"The family is a haven in a heartless world."
Christopher Lasch
The day after the end of her world as she knew it, Maura decided that she couldn't live with the memories and the pain mocking her every time she stepped inside her bedroom. A place that was once her sanctuary had become the central focus of the nightmare she had found herself immersed in so completely. The bed sat there, large and daunting, the place where she and Jane had shared pleasure and pain, laughter and tears, tender caresses and arguments that would make your toes curl. Maura found she could hardly look at it. After spending her first night alone lying awake in the guest bedroom, she decided it had to go. It simply had to go. She had to get rid of the mattress, the frame... Everything. She could curse Jane until she was blue in the face, curse her name and curse the memories, but instead, she decided she was going to curse the bed.
And so that afternoon, she stood with a glass of red wine and surveyed the task at hand. She knew her limits; she was not a stupid woman. There was no plausible way for her to remove the bed without help. A glass of wine later and Frankie arrived to assist the dismantling and removal of the offending object. He didn't ask any questions, and Maura didn't supply any answers, and that suited both of them just fine. They worked in silence, stripping the bed quickly, tearing off the sheets like a band aid. The frame, although expensive and made of the finest wood Maura could source at that time, came next. They took it apart, and Maura even tossed some of it in her fireplace, taking a sick sort of satisfaction from watching it burn.
She was literally destroying the very foundations of their relationship. The place of intimacy, the symbol of their love, the scene of romance and a shared passion.
Maura wanted it gone. She wanted it utterly destroyed in such a way it could never be recovered.
She offered to pay Frankie for his troubles, but he assured her it was no trouble at all, and that she could buy him a beer next time they were at the Robber. Maura agreed to this, but privately thought 'good luck with that,' because she had no intention of setting foot in the Dirty Robber for a long time. That too, was a place that held too many memories, but unlike her bed, she couldn't tear it to pieces and burn it.
At first, she thought that her decision helped. The grim satisfaction she sought in watching as her bed reappeared, a different size and shape, lined with an expensive mattress and cotton sheets, stoked the rage inside of her chest into a frenzy. She liked having this new symbol. Maura even brought a suitor home that first weekend to try it out.
What she hadn't anticipated was immediately breaking down in tears when she rolled over on the sheets and discovered they no longer held the musky, lavender tinged natural scent of Jane within its threads.
The confused, dissatisfied man hurried out soon after.
And she hadn't allowed anyone other than her own self inside that room since.
Even now, sitting on the very edge of the bed, slipping on a new pair of red heels bought in a the desperate haze of a self pitying spending spree, Maura still could not seem to hone the ability to entirely eradicate the presence of one Jane Rizzoli in this room. Her home, which, though she was loathe to admit it, had slowly regressed back into simply being a house since Jane left, contained tiny little reminders of the woman who walked out on her eleven months ago.
She kept finding things. Small things. A jar of peanut butter stashed at the back of her cupboard. A stray bottle of beer in the cold depths of her fridge. A white tank top resting neatly atop a pile of her clothes.
Doctor Maura Isles was no longer able to confidently vouch for her sanity. She felt as though she was losing her mind a little more each day. With every passing second a tiny bit more of her crumbled away, eroding silently, like the side of a cliff as it slowly succumbed to the endless waves of the sea at its feet.
And everything was so quiet. Unearthly quiet. She felt as if she were living in limbo. Like she had passed on into a spectral state without realizing and was now waiting for judgment day. Here in limbo, in the midst of the oppressive silence that surrounded her both at work and at home, there was no refuge.
Jane was her refuge. Jane helped her heal the crippling self-doubt, the social incompetence. She was patient and kind and listened to her. Jane had always listened to her. Jane always knew how to make her laugh, how to make her feel safe, and ultimately, how to make her feel wanted.
Except now, she just felt used. She felt used and unclean and dirty. Maura Isles had learned early on in her life that it was better to rely only on oneself. When placing your trust in someone else, you are opening yourself up to pain. Nobody had ever really wanted her, until Jane. Nobody had ever remained constant in her life, until Jane. Between the boyfriends and rare girlfriends, nobody stayed for long. Even Ian, who she fell for and fell for hard, clearly did not love her enough to choose her.
To choose her like she believed Jane had done.
Her Mother and Father were far too wrapped up in their own extravagant lives to notice how lost she was. Her birth parents turned out to be two of the most conflicted, disturbed human beings to grace this planet. Her biological Father, though he may love her on some basic, untouchable level, was no more of a real parent to her than her adoptive family. And Hope decided that rather than get to know the daughter she thought she lost so tragically, she would simply take what she needed to save the daughter she raised. Namely, Maura's kidney.
And that was fine. She had the operation and donated anonymously. Jane was there, right by her side when she finally dragged herself back to the surface of consciousness. She handed over yet another piece of herself to greedy, waiting hands and she didn't mind. She wanted to help.
Her 'family,' as hard as they may have tried at differing stages in her life, had never provided her with the sense of safety, love and security that Jane seemed to exude naturally whenever they were together. Her family had never been her haven. Books and knowledge once provided that illusion of self-dependency, of playing the role of protector in this unforgiving world.
Then it was Jane. For so long it was Jane.
Now, look at right now, very now. Where was she? Alone once again. Alone and isolated. Just like she has always been, and will always be.
