my baby the whole time. You didn't leave her. I can't be mad for you being someone I've wanted Janie to have her whole life." Maura nodded, touched by the words. "Frank, you should call Frankie and tell him what happened.
Frank nodded. "Ang, do you think so many of us will be allowed in her room. It is in the intensive care unit." Angela sighed, struggling with her need to be with her daughter. But she looked at Maura and knew that Jane would be in good hands. Besides, when Jane woke up, Maura said they would move her to a regular room.
"Hmm, okay. We will go to Frankie's apartment and stay there until she wakes up."
"I'll call you as soon as she wakes up."Maura promised. "I won't forget this time." Chuckling, the elder Rizzolis said their goodbyes and went to leave to go see Frankie.
"This is good." Angela said on the way out. "Now I can see if he really has been listening to me and has cleaned his apartment."
Maura had fallen asleep not long later, only to be woken to the feel of someone gently squeezing her hand. She looked up, half asleep. Jane was awake, looking down at her girlfriend with a weak, tired smile. Her skin still pale and she was suffering other ill effects from the surgery but that was to be expected.
"Jane! Baby, how are you feeling?" asked Maura, excited to see Jane awake.
"Besides tired and sore, I'm okay, sweetie." Jane assured her, rubbing the back of the doctor's hand with her thumb. "Did the surgery go okay?" she asked, curiously.
With a painful sigh, Maura got up and moved over, to sit on the bed. Very gently, she kissed Jane's cheek and wrapped an arm around her, very careful not to touch her lower abdomen. She didn't want to accidentally hurt Jane by touching the stitched up incision.
"Maura, what happened?" The way Maura was acting was making Jane nervous and she didn't like it. She could just tell that there was a complication in her surgery.
"There was some complications, baby," replied Maura, softly, trying to keep eye contact with the detective but it was hard.
"What kind of complication?" Jane asked before Maura could go on.
"Well your appendix definitely burst and it made a big mess inside of your abdominal cavity. Once the surgeon cleaned out enough, he found a large abscess -."
Jane held up her hand, the one with the IV connected. "Wait, wait.. Abscess?" she asked confused.
"Yes, Janie. A large one in your abdominal cavity, around your burst appendix. It's one of the possible complications, it's called an Appendiceal Abscess ... The surgeon drained it but you'll need to have the drainage tube in for two weeks, baby. Also you'll be on antibiotics." Maura explained.
"Tube?" Jane groaned. She lifted the blanket to reveal said drainage tube. "Could it get any worse?"
"Um, you're going to be out of work for four to six weeks. Oh, and your parents will be back with your brother. Which reminds me, I need to call your mother."
Jane groaned again. "Yeah, it can get worse."
"Baby, stop being such a pessimist." Maura told her before planting a kiss on her lips. "I'll be back."
Jane nodded and watched the doctor walk out.
Maura replied about ten minutes later with a coffee, to find her partner sound asleep. She smiled and tiptoed in, but Jane must have sensed that she was back because she sighed contently and reached out for her, with her eyes closed.
"Sorry, I took so long, baby, I went to get a coffee from the cafeteria." apologized Maura, as she sat on the bed beside Jane, placing the disposable cup on the table beside the bed. She half laid down in Jane's arms and wrapped an arm around her, using her free hand to run it through her hair.
"Hmm, don't stop." Jane moaned in contentment. "That's nice." She was almost asleep when she felt her lover's wet tears drip down on to her head. She immediately opened her eyes. "Maura? Sweetie, what's wrong?" she asked concerned.
"I was so scared, Jane." Maura sniffled, inhaling the calming scent of Jane's shampoo. "I was so afraid that I was going to lose you. I love you, Jane Rizzoli, so much."
Jane rubbed Maura's hand, which was wrapped around her upper abdomen in an attempt to comfort her. "I love you too, Maura. I'm okay, baby. I'm so sorry I frightened you. I wasn't my plan, I promise."
"I know, Janie. I was just so afraid. Why didn't you wake me earlier? We might have been able to get you into surgery before your appendix burst."
"I thought it was just a stomach ache, Maura. And you looked so peaceful, I didn't want to disturb you, okay?" replied Jane, she looked up and kissed Maura on the lips before rubbing her nose against the doctor's. "I'm sorry."
"Next time, you're sick or in pain, promise you'll wake me." Maura begged.
"Okay, honey, I promise." Jane whispered and kissed her again. "Now, I know you're exhausted, please let's have a nap before the family arrives." She closed her eyes again and was glad when she heard Maura finally settle down into sleep beside her.