Maura didn't have the energy to do anything when she got home except take off her dress, hang it up and fall into bed. No exfoliating, no make-up removal just falling into a heap into bed. She had cried the whole way home and the taxi driver had asked if she was going home to someone. She lied and said yes, immediately feeling the hives on her neck. She didn't want to talk to this stranger and she certainly didn't want him escorting her to her door.
The tears didn't stop when she got to bed either. In fact the petite doctor curled into a tiny ball in the corner of her bed and took up only inches of it as she cried herself to sleep. Flashbacks of the cruel words that everyone threw at her as a child came hurtling back – nerd, teacher's pet, ginger minger, geek. She never thought the one woman she let in, the one woman she called a friend, could hurt her like that with just her words. But she had and Maura was numb.
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As the sun rose Jane shifted in the chair outside her mother's door. Every muscle in her body screamed in pain as she rotated her neck to try and loosen things up. She only succeeded in making it worse. She had refused point blank to leave her, regardless of what they said and when they threatened her with security she simply said she'd keep coming back. Dr. James relented seeing as she was a friend of Dr. Isles and knew that given she was a cop, like most she'd met from the BPD after incidents, she'd behave.
She saw a nurse approach the room door where her mother was and hopped up. She approached but she was too late to get to her before she closed the door. A few minutes later she saw the nurse emerge and ask how her mother was.
"She's the same as she was last night Miss Rizzoli, but I thought you might like to keep an eye on her yourself". The nurse indicated that she had opened the venetian blind fully so Jane could see in from the seating area. She looked down at the nurse's badge
"Thanks Janice"
"No problem. Can I make a suggestion though?"
Jane nodded her eyes now fixed on the window
"Go home and get some rest. She's stable and her condition is not going to change any time soon. She'll be sedated for another day at least. So go and freshen up and give yourself a break"
Janice's husband was a cop and although she didn't tell Jane she knew what had happened and she also knew that cops blamed themselves when things like this happened.
Jane was hesitant but Janice persisted
"Go, we have your cell number, if anything changes I'll ring straight away, I promise"
Jane was still staring at her mother's unmoving body. She heard what Janice was saying but she wasn't listening properly. It took the caring woman putting her hand on Jane's elbow for her to process what she was saying.
"Go home detective"
Jane nodded. "Okay, a few more minutes and I'll go"
Janice smiled and gave her elbow a reassuring squeeze before moving to the next room.
Jane stood for another half hour watching, waiting for something; anything to happen to show signs her mother was still there. But nothing happened. So she decided it was time for her to do what she did best
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Maura found it hard to open her eyes because of the mascara clumped on her eyelashes and the fact her sheets were knotted around her legs and waist. When she finally managed to open her eyes and untangle herself she saw that it was 6 a.m. She had an awful headache from falling asleep crying. She made her way to the bathroom slowly and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hair was greasy and she had a scratch on her face; she'd obviously scraped herself in her sleep when she was thrashing around. She felt like she hadn't slept at all. She turned on the water in the shower and waited for it to heat up as she thought about last night's events. Tears threatened again as she saw Bass out of the corner of her eye shuffling along the bedroom carpet. She walked to him and sat down on the soft carpet to talk to the tortoise. He seemed to sense her presence and stopped. She stroked his shell and promised she'd feed him soon.
"Looks like it's just you and me from now on"
She sat for a while just stroking his shell and allowing her tears to fall. She eventually made her way into the shower to wash off the remnants of yesterday's awful events.
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Jane appeared in the bullpen 45 minutes after she'd left Beth Israel. She'd been home for 15 minutes to shower, change and walk Jo. There was nothing in the fridge to eat, besides which she wasn't hungry.
Korsak and Frost looked up as she entered and then looked at each other.
"Jane?" Korsak asked cautiously "how are things?"
"Fine. Where are we with David Laverne?"
"Jane really, this isn't necessary. Frost and I can deal with him".
Jane gave him a glare as if to say 'don't go there' as she sat down at her desk.
"Where are we?" she reiterated, more assertive this time.
Frost averted his gaze and returned to his paperwork. This was one fight he didn't want to get in the middle of.
"Jane, Cavanaugh told us to consider ourselves unemployed if we let you work on this"
Jane was up from her desk and at Cavanaugh's door before Korsak could say anything else.
"Come in".
Cavanaugh was sitting behind his desk and looked surprise when Jane walked in
"Jane what are you doing here?" Fear gripped him for a moment
"Is Angela…"
"She's fine. What the hell is this about me not being able to work the Laverne case?"
Cavanaugh felt his breath and wits return to him as he processed the fact Angela was okay. Now to deal with the most hot headed detective on his team.
"Jane he shot your mother, he shot your C.I. Hell he could have shot you if Frost hadn't stopped him. You can't work on the case. It's more than all our jobs are worth. Every bit of evidence you might pick up would be considered biased by your own personal involvement".
Jane opened her mouth to protest but Cavanaugh cut across her.
"No Rizzoli, absolutely, emphatically, totally and utterly not. You cannot work on this case"
Jane gritted her teeth and clenched her jaw to keep from screaming as she stormed out of Cavanaugh's office, slamming the door and rattling the glass in the process.
As she stood in the middle of the bullpen she felt completely powerless. The one thing she thought she could do was being taken away from her. She walked out without saying a word, unsure where she was going or what she was doing. This wasn't how this worked. She always knew what she was doing, even in a job where challenges were frequent, she had power, a plan and most importantly control most of the time. Now she was powerless.
She stood frozen to the spot as she watched the M.E. walk through the main door and into the reception area of the BPD.
Maura looked ill. She was pale, her hair was still slightly wet from the shower, her make-up was sparse and most startlingly her shoes didn't match her bag. Not something Jane would normally take a blind bit of notice of. But it was part of Maura's style bible that Jane had drummed in to her from very early in their friendship. There was definitely something wrong. And Jane knew what it was.
She wanted the ground to swallow her up. She wanted to be invisible. She wanted to rewind time. Logically her brain knew none of this was going to happen.
Jane saw Maura look up and straight through her with those beautiful eyes, dark circles underneath them. She noticed the scratch on Maura's right cheek and she wanted to ask what had happened. Maura was hurt and the fact she didn't know how she'd been hurt was killing her. It was only a little scrape, but it was Maura's beautiful face and she didn't know if someone had hurt her. She couldn't bear to think someone had hurt her. But she knew by the look in Maura's eyes that she wasn't in the mood to talk.
She merely nodded to Jane, which Jane returned and kept walking towards the elevators. Jane followed and put her foot in the door just as it was about to shut.
"Maura we need to talk"
"No we don't Jane"
"Maura please"
"No Jane, just no. Take your foot out of the door please or I'm going to be late"
Jane removed her foot and stepped back. Her heart broke as she watched the elevator door close and the numbers descend into the basement.
Once again the overwhelming feeling of having nothing to do or nowhere to go hit her. She knew there was only one other place she could be of use, not much but some. She got into her car and drove to Beth Israel. She took up her postion in the same chair outside her mother's room, looking in the window, zoning out of everything that was happening except the rise and fall of her mother's chest as the breath entered and exited her lungs.
Janice walked by 5 minutes later and looked at her watch. The detective had been gone 2 hours. She shook her head and continued to walk. She knew there was no point in telling Jane to go home. She looked worse now than she had when she left. Janice didn't know what had happened while she was away but Jane looked as if her world had collapsed.
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