Frost dies without a sound.
In movies, a death scene is accompanied by sad music, maybe some slow motion so the scene is drawn out for full effect. There's time for the audience to grieve.
Jane's life is nothing like a movie.
They're standing in the road, pulling security and waiting for EOD to come by and check out a possible IED. Everyone's spread out to ensure 360 security and they're just bullshitting with each other while they wait.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Frost open his mouth to say something and from the look on his face, Jane can tell he's going to make some lame-ass joke, but his mouth opens and nothing comes out.
His head jerks back and then slumps forward, resting on his chest. His body collapses on the ground just a couple feet away from her. A few seconds later, a storm of hostile fire rings out.
Jane hears the others yelling for them to get down but Jane, all she can see is Frost on the ground, he's not moving and she has this half-grin frozen on her face like she was preparing for his joke, but -
Someone tackles her legs and she hits the ground hard, her breath completely knocked out of her. They yell at her, they're yelling something and she turns her head to look at them and it's Korsak with this look of pity in his eyes, but he yells at her to get her fucking shit together. He slaps Jane on the side of her helmet and low-crawls to the nearest soldier without giving her a backwards glance.
Scrambling over to Frost, Jane lurches to her feet as quickly as she can and tries to fireman carry him to the nearest Humvee, knowing the rest of the squad will cover her ass with their fire. His SAW is slung around his body and it knocks against her kneepads with every step, and she grunts in pain. Jane can taste the blood dripping from Frost's forehead into her mouth. She unconsciously licks her lips and tastes metal and carbon and CLP.
Her shoulders and legs are aching with the extra weight by the time she reaches the Humvee and she tries to carefully place him down, but the corner of his vest catches on her pistol holster and she panics and drops him and his dead weight drags her to the ground with him. Jane gasps, stray strands of hair from her bun plastered to her neck, her head pounding, her blouse is soaked through. Gathering herself, she reaches out to untangle herself but stops when she sees Frost's face.
There's a neat little hole in his forehead, a perfect circle. The exit wound on the back of his head is less organized, and Jane retches a little bit in her mouth at the sight of tissue, brain matter, pieces of his skull, a complete utter fucking mess.
Jane calls for the medic until her voice is hoarse and she can taste the bile in the back of her throat, but she knows, she already knows that Frost is gone, but the first step is always always denial. Jane doesn't cry because she can't. She's not there yet.
But she just cradles his head and feels the sticky warmth of his blood on her hands and begs him to come back and tell her his joke and she promises she'll laugh for him.
Maura wakes up to Jane flailing in bed, her arms swinging wildly at her legs tangled up in the bed sheets, apparently searching for something.
She doesn't know whether to wake her up or to just let Jane tire herself out through her nightmare. Maura's afraid that an elbow, an arm, a hand would land on her as Jane wrestles with the bed sheets.
"Jane? Jane, wake up," Maura says gently.
Jane violently sits up, her hands clenching and unclenching, her eyes wild and searching the room and landing on Maura. She stares at her legs and lays both her shaking hands on top of the sheet.
Maura watches the beads of sweat roll down the side of Jane's neck and resists the urge to reach out and wipe them away.
"Shit. I dreamed my legs were trapped under something," Jane's voice is gravelly and Maura has to strain to hear her, "I couldn't find my rifle. Fuck."
Maura hesitates, but then nods at the explanation and scoots a little closer. "Would you like some water?"
Jane shakes her head and just squints at Maura, as if she's trying to remember who she is and for a split second, Maura thinks that Jane doesn't recognize her.
But then Jane speaks, "I've been having more nightmares."
Having read through so many of the pamphlets that Jane brought home, Maura immediately understands. She wasn't sure about the specifics, but Maura knew that nightmares and night terrors were only the beginning, but she doesn't say anything out loud because she knows Jane's not finished. She watches Jane's throat bob up and down, as if she'd trying to swallow the nightmares.
Jane lies back down and faces Maura and continues abruptly, speaking as though her nightmares escaped her throat and she couldn't stop the words coming out of her mouth. Maura can see the red glow of their alarm clock in Jane's eyes.
"I keep seeing body parts. I keep seeing the bodies that we had to clean up and you wouldn't believe it, Maura. It's not like watching you perform an autopsy at all, because when you do it, it's beautiful, it's an art, but when I close my eyes, it's seeing the bodies dirty and bloated and having to pick up bodies of people and kids and their body parts thrown everywhere. There was a foot – a kid's foot and it was so small, I could wrap my whole hand over it. The slipper was in a ditch a couple feet away."
