DISCLAIMER: I do not own this show, the books, or these characters. I only borrow them.

Chapter 10

A smile graced Maura Isles's lips. This was the way to wake up in the morning: warm, held tight and secure, next to the person you love. She nuzzled the person next to her as her thoughts gradually started to coalesce as she languidly came awake. She crinkled her brow in confusion wondering why her nose brushed up against a soft, carpet-like material as Frankie never wore anything like that. She took a deep breath and smelled the clean scent of Febreze and not the subtle hint of aftershave mixed with a musky scent that was all Frankie. And then the facts of yesterday slammed forcefully into place; the pleasant dream that she briefly had upon waking up was fully replaced with the nightmare that was now her reality. Frankie was dead and would never hold her tight at night anymore. The warmth and security came not from his arms, but from the warm afghan that she had pulled tightly around her shoulders sometime in the bleak night. She opened her eyes and gazed at the back of the couch rather than at her lover.

Maura thought about pulling the afghan over her head and falling back into the nicer scenario that sleep and dreaming could bring her. A quote by Theodor Seuss Geisel, a man better known as Dr. Seuss, popped into Maura's mind. "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." Now the only way to get that reality back was in dreams though. This was not the way she pictured realizing that, yes, it really was love that she had felt for some time. But she couldn't go back to sleep as she had a duty to do. She made a promise.

She, the lover of thought, reasoning, and rationale, missed the glaring truths that were staring her in the face these past few months. Even knowing the definition for the word love, and how it was portrayed in various cultures due to her undergrad anthropology courses, she missed seeing it in her own life. She tried not to cry as she realized the only times she even used the word love in conversations was to dispute it, when she was talking to Bass, or thinking that she loved finding the root cause of death in a baffling autopsy. So many jumbled facts and definitions whirled around in her brain, and the one to get so confused over was one that could have brought her true happiness.

Maura turned over to face her office. The hint of early morning sunlight was creeping through the slits in the closed blinds. Proof that the world kept on turning. She swallowed a scream when a song popped into her head about love making the world go round. Her parents had always like instilling art and education into their only child, and so they had season tickets to many of the theaters in the Boston area for as long as she could remember. She now could watch the song being played out in her memory from a musical called "Me and My Girl." She watched the song in full splendor, and remembered sitting snugly between her two parents. Glad for the brief time with them even if they seemed stiff in the fold down theater chairs. She almost cracked a smile at the memory until she heard the singer get to the line "And tho' people doubt it, they can't live without it." She did doubt it...for too long. And now she was stuck living without it.

The only outward sign of her anger at herself and the grief over Frankie's loss was a small punch to the couch with her left fist before she used that arm to help push herself upright. The blanket that had been snug over her shoulders now draped off them and fell to the floor as she stood up. She thought for a second about picking it up and replacing it precisely on the back of her couch, but she didn't care about the neatness of her haven today.

She stiffly walked over to her closet and opened it to see her coats and a couple pairs of shoes. Then she remembered only days before using her only spare outfit from the closet. She grumbled under her breath and grabbed the tennis shoes before nearly stomping out of the office in a fit of confused emotions that she really didn't know how to channel. She trekked down the hall and into the locker room grabbing a pair of surgical scrubs and a towel before heading in to take a hot shower.

The shower helped soothe her tense muscles, and the time under the rising steam helped her think of how she could channel her emotions. She could do her job, and do it well. By the time she had finished in the shower, dressed in the drab scrubs and tennis shoes, and pulled her hair into a high twist, her face was schooled to a calm gaze and she was ready to begin her first, and probably only autopsy of the day. She wandered back into the morgue freezer and again found the toe tag for one Frank Rizzoli Jr. She unlocked the wheels and pulled the metal table out into the well lit workspace of her autopsy suite. She could do this.

