Author Note: Thank you so much to each and every one of you who has read, commented, reviewed and/or favourited this story. Every response is so lovely to see, and I'm forever grateful to you all for following this journey. It's taked me a little longer than I was hoping to get this chapter out. I didn't entirely intend to back Jane into a bit of a corner in the last chapter, so it's been a challenge to find a way out of that corner for her.
Tiny fingers wrapped tightly around Jane's thumb. An act of defiance against a decision she still wasn't sure she wanted to make. An act of love already transported from skin to skin. Jane sat in the hospital bed, clutching the tiny person she had somehow created. Her eyes remained closed. The one thing Jane would never get to see. But her face; her squirmy, little, alien face filled Jane with an emotion she didn't want to process. If she did, she knew that giving her up would be nigh on impossible. She shook her head. It was too hard.
"You don't have to do this, Janie," Frankie Rizzoli Senior said, squeezing her shoulder. "You know your Ma and I would bring her up."
"I do," she said. The sheer thought of having the child there, in her life but not hers, was too much to bear. Her eyes filled with unwanted tears. She fought to keep them at bay, knowing it was a fruitless attempt. "I have to do this."
"Jane."
"I'm fine." The tears streaming down her cheeks said otherwise. She swiped them away with the back of her hand. "I will be fine."
Her father's hand gave her shoulder another squeeze. Jane stared at him. The disappointment etched across his face the day she told him she was pregnant had long since been replaced by acceptance.
"Do it," she whispered, squeezing her eyes tightly shut until she felt the weight of the baby shift off of her chest. The door opened and closed, and she knew the baby was gone. When the door opened and closed a second time, Jane opened her eyes. Frank Senior reached for her hand, rubbing his fingertips across her palm. Jane stared into his eyes, a desperate plea for peace she knew would be a long time coming. "Thanks."
Jane pulled a crumbled photograph out of her wallet and unfolded it. The creases had damaged the picture and the colour had faded long ago, but she could still see her daughter sleeping in her arms hours after she was born. The only thing she had to remember her by. An aching in her throat threatened to consume her. She coughed to disguise her tears as the elevator travelled down, and hoped that nobody would press the button to call it to a stop.
A moment later, the elevator slowed and the doors pinged. Jane shoved the photograph back into the pocket of her blazer and cleared her throat. The door opened and Maura stood on the other side. Jane turned away as Maura entered the elevator and pressed the button down to the morgue.
"Good morning," she said. Jane mumbled a response. Her voice still laced with emotion. She cleared her throat again and scratched the space below her eyes in an attempt to remove the last of her tears.
Jane rubbed the scars on her palms. An uncomfortable silence settled between them. There were too many things lingering in the air that Jane could barely breath. She forced oxygen into her lungs, allowing it to stay there for a moment before she exhaled again.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, forcing confidence into her voice.
"The body this morning," Maura said. "My new a-a-assistant, Aimee, called in sick, so I came in to complete the autopsy."
"I thought you were cutting back."
"I'm working four days this w-week instead of three," Maura said, her eyes narrowed. "Next week I will work t-three."
"Where's Toby?"
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Maura stepped out and Jane followed behind her. She wasn't ready for their conversation to be over, and since she was down there, she might as well find out what they knew about the body.
Maura placed her purse on the couch in her office and removed her jacket. She turned to Jane, her hands clasped in front of her. The conversation had no valid purpose, but she appeased Jane anyway. "Toby is with your…mother until the babysitter can c-come this afternoon."
"Don't blame me if he comes home having eaten his weight in spaghetti," Jane said, rolling her eyes and smirking in an attempt to lighten the mood. Maura smiled in return, thankful that they could move past the uncomfortable atmosphere that had surfaced since the night before. Hurting Jane by informing her that she could find someone else had not been her intention. On the contrary, it had hurt herself more.
"Would you like to help me prepare the body?" she asked, offering an olive branch.
Jane raised an eyebrow. She didn't think the words 'not a chance in hell' would go down too lightly, so she swallowed her pride, nodded her head and removed her jacket. "I'll watch."
Maura handed Jane a gown and disposable booties. She groaned, but put them on anyway. Maura disappeared behind the screen in her office to changed into her black scrubs and led Jane into the examination room.
"Susie's already d-done much of the preliminary work, including r-recording any distinguishing features," Maura said, picking up a dental scan and x-ray. Jane watched from the sidelines as Maura noted things down and crossed things off her list. When she spread the woman's legs, Jane looked away. Over the years Jane had witness multiple autopsies, but seeing the genital exam never got easier. "No sign of any t-trauma. Despite natural tearing to the hymen, I s-suspect this woman has never had in-intercourse."
"So we're looking for someone who kills virgins?" Jane asked.
Maura tilted her head. "We're n-not even sure this woman was murdered. There is a substantial chance that s-she merely drowned after falling into the river. We won't know until her tox…screen comes back whether alcohol or narcotics were involved. H-hand me a scalpel."
