Please see Ch 1, 5 & 9 for disclaimers… enough disclaimers that they almost need their own chapter…
Days kept turning over to night without an answer to the clusters of illness and intermittent mortality. Autopsy findings were consistent but not indicative and Maura was frustrated with feeling incompetent.
Finished with the latest casualty she jotted a few notes down before notifying everyone that she was stepping out. She found her way to her favorite boulder, sitting on her journal to protect her legs from the blistering rock.
This place was her ritual, a part of her routine that brought her peace.
Allowing her mind to fold inward she closed her eyes in reflection. She had always held an image of herself as a woman of great sagacity. Yet here she was after running thousands of miles fueled by convictions that were proving foolish at best and catastrophic at worst.
That first night she'd had sex with Ian was the initial hint that coming here was not the epiphany she'd thought it to be. Even with the taste of him on her lips and the feel him buried inside her, she did not regain her sense of completion.
That reality shook her very core. Ian was not just supposed to be sex. Ian was supposed to be the definitive embodiment love and passion for Maura. When her orgasm had left her empty and disjointed she'd run from his sleeping form, and come here to pull herself back together.
She'd sat on the cool rock that night and welcomed the slight punishing chill. Worn out and broken down, she was finally too exhausted to muster any anger as the continual loop of memories fluttered through her mind. Lacking the passion and animosity to fuel her sense of justice, she realized she was never going to escape.
There wasn't a way to erase years of her life. Maura had lived that life, it was always going to be a part of her and she had better accept it or go mad from futility. And so she'd come to a sense of amity with herself, the peace allowing the memories to morph into reflection and she embraced them.
Gradually the people she left behind incorporated into her thoughts as she went about her day. She'd see groups of women gathered and talking, children at their feet and she knew that Angela would have been there with them fussing over the babies. A visit from the regional director and watching him argue with Ian reminded her of Korsak and Frost.
Not surprisingly, Jane was just everywhere, a specter hovering over her shoulder in autopsy, encouraging her to keep looking, firing off questions, in full Detective Rizzoli mode. She was a welcome sentinel, supporting and driving Maura as she dealt with the futility of an underfunded, poorly equipped hunt for an intangible murderer. But Jane was more than Detective Rizzoli. Jane also existed as Best Friend Jane and this Jane was an entirely different being, most alive when Maura was at her most vulnerable.
Like now, as she sat in her favorite place for reflection, Best Friend Jane swirled through her, forever a barrage of moments and a visceral taste on her tongue. Maura's life was so closely intertwined with her that separating who she was without Jane was impossible. Deciphering what this meant for her future was agonizing.
When the grief threatened to overwhelm her she'd seek out Ian. During the day they were attuned colleagues, consulting easily as they pushed through the work or occasional lovers on the nights she couldn't face the long hours alone.
The loneliness was an unanticipated complication. It was troublesome; she hadn't anticipated she'd feel so isolated. Her coworkers were cordial and respectful but she'd come to the realization that unlike Boston there was no affinity between them.
Maura closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting the sun hit her face. Perhaps it was her usual social awkwardness. Or maybe there was loyalty to Sam. Either way the social subtly of how to overcome it eluded her.
If Jane was here, she would have known how to fold her into the group. Jane would have known what to say to get everyone talking to, rather than around her. Jane would have known to squeeze her hand briefly if she felt overwhelmed or started to ramble.
Except, Maura let go a sigh, Jane wasn't here and Ian seemed to assume as long as she was beside him she was included. She couldn't remember if it was this way or not before. Maybe it was and she didn't notice it, didn't expect anything other than to be included in a peripheral fashion.
Jane hadn't tolerated that. No she'd forcibly goaded and pushed Maura until she went home at night worried about Vince's health and Barry's aversion to death, Frankie's fragile self esteem or Angela's panic about becoming obsolete in life. Personal involvement with a complex network of people whose connections to her had altered her to the point where being on the outside looking in just left her miserable.
Really there was just no help for it, the answer to this equation unavoidable. She shifted and tugged the journal out from under her legs and pulled the pen from behind her ear, jotting down an unquestionable conclusion with a sigh before placing the book to the side.
It was earlier than usual for Maura to be out here thinking and without the fading evening light she had to shift to the right to block the sight of the leveled and naked earth. It was an ugly blight on the landscape and strip mining for gold upset her. These people had nothing and what little they could lay claim to was often taken in the most violent way, leaving ruin behind.
Of course this would have been one of those things Jane would have picked a debate over just to incite her.
Right now Jane would have been sitting here bumping their shoulders together and saying something about how at least the mining provided jobs. And when Maura pointed out that they hardly hired local labor for anything but the most dangerous tasks, Jane would have said that at least that was one more option than they'd had before.
Maura would have countered with how it was hardly an option if you were displaced from your home with no place to go and your home was stripped of everything it used to provide. Back and forth until eventually Jane would burst into laughter at how rigid and formal Maura had gotten, conceding the argument and breaking the tension until they were both chuckling.
Maura could even imagine Jane leaning against her shoulder, allowing the rambling discourse on the various irreversible environmental impacts and chemical biohazards. Pretending to barely endure Maura's lecture while secretly absorbing every bit of knowledge, chemical substructures of organic and inorganic compounds included.
A breath later, Maura was bolting back to the tents. Jane Rizzoli was about to be a hero in Africa and she didn't even know it.