"Doctor Isles?" Dang it Susie, get it together. This is your Boss, not your goddamn principal. "Doctor Isles?" Susie Chang said, a little louder this time, glancing around the empty morgue, noting the body lying on the autopsy table, his modesty covered only by a thin white sheet. Susie suppressed a shudder. She did not like when the morgue was this empty. She did not like it when she couldn't find Doctor Maura Isles immediately. In the past, her absence meant trouble. It meant all sorts of things. Like arguments and resignations and kidnapping.
There was never a dull moment in this joint, that's for sure.
Well, that wasn't so very true anymore. Ever since Detective Rizzoli just up and left things had gotten very quiet. Forgive the pun, but deathly quiet was a term that applied here in the morgue. The thing was, Susie actually liked her boss. She liked her, despite her tendency to launch into long, terribly detailed explanations on things Susie just couldn't bring herself to feign any interest in, and to completely remain oblivious to even the most glaringly obvious social cues. Susie found the Doctor endearing, charming in her own way, intelligent far beyond comprehension, and she was by no means stupid. But there was another thing Chang had come to realize over her years working here; The Doctor needed her Detective, and she was pretty damned sure that the Detective needed her Doctor just as much. They balance one another out. They bring out the best, and sometimes the worst in each other.
And it saddened her to see Doctor Maura Isles regressing. When they were first introduced all those years ago before Chang was promoted to Assistant Medical Examiner, she found the Doctor to be… Challenging, to say the least. She was odd. Harmless, kind hearted, but odd. And more than a little lost. The brashness of Rizzoli and her well meaning, endless banter brought the Doc out of her shell bit by bit until she was hardly recognizable. Bright as a ball of sunshine and going about her daily business with a spring in her step all because Jane loved her.
And then the Detective left her. Disappeared into thin fucking air. And everything had gone to shit.
Maura was even more difficult to get along with now. At least, in the past, she opted to see the best in people, even when there was none readily available to the naked eye. Now, she was all darkness. Susie had tried, on a number of occasions, to draw the Doctor's infectious happiness back out of her. And she failed. Miserably. She invited her to the Robber, she asked her out for lunch, she brought her coffees and sandwiches and many an invitation to the retreats she attended with her boyfriend and all were knocked back. Politely of course, but declined nevertheless.
Susie had even attempted to contact Detective Rizzoli. To be honest, she had been ready to have it out with the older woman when she finally found her. But it didn't take her long to surmise that the Detective did not want to be found. Susie kept trying, kept asking around, kept her ear to the ground just in case Rizzoli should resurface in another state. She had a lot of friends and acquaintances in many different departments. Sometimes it came in useful to be the lowly lab tech. The hundred phone calls placed to other assistants like her meant getting to know people, getting to know systems. Susie used this to her advantage. But now, almost a year had passed and she was no closer to finding her old colleague.
Except, Susie Chang was no fool, and she did not appreciate Detective Barry Frost treating her as such. He came by the tiny office she had now, considering she was moving up in the realm of death so to speak. Promoted to Princess of the Dead no less. He just appeared one day, looking far older and more jaded than she had ever seen him. And he gave her a strange request. One that had been playing on her mind ever since. He asked her to ensure only she and Doctor Isles managed the bulk of the matters pertaining to Chain of Custody. Now, that was her responsibility mostly anyway. She had to oversee a great deal of evidence fluctuating in and out of the morgue. A great myriad of substances passed through their hands on a daily basis. For Frost to feel it necessary to ask her to be extra vigilant over such matters was strange.
It was so strange that Susie Chang, Assistant ME, decided it would be her responsibility to discover why. She was sure it had something to do with Rizzoli's sudden decision that Doctor Isles was no longer the love of her life and to leave her entire family behind. Frost's complete and utter lack of contribution to the slanging matches that went on in Rizzoli's absence bothered her.
It bothered her because she thought that maybe, Frost wasn't letting on about some information he had.
And now, four months on from that day Detective Frost made that strange request, four months of doing her own rather more limited attempts at investigating her suspicions, Chang had had enough.
"Doctor Isles!?" Her tone was insistent now. The Doctor asking her to simply slip the files under the door, or return at a more suitable time would not put her off. No, today, she was going to speak to the Doctor, and air her suspicions. Today, it was time for them to question Detective Frost about his peculiar manner since his partner departed in the midst of thinly veiled accusations of corruption.
However, before she reached the office, Detective Frankie Rizzoli rushed into the morgue and caught her arm, pulling her back with him towards the doors. She barely protested. She went along with him. Susie was rather more used to his outbursts since Jane left. And since Jane left, she found herself gravitating towards the younger Rizzoli. He needed a friend, and she had been around.
"Susie…" He said in a low voice, glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder at the door to Doctor Isles' office. She tipped her head to one side invitingly, waiting for him to elaborate on the reasons for his clammy palms, sweaty brow and wild eyes with a patience she had only recently developed.
"I need your help," he breathed, "Frost and I… We need your help right now."
A/N: Sorry sorry sorry for the great lapse of time between updates for this story. I have a better idea of where I want it to go now, so hopefully I'll do better. Please, let me know what you think if you feel so inclined. I'm always opened to suggestions and thoughts!