You know, when I was writing the first part of this chapter, it got me thinking… one day I'm going to be on a medical examiner's table, at least briefly (hopefully not because I was murdered or involved in some kind of crime). If Maura were a real person, I think she'd be the medical examiner of choice, don't you? I mean she's a little zealous with a scalpel but where else are you going to find that kind of respect after you're dead?

Relax, I'm joking.

Half joking.

I'm not really joking. This is a legitimate concern.

Thank you everyone for the reviews, author/story alerts, and favorites! Your support is super appreciated. Also, sorry for procrastinating on this fic… I was having serious writer's block and decided to post the one-shot I'd had lying around for a while. In theory, the posting for this fic should be more rapid after this chapter.

The first part of this chapter almost turned into a character study. It's longwinded but for some reason it all seemed necessary. You've been warned. Don't worry, though, the story gets moving this time around.

Here we go!

…

Chapter 4: Changing Colors

…

Maura prided herself on understanding, on her ability to comprehend things in the very strange world she and billions of other humans occupied. As a child, not having much luck associating with others, she focused all her attention on understanding them, on understanding everything. By the time she was twelve, she had a thorough understanding of graduate-level mathematics and advanced physics, biology, and chemistry. She could also relate human history starting with the transition from ape to Ardipithicus ramidus and ending with the highlights from the previous evening's 11 o' clock news. With this knowledge committed to memory, she moved on to study anatomy, physiology, psychology, psyhcopathy, sociology, theology, and anthropology, hoping some combination of these subjects would paint a clear picture of the workings of her fellow humans.

It helped—a little. She could provide a probable reason for the decisions people made. She could explain feelings with chemicals, describe mindsets within cultural and social parameters, and predict actions based on statistical data. Yet, with all this knowledge, she still found it difficult to fit in and form her niche in the society she knew like the back of her hand. Knowing how humans lived and thrived was a far cry from understanding them. She still found herself ostracized and lonely in her teens. She made few friends and could not consider herself close to any one of them. And as she sat alone in her room, mind drifting away from homework or a book, she would try to understand herself. She could recite word for word in textbook style how loneliness stemmed primarily from elevated glucocorticoid levels, but that didn't make the feeling any more tolerable.

Eventually she realized that all the studying she could do in a lifetime wouldn't change who she was, nor would it change how people saw her. But as she grew older and searched for a career she would love, she stumbled into forensics. One externship at the morgue had her sold. She found for the first time that there were humans she could understand. They were the ones delivered to her examination tables, cold and lifeless. Rather than be subject to change and continuing thought processes, these humans had lived their conscious history and Maura could study them as such. They couldn't learn and make decisions anymore; their minds weren't malleable like living humans. It was in speaking for the dead that Maura found her niche in society and her connection to humanity. And it was the dead's lack of malleability that allowed Maura to understand them so thoroughly.

This discovery resulted in the nearly blissful sense of fulfillment that Maura rode into her adult life. After so many years of searching for it, she finally found a way of understanding that really made sense to her. The evidence was always there. Cases were presented and solved, problems asked and answered. Maura loved it. She had found her calling. She had found her place, and things finally made sense.

Twice in her life was this conception challenged.

The first time was when she met Detective Rizzoli, who in a remarkably short period of time became Jane, a friend. A best friend. The experience was entirely new to the doctor. After spending most of her life reconciling herself to the fact that she would probably always be isolated, that she would probably never have another (living) human to call friend, she suddenly found herself invited to Jane's apartment for a warm night of beer, wine, and a bad movie—just one week after they had met.

You're inviting me over for drinks and a movie? …Isn't that what friends do? Maura remembered dumbly asking.

Uh, yeah? Jane had said, eyebrow raised. So do you want to come over for beers or not?

Well, uh… yes! the doctor had vigorously nodded. But I don't drink beer. I'll be bringing a bottle of '98 Chateau Cheval Blanc that I've been saving.