This was so not the way to wake up in the morning: in major pain, remembering the death of a loved one, and about to start a major battle. But at least she did get to wake up, kicking and screaming if need be, while her brother did not get that option anymore. Jane, still half-asleep, didn't think before she tried to turn over to get more comfortable. The idea did not work as planned as pain blossomed in her chest and seemed to cascade through all the nerve endings in her body. She heard a half-groan, half-whimper pierce the calm and realized it came from herself. She quickly tried to swallow any more sound from leaving as she told herself it was because she didn't want to wake anyone who might be dozing, but more then that...she didn't whimper. She felt the air move around her left and knew that someone had stepped close to her bed. She kept her eyes shut tightly and tried to regulate her pained breathing as she didn't want to deal with her mother; however, when she felt the strong, callused fingers of her father brushing the sweat soaked hair on her forehead, she decided it was okay to peak out at him. She opened her eyes to the mid-morning light. She looked around and noticed she was now in a private room. She wasn't sure how that came about as she bet the medical coverage for the police force didn't cover that. She saw her Ma dozing awkwardly in a nearby chair. The fact that her daughter's movements didn't wake her up attested for just how worn out she was. Jane then looked to the equally tired and heart-broken face of her father and rasped out, "Did you get any sleep?"

Frank lifted a nearby cup and straw up so his daughter could get a sip to wet her throat, "Off and on. I couldn't sleep well, and there was so much to do." He took a deep breath to swallow his own emotionally pained gasp. "I made a few phone calls and found a good funeral home near police headquarters. I thought it would be easier since Frankie had more friends near here than home." He didn't add the fact that he and his wife were all but living nearby anyway, and Jane would probably still be in the hospital around the time of the funeral so that they thought it would be easier on Jane to not have to travel far before coming back. Nor did he mention the fact that after the phone calls were made he couldn't sleep for fear. He just sat and watched his daughter sleeping to make sure that she kept breathing.

Jane finished her latest sip of water before responding, "I want to talk to the director there."

"Okay, we'll call them later. The doctor wanted to check out your sutures when you woke up, and to see how the pain is?" He shot a questioning gaze at his daughter as he pressed the call button so he could get someone to inform the doctors that Jane was now awake.

Jane heard the question in her father's voice but ignored it. She wouldn't tell anyone that she was in pain even if her life depended on it, plus it wasn't the pressing point to her currently. "No, in person. Pop, I've got to."

Frank could see from the glint in his daughter's eyes that nothing would change her mind even though he knew Angela and the doctors would try their hardest to get some sense pounded into her thick skull. And, at that point, the noise from the entering nurse woke up his wife.

That fight started brewing nicely like Jane and her father knew it would, but switched more to the scream of a boiling tea kettle soon after it began. It was Jane in one corner and her doctors and parents in the other. But Jane was stubborn and would not back down from a fight...especially this fight. Even though she had just had surgery the day before to repair some torn sutures, even though she was in extreme pain that she wouldn't admit to the doctors, even though her Ma glared and her father looked on worried, she had a duty to her little brother to make sure that he was treated with the utmost care and respect as due a Rizzoli, her brother, and a cop. Jane told the doctors either she left for good Against Medical Advice, or she would be back after she transferred her brother from the morgue to the funeral home that her parents had picked out while she was sleeping. She wanted to talk to the director there face-to-face to see if her detective 'spidey-sense' tingled. It was a good way to describe the feeling of wrongness she got about some people, and it was fun to say at least on days she could joke and smile. The doctors were not thrilled with either idea but finally told her to check back in through the emergency room so her insurance might cover her second stay thinking that it was safer for all involved than for Jane to totally leave AMA and not come back. Their one stipulation was that she use a dreaded wheelchair that they loaned her for the day. She would have to sneak in the back way at work so her fellow officers didn't joke around about the new gear or offer condolences. More for their safety on how she might react, and she feared her reaction to sympathy more. She knew how to handle jokes and to throw them back at people, sympathy she never did well with.

Finally having a hesitant okay from the doctors, Jane thought the battle was well and truly over. Her Ma firmly stated that neither she nor Frank would help her leave the hospital, but she knew others that would help her...hopefully. If she had to beg, she would in order to help her brother. "Pop, can you give me my cell phone, please ?" She knew she shouldn't use it in the hospital, but she at least needed it on long enough to get phone numbers. She thought first about calling Maura but then remembered that she was probably already busy taking care of her brother on the first leg of his journey. She hoped Frost would be willing to help her check out the other people that would be 'helping' Frankie reach his final resting place. She watched as her father got up and started to walk over to the closet where her belongings she came with to the hospital were safely secured. She wasn't expecting to also see her mother nearly run faster than Jane to block the door.

