All right, here we are. This is the last full chapter - the final one will be an epilogue, just to wrap things up a bit. But this is where everything happens. Also just a reminder that these characters have been through a lot and they're all in shock, so if you feel like someone isn't acting the way they should just remember what they've been through and it should make more sense. Thank you to everyone who's followed, favorite, and most importantly reviewed; your support means a lot. I have a quick announcement that I'll put after the chapter, since you're probably eager to get to it.
So, here you go. Enjoy!
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
11:28 pm.
Jane hadn't been on this side of the system before, and even after everything that had happened today it was a singularly bizarre experience. She sank to her knees and put her hands on her head, lowering her gaze to the floor, and beside her Maura held her hands up to show that she was unarmed too, having dropped the scalpel the second the cavalry burst in. For a wild moment she thought Korsak was going to shoot anyway, and part of her almost wanted it. But there were no shots, no further orders. Just a heavy silence.
"Maura?" Frost said suddenly, and Jane glanced up to see that all three of them were there – Korsak in the lead, Frankie and Frost backing him up. Frankie wasn't in uniform, and Jane felt a burst of pride; he must have made Detective.
The doctor shivered, lowering her hands as they realized that she was one of them, and then she wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm okay," she said quickly. Her voice was shaky but she sounded sure of herself. "I'm okay."
Frankie's eyes darted around the room, quickly taking everything in. He lowered his gun, and then inclined his head to indicate Hoyt's bloody form a few feet away from Maura. "Is he -"
"He's dead," Maura said shakily, nodding slightly as if to reassure herself of the truth of her statement. Frankie's gaze fell to the floor by Maura's feet, and he was startled to see a bloodstained scalpel in front of her. Maura followed his gaze and then dipped her head infinitesimally, confirming his hunch.
He turned away, feeling a wave of disappointment and regret. Maura had never been a fighter; while they were out on the streets she was safely in the labs. She wasn't made for combat – heck, even confrontation made her uncomfortable. Hoyt may have been the worst of the worst, but as far as Frankie knew Maura had never taken a life before. He didn't like to think about how much healing she'd have to do after this.
"Jane," Korsak said after a moment, as the woman kneeling on the floor finally looked up, her hair falling away from her eyes and revealing a dirt-stained, washed-out face. But it was the emptiness in her eyes that hit home for him, and he almost dropped his gun in surprise. It was Jane all right, but not as he remembered her; this was a sad parody of the woman he'd worked with, the empty shell of someone they had all admired.
Before he could make a move toward her, Frankie had darted forward. He dropped to his knees beside her, staring at her face in astonishment for a second before wrapping his arms around her. Korsak felt his heart swell, but the reunion wasn't as joyful as they'd hoped. Jane's whole body tensed; she didn't move, not even to take her hands away from her head, and she looked like she wanted to disappear.
After a moment Frankie seemed to sense her reluctance, and he pulled away. He tried to meet her eyes but she wouldn't look at him, so he gently grabbed both her hands and brought them away from her head, holding her hands in his own like he'd done a thousand times before. He squeezed gently, but Jane still didn't react. That's when he noticed the scars – on her wrists and her palms, even a faint one on her throat.
"Oh god, Janie," he murmured, wanting to wrap her up in a hug, "what did he do to you?"
Jane just wordlessly shook her head, as if the horrors she'd experienced were too awful to even verbalize.
"And what'd he do to you, Maura?" Frost asked, his gaze shifting from the detective on the ground to the doctor standing by Hoyt's body.
Maura blinked in surprise, not sure what he was talking about, and then her hand drifted to her throat. When she pulled it away her hand was smeared with blood. She glanced over at Jane, who hesitated and then nodded slightly, not quite meeting her eyes but not seeming as distant as she had before.
"Actually," Maura said, wiping the blood off on her dress (and then cursing herself because she'd only worn this once and there was no way even her drycleaner would be able to get these stains out), "that wasn't Hoyt. That was…" She paused, swallowed, and finished, "It was Jane."
A heartbreaking silence fell over the room, and Maura suddenly wished she hadn't spoken. Frankie let go of Jane, his face twisting up in confusion and pain, and then he grabbed both her shoulders and tried to get her to meet his eyes.
"Is that true?" he all but whispered, his voice so low that the others almost couldn't hear. "Did you do that?"
Jane opened her mouth to say something, but the words seemed to get stuck in her throat. She closed her eyes for a moment as if she was steeling herself, and then she nodded.
