Lex is late.
Jane sits on the floor in the hallway, facing the door, phone in her hand. Every once in a while, the front door blurs in Jane's vision, and she wipes angrily at her eyes. But she doesn't register that she's crying.
She has only one thought in her mind. Lex is late.
Lex went to pick up Isla from Daycare almost an hour and a half ago and she isn't back yet.
She hasn't called or texted, and when Jane does so, it goes straight to voicemail.
She'd resolved to go looking for them twenty minutes ago, and she'd been unlocking the second lock when it occurred to her that if her daughter had been taken, maybe the person who had done the taking was now simply just waiting for her.
And so what? she told herself. It's Isla. Your Isla. Go get her!
But new fears kept her paralyzed at the front door.
You're not as strong as you once were.
Dominic was a baker and he got the drop on you.
You don't deserve her if you can't even keep her safe.
So now, she is sitting on the floor, staring at the door, and not acknowledging her tears.
It is thirteen more heavy, agonizing minutes until there is the quick slapping of feet against the floor of the hall outside. Jane struggles to her feet, wiping again at her eyes, and watches the locks slide back one by one.
Lex bursts into the front hall, stroller first, her face red and sweaty, eyes wild. It takes her a moment to focus on Jane, standing there frozen in front of her.
"Mama!" Isla says happily, reaching up from her stroller.
"I'm so sorry!" Lex says at the same time, pushing the stroller the last three feet so that Jane can sink to her knees and pull her daughter into her arms.
Unhurt. She's unhurt, and happy, and still warm in her little, pink coat.
For what seems like months, possibly years, Jane just holds Isla to her chest, smelling her hair and pressing their cheeks together. Lex is still talking, standing above them, gesturing wildly, ostensibly explaining what has caused her to be almost two hours late. Isla does not tire of her mother's unusual show of affection. She giggles and snuggles closer, reveling in the wonderful strangeness.
"...and, Jesus, I'm so sorry, Jane." Lex's voice finally trickles in past the waning adrenaline, and she looks up at the girl, wringing her hand above them.
"What happened?" She asks, and though Lex looks startled (she's most likely just finished explaining just that), she responds without hesitation.
"Our train got stalled," she says. Between 42nd and 34th. And when I tried to text/call you there was no signal. I usually don't get it until about a stop before. I-"
"You were stuck on the train?" Jane asks, cutting off the rest of the explanation and, most likely, seventeen more apologies.
"Yeah. For like an hour. There was like some sort of power outage. It affected all of the red line and a couple of trains on the blue."
Jane stands, Isla still hanging on. "The train got dark!" Isla says excitedly. "Spooky!"
"The lights went out?" Jane asks sharply.
"I held Isla on my lap the entire time," Lex says like she can read Jane's thoughts. We played a counting game, and I used my phone flashlight to read some of the books she has in her stroller."
"Yeah! Where Is My Hat!" Isla contributes. She smiles to herself, putting her head against her mother's shoulder. "Silly bear."
You could have looked on the internet, The voice in her head mocks her. You could have figured it out if you weren't so fucking weak.
You're so fucking weak, Jane.
"Jane-" Lex's voice has gotten quieter, and Jane wonders if her thought process has played across her face. It is possible that Lex has just realized that she was sitting on the floor in front of the door, waiting for it to open.
"Thank you," she says, knowing she sounds both furious and like she's going to cry. "It's fine."
Jane doesn't think Lex has ever heard her sound further from fine.
"Fuck," she swears. "Jane. I'm so-"
"No," Jane interrupts, hoisting Isla up a bit further on her hip. It feels good to have her there. She's not sure if she's ever going to put her daughter down again. "I freaked out, but it's okay. Everything's fine. You didn't do anything wrong."
Who is she trying to convince?
Lex looks a little teary herself. "I...can call the daycare and tell them she won't be there on Wed-"
"Don't," Jane says. She shakes her head. "No, of course not, Lex. Come and get her on Wednesday like usual."
Lex bites her lip, clearly trying to find a way to stay though she knows Jane doesn't want her to. Jane wants to be alone with her daughter. She wants to make funny faces at her until she laughs, and watch Bob the Builder on the couch and eat peanut butter sandwiches and shut all of the curtains.
She wants to watch her daughter sleep and do push-ups until it feels as though her limbs will never work again.
"Lex, it's okay," she says, using her last bit of effort to portray herself as genuine. "It's okay. I'll see you on Wednesday. I'm fine. Okay?"
This attempt seems to do the trick, and Lex turns back toward the door, waving good-bye to Isla before pulling the door shut behind her.
Jane locks all of the locks behind her, and double checks each one. Then she just stands there, looking at the door, until Isla squirms, bored.
Jane wonders how many pull-ups she is capable of completing without needing a rest.
…
The train ride to Boston when Isla was three and a half had seemed endless. Jane can remember sitting on the left side of the train, watching the Hudson River as it rolled by, tiny little whitecaps being tossed about by the wind.