Jane had given an exaggerated eye roll. Chateau Chevy—Oh, heerrrree we go. Maura, you're coming to my home. You're—going—to try a beer.

And that was it. Maura had never had a best friend before but she knew that she had found one in Jane. She had someone to trust, to rely on and tell all her secrets. After the initial shock of discovering a friend in another human subsided, Maura shakily reglued her perception of the world around Jane. There was nothing about the doctor that shook the detective. Maura reveled in the kinship that had been missing from her life. Jane Rizzoli was a living breathing human that Maura could understand—for the most part—and Jane seemed to understand her right back. Thus Maura amended her view of life. Perhaps there were some living humans that could be understood.

The second time Maura's conception of the world shattered was last night when it appeared as though the friendship she had long cherished would come to an end. Because somewhere along the line, Maura had stopped studying her friendship with Jane so that she could simply enjoy it. And somewhere between then and now, things had changed. Maura had no data, no prior experience to fall back on.

And Jane's words resurfaced like a cold breath. Yeah, that's what you do, you hide behind science.

Jane wasn't a corpse in her morgue. She wasn't dead when she had denied her feelings the night before. She wasn't dead when she had disappeared in the middle of the night, punctuating that denial. She was among the living, about as readable as an unwritten book.

But…

But that meant she was still subject to change, it meant nothing was set in stone.

It was for this reason that Maura entered the lobby elevator in tears, hurt by the situation, hurt by the friendship she feared might be lost forever, and exited the elevator on the basement floor with a confused, horrifying yet enthralling sense of hope. Somewhere between the first floor and the basement, Maura had replayed the interaction without her nerves muting Jane's words and actions and seen something completely different. As soon as the elevator doors opened, Maura raced out and down the hall to the solitude of her office, fueled by the flutter of hope that had risen inside her. As luck would have it, the two technicians in the morgue were having a rather passionate discussion over a test tube in the lab and she managed to slip by them with tears in her eyes, red in her cheeks, unnoticed.

Office doors closed and locked, blinds shut, Maura stood dazedly with one hand clutching her desk for support, too fretful to think straight. Okay… Okay. Remember those books on anxiety. Deep breathing exercises. Back straight. Hand on stomach. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Five seconds in. Five seconds out. Mentally reciting the proper form for stress-relieving breaths was one thing, but her body refused to cooperate with the small, maybe somewhat necessary physical aspects of the exercise. Her inhales wavered and her exhales shuddered.

Hope.

Maura was conflicted. The logical side of her urged that she have no expectations, that she let the scientist in her hang back and observe, gather more evidence. But the memory of Jane's hand trailing down her arm told her otherwise. As she continued to fail at proper deep breathing, she absently fingered the sleeve of her blouse where Jane had grabbed it, tracing and retracing the path Jane's hand had taken. It wasn't the touch of someone who was about to run away. It wasn't a touch that only meant something to Maura. It was a touch that was positively itching with restraint—absently or consciously, Maura didn't know. But that meant… that meant what?

Then there was the matter of her words…

I'm confused, and frustrated, but I'm here.

Jane is here, Maura thought. She could only guess at the implications, but those squeezes, the feelings her burning, enticingly rough hand communicated, seemed to make one thing absolutely clear. Jane didn't plan on going anywhere. And that gave Maura hope. Hope that there might be a future for this bumbling, dysfunctional friendship yet.

Yes, Dr. Maura Isles prided herself on understanding, on knowing things for certain. But for the first time in her life, she was satisfied with uncertainty. Uncertainty meant possibility, and Maura was desperate for all the possibility she could get.

…

That day, just past noon, Frost finally got into Trisha's laptop and broke through the encryption on her web history. Jane spent the best part of the afternoon poring through the dozens of sites Trisha had browsed through. The building was nearly empty due to a political function downtown, leaving Jane with even fewer distractions than usual. Normally, she would relish the solitude and use it to power through whatever case work happened to be at hand, but the endless stream of browser history failed to provide a much-needed diversion from her painfully confusing inner struggle. Even with the list of webpages in front of her, she couldn't keep her mind on anything but the look on Maura's face and how torn it made her feel. She released the sequel of many a long, frustrated sigh and let her head fall forward and thump against her desk.