"Oh god," Frankie said in a strangled whisper.
Jane felt his hands tighten on her shoulders, and she thought for a moment that he might shake her, try to get her to speak, to confess, to say something.
"It was my idea," Maura spoke up, and all eyes turned to her.
"What?" Frankie said, startled. He looked from Jane to Maura and back again, and then frowned. "Maura, what the hell happened down here?"
When Maura didn't answer, Frankie turned back to Jane. He was about to speak, but even he didn't know what he wanted to say. He'd imagined this moment a thousand times, but now that he was finally face-to-face with his sister he couldn't think of a single thing to say. He surveyed her quickly, taking in every half-forgotten feature, trying to assess how bad she was. She seemed thinner than she had been, and dirtier, and almost… broken.
Korsak cleared his throat, realizing that someone had to take control. "We should get some paramedics here," he said, jerking his head toward Maura. She was holding a hand to her throat, and the bleeding was slowing; it didn't look like it would be fatal, but he didn't want to take any chances. Then he turned his attention to Jane, and for the first time in his career he had no idea what to do.
If Jane had really attacked Maura, then they should arrest her. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. To his great relief, Maura chimed in then.
"She's not going to hurt us," Maura said, looking down at Jane. "She helped."
"Helped?" Frost echoed incredulously, raising his eyebrows. His gaze fell on Maura's throat, and she frowned.
"We had to make Hoyt believe I was dead," Maura explained, her voice growing stronger with each word. "I asked Jane to… to help. She didn't hit anything vital; we just needed enough blood for it to be believable."
Jane lowered her head again, unwilling to meet the eyes of her former colleagues. She couldn't find a single scrap of courage or a single word to say. She knew they were waiting for her to say something, to explain, to apologize, but she couldn't find the words. Then, suddenly, she remembered why she was here.
"Ma," she croaked, her voice hoarse with emotion. The others all turned to her and she shrank from their gaze, but she needed to say this. She looked at Frankie, not quite meeting his eyes – she wasn't ready for that yet. "He has her," she said, and then she watched Frankie crumble. He was no longer a homicide detective; he was a kid terrified of losing his mother. Jane turned her gaze onto Korsak; he was her last chance. "Hoyt has Ma. I don't know where."
Korsak paled, but unlike Frankie he held himself together. "Think, Jane," he said, something he'd told her a hundred times during their time on the team together. It had been his way of reminding her not to rush into danger, to let her head rule her heart for once. "Where would he have taken her?"
She'd almost forgotten about it in the overwhelming rush of stimuli she'd been flattened by when the others came in, but now Jane remembered. "The book," she mumbled, her gaze dropping to her hands. When no one spoke, she raised her eyes again, realizing nobody had understood her. She cleared her throat. "There's a black book that H- that he wrote everything down in. That's gotta say where she is."
Korsak nodded, encouraging. "Where does he keep the book, Jane?"
She squinted slightly, and he wondered again just what she'd been through and what the lasting damage would be. "In his car," she said finally. Her shoulders were slumping, as if a weight had been lifted off them, but her eyes were still troubled. "That's why we… why we did this. We had to get the book."
"We'll find her," Korsak promised, signalling to Frost. The younger detective nodded, pulling out his cell phone and calling the officers they had watching the entrances. He walked away to make the call, and silence fell over the rest of the group. When Frost came back he met Korsak's eyes and nodded, and then they waited.
Frankie started to speak, but cut himself off. He was torn between his desire to stay with Jane and the urge to help with the search for his mother, but eventually the former won out. It was enough to keep him here, although not enough to stop him from tapping his fingers against his thigh as they waited to hear back from the uniforms. He fell silent; all he could do was wait.
Within a few minutes the paramedics arrived, and Korsak, Frost, and Frankie stood back to let them examine the girls.
Frankie was watching Jane with a pained expression, unable to believe that the broken woman in front of them was his sister. "What happened to her, Korsak?" he asked, barely able to force the words out. For the first time since she'd gone missing he thought that it might have been better if she'd been killed after all. That way she wouldn't have had to endure whatever hell this psychopath had put her through.
"We may never know," Korsak said, watching Jane with a mixture of sadness and relief. One of the paramedics came up to him then and delivered the verdict – they were both going to be okay. Jane would need surgery to correct an old injury, and Maura had needed a couple of stitches, but they were both going to be fine. Physically, at least.
"What's going to happen now?" Frost asked, still watching the girls as the paramedics finished up.