Now, five years later, it seems to go too fast. Across from her, Isla is asleep with her head against the window, mouth slightly open. Next to her, Maura is pretending to read, her hand on Jane's knee.
Or maybe she really is reading. Maura has gotten very good at paying attention without letting on that she is paying attention. Jane has been working hard at letting herself feel comforted by this, and nothing else.
"I don't understand why it's necessary to stop at every single house in Connecticut," Jane says darkly, although she's not looking for a fight as much as she wants Maura to engage with her.
Maura smiles without looking up. "Transportation in Connecticut is fundamentally lacking," she says. There are less collective meeting places, therefore the stations are more frequent."
Jane huffs. "Is that really true?"
"Yes." Maura does look up now, smiling fondly at Isla's sleeping face. "She falls asleep each time. There's something about the movement that soothes her."
"I wish it would soothe me," Jane mutters.
Maura takes her hand. "I can do the closing without you," she says gently. "There's no need for you to be there."
Jane shakes her head. "It's been too long," she says. "I've been saying I'd come back for years."
Maura doesn't dispute this, but she brings Jane's hand to her lips for a quick kiss and then looks back down at her book.
"I know you're not doing this entirely for me," she says casually, "but if there is a part of you, at any moment, that wants to turn back, please don't stop yourself."
Jane smiles at the scenery sliding by the window. She squeezes Maura's hand but doesn't answer. It's been almost two years since Maura moved to New York permanently and just over nine months since she stopped leasing her own apartment a couple of blocks away. When Jane had proposed coming with her to close on the sale of Maura's Cambridge house, Maura worried it was too much too soon.
But Jane was determined. She is determined. Isla enters the 3rd grade in the fall, and each year brings new social challenges and expectations. It is not fair to make her daughter confront them without her. And Maura is strong and steady enough for both of them, there is no denying that, but Jane knows that the doctor deserves an entire partner the same way her daughter deserves all of her mothers.
So she is going back to Boston for only the second time in eight years. She is determined not to show fear, weakness, or any sign of cracking at all. Boston's Jane is hard and unbreakable.
She can be Boston's Jane for 48 hours, right?
"Jane." Maura's voice is soft. The doctor's lips pressed lightly against her shoulder. "Nothing you are now is less than it was before. I hope you know that."
She wasn't reading, then.
Jane lets her own head rest on top of Maura's. She looks over at Isla, still sleeping.
"I want her to know that her mothers are brave," she says softly. "I want her to know that there's nothing in the entire world I wouldn't-"
"She knows that, Jane," Maura says.
"I want you to know it too," Jane says, and when she pulls away to look at the other woman, she can see that her comment has been a surprise.
"I-"
"Remember the first night?"
Maura smiles reflexively. "Vividly," she says with a chuckle.
Jane feels her cheeks get a little warm, but she rolls her eyes and pushes on."In the hallway," she says, "on the stairs, I told you I wanted to taste you. Remember? I told you I dreamt of being with you in every way possible."
Jane watches Maura's eyes dart toward Isla before she runs her finger along the collar of Jane's shirt.
"I remember," she says quietly. "We didn't make it upstairs."
"Right," Jane says, nodding. "That's what I'm talking about. I lifted you up on to the railing on the first landing. I had you right there."
Maura shifts a little in her seat, biting her lip slightly. "I'm not sure what you're trying to do," she says, smiling shyly.
Jane laughs, catching Maura's hand as it traces just underneath her shirt collar. "Do you remember how it felt?" she asks, hurrying on when Maura opens her mouth to answer. "Not that, Dr. Dirtymind. The railing. Do you remember how it felt to up there on the railing, knowing that if I let you go, you'd fall backward about ten feet to the uneven ground?"
Maura's expression clears, and Jane watches her focus a little.
"What I remember," Jane says, "above almost everything else, was that you didn't hesitate. You just, let me lift you up. You...you didn't say it was dangerous or tell me to wait a little longer. You just put your hands on my shoulders and...let yourself be picked up."
Maura's expression has softened from arousal into affection. "You think you are not still the person I trust most in the world?"
Jane shakes her head. "You turned your world upside down for me."
Maura laughs a genuine, beautiful thing that is loud enough to make Isla stir in the seat across from them.
"My world was upside down without you, love," she says, turning to smile at Isla. "Without both of you."
"Are we in Boston yet?" Isla asks, looking out the window. "What was funny?"
"Your mama," Maura says. "And we're just about there. We just came out of Connecticut."
Isla rolls her eyes, looking just like Jane.
"Connecticut takes forever," she says.
…
…
She charts the days by Isla's baths. By how many times she asks if Lex is coming soon. By how low of a supply of pull-ups and Pedialyte is in the cabinet.
Isla delights in lying on her back while she goes up and down.
She tracks the days by how many push-ups she can do without her muscles giving out. After a while she can do enough that Isla falls asleep, splayed across her back like a princess across the saddle of a horse.
They are low on supplies and she doesn't go out. She doesn't call Lex.
