The next chapter after this is already in the works, sit tight, enjoy, and review, Thank you to all for your inspiration!

Chapter Eleven

"So where'd it come from?" Frankie was sitting at the kitchen table of our parent's house spooning bites of cereal into his mouth while staring at the red folded paper flower on the counter.

I had just emerged fresh from the shower, and in the only change of clothes I had here that didn't say Chicago Police Department on them. Clothes, photos, and boxes of junk were collecting dust in my parent's basement – all items that I didn't want to get rid of just yet. I was also averse to bringing them to my new home in Massachusetts for fear of the clean break not being clean enough with the weighted memories. "I used to make them for Katie…" I corrected his earlier statement that I let slide by in midst of mystified self where he thought she was the one that used to make them for me.

"Oh right. That was her name…" he wiped droplets of milk from his chin. "It was so long ago Janie, I forgot who made them for who." My younger brother stood up with his empty bowl to bring to the sink. "So who left it there then? Kinda weird, huh?"

I gave him a heavy shrug and wasn't able to come up with an answer as I stood hypnotized by the crimson paper staring back at me and thinking about the last time I made them for my neighbor-girl crush. It was nearly a decade and a half ago, much too long a time for the crispness of the edges of this origami rose. I had fallen madly head over heels for her and it could not have been more unreciprocated. I shut my eyes hard to angrily rid myself of those recollections. I was beyond flabbergasted however, trying to make sense of this. Maybe my mom was teaching herself how to make them after bringing up the humiliating memory when she visited me in Massachusetts. Or maybe it was one I made a billion years ago and she was just hanging onto it for some reason.

I thought about the what, the why, the how, all the way back to the hospital. My brother tried to keep the air in the squad car busy with his awful choice in 80's metal music as we pulled into the parking garage. He mentioned something about having to work later this afternoon to which I hardly was able to pay attention while we hurried through the automatic doors and into the elevator bringing us to the floor our father was on. He scurried into the sterile room before I had a chance to and my mother came out to wait with me in the same room we occupied all morning until I could have my moment to spend with Dad before he needed to rest again in this late afternoon.

She avoided the loveseat she had fallen asleep on earlier and chose a chair on the opposite side of the room and I gravitated next to her. We didn't say anything for several minutes until she broke the tension with tears springing from her eyes.

"Janie… He's going to be okay..." We grabbed each other's hands and held tightly.

I wanted to be strong for her and choked back the moisture trying to escape me. "Of course he is, Ma…. You heard the doc earlier… He's a fighter. And no matter how much you two bicker and fight, I know he wouldn't want to miss a day with you."

She reached for a tissue on the end table next to her and dabbed the wet spots on her face though her voice still had the croaked sound of tears in it. "That's exactly what he told me."

"See Ma, he will come out of this stronger than before with a new appreciation of you, of life…" I did my best to offer the reassurance of what I thought she would need.

We spent the next moments squeezing each others hands in a relieving way and listening to the multiple doctors being paged across the speakers above our heads. I could tell by the way the sadness was beginning to dry across her face that she was on the starting line of her own healing from the traumatic experience. She was a helicopter mother to my brothers and I while growing up, I could only begin to imagine how she was going to be with my poor father once he is able to come home. I chuckled inwardly at the idea of it and my mother noticed my smallest change of demeanor.

"What is it Janie?"

"Nothing Ma, I was just thinking about how you're going to be all over Pop once he comes home just like you were to me, Tommy, and Frankie any time we were hurt…"

She took the opportunity to chortle at the idea too, knowing just how true it was. Once our reprieving snickering slowed to a silence, she pivoted her body toward me. "Jane?"

"Yeah, Ma?"

"When are you going back to Boston?"

I bit my lip with defeat exhausting from my chest, "I don't think I'm going back…"

"What do you mean you don't think you're going back? You started to tell me what happened then the doctors came by… now what's going, Jane?"

No matter what kind of half-truth I could come up with on fly, she would see right through me, right through any type of line I could throw her. "Miss Isles…. Well, she has been…" I looked to the fluorescent above me in search of the right words. "She has been awful to me, Ma. I don't know what I did or didn't do… Or what happened… But the rudest way you could think of acting toward someone, well she did it ten fold. I didn't think I would ever warrant any kind of behavior that would make anyone, and I mean anyone, act like that toward me. And when you tried to get a hold of me when Dad was being rushed to the hospital, she kept hastily reminding me that I was on her time and just doing her best to make me feel like I was beneath her and that no matter who was calling me, she was more important. It was ever since her mom called her on the way home from dropping you off at the airport. I just don't know what happened… And before you ask, no, I really didn't have an opportunity to find out or dig deeper. She turned cold so quickly, there really wasn't a chance…"

"Have you called her since you've been here?"

"Well… No. I don't remember her number off the top of my head and I left my cell phone at the guest house…"

"Oh Janie…" Her sympathetic voice coiled around me.

"I know, Ma. I'm not… I just don't…" Uncertainty caused a tremor across my scarred hands.

"Well, visit with your father, Frankie will probably only have a couple more minutes. The doctors said he will be more with it tomorrow after plenty of rest. Then we will figure something out."

I nodded my head and peeled myself from the chair, making my way down the white and glowing hallway to my dad's hospital room. At my presence Frankie slid out of his spot next to the gurney and whispered a heads up letting me know he was already in and out sleep. I warily sat in the plastic seat and took a hold of his hand, careful not to touch any of the lines and IVs coming out of it.