Then she takes a deep breath and rolls away from Maura.
Maura watches her, watches the muscles in Jane's back until they relax and her breathing evens out and Maura puts a hand on Jane's hip, sharp and bony, and edges closer. She moves until she's curled around Jane and she tries not to cling too tightly but Maura needs to feel Jane, needs to feel her flesh, and she needs to know that Jane is here, next to her and whole.
Jane's body isn't accustomed to being back in the States. Her nose drips all the time and her hands would tremble so bad sometimes she wouldn't bother wearing shirts that she has to button up, lest she makes a fool of herself and gets frustrated or worries Maura. Sometimes Maura finds her standing in kitchen, just staring into the open refrigerator because it's been so long since she's seen so many colorful foods and the bright colors are just strange to her.
It's as if her body had become dependent on Afghanistan cold, and her 40 pound body armor and the pistol on her hip. She misses the weight of her helmet and the disgusting MREs and the sleep deprived nights full of the sound of thrumming helicopters and her smelly sleeping bag caked with sand and dirt.
They try to limit however much time they spend in the car. The first time they drive anywhere, Jane panics, thinking that pieces of trash or debris on the side of the road are possible IEDs. When Maura drives, Jane grips her door handle tightly and every other minute she snarls about Maura not braking early enough or keeping enough distance between her and the car in front of them. Jane flinches every time a car flies by to pass them or cuts them off.
But when Jane drives, she drives too fast and constantly weaves in and out of traffic and she frightens Maura, who just sits in her seat and clutches at her seatbelt.
Maura resolves to drive only when they have to. Her nerves are shot to hell every time Jane drives or is even in the car with her. She realizes it's about Jane not being in control of the situation that she can't deal with and Maura tries not to hold it against her but she's always unnerved.
Sometimes, Maura thinks about body parts and separated limbs and parts of people, and lost lives and pieces left in Afghanistan and she wants to understand, but she doesn't know if she ever will because Jane spent a large part of her military career in that godforsaken place, a large part that Maura will probably never understand. There were things that Jane had done and seen in Afghanistan that she could tell Maura in the middle of the night when Jane thinks she's sleeping and then there are things Jane would and could not talk about.
She isn't sure this is something that will ever go away for Jane.
Jane tells her that the grocery store is overwhelming, the shelves too high and full of too many colors and options and the lights are always too bright. They stop going to the grocery store together after Jane punches a woman who was complaining to an employee about the store not stocking her son's favorite cereal.
Later at home, Jane thinks about the little kids in Afghanistan running around barefoot in the mud and dirt and she doesn't regret it at all.
Maura arranges a meeting for Jane and some old friends when they call to ask about her and a half an hour later, they're all loud and their voices are shrill, talking over each other and Jane fucking hates it when people talk over each other because only one person should be talking and everyone else should be listening or else people could die when someone don't pay attention.
Jane's head is throbbing and her headache is uncontrollably painful. She pretends to receive an important phone call to get away from them and she spends the rest of the afternoon on the couch with her head resting in Maura's lap, sleeping.
She misses Afghanistan, like she misses her rifle. When she thinks about Afghanistan she feels an empty ache low in her belly. Sometimes she thinks she feels Maura watching her and judging her and god, she doesn't want to be that person. She's trying so hard not to be that person.
People keep telling her, "It's okay, you're back now, you're home."
She gets so angry when people tell her that because anyone could just say that, but no one actually wants to talk about it. Jane doesn't want to be that antisocial psycho who doesn't want to do anything, but she doesn't know what to do about it, but she also doesn't want anyone to know that she's that person because she wants to be the one to figure out why she's like that.
Their home gym is where she spends most of her time. She spends hours and hours on end just shadowboxing and working the heavy bag and at the end she'll be completely exhausted and dripping in sweat but it's quiet and it's just nice to be alone and thinking on her own.
At times, Jane has moments where she feels like she's numb, isolated. Her family and Maura love her, she knows that and they always try to get it through to her but Jane's numb and she can't be reached. She goes through periods of loneliness and she moves on auto-pilot – there's no emotion, no fear, but just indifferent. Jane just doesn't care sometimes and that mentality would go on for weeks.
It's just that when she came home, all the things that used to be important aren't all that important anymore.
Her only saving grace is Maura and Jane fervently prays every night into the dark that Maura never leaves her, despite all of Jane's shortcomings.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
―Plato