Author Notes: Thank you everyone for your comments, favs and follows. It's great to see so many people interested in this story again after such a long break. Thank you all. It's exciting me again, which helps with the motivation.
Maura's eyes threatened to close as she trailed up the staircase, away from the hubbub of sorority girls fussing around an electrician. Nobody noticed the sadness in her heart, or her recent absence, and she didn't quite know what to do with that. For the past three years she'd put her heart and soul into the sorority, making it the best place it could be for herself and everyone around her, and now that she needed them, they weren't there.
She closed her bedroom door, blocking out the noise and the activity. Once again, Maura was glad she had a room to herself. Most girls were not that lucky. She fell onto the bed, regretting it the instant she landed on a small, hard package. She pulled it from under her.
Her heart sank when she realised what it was. Opening the padded envelope, Maura pulled the gun part way out and pushed it back in. She turned the envelope over in her hands. There was no name, no address. They had a designated location for storing packages, and it was not there. Maura sighed. She didn't have the energy to argue with her father about it again. She climbed off the bed and opened her closet. In the back, she found a shoebox, with a pair of boots she never wore. Inside the left boot she stuffed the package away and returned it to its location. On her way back to the bed, her cell phone started ringing.
"It's only been half an hour," Maura said, lying down on her bed and resting the phone against her ear.
"I know," Jane said. "I just wanted to say thank you, again, for being there."
"I wouldn't have been anywhere else."
"I love you."
"I love you too." Maura closed her eyes and listened to the sound of Jane breathing down the handset. She pictured her hands wrapped around her body, the last touch of her lips before they'd said farewell. "I'm sorry you had to need me to be there."
"I know."
"How are your family holding up?"
"Frankie's gone awol."
"Oh no," Maura said, sitting upright. "Do you want me to help look for him?"
"No." Jane sighed. "Pop thinks we should leave him for tonight. It's been hard on the boys. I wish there was more I could do."
"It's understandable. They've just lost their mother, you all have. It's been less than twenty-four hours, don't be so hard on yourself."
"It's hard not to be," Jane said. "I don't know what your family are like but mine are very traditional, the men go out to work, the women keep house. I'm the oldest, and the only girl, I know Pop will expect me to do more for the boys."
"Do you want to do more for them?"
She fell silent, only her breath could be heard on the other end of the line. Maura listened, and waited. She expected the silence to feel uncomfortable, under the circumstances, but it didn't.
"I love them. I want to help them, but I don't want to be their mother."
"Nor should you have to be."
"No."
Another silence followed. Maura closed her eyes and settled back against her pillows. She could hear a couple of girls talking to each other outside her door. If she'd had the energy she'd have requested they take it somewhere else. Instead she just waited, and eventually they dispersed.
"Have you had any sleep yet?" Maura asked, feeling the jiggle of her jaw as she let her mouth open wide. She wiped at a couple of tears that strolled down her cheeks.
"Nah. I can't."
"I admire your perseverance, Jane, but you've been in a car accident. For that reason alone, you should rest. Even if you just lie in bed."
"I am." She sighed again. "I'm lying in the dark, and all I can think about is my seventh birthday when I woke up screaming from a nightmare and Ma climbed into bed with me and held me as I fell asleep."
Maura felt a couple of real tears skirt the edge of her eyelids. "Oh, Jane."
"I don't know how I can do this without her."
"I wish I knew how you could," Maura said. If she could reach through the phone and hold her, she would do. "I wish your dad hadn't insisted I go home. I wanted to stay with you tonight."
"I wanted you to stay with me."
"Are you sure you won't come here?"
"I need to be at home right now."
"Would you like me to stay on the phone with you, until you fall asleep?"
"It might take all night."
"I have all night."
x
"I'm Officer Rizzoli, I'm here for an induction," Jane said, approaching the front desk at the police department.
The office barely glanced up from his newspaper. "Induction was yesterday."
"I know." She rubbed her tired eyes. Sleep had been a luxury for the last forty eight hours. Frankie hadn't returned home, and making arrangements for her mother's funeral had taken every bit of energy she had left, and then some. "I'm sorry. Can I please speak to the officer in charge of the induction?"
He picked up a phone, his voice quiet under the backdrop of the busy entrance hall. His eyes still focused away from Jane. She leaned against the desk and watched him, waited as he hung up the phone. He returned to his paper without a word.
Jane waited. She didn't want to ask more of him than she already had. She didn't want to have to be there at all but in the wake of her mother's death, all prior engagements had been forgotten.
Eventually an older man wearing a suit approached the desk. The man sat behind it folded his newspaper up and gave him his full attention. "This is Officer Riz..."
"Rizzoli," Jane said, jumping in before he could finish.
