Nice. Jane thought. Now she was having hallucinations also. Just. Great.

"Jane?" She heard again.

It can't be. That's Maura's voice. She was more tired than she first thought.

Jane looked to her right. Well, the drunken guy sure had some endless barf supply. It was starting to smell.

Someone touched her elbow and she jumped. "Jesus. H. Christ" She turned around and there she was, Maura. She was as beautiful as two days ago. Scratch that, she is way more beautiful than I remembered.

"Fuck, Maura. You almost killed me here…" she said, and she wished she could take it back the moment the words came out of her mouth. She pressed her lips together. Maura looked taken aback. Shit! Way to go, Rizzoli. "Damn, sorry, Maura. I… God, you really scared me there…" she pushed her hand through her curls and looked down.

Maura touched her other arm lightly. "I'm sorry, Jane. I was just surprised to find you here. I called your name, but I don't think you heard me…," she said searching Jane's eyes. Jane saw gold soft locks framing a worried face, and she let out a breath.

"Sorry, Maura… I just…" She released a deep breath again and looked at the blonde's eyes. Letting go of her hair – it was really not going to behave, never did- she tried a sideway smile in Maura's direction. "Let's try this again, ok?" with a full smile she extended her hand in Maura's direction. "Hi, Maura. Good morning." Jane waited. Maura was looking at her hand like it was an alien; she looked at Jane's face, and Jane saw the woman was really lost in what to do.

"What are you doing here, Jane?" Maura asked almost in a whisper, ignoring Jane's hand in the air between them. Jane looked at her hand, then at Maura, then at her hand again before dropping it to her side. She pressed her damp palms against her jeans.

"I… hum…" Jane looked as Maura crossed her arms under her breasts, she couldn't stop noticing those breasts – which she knew were amazing- under a burgundy silk blouse. She made herself look up again, Maura was still watching her. Deciding to be evasive, Jane answered. "Well, I could ask you the same thing, Maura!" She stood straighter looking at the woman who was almost eye level with her today. Jane was wearing sneakers and Maura some three inch black sandals, with slim straps around her ankles.

"I work here, Jane" she said harshly, uncrossing her arms.

Nice try, Jane!

Jane sucked her bottom lip inside her mouth, she looked back to the officer standing on the other side of the balcony, she'd been here for almost 10 minutes and no one talked to her. Well, no one, besides Maura.

She turned her attention back to Maura. "I want to… No, I need to talk to a detective" she managed to say through her teeth while her mouth went dry. She couldn't look at Maura's eyes, so she kept looking at the way that silk embraced her breasts. What kind of bra is that? It sure does its work nicely. She went out for a moment and came back just because something inside her told her that Maura was talking. Shit.

"Sorry, Maura, what was that again?" forcing her eyes up, she smiled to the woman "got a little distracted here for a moment".

Maura let out some sulky sound but she said nothing, just stared at Jane.

Jane remembered Maura saying something about being chief examiner. Maybe she could help me.

"Ok, look Maura. I need to report something I saw…" her hands came to her hair again. She looked both ways before she took a step towards Maura. Standing so close she could feel the other woman's heat, she whispered next to Maura's ear "I saw some people…" she inhaled a good amount of hair, and she could smell Maura, sweet and peach. Before she lost anymore of her cool she made herself talk "I saw some people get shot" she let out in one breath.

She felt Maura's body stiffen next to her, before she knew what was happening; she was being dragged back to the reception desk.

"Good morning, officer Clarkson" she heard Maura saying to the young man on the other side of the desk, a broad smile plastered on her face. "I need you to clear her entrance for me, please" she said pointing at Jane. The officer smiled as he began to type something on a computer. "Sure, Dr. Isles, if you could just tell me her name." he asked looking at Maura like he could see her naked. I did, boy! And is way out your league! Jane smiled to herself before she looked at Maura again. The doctor was looking at her expectantly. "What?" she asked the blonde.

"Can you inform this nice officer of your full name, Jane?" ,Maura said, and Jane couldn't help but notice, to anyone else she would have sounded polite, even friendly, but as Jane watched her eyes she could see fear, worry and something more she couldn't quite put her finger on…

"Rizzoli. Jane Rizzoli" she said simply. Maura eyes got bigger, like she knew some big top secret information.

"Oh! Are you related to Officer Frank Rizzoli?" the guy asked, sounding truly interested while he gave her the small sticker authorizing her visit.

And Jane was frozen in place. Her body went dumb. Her brother, how could she forget her brother was an officer?

She heard Maura calling her name, but her brain refused to respond.

And then she was moving. She felted more than saw, herself being pushed forward. She was inside an elevator. She forced her mind to work, her body to respond. Maura was looking at her, worry was written all over her face.

"Maura… I…" She talked, but she had no idea what to say. So she pressed her lips together.

"That's ok, Jane. Calm down" Maura was running a hand up and down Jane's arm.

The elevator stopped and when Maura got out, Jane followed her.

Some hard smell hit her full force. She made a noise.

Maura stopped. "Oh, Jane. I forgot… Sorry" she moved to open a door at the end of a corridor When Jane got inside the doctor was closing all the blinds. Jane looked at Maura. What was she doing?

"I forgot you know these people. I just, I saw the look on your face and I didn't even think. I'm sorry. We can go upstairs if you feel uncomfortable."

Jane was about to ask what the hell Maura was talking about when it clicked. She was a medical examiner; Jane was here to report a homicide. Suddenly it was all too much. She sat down heavily on the closest chair. She closed her eyes and tried to pull air into her lungs. What kind of day was this?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maura watched Jane without knowing what to do. She sat in a chair facing her and touched the brunette's knee with her fingers.