Frost, having been privy to her endless stream of agitated noises, under-the-breath swears, and periodic sighs, finally gave in and decided to ask just which stick his partner had up her ass. He leaned around his computer screen. "Jane." He waited for a response and was rewarded with a muffled grunt. "You seem to maybe be in what one might consider a wee bit of a bad mood." He added the emphasis just in case his sarcasm didn't stick. "Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?"

Jane groaned into her desk. "Mind your own damn business. What, am I bothering you?" Frost laughed and she sat up partway to make a face at him. "Wha—'Wrong side of the bed?' Really?"

Frost tilted his head in mock appraisal. "It appears you're in a foul place."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Gee, what gave it away? My charming demeanor?"

"Nah, the hair." He wagged his eyebrows at her. "Let me tell you, it needs some work. Right now it looks like you found a scraggily old black cat on the street, ran it through a carwash, and gave it a new profession."

"Excuse me?"

"I've got this barber—"

"Oh shut up!"

Jane flicked a pencil in his general direction and he ducked to dodge it, grinning maliciously. "Now it's on, Rizzoli!"

Korsak cleared his throat from his own desk. "Knock it off you two."

Fully prepared to ignore him, Frost fisted a collection of pens and pencils to wage a full on war when his computer produced a shrill beep. "Huh." He returned his weaponry to the pencil holder they came from and typed away on the keyboard. "Well that's strange."

"What is it?" Jane stood and rounded the desks to stand next to Frost, joined shortly by Korsak.

Frost was shaking his head as he opened and closed some windows, reading some displayed information. "I don't really know. The computer's been acting a little strange all day, but now the browser's freezing up." He clicked around some more before shrugging. "I think I'm going to try restarting it. That should fix the issue."

Jane's phone vibrated, startling her. She checked the screen. "It's Maura. She said she found something."

Korsak nodded. "Good. You better go check it out."

Jane eyed her old partner, wondering what kind of bribery or blackmailing would be necessary to convince him to go down to the morgue in her stead, but he was already helping Frost fiddle with the computer. She pursed her lips. This was Maura, the Chief Medical Examiner, who she would have to deal with everyday. Sending Korsak down would only be delaying inevitable future interactions. She took in a deep breath that hardly steeled her pudding nerves, turned on heel, and headed to the elevator.

If Maura could pretend to be normal, like in the lobby before Jane had pried out her feelings with a crowbar, well, Jane could too. After all, Jane was quite the master of pretending, a connoisseur of fine deflection, a renowned circumvention aficionado. Maybe they would both pretend so hard that things would just… pop back into place. This new idea, however unrealistic, comforted Jane enough that she was able to step off the elevator on the bottom floor with only moderate fear of a panic attack.

Luckily, Maura was all business when Jane strode into the morgue. She glanced up from the pile of clothing she was hovering over. "Jane. Look at this."

The detective gravitated to Maura's side without thinking about it. "What do we got?"

Maura was holding one of the socks Trisha had been wearing when she was found, examining it with a pair magnifying glasses. "This sock. Here." She held up to Jane so she could get a look at the full length of it. "What do you see?"

Jane stared at it, unsure of what Maura saw that she could not. "I see… a gray sock."

"Trisha was a women's size seven-and-a-half shoe."

Jane furrowed her brow, following the length of the sock from heel to toe. "It's big. Trisha could fit like two and half of her feet in here."

Maura nodded eagerly. "It's made for a size eleven to twelve foot, to be exact. Eleven to twelve men's," she clarified. "And look at this." She folded the brim of the sock over to reveal the inner weave.