He glared at her. "She's here for the induction."
"The induction was yesterday, Officer." He turned to face her, stood square on as though to intimidate her. She didn't let his tactics bother her. "Please explain your tardiness."
"I'm sorry, sir. I, I couldn't come yesterday because I had to be with my family."
"Family matters are family matters and not of relevance to your position as a law enforcement officer."
"I know that, sir. My mother died two days ago and my brother is missing."
"Ah." The crease between his eyebrows deepened. For a moment Jane wasn't sure whether he was being sympathetic or judgemental. "Then I suggest you take a leave of absence, call HR and rearrange your induction."
Her whole body relaxed. Relief set in. She smiled her best smile, even if it was a little fake, and held out a hand. He accepted it.
"Thank you, sir. I appreciate it."
x
Maura pulled on a pair of latex gloves whilst walking across the warehouse toward her father's office. She'd bought a box which she kept in her car in preparation for the instances where her father required her medical attention. Inside the office, Paddy Doyle sat behind his desk. Maura searched the small room for her patient, but he was alone.
"I got a nine-one-one."
"I want to take you out to dinner," he said, standing up. He wrapped a hand around her shoulder and kissed her head. Maura responded, tucking her hand behind his back. "How is my baby girl?"
"Tired," she said. "Where's the emergency?"
"I wanted to see you, to invite you out."
"That's all?"
He gritted his teeth. "What do you mean that's all? Don't bite the hand that feeds you, haven't I taught you anything?"
She sighed and stayed silent. She glanced down at the floor and removed the gloves, disposing of them in a trash can in the corner of the room. She couldn't remember at which point she'd lost all sense of joy in her father's company.
"I will go to dinner with you."
"There's a good girl," he said, picking up an envelope from the table and pushing it into her hands. "For a vacation."
She opened the envelope and stared at the thousands of dollars inside. Her hands shook. The more she accepted his blood money, the more uncomfortable it made her feel.
"Why?" she asked, staring into Doyle's eyes. "Why are you giving me this?"
"I thought you should enjoy the summer," he said. "You've earned it. Take a week, come back, work for me until you go to medical school in the fall."
"I don't want to."
"Now, now, Maura." He wrapped his hands around her shoulders. "I'm offering you time off, take it."
"No."
"I need you on top form. That means you take a break when I tell you to take a break so you'll be ready. My intelligence says there's trouble brewing and I need you to be on top form."
"I don't want to," she said.
"You will do as a I say, Maura Dorothea Doyle. Or so help me God."
"So help you God? What are you going to do to me, dad? Hurt me? Kill me?"
He stepped closer, his body overshadowing her. She stared up into his eyes and fought against the desire to wither under his steely glare.
"I am capable of things you would never imagine, things I've shielded you from for a long time. Do not cross me, Maura. I may not be capable of murdering my own daughter, but believe me, I can do far worse than end your sorry excuse for a life."
"You're just trying to scare me. You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't hurt me."
"No?" His laugh was hollow, sinister. Maura swallowed a lump in her throat. "She's a feisty one, your girlfriend."
"What, what do you mean?"
"She's not an easy one to rattle."
"Have you been spying on me again? What did you do?"
"I've been keeping you safe, Maura. There's a difference. I thought it would take less to bring her down, she's proving me wrong."
"What...take her down?"
"The mother was collateral damage. It will do for now. But any wrong move and she's gone, do you understand?"
The air in her lungs vanished. Maura reached a hand out to the desk beside her. Her whole body lost strength. She was still recovering from the lack of sleep, from the emotional drain of the last two days.
"You didn't," she said, forcing power back into her voice. "I can't...believe. No. No. You can't just go around killing people."
"Funny that," he said. "Because I think we both know I already have done."
"So, what?" she asked, tears strolled down her cheeks. She clenched her fists at her sides. "Is this some kind of warning that if I don't take a vacation then patch up your workers, you'll kill Jane?"
"Kill, dispose of, torture her until she's nothing more than a shell." He smirked. "When you love someone, you'll do anything to protect them."
"You don't know a thing about love." A fire burned in the pit of Maura's stomach. Jane was broken because of her father. She could have died because of him. "You're a bitter and twisted old man who has never loved anyone."
His hand collided with her cheek, knocking her backwards.
"Never. Ever. Speak to me like that. Never doubt my love for your mother."
She lifted her fingers up to tingling skin and felt where his ring had sliced open her cheek. Of all the instances where he'd slapped her, not one had been quite so forceful, or damaging. Her whole body shook. She stared in horror. She knew all too well about his infatuation with Hope. He'd almost destroyed her, then went back for more. She felt fresh tears coat the cut, painfully mixing with wet blood. She turned tail and fled the office.
