Um...its been a long while. Sorry.
Chapter 14
Jane had never once, in all the time she had known her, heard such rage in Maura's voice. Her hand rose slowly of its own accord to present the photo album to the angry woman. Maura took it silently.
Clearing her throat Megan turned to the male detectives.
"That evidence really needs to be taken down to the Lab." she supplied, feeling that the two women needed space.
Three heads nodded assent.
"I'll walk it down with you." Frankie said.
"And we have…paperwork to file." said Korsak, looking to Frost. The younger detective nodded silently.
They were all eager to escape the tension it seemed. Re-packing the items into the doctor's bag, they scrambled hurriedly to leave the room.
Maura felt a stab of hurt by how quickly they seemed to want to get away from her. She brushed it aside, focusing her attention on the book in her hand and ignoring their departure.
Jane waited until the door had closed behind them before turning to face the honey blonde. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it as Maura spoke first.
"You should leave too Jane." she said stiffly.
"Maur, come on..."
"I just…I need a moment alone."
"Maur…" the brunette said uncertainly, taking a step forward and placing a hand on the small of the doctors back.
"Please Jane, just go!" She snapped, moving away from the contact.
"I'm not leaving you like this."
Maura wheeled around, her eyes flashing.
"Fine, then I'll leave."
Korsak looked up from his desk in Homicide as Maura stalked out of BRIC and straight out of the door. She was followed a few seconds later by Jane, concern evident in her demeanour.
He raised a questioning eyebrow at the female detective.
She held up both hands in a look of bewilderment.
"What happened?" Frost asked as Jane moved to sit dejectedly at her desk.
"She said she needed some time alone."
The brunette pulled an exasperated hand through her hair, ignoring the snagging caused by the bandaging. She growled in frustration, desperate to know what Maura was thinking and how she was feeling.
"Wait…does she still have the picture book?" said Korsak.
She sighed, nodding slowly.
He stood up.
"You let her leave with it?! Have you lost your mind? Those pictures are evidence in a series of murders. Have you forgotten the chain of custody? Not to mention that she just happens to be the killer's sister. IA will have a field day with that, you could lose your badge."
Korsak was a good man and one hell of a cop, but he could be a pain sometimes.
"What? Korsak, Maura's not going to tamper with the evidence!" she challenged.
"That's not what I'm saying, but you gotta think about how it's going to look when it all comes out, there's no way this case is not going to attract attention, especially after everything with Paddy Doyle last year."
"I don't care how it looks!" she snapped, frustrated. "She's going through hell right now…she just needs some time to process." The last part she said with more certainty than she felt. Glaring at her old partner, she spoke with conviction."…and Korsak, to be clear, I love Maura a hell of a lot more than I love my badge! And, I'd do jail time for her if it came to it."
"Technically the package was delivered to Dr Isles." Frost mediated. "No-one could argue that she didn't have reason to inspect its contents!"
Jane gave him a grateful nod, he always had her back.
Sitting in her office with the doors locked and the blinds drawn, Maura scrutinised each picture in the tiny photo album. She had seen some gruesome images in her line of work, but these were right up there with the most hideous. This was clearly the work of a seriously deranged mind. Each victim had been stabbed viciously numerous times and mirroring the crime scene photo from the Matthew Doyle case, a pair of scissors had been left in their right shoulder. It was truly unsettling to know that the woman who had committed such monstrous acts of violence, had been her twin.
A conversation from the past replayed in her head, one that she had started obsessing over again in light of the current situation.
"I'm not afraid of you." She had said assertively.
"Because you're like me." had been his reply.
Those fears had been assuaged at the time by Jane. But what about now? Would the detective still think that the simile was unfounded, that Maura was incapable of becoming a monster? Did Maura herself honestly believe that she could avoid the sinister nature, locked in her DNA? She had always felt like an outsider, on the periphery of society. Was there some stressor waiting somewhere in her future that would unlock murderous tendencies in her? Her biological family were criminals, murderers, the sister that shared her complete genetic makeup was a prolific serial killer.
Putting aside the book, she covered her face with her hands and broke down. She wept for each of the lives taken by her sister. She wept for siblings she would never know. She wept for her own uncertain future.
Several hours later, Jane knocked tentatively on the door.
"Maura…open the door please."
Sitting up, the doctor looked around the room disorientated. She had fallen asleep on the couch, emotionally exhausted. Feeling slightly embarrassed, she tried to smooth out her dishevelled appearance before opening the door.
The detective stood in the doorway, concern etched into her face.
"Hey." She said uncertainly.
"Hi." Maura replied with equal uncertainty.
"So I made dinner." Jane said, holding up a couple of takeaway bags. "And when I say 'made', I mean Ma made it and packed it up for us to reheat at my place."
Maura smiled.
The brunette continued shyly. "I mean, you know if…um… you wanted to stay at my place tonight?!"
"That would be lovely." Maura said quietly. "I just need to lock up here, can I meet you up in the foyer?"
"Sure." Jane said turning to leave.
"Jane, I'm so sorry about…"
"Already forgotten." The detective said softly, though they both knew that the matter was far from resolved.
Walking down the corridor to the elevator, Jane heaved a sigh of relief. She hadn't been sure what Maura's reaction was going to be. The blonde had been locked away in her office for hours. Nobody had wanted to disturb her. Jane had driven everyone crazy by pacing the floor in homicide trying to decide what to do. Eventually it had become too much and she reasoned that Maura had had enough space. Even so, she had paced a little outside the door before knocking. She hoped that once they were away from the station, in a more personal setting, that the doctor would open up a little.
