Prometheus – Chapter 37
The road disappeared beneath her in blurring white lines, contrast against the black of the road and the dark of the night. Her car's headlights cast an almost foreign glow on nearby landmarks; animated in mere moments by the vehicles that sped passed them, before disappearing into the blackness.
'Maura.'
Anna's voice echoed in her ears, and Maura's grip tightened on the steering wheel as the remnants of their last conversation played out in time with the white stripes that slipped in an even visual staccato under her wheels.
'They got a hit on the prints. We have a name'
'-Ramsey's been killed'
'Shit, Maura. Go.'
'Anna-'
'Go now. It's still an hours' drive even to get there- I'm heading to the precinct now, I'll let you know if it's something- if there's something…'
Pulling up to the security gates Maura's attention was immediately drawn to the flickering blue and red glow beyond the first line of brick buildings. Illuminated by her headlights, the beginnings of another snowfall flittered down to her windscreen, and she brushed them away a quick swipe of the wipers as she searched through her bag for her access pass.
The guard who ushered her through the security booth was one she knew; an older man with thinning hair and a lifetime of worry creased into his brow. The knowing nod he curtly gave her spoke to the same sense of anxiety building across her shoulders, and she rolled her car forward beyond the gates, turning into the carpark where the lights of a back-lit ambulance spilled onto the bitumen.
The doctor chose a parking spot far enough away from the other vehicles to escape the immediate attention of the people moving in and out of the building. Cutting off the ignition she paused a moment, fingers lightly resting on the dashboard, watching as more snowflakes drifted quietly past her window.
Maura closed her eyes.
Ramsey is dead.
The clouds hung low in a misty soup that muted the sound of Maura's heels as she approached the ambulance. She could hear the crackling of voices on the emergency response radio, and like a native language unheard for years she found herself instantly drawn to it; realising only then how little time had passed for so much to change.
So much that she felt like a different person, now.
Leaning against the side of the vehicle was a silhouette Maura recognised to be Sergeant Korsak, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, head down. In the dim light, the night itself seemed to be pressing down on his shoulders, and Maura found herself unconsciously slowing, a part of her guilty for seeing him appear so defeated.
Suddenly aware of the scrutiny the Sergeant looked up and immediately straightened, pushing himself off the ambulance and closing the distance between them.
"Maura." His gruff voice sounded softer than she ever remembered hearing it, and even amongst the shadows the doctor could see the way his brow knotted, tightly. "You didn't need to come back."
"Of course I did." She said, offering him a small smile. Something unspoken shifted between them then, and at Korsak's faint nod Maura's smile fell away and she gestured with her chin toward the empty ambulance. "What happened?" She asked, pretending the reality of Ramsey's death wasn't still prickling her skin like a livewire.
Korsak's exhale came in a billowing puff of steam. "They don't know yet." He said, lifting a hand to brush a few flecks of snow from his collar. "The Medical Examiner arrived just under an hour ago."
Maura nodded. "Who found her?" She asked, pulling her coat tighter around her body. The cold was settling into her bones, wisps of winter breeze tickling her neck and jaw.
"One of the guards." Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, Korsak opened his mouth to say something more, then closed it again. Maura watched him carefully as finally, his hand dropped back to his side and he sighed a second time. "Maura, I-" he stopped, eyes fixed on the road just behind her. Straight away Maura stepped forward, and placed a hand against his upper arm.
"I'm alright." She assured him. When he didn't immediately respond, she squeezed his bicep gently. "Vince, I'm alright."
The Sergeant looked at her, and the light from the lamp posts that fell into his eyes shined like regret.
"It should never have happened." He said quietly, "I should have known."
Maura only shook her head, careful of the echoes of Ramsey's words still ringing in her ears.
"Listen." She began, "There is a lot about this place I don't know, and don't understand." Pressing her lips together the doctor pulled a deep, icy breath into her lungs. "But there are also things here that no matter how much knowledge or understanding, they will always find a way through." She tilted her head, regarding him gently, as she added, "-and what happened yesterday I truly believe you could not have known."
After a moments silence, Korsak straightened, and set his jaw. "That may be so." He said, "But it's not good enough. Not any more-" He added, after a beat. "I'll find out how." Searching her face he pulled on the hem of his jacket. "Everyone involved, I'll find out."
Maura nodded, his sincerity diffusing into her bones. "I know you will."
The doors to the building suddenly swung open and a figure marched out, profile silhouetted by the street lamps followed by the clatter of a gurney, its occupant shrouded in a hospital regulation sheet. Maura couldn't help but flinch at the sight.
"Two visits in two days." A voice sounded, curtly, over Korsak's shoulder. Maura stepped to the side to be greeted by piercing eyes, a dark bob cut sharply along a fiercer jawline, deep burgundy lipstick seeming almost black in the shadows. Beneath her sleek winter coat Maura could make out the hem of a black pencil skirt, and a pair of knee-high Salvatore Ferragamo boots.