She isn't strong enough yet.
Her phone is off. It sits on the dresser in her bedroom like a silent, threatening monster. She knows that if she turns it on, it will swallow her whole with its neediness.
They run out of milk, and then they run out of juice, and her beautiful little girl does not complain. She takes water without complaint and climbs onto the couch to watch Backyardigans with her stuffed snowman, and everything they need in the entire world is right here in these four rooms.
She doesn't eat.
The world narrows in on her bit by bit. She knows logically that she is starving herself.
She does not yet deserve food. She is not strong enough yet to protect them both, and so she will only protect Isla.
Isla is the only thing that matters.
They run out of bread and pasta. The rice is low, and Isla grumbles about stale crackers and wonders aloud where the apples are.
"Lex comin?" she asks from her mother's back.
Jane can do push-ups now for over an hour. The definition of her biceps doesn't disappear even in relaxation. This is good. This is progress.
When he comes, she'll be ready.
"Maybe tomorrow," she says.
Not tomorrow. This is the first lie she is conscious of telling her child. In her memory, Isla was not only late, not simply held for a bit of time on a stalled train.
In Jane's mind, Dominic was calling for her, coming for her. He was following her, and Jane was paralyzed by weakness and fear.
Until she knows - truly knows - that she will act...Isla will not leave her sight again.
She doesn't know how many days have gone by when Lex shows up in her kitchen. The rice is gone, the peanut butter has less than a day.
Lex stares at her, wide eyed, with a look that Jane recognizes vaguely as horror.
"Jane," she says, but then words seems to fail her. "fuck," she says under her breath.
Jane thinks she can feel all of the muscles in her stomach.
"I won't let him take her," she hears herself say. "He can't have her."
Lex is holding a bag full of groceries, a fluffy bear head pokes out the side.
Jane frowns at it. "He...raped me," she says.
Lex flinches. "Jesus," she says. "Where's Isla?"
Sleeping. Jane clenches her fists. "Every day. Every night. He made me tell him it felt good. He told me we were going to have a son. He said-"
"Jane! Where is Isla?"
Jane steps backward. She blinks, trying to focus. "She's here with me, and she's safe."
"Isla?" Lex yells. "Isla! Where are you?"
from the couch where Jane left Isla sleeping, her drowsy little voice comes.
"Lexi?"
And Lex is crying. Dropping the grocery bags and crying. She skirts Jane like she's a wild animal and runs to the couch, scooping Isla into her arms and crying into her hair.
"Lex sad?" Isla asks, sounding confused. "Lex upset?"
"It's okay," Lex says thickly. "I just thought...I'm okay. We're okay. Jesus. It's okay."
Jane sits where she is. Her legs all of a sudden, will not hold her.
Fucking weak.
…
Frost is there to meet them as they get off the train, and when he sees Jane with them, his face mouth falls open in shock.
Jane snorts, and Isla runs to hug him, giggling.
"You look like a fish, Uncle Frost!" she says, half hesitating to see if he's game, before embracing him in a hug that looks a little painful.
"I was not expecting this!" he says, clearly still recovering. "Hey, Jane. It is...good to see you...here."
Jane thinks she knows what his issue is. She can feel it too. "And weird, right?"
"Super weird." he pauses for a second and then holds out his hand for a shake. His grin widens when she takes it.
"Super good, too," he continues. "It's great to see you. You look good. The new job is going okay?"
"I feel pretty good," she says honestly. "Yeah, it's...it's really good, actually."
Not long after Maura began her work as Medical Examiner for the precinct on 33rd St, Olivia had reached out to Jane to offer her a position in Cold Cases. It isn't directly in the action (Jane doesn't think she could handle it now,)but it's close to it, and changing and even rewarding at times.
She is a detective again. A two-week-old rookie with a paycheck that does not feel like anything but hard work.
"You get hazed?" Frost asks as they head out to his car.
Jane laughs. "Not like we hazed you, Frost."
It is easy there, with him, for the moment. The air outside of the station smells distinctly different than New York City air. It takes Jane a second to realize that she has categorized it as foreign, as a smell that is not one that signifies home. But the realization does not come with any secondary spasm of terror. How can it, when Maura takes Jane's hand just before she gets into the front seat of Frost's car, squeezing briefly.
"I…" Frost glances at Jane as she and Isla settle into the back seat. "I am pretty sure that Frankie and Angela are going to be there."
Jane sees Maura's hands still in her lap. "Why?"
"You know she'll take any chance at all to see her favorite grandbaby."
"I'm the only grandbaby!" Isla pipes up.
"Still," Frost says with a fleeting smile. "I…" another glance at Jane. "Just wanted to give you a heads up."
Jane knows that if she asks him, Frost will drop her off anywhere she wants in order to avoid the double stress test that is her old home and her possibly overbearing mother.
"Thanks," Jane says, grinning as Isla bounces in the seat next to her.
"Nona's gonna be so excited to see us, isn't she mama."
Jane grins at her daughter. "You better believe it."