Jane stepped closer to get a look, her forearm brushing against Maura's where the doctor had rolled up her lab coat's sleeves. That little contact sent an unexpected, jagged thrill through Jane. She sucked in a sharp breath. Why hadn't she noticed how smooth and flawless Maura's skin was before? Then she cringed at the thought, refusing to acknowledge it.

"Jane?" Maura stepped forward to get a better look at the detective's face, breaking the contact. "Are you alright? You look like you're in pain."

Reminding herself that she had lungs that required air, Jane met Maura's gaze only long enough to register the incredible restraint the doctor was exhibiting. It was Maura's continued attempt to normal. Jane tried to return her focus to the sock, not missing Maura's whitening knuckles as she gripped the sock harder. Focus, Jane! Focus. She followed the weave of the sock, swallowing her feelings. And she saw it.

"Is that…" She moved closer, straining her eyes. "…hair?"

"Yes," Maura said. "And it isn't Trisha's."

Jane released a breath. "This is bizarre."

"The other sock has hair woven into it as well." Maura set the sock down on the examination table and looked at Jane earnestly. "I'm going to do something I never do, Jane. I'm going to guess. But only because of these rare circumstances." Jane raised a brow skeptically as Maura began counting on her fingers. "First, I once read about a case much like this, and the statistically possibility of them being related is very high. Second, I feel that it is imperative we explore this option considering how easily it can be looked into, given the accurate records kept at most mental health institutions. Third, if we take into consideration the nature of the crime—"

Jane reached out without thinking, grabbing Maura's shoulders. Another smaller thrill lanced through her, but she gritted her teeth against it. "Maura. Out with it. What's your guess?"

Maura met Jane's intense stare, eyes wide. "The perpetrator was most likely… a male, under 40, probably under 35, with access to the web and freedom of mobility, diagnosed for at least a year now with a—" she shrugged here, indicating this really was just a guess. "—a combination of schizophrenia, maybe, and trichotillomania, and possibly other mental disorders."

Jane's face bunched up. "Tricho… trichtill…?"

"Trichotillomania," Maura repeated, reminding herself to keep it simpler than she usually would. "It's a disorder where the patient feels compelled to remove, as in forcibly wear down or pull out, hair from various or even all parts of his or her body. Our killer is probably bald, or completely hairless. This sock," Maura picked it up again, folding it over to reveal the fibers inside, "was probably crafted by the killer as a means of coping with his disorders… a way to save that which he mentally could not handle."

Jane shook her head. "Then why was it on Trisha's foot?"

"Well, it's just conjecture…"

"Maura, your 'conjecture' is more often than not pure, beautiful fact."

Maura smiled warmly, always finding herself pleasantly surprised at Jane's confidence in her.

Jane had yet to drop her hands from Maura's shoulders, but the painful thrill had evolved into a less painful drilling of her heart. That was better. This was… it felt… Focus, damn it! "So?" Jane pressed, trying to keep the nervous waver out of her rasp.

"The killer most likely didn't want to kill Trisha—at least part of him didn't. The sock was there as a sort of good luck charm, to save her. He might have genuinely wanted to help Trisha get back together with Amy, but a schizophrenic episode may have changed the intended outcome."

Jane finally dropped her arms to her side. "Damn, Maura, you're good."

"Well, I may be completely wrong, but…" She grinned. "Thank you."

Jane pulled her phone from its clip on her belt, pacing towards the door. "I'm going to call Frost, get him started on—" Jane's phone cut her off with a shrill ring. "Oh, that's him." She answered the phone. "Rizzoli."

"Jane." His voice was edgy. "My computer was hacked. We think it was the killer."

Jane tensed up immediately. "What? Well—what was he looking for?"

"Us, information on us. He broke into all of our personnel files. He knows who we are, he knows where we are, and he knows we're looking for him. He also broke into part of the case file."

"Jane?" Maura's voice was oddly quiet behind her.