"If you want to hurt yourself more, fine. But your father and I are not going to help you." Angela glared up at her husband who was now in front of her as if daring him to go against her. Granted the look her husband shot her was more bewildered and amused.

Frank knew both the women in his life, and neither would budge when they got worked up. He knew Angela was just throwing more fuel on his daughter's fire to leave. He saw his wife about to step toward the bed and probably remove the phone that Jane was reaching for, but he reached out an arm to stop her. He met the icy glare that she shot at him and whispered, "Angie, she is going to figure out how to do this with or without us. We don't want her to hurt herself more, but she will if she has to walk herself down the hall to find a phone." He saw his wife nearly deflate as the anger drained away and left only the deep sadness that was surrounding the whole family now. He pulled his wife against him as they heard their daughter talking over the phone.

The phone on Barry Frost's desk rang as he and Korsak were about to go interview a witness to a park stabbing that happened the day before. He had already started to put his suit jacket back on when he got side tracked and somehow ended up with his right arm stuck at an odd angle within the sleeve so he answered the phone left-handed and with a more annoyed bark then usual for the calm and collected detective. "Frost, Boston Homicide..."

Before he could get out more, a well-known harsh Bostonian accent came through the phone, "Frost, can you come give me a lift? Either that or I'm walking down to headquarters."

Frost's thoughts were all over the place: why does she need a lift as the doctors should be able to help her if she fell on the floor, she had to be joking if she was already trying to come back to work, and should he be sympathetic to her as her brother just died? Granted, knowing Jane as he did, that latter thought would probably get his eardrum ruptured at the least as she yelled at him, and at worse his head would end up on a platter she decided wasn't fit for her dog, Jo. He settled for, "why are you calling me on this phone?" Not the best question, but it was safe.

He heard a deep sigh over the phone, "How many people do you know with a cell who actually remembers phone numbers anymore? Hell, I didn't even remembered the number for the precinct. I had to call information and then ask to be patched over to you. Ma refused to hand over my cell phone and make this easier on everyone."

Frost heard Angela's voice clearly over the phone. The words might have been a bit muffled to him, so he could just picture Jane's very annoyed mother screaming her reasoning, "I'm not going to help you carry out your death wish, Janie." He then heard sobs as Angela realized how that sounded after her youngest just died. A pained look covered Frost's face and he was glad to be nowhere near the hospital right now to witness the scene. He wished he didn't have to hear it either. He channeled the feelings of pain and regret to force his trapped arm through the unsuspecting, innocent sleeve.

Korsak had sat back down when Frost's phone rang. Glad for the reason to kick back and relax if even for a few seconds, but he sat up straighter as he saw the hurt look on his current partner's face. "Who's that?"

Frost covered the mouth piece before softly stating, "Someone we all know, love, and want to strangle." He turned back to the phone and heard Jane nearly pleading for him to come take her on a couple 'errands.' After he hung up the phone, he thought about banging his head against the desk before he looked back to Korsak, "How 'bout we play 'rock, paper, scissors' to see who should go pick her up?" Frost begged, not wanting to put up with an injured, pissed-off Rizzoli. Rabid Pit bulls would be safer.

Korsak just chortled, and then laughed harder at the annoyed 'he had the gall to laugh' look that Frost's face now portrayed. Korsak wondered sometimes how the younger man made such a good detective as his face showed all his emotions, and his stomach...well, it was not put up for this line of work. "Hell no. She's your partner now." He got up and slapped Frost on the back as he walked toward the locker room. As he neared the locker room, he grabbed an empty box usually used for evidence. This was the first time Korsak could remember really being glad that he wasn't partnered with Rizzoli. He hated seeing her hurt, and sadly Jane saw that empathetic look when she was injured by Hoyt and took it to be pity. It was the farthest thing from pity as it encompassed relief, amazement at the strength of his partner, and also regret that he wasn't able to protect her from being hurt in the first place. Plus, he mused, if he would be the one to help out now, Jane would probably pull even farther away from him as he'd have seen her in pain twice now. But if Frost did then they could rally against her in solidarity, even if not the bonding moment he would have wished for in order to help Jane. But there was no one else on the force who would put up with her, so now she would be stuck with one of them, even if she thought they saw her as weak. She would learn to handle it. She always did.