The tray of tools in front of Jane all looked similar. She carefully selected the most scalpel-like blade and handed it across. When Maura pushed the blade into the woman's shoulder, Jane flinched. She turned away and waited for Maura to finish the initial cut. It was bad enough that this woman was having her whole body cut up like a slice of meat, but when her skin was bloated from the effects of being in water for so long, it made the whole thing feel infinitely worse.
The woman's body had been discovered first thing, presumably a drunken party-goer who had fallen into the Charles, only to be washed up a couple of weeks later. Maura hated to work on drowning victims above most other deaths. The swelling to the body and early decay, left them very little to go off and the chance of identifying the poor woman was slim without requesting dental records.
"Did she drown?" Maura tilted her head and stared at Jane. "I know, wait until you've finished."
"We won't know u-until I've removed her organs, I-I haven't even cut through the ribs."
"I hate that bit," Jane said.
Maura pressed the scalpel through the woman's skin. At least if they focused on the autopsy then they wouldn't have to discuss their relationship. Had she not had a body to focus on, she would have easily crumbled.
"Did you determine how old she is?" Jane asked.
"From the length of the leg bone," Maura began, only for Jane to cut her off.
"Just her age, Maura."
"I would estimate between eighteen and twenty-one."
"This is the sixth body to come out of the Charles in two months."
"Drinking too much increases a p-person's chances of being injured…or killed. Alcohol is a factor in sixty per cent of fatal burns injuries, d-drownings, and homicides. It's a little lower at fifty per cent in severe trauma and sexual assaults…and forty per cent in motor v-vehicle accidents, suicides, and fatal falls."
"Tell me, Doctor Google," Jane said. "What any of that has to do with our victim?"
Maura placed her scalpel down on the tray. "Given the l-location of where the body washed up, and the…amount of materials on the clothing, I would say that our victim could have att-attended one of Boston's colleges. Her clothing, or lack there-of, indicate she may have been attending a party on the night she died."
Jane closed her eyes and leant against the slab. When she opened them again, the young girl was still lay in front of her with her body sliced open. The sixth young person to be pulled from the Charles, the sixth young woman. The similarity in age to the woman who had turned up on her doorstep yesterday didn't escape her notice. Although she had spent twenty years trying to put her child out of her mind, there were constant reminders at every turn.
"You have to find out what happened, Maura," Jane said, tapping her foot against the tiles. "Why is it taking so long?"
"It isn't," Maura said. She watched Jane for a moment. Her eyes bore down on the woman's face; on the anguish evident in the way she held her features, like finding out what happened to the victim mattered more than usual. Jane shook her head, pulled off the gown and disappeared into Maura's office. She sighed, removed her gloves and followed her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Jane said, throwing herself down on the couch. Maura walked over and picked up Jane's jacket, tossing it carefully onto a chair, as she sat down. The jacket landed on the arm and something fluttered onto the floor. Jane jumped forward at the same time Maura picked it up. "Don't."
Maura's shoulder's sunk. The way Jane behaved the day before had concerned her more than she was willing to admit. Being in the same situation as Ashley just a few years earlier, she didn't appreciate how Jane handled her daughter's appearance. But the photograph in her hand made her doubt her original assumptions. "You've been thinking about her, haven't you?"
"Who?" Jane asked, sitting back against the couch and folding her arms. She pawed at her cheeks, but Maura could see the glistening of tears upon her skin.
"You know who."
Jane bit her lip. Neither of them had to say her name. They both knew who Jane was thinking about.
"She's a similar age," Jane said, holding her hand out towards the door to the examination room.
"She is."
"She has dark hair. She's tall."
"So do hundreds of women in the city," Maura said.
"I don't know what to do."
"Do you want to see her?"
"I don't know."
"She wants to see you."
"I know."
"You owe her something, Jane," Maura said, placing the photograph on Jane's knee and standing up. "I know that you have a lot o-on your mind at the moment. I want to s-support you. I just don't know how much use I will be."
"I don't expect you to," Jane said, folding the photograph back up and returning it to her wallet. She stood up and reached for Maura's ungloved hand. "Maura."
"I don't know what you want from me," Maura said, reclaiming her hand and holding it against her. She took a step towards the examination room. "I hate the t-thought of leaving a body open any l-longer than necessary."
"It's fine," Jane said, shrugging her shoulders. "You don't have time. Finding out what happened to the victim is more important."
"It's not more important, Jane." Maura didn't appreciate the suggestion that it did. She was finding it harder than she expected watching Jane's indecisiveness over her daughter, and until that changed, Maura didn't think she could be the support network that Jane obviously needed.
"I'll see you around," Jane said, picking up her jacket and swanning out of the room.
Maura sighed and stared at the space vacated by Jane. There was little she could do to rectify the issue now, and there was a body waiting for her. She closed the office door and returned to the examination room to complete the autopsy.
Author Note: Hopefully it won't take me long to get the next chapter up after this one, though I'm out late tonight so up early tomorrow, and got a family thing at some point this week. We shall see! It's been raining a lot, so there's nothing much else to be doing (except push my wet cat off my lap when he comes in from the rain, haha). Thoughts most welcome, but please, be nice/constructive!