"We'll take them both back to the station and get statements," Korsak replied absently.
"That's not what I meant." Frost was still watching Jane and Maura, his protective instincts kicking in; with Hoyt dead Frost knew he didn't have to hunt down the monster that had hurt his friends, so now all he could do was help them heal.
"I know what you meant." Korsak sighed, finally turning his gaze away from the girls. "I don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what Hoyt did to her, or how long it will take her to heal."
"What if she can't come back from this?" Frankie asked, although he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.
"It's Jane," Korsak said simply. "She'll be okay." But the look in his eyes said he didn't quite believe his own words. He cleared his throat, glancing sideways at Frost as he prepared to deliver an uncharacteristic compliment. "Good job finding the address, by the way," he said, and the young detective's eyes widened as he registered the sincerity in his superior's voice.
"It wasn't that hard," Frost mumbled, slightly embarrassed. "I just had to know what to look for. I'd already tried all of Hoyt's known aliases and hadn't got a hit, but then I tried something different – anagrams. It took a while, but eventually I came up with a place rented recently by a Mr Henry Deduboto."
Frankie blinked, confused, but Korsak was quicker on the uptake. "Ted Bundy," he said, the realization sinking in. Sometimes he forgot just how twisted Hoyt really was.
"How'd you even come up with that idea?" Frankie asked. "Using anagrams?"
Frost turned his gaze back to where Jane was sitting, and a sad kind of smile crept across his face. "I tried to think like the best partner I've ever worked with," he said, and he didn't need to say any more.
They stayed silent for a few minutes, until finally the paramedics started to depart. Frankie started to go over to Jane – he never wanted to let her out of his sight again – but stopped when he saw Maura approach her. Maura sat down on the step beside Jane, and they shared a look. Then, slowly, Maura reached out and took one of Jane's hands in both of hers. Frankie stared, dumbstruck; Jane had been completely resistant when he'd hugged her, but she was accepting Maura's touch. He shared a look with Korsak, who was equally stunned.
They watched as Maura leaned over and said something to Jane, whose lips twisted into something that almost passed for a smile. Frankie felt some of the tightness in his chest lessen. Jane wasn't alone; maybe she'd be okay.
"You did well," Maura murmured, still holding Jane's hands. "Without you, I'd probably be dead."
"Without me you wouldn't have been here," Jane pointed out. She looked down at their hands, wanting to pull away but not quite being able to do it. She felt a strange sense of closeness with Maura; after what they'd been through it was natural for them to form a bond, although she had expected Maura to turn on her the second the others arrived. She wouldn't have blamed her if she had.
"You were trying to save your mother," Maura said, squeezing her hand slightly. "No one can blame you for that."
"I'm sure the jury will." Jane closed her eyes, fighting off a wave of exhaustion. Today had been too full of emotion for her liking, and now the adrenalin was starting to fade and she was realizing that she needed rest. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd slept.
Maura didn't respond for a moment. When she did, her voice was gentle, sympathetic, kind – all the things Hoyt wasn't. "You could have killed me, Jane," she said. "But you didn't. I'm not going to forget that."
Jane opened her mouth to say something, but no words came. Instead she squeezed Maura's hand, the best she could do, and Maura offered her a smile. Neither of them would forget anything about this night.
Suddenly someone said her name, and Jane was so unused to hearing it that she flinched.
"It's okay," Korsak said as he approached, an apology written all over his face. Jane ducked her head, embarrassed for her old partner to see her so broken. "We just got word that they found your mother."
"Is she -" Jane started, her breath catching in her throat.
"She's a little shaken up, but she's fine," Korsak assured her quickly, and Jane felt so dizzy with relief that if she hadn't been sitting down she might have actually fainted. "They're taking her to the station."
Jane breathed out slowly, trying to slow her racing mind and heartbeat, though both were proving difficult. "So what do we do now?"
"We get the hell out of here," Korsak said, and Jane let out a shaky laugh. "Come on," he said, cautiously reaching out and starting to help her to her feet. Maura supported her too, and between them they managed to steady her. Then Korsak said the words that Jane had thought she'd never hear again. "Let's get you home."
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X
As always, please let me know your thoughts (in a polite, constructive way, if you please).
Also, I'm still in the process of writing another Rizzoli & Isles fic, so would any of you be interested in it? If so, I can post either a synopsis or a little sneak peek at the end of next chapter. Let me know if you'd be up for that, and I'll see you all next time.
Thanks again, everyone.