Jane held up a finger over her shoulder to stall any of Maura's questions. "Okay, Frost, thanks. We'll keep our guard up. Listen, Maura found us some great new leads. I think we might actually be able to find this guy. I'll be upstairs in five to explain."

"Alright, see ya."

Jane ended the call and returned her phone to its holder as she turned around to address Maura… and froze.

A tank of a man in a baggy shirt and tattered jeans towered right behind the doctor. His profusely muscled arm was wrapped around her neck, and an old .45 was pressed right into her temple. A set of bloodshot eyes was the only feature that stood out on his face. He had no eyelashes, eyebrows, or hair on his head, and the result was disorienting.

Maura's bottom lip was quivering, her hands hanging stiffly by her side as if torn between falling limp in submission and clawing desperately at the massive arm that was coming dangerously close to cutting off her air supply. Maura's eyes bore fearfully into Jane's s and the detective found it very hard to breathe, as though she were the one nearly being strangled. The cop in her quickly took over even as trepidation for Maura fought to incapacitate her. She stared at Maura earnestly and sent a message with smoldering eyes. Don't. Try. Anything. Slowly, Maura's arms shakily relaxed at her sides, her expression burgeoning with such immense trust that Jane couldn't help but feel honored.

It was with great effort that the detective left Maura's fearful gaze and found the haunted, bloodshot eyes that had never left her face. Jane swallowed, doing her best to be the picture of neutrality as she slowly raised her hands in surrender. Or at least she wanted the man to think that way, for now. "What do you want?" she asked him cautiously.

He looked up toward the ceiling at her voice, as if he heard it coming from some other direction. "Please be quiet. Don't call out." He drilled the gun's muzzle into Maura's temple a little by way of threat, causing the doctor to wince and Jane's heart to lurch. "Come with me," he ordered quietly, still focused on the ceiling.

"Where to?" Jane pressed tersely.

"Parking garage." His voice was surprisingly soft, but the gun pressed against her best friend's head made Jane second-guess that notion. She didn't doubt for one second that he would fire; he didn't seem like a man with much to lose.

Jane gave it a quick thought. "Okay," she agreed calmly. "I'll come with you. If I do, will you please leave my friend here?"

Maura made some kind of jerking movement, her eyes going wide, but the man's grip around her neck was iron-strong. Jane flashed her a warning look before returning her focus to the killer.

His gaze found the table with Trisha's cold corpse lying on it and his eyes swept over the body. "No," he finally responded with heartfelt remorse.

Jane licked her lips nervously. She didn't know the first thing about dealing with this, about reasoning with someone whose thought-processes were completely unpredictable, and the only person around who did was currently in a chokehold. "Please," Jane pleaded. "She isn't one of the ones involved in this. Just me."

"No." An aching sadness. That's what Jane detected behind his voice. Like he didn't want to do this, but he had to.

Jane weighed her options. She was terrified of moving any closer with his finger hovering over the trigger. She couldn't gauge how he would react and she wasn't about to risk Maura's life in the process. He'd see her go for her gun or try to clue Korsak or Frost in with her phone, and given his firm hold on Maura, any attempt at distraction could end in catastrophe. Instead, she tried to appeal to his emotions, using what little information on his potential mental disorders Maura had provided earlier. "I'm begging you. She's my best friend. I… I want to save her. I need to. I would do anything to save her." Focused intently on the man, she missed Maura's soft whimper.

The man sighed. "I wanted to save her, too." He straightened his arm past Maura's head, taking aim at Jane. Maura let out a tiny squeak. "Put that gun down. Leave it over there." He was gesturing towards the table with Trisha's body.

Jane hesitantly did as she was told, crossing the room and discarding her weapon, raising her empty hands again as she faced him. His bloodshot eyes swam around the room, making Jane wonder if she had a chance to snatch up her gun and shoot him. Suddenly, his eyes snapped back to meet hers, as if he was literally smacked by a moment of clarity.

"Good," he said. "Now. Come with me."

…

Continued in Chapter 5, Just Enough Light