His skin looked pale and papery. The sight of him tightened around my heart and squeezed tears from the corner of my eyes. He was fading quickly to sleep after mostly acknowledging my presence. I leaned in and kissed his forehead softly as the steady beats and beeps in the background confirmed that he had fallen asleep.

I took this time to open up to him about everything I could. I told him he gave us quite a scare and that he couldn't do that anymore and all of us would make sure of it. I told him he is my idol and I don't think I will ever be ready for him to go. I told him how much I shook my leg on the flight back home. I gave him a faint idea of how much I spent on the expedited airfare and how I knew he would go berserk at the amount. I let him know how much I missed everyone but that I was adapting to my life on the East Coast, even though it was so different. I told him that my Hoyt nightmares were stopping and that I would recite the words he told me when our roles were reversed over a year ago and I was the one on this bed. "All you have left to do is heal; everything else will fall into place. Us Rizzolis, we are unstoppable." I warned him that he better remember those words and think them every single day. Not everyone gets a second chance, but we were the lucky ones to be granted this and needed to live it to the fullest.

I spent the next twenty minutes or so reflecting on the confessions that easily fell from me while watching his chest rise and fall. The comfort that came from his calm movements wrapped around and held me for these remaining moments until I reluctantly stood and flipped the light switch, wishing him a goodnight and letting him know we would all be here when he woke.

When I reached the waiting room again my mother and brother looked like they were in deep conversation that I couldn't wait to hear. Though, it seems I was too late as an abrupt change of topic was dancing across this thin air.

"Well, I better head off to work. Ma, Janie, see you in the morning." And like that Frankie was out and on his way for the evening shift at the department.

"How was your father, honey?"

"Asleep now. He hardly looks like himself. But I know I my gut that he will be back to his old ways soon enough," I offered an appeasing smile as I slumped into same chair.

"I know he will baby, I know he will. So listen, I wanted to warn you, your Auntie Val and Uncle Mickey are on their way over. She just wants to check in on me and is bringing me some clothes. I decided when you were in there that I am going to spend the night here tonight with your father… I know you were just back at the house and I should have asked you but my mind is just all over the place."

Auntie Val was my dad's sister, very nice, very kind woman, got along well with my mother, but was always full of showers of questions, was a bit of a bigmouth, and certainly didn't catch onto small hints. Just something she knew I wouldn't have the energy to deal with, hence the heeded warning.

"Anyway Janie, just take a cab back to the house and you bring my car in my morning," she handed me her car keys and house keys, assuming I didn't have my set with me. "I rode with your father in the ambulance here, so I will need the car here regardless, I just thought this would work out the best. There's a fridge full of food so help yourself."

The plan she had worked had suited me just fine, I was just concerned about here staying here and her level of comfort. She seemed set on the idea and there is really no changing her mind once that happens. I nodded and kissed her on the head, asking if there was anything else she needed before I left. She told me to get out of there and get some sleep myself and come back in the morning with her car and breakfast.

I only had to wait about five minutes until a cab pulled up into the taxi bay. The ride back home was quick in the dawning evening and the pink Chicago sky was begging me to admire it. I took in the view with a weighted breath and prepared my mind over the grilling I was readying to do to myself. There was a lot to sort and figure out and I knew as soon as I walked back into that house, and got a healthy plate of leftovers, it was time to give myself some answers. The cabbie arrived at the house right as I was handing his tip over the backseat. He wished me a pleasant night and I hoped for just that.

Shuffling up the concrete stairs while I dug keys out of my pocket, I felt everything from the flight back home, to the jarring experience with my father, to the array of uncomfortable chairs at the hospital, and to the conversations with Frankie and my mother take hearty toll on my body. My feet felt like I was trying to wade through a pool of molasses I as crossed the next few strides.

Before entering the house, I scanned the porch in search of another origami flower, but did not see one. I deflated slightly before turning the key and pushing the door open.
"Jane?"

The voice was familiar, it caused my skin to prickle and jaw to clench. I turned around cautiously to face the person at the bottom of the steps addressing me. With my face unchanging, this unannounced individual repeated themselves, though it wasn't in question this time.

"Jane…"

I didn't want to hear that sadness in their voice when I had spent all this time being angry. I didn't want to hear their worry between the letters of my own name. She placed a folded paper flower on the stair in front of her like a line she couldn't cross.

"I don't… I don't know what say..."

I stood still and motionless staring at the distressed face of Maura Isles.

"I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. I was a monster. She turns me into a monster. I know it's no excuse and I know that I cannot take back the words that I have said… I can never take them back…" She said this last part as if it was the first time she had had this thought and I could see her eyes watering. "But I can only offer that I have so many words to say that I will try to make up for them. They can never be unsaid, or erased, or unfelt, but I give you my promise that I will do whatever I can to prevent anything like those words from happening ever again… Every day, if you will let me." She let the tears reach her cheeks as she continued, "Oh God, I can't even believe the way I spoke to you Jane. I was angry but it wasn't at you, I promise it wasn't you. I just took it all out on you. I used you as a punching bag, and you are the last person that I would ever…." She paused briefly to wipe the streams from her eyes, "I am so sorry Jane. And I hope some day you will be able to find it in your heart to forgive me…"

I nodded my head, my jaw still visibly clenched, and pivoted back to the front door. "Come inside the house if you want to finish this conversation. We don't need to be doing this on my parent's stoop."

I felt the air shifting around my body, allowing me to know that she was only a few feet behind, trailing my sluggish form through the threshold.