Back in her office, Maura took the little green book and locked it away in her top drawer. She knew she should surrender it to Evidence, but she was not quite ready to let it go. It was late already, one more day was not going to make a difference, the detectives already had more than enough evidence to continue their investigation. As she slid the drawer shut, the handwritten letter she had stored in there earlier, caught her eye. Succinctly, it had read: 'Maura, I'm truly sorry. Paddy'
As Maura's thoughts drifted to her biological father, in his lonely cell, he too was thinking about her.
Paddy knew that his package would surely have been opened by now. He had wanted more than anything to protect her from his mistakes, but fate it seemed would not allow him that. He was so proud of Maura, the only one of his children to have avoided the Doyle family criminal legacy. Her demeanour was much closer to that of her mother, Hope, the love of his life. He often wondered how Margo could have turned out so differently. A part of him knew the answer.
He'd had both his girls adopted at birth into good, wealthy families. Throughout the years he kept a close eye on them. Using his connections he had even managed to get maintenance work in their schools a few times a year so he could check in on them and catch the odd academic ceremony or prom here and there.
One fateful year he had been carrying out a boiler repair in Margo's high school. She was 15.
It was nearly an hour after the last school bell had sounded. Patrick Doyle was rounding the corner in one of the corridors when he came upon a scene that both shocked and enraged him. His daughter Margo was pinned up against the wall by a tall stocky boy in a letterman jacket. Her book bag lay at her feet, its contents strewn across the floor. Two other teenagers, a boy and a girl were watching the encounter with unmasked amusement.
The honey blonde squirmed, tears streaming down her face.
"Please, let me go Andrew."
"Not so clever now, are you?!" Letterman said, jabbing his fist into Margo's side. She whimpered.
The mob boss saw red. Reaching for his gun, and cursing the fact that it was locked away safely in his car, he closed in on the teenagers.
"What the hell?!" he raged in his thick Irish accent.
Andrew turned to face the older man in the janitor jumpsuit.
He grinned arrogantly.
"Get lost pops! This is none of your business."
Astute hazel eyes caught sight of a makeshift weapon amongst the emptied contents of his daughter's school bag, he whipped his hand down to retrieve it.
In an agile display of barely controlled aggression, he overpowered the young athlete and shoved him roughly against the wall. The other kids ran off, leaving a shocked Margo as the only witness to the events that followed.
Pressing the silver steel of Margo's artroom scissors to her tormentor's neck, Paddy growled at him in a menacing voice.
"You, or any of your friends, dare to lay a finger on my daughter again and I will cut your fucking throat and that of every single member of your family, you hear me?" he snarled.
Fear and shock prevented the youth from responding.
Pressing the scissors harder against the delicate skin, Paddy repeated his question.
"I said 'did you hear me?'"
The teenager nodded, his face white with terror. The smell of urine drew attention to the fact that the boy had lost control of his bladder. As the warm liquid seeped down his pants, Margo stared on, trying to make sense of it all.
"You better make sure that not a single other person at this school so much as looks at her funny, because if they do, I'm holding you personally responsible!" In punctuation he jammed the scissors into the boy's shoulder. Not deep enough to cause any real damage, but enough to show how serious he was. The boy fainted, sinking down into the puddle of his own pee. Paddy turned to Margo, she was still staring, the look on her face, a mixture of awe and something he could not quite place…
As they opened the door to her apartment, Jane was reminded of its ransacked condition. Looking to the honey blonde she covered her embarrassment with a joke.
"Maura, did you rob me last night when I was out of it?"
"What? No of course not. It was like this when I got here."
Jane chuckled.
"I was kidding. Would you like to grab a shower? And I'll tidy up a little and get dinner on."
"That would be great. Thank you Jane."
"No problem."
On impulse, the brunette pulled the doctor into a comforting hug and placed a kiss on her temple.
"Don't worry Maura, it will all be okay." It was a ridiculous thing to say, something that a mother would say to comfort a child. Jane couldn't possibly hold any precognitive knowledge of the future. Yet it was exactly what Maura needed to hear, its true meaning, being that Jane Rizzoli would do everything in her power to try and make this impossible situation better. She wasn't that lonely outcast anymore, and that was because of the woman who now held her so tightly. She relaxed into the embrace.
Jane set to work tidying the apartment as Maura took a long hot shower.
The honey blonde smiled to herself as she washed her hair with Jane's shampoo, the familiar scent affording further warmth. She stood under the shower lost in thought, trying once again to reconcile her feeling of shame and guilt. It was overwhelming. Finally she turned of the water.
Stepping out of the shower and looking into the mirror, she noticed for the first time the shatter lines moving outward from an impact point. She didn't need her impressive IQ to piece together what had happened here. She touched her fingers carefully to the broken glass.
"Oh Jane." She whispered sadly. Again she was reminded of the events that had brought them to now. Another demon returned. Could Jane possibly be sure of her feelings for her when they had been so clouded with grief?! She sighed heavily.
The detective was just setting out the food when Maura returned in clean sweats, fresh from the shower, her cheeks still flushed from the heat. Jane's breath caught. Even in such simple attire, the doctor was stunning. She smiled widely. Maura couldn't help but smile in return.
They ate in a heavy silence, both exhausted by the day's events.
Not much later, they were in bed, wrapped up in each other arms.
In the darkness Maura felt Jane shift slightly.
"Maur?" the word, though simple and affectionate, was loaded heavily, like an emotional grenade.
The doctor stiffened, she just didn't have the energy to discuss the case, or her feelings, or anything to do with the whole crazy nightmare.
"Please Jane, not now." she begged softly.
"Okay then." Jane said simply and kissed the top of her head.
It took a while, but Jane fell asleep first. Just like the previous night Maura lay awake, her mind full.
When Jane awoke in the morning, she was alone in her apartment.
Thanks for reading. :)