"What happen to my life?" she heard Jane asking, but Maura believed it wasn't meant for her. So she just waited.

After a minute Jane seemed to get some of her control back.

"Maura, can we get this over with now? I need to get out of here…" Jane looked at Maura, her eyes pleading for help. Maura nodded and got up from her chair to call Korsak. After a quiet chat, she came back and this time she sat on the chair closest to Jane.

She was about to soeak when somenthing start to make a loud noise, filling the silence in the room. Maura looked at Jane. "Sorry, didn't have breakfast, lunch, or dinner yesterday…" Jane said smiling sadly.

Maura grabbed one of Jane's hands and held it between her own. "Me neither. But after you're finished here, I could take you to get something to eat." She offered. And regret hit her hard as Jane stared at her like she had just lost her mind.

Korsak chose this moment to appear at her doorway.

"Hey, Doc. What do you have?" He stopped when he saw Jane. And Maura could see his expression change when his eyes reached their joined hands. She gave him a small smile.

"Jane. This is Sergeant Korsak" she told Jane, giving her hand a small squeeze. "Korsak. This is Jane…" she tried to sound casual, "Rizzoli", failing miserably.

Korsak's eyes shot open for a second, but before he could say anything, his eyes met Maura's and he tried to regain some composure.

"Nice to meet you, Jane. How can I help you?" He offered his hand to her. Maura was disappointed when she felt Jane's hand letting go of her to shake Korsak's.

But Jane reached her hand again, and Maura smiled.

"Nice to meet you too, Sergeant." Maura saw Jane trying to smile.

Korsak sat in the chair Maura was in moments ago, facing Jane. He waited.

"Yesterday" Jane began. "I went to do… some business." She cleared her throat. "When I was in the hall outside the office where I had a meeting with my boss, I heard a noise, like a shot…" Maura felt her shifting in her chair. "I was able to run to the stairs and go up, just before the door opened…" She squeezed Maura's hands. "There were three guys. Two of them were holding guns, the other one was holding Tim's notebook. Oh. I forgot, Tim was my… humm, my boss, and Sonia was his secretary."

Maura could feel Jane struggle to hold it together; she got closer, bringing their legs together.

"Anyway… They took the stairs. I waited a moment, but I needed to see if they were ok, you know?" she started to talk faster. "I was just going down the stairs, my legs were shaking, and I couldn't go fast enough…" The hand that was not holding Maura's went to her hair again "Just when I reached the first step, one of them came back, he stopped when he saw me. He looked at the door, I think he wanted to go back there to pick up some shit… But he looked at me again and someone called and he ran away."

She stopped talking and got up. She walked behind Maura's chair and began to talk again.

"So I ran into the room, you know? And they were... Shit… I think Sonia was alive for like 5 seconds before she wasn't anymore and Tim… There was blood everywhere." She was talking fast, Maura was not looking at her face, but she could tell the brunette was almost crying.

She went back to sit on her chair. "I called 911 and ran from there as fast as I could. I kept running… I spent my night first in a drugstore and then at Walmart." Her hand reached Maura's again. "When I got home this morning…" She stopped and Maura watched her losing the battle, heavy tears were falling from Jane's eyes. Jane turned to Maura and their eyes met. "I swear to you, Maura… When I saw the door, I thought it was bad, but when I got inside…" More tears falling, Maura's heart squeezed inside her chest. Jane looked to Korsak again "it was all turned upside down. Everything I owned was in pieces around the house. There was food on the ceiling. My clothes were torn and in piles all over the place."

She stopped talking. She placed her elbows on her knees and her palms covered her eyes. She was sobbing now. Maura placed one hand on Jane's back, moving it up and down slowly. After some time, they realized she had probably finished talking.

"Jane?" Korsak said in a voice that was low, calm and gentle. "I am sorry for what you had to see, and for your home." He offered. "I have to ask you some more questions and then we'll be finished, is that ok?"

Maura could feel when Jane's heart began to beat close to its normal rate. The brunette just shook her head.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After over one hour of questions and more questions, Jane's head was pounding. Her eyes burned and she was ready to sleep for 24 hours straight.

If only she had a home.

Korsak and Maura were talking on the other side of the door. Jane could hear some of what they were saying. She could hear parts of the conversation "witness protection" from Korsak just before "full until Thursday", and then Maura was saying something about clothes and spare rooms." After a few minutes she saw Korsak nodding and both came back inside the office.

"Jane" Korsak began to talk "we hope we can find those men as soon as possible and you gave us plenty to work with. But unfortunately, until we do, I'm afraid you're not safe," he said, and Jane felt a shiver go up and down her body.

"You see, the protocol here would be to send you to one of our witness protection houses, outside of town. But once again, I'm afraid that won't be possible until this Thursday," he said simply. And Jane began to feel desperate. Maura must have sensed it because she reached for the brunette and took her hand, pulling Jane to sit next to her on the couch.

"You'll stay with Maura at her house until we can move you to one of our safe houses. I'm sorry, this is only a temporary solution. We'll have the house watched 24/7, from all angles." He assured her.

Maura's house? As in the Maura sitting at her side right now?

Before she could say anything, Maura began to talk. "I am out of this case due to my… hum… involvement… So I can stay with you during the time of this investigation." She gave Jane a little smile.

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Hello, everyone!

First I want to thank you all for the reviews, I want to hug each and every one of you!

Second, I want to inform that I HAVE A BETA! For real! The lovely "LoveIsles" (check her page and her fics - /u/5098928/) is helping me!

She reviewed all the chapters that I've already posted here, so if you want to, go ahead and reread them!

And last, as always: please be nice and keep those reviews coming! I want to know if you like where I'm taking this story!

:)

Jay