So while Frost got 'Jane detail' while their partner was being hard-headed and wouldn't stay in the hospital as was best for her, Korsak decided to be helpful and clean out Frankie's locker. It would be one less duty for Jane to feel obligated to do, and she could have the contents when she was ready to see them and hopefully not fall apart into pieces. Well, okay, he knew Jane enough to know that she would play tough cop and struggle not to cry even if her heart was being torn to pieces. Korsak was annoyed with himself because he was glad for that tough girl routine...he never did know how to deal with a crying female. That was one thing he loved about being partnered with Jane, she would always nudge him out of the way when a compassionate presence was needed. Not that Jane did well with the compassionate, empathetic side as she was so used to being tough-as-nails, but hell, anyone was better at it than he was. But who will be her compassionate presence now? he thought.

Korsak opened up the tiny metal cubicle. He was glad that Frankie's locker was on the top row and not the bottom. He wasn't as young as he used to be and so was glad that he didn't need to bend over. He pulled out the normal stuff one would think to find in a male officer's locker: spare uniform in case the first would get messed up at a crime scene, deodorant, comb, and a pair of sweats and tennis shoes to work out in the precinct gym. He pulled out a canister of shoe polish to keep the uniform shoes nice and shiny, and he added that to growing collection of articles in the file box he brought with him. Korsak was very happy to be a detective so he didn't need to wear his uniform daily, granted he knew he would need to shine up his shoes and pull out the uniform again this week for yet another funeral.

With the main articles relocated to the box, Korsak looked to the pieces of paper stuck to the locker door. Most all cops had pictures of family and friends on their locker door, or in their desk drawer if their were lucky enough to have a desk. It gave the cops something to look at and say 'I love you' to before they would go on a tough case, hoping that picture wouldn't be the last time they saw their loved ones. Those glimpses of frozen smiling faces reminded the officer what they were fighting for, either when protecting the community or if they would need to fight for their own lives.

Korask saw a picture of the whole Rizzoli clan and he smiled at it as he could see from the picture that Angela Rizzoli was having a hard time corralling her grown children and telling them to knock it off and smile at the camera. He plucked off the magnet holding it to the locker and moved on to the next picture. The next picture showed just Frankie and Jane on his first day as a rookie. Korsak remembered the day clearly as Jane enjoyed picking on the new rookie relentlessly. Hell she still does he thought before he sobered and changed the working to 'did'. With his mind a bit preoccupied with that depressing thought, he didn't see the bit of paper sticking out from behind the picture of the duo. As he pulled the magnet off the smaller hidden object fluttered to the ground. It was ironic that his glee over Frankie having a top locker was dashed as he was still stuck having to bend over. What he saw when he picked the object up almost sent him back to the floor in shock. Instead he was lucky to be able to nearly crash onto the bench beside the file box full of Frankie's possessions, at least all but this final object.

Two small images from a torn photo booth stripe of pictures- the top picture showing Frankie gazing lovingly at Dr. Isles while she smiled at the camera, and the other picture an odd mirrored image with Maura gazing just as intently at Frankie as he finally looked forward. Korsak stared at the pictures and cursed the new twist in this morose situation. He needed to get some clarification, and he knew that Maura was the only one with the answers he sought.

He took the now full box of belongings and placed it on his desk before heading over to the elevators to take the short ride down to see if Dr. Isles was available to talk. He walked slowly down the hall near the morgue and peeked into the autopsy suite. Oddly he saw two of Maura's colleagues working on Frankie, but then he glanced back at the pictures he held and he now understood so much that had happened in the last week in this new context. He knocked on the closed office door and heard a soft feminine voice telling him to enter. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, and before either could say anything to each other he took a seat across from the Doc and placed the pictures in front of her. He saw Maura gaze down at the pictures and the sadness mixed with happy memories that briefly shown over her face before she schooled her features to her usual cool manner. Those few moments and the pictures told him more then any words could, and he against found himself mentally cursing the sad turn of events in all their lives.

AN: First, sorry for the long delay. Will try not to make a repeat of that but no promises :). Also Korsak was the only one who could learn now. All the other scenes are written when the others learn. Jane will be the next... but not for about 1-2 months story time. But at least Maura will have someone she can talk to. Even if Korsak thinks he can't do compassionate.