Her presence was in absolute contrast to the prison; and Maura couldn't help but imagining the woman had stepped right out of La Bernadin, directly onto the pavement in front of her.
"So-" She looked between Maura and Sergeant Korsak, impatiently. "-who do I need to brief?"
Spurred into action Muara held out her hand in greeting.
"Doctor Maura Isles. I am the head of the infirmary." She said.
Receiving an arched and unimpressed eyebrow at the gesture, Maura watched the woman reach instead inside her pocket and pull out a small white card that she promptly deposited in Maura's outstretched fingers.
"Chief Medical Examiner Astrid Coulson." She said, curtly. "And this disaster of yours took me away from a Broadway show I very much would have preferred to see."
Stunned into silence, Maura chanced a look at Korsak, who had his head bowed low and had taken a step away from them.
Traitor.
"I... apologise you needed to come so far out of your way." Maura responded, if a little limply, as she fingered the business card and slipped it into her own pocket.
Coulson narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.
"Premiere of No Mans Land. Which means I have missed a date with not just one, but two knights. Now-" She continued before Maura had a chance to respond, "Rather than continue to waste each other's time, your dead prisoner."
Nodding, Maura glanced at the ambulance. "Do you have a cause of death?" She asked.
With a veritable air of nonchalance, the ME reached into her pockets and pulled out a pair of full-length gloves. "Looks like heart failure." She said, and slid the gloves onto her hands, interlacing her fingers to push them into the proper shape. "But I won't know until I get her on a table."
Maura frowned, chewing on the words before she finally asked them.
"Did you look for any evidence of-"
"-Foul play?" Coulson interrupted, then scoffed at Maura's look of surprise. "Please, does this look like my first rodeo to you, Doctor Isles? I'm not sure if you noticed but we're in a prison." At that Maura visibly bristled, causing the ME to pause in the middle of tying the belt around her jacket, the distinct shape of a smirk creeping onto her face. "Believe me," She said, her tone certainly belying no reaction. "If I'd seen anything, I would have told you. However, again-"
"-You won't know until you get her on the table, I understand." Maura's clipped response offered her a small amount of satisfaction when that same eyebrow twitched upward again, and it bolstered the doctor enough to dare some retaliation of her own. "Here-" She said, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a small clasp of business cards and a pen. Scribbling a small note on the back of one card, she held it out in Coulson's direction. "I haven't had new ones printed yet, but the number is the same."
The ME eyed the card suspiciously, but this time, and with a wry smile of her own, Maura lifted her head a little higher.
"Oh, you can also take that down to Amir at The Cort. The Isles box is rarely occupied this time of year. The note on the back will be enough to get you in."
Coulson's eyes narrowed, and even in the low light Maura could tell she was being studied long seconds. Finally, a tiny, barely-there smile appeared on the woman's lips and she nodded, imperceptibly.
"I'll be in touch, Isles." She said, stepping past her toward the parking lot and throwing one last barb over her shoulder. "Keep your girls out of trouble, Sergeant."
"ME Coulson is… a character." Korsak leaned against the door frame to Maura's office, his feet crossed at the ankles.
"She is certainly very confident." Maura responded diplomatically, pulling out the incident report file and leafing through it absently to find a blank template.
"Still-" Korsak pushed himself upright and stepped inside. "-you handled yourself better than anyone else I've seen." Pausing for a moment, he added - "I don't know when that's going to stop surprising me."
Maura chuckled, a part of her grateful for the short moment of levity, and she shook her head. "I am not sure that dropping the family name could be considered 'handling myself'."
"Well, it seemed to work."
She offered Korsak a small smile. "We'll see."
Halting her search a moment, Maura sighed and glanced back up at the Sergeant, rubbing a forefinger along the bridge of her nose.
"Vince," She began, fingertips toying with the fraying edge of the file in her hand. "Ramsey said something to me, this afternoon…" Maura caught his eye and shook her head. "-I am struggling to get it out of my mind."
"Louise Ramsey always had a colourful vocabulary." Korsak offered, the knot between his eyebrows deepening. "I wouldn't pay it too much mind."
"No, this was-" Maura searched the ceiling, struggling to articulate the way Ramsey's words had left her feeling. "It was different. She-"
Suddenly, the peeling sound of a patient alarm filled the air and her door burst open, revealing Susie Chang, red-faced and eyes wide with panic.
"It's Rizzoli!" She cried, breathless. "Something's wrong-"
Immediately the file dropped from her hands, papers scattering to the floor as Maura leapt from her chair, sweeping past the young orderly in barely seconds and leaving Korsak in her wake.
She ran, swallowing down a wave of panic when the corridor seemed to elongate, stretching out away from her. She could hear Susie's feet behind her, hear the rattle of the medical equipment as it slid across the floor, but all she could pay attention to was the hammering staccato of no, no, no against her ribcage.
No.
And
Please.
The sight that greeted Maura through the glass was enough to turn her blood cold; the gurney shaking with the force of Jane's convulsions, vomit spilling from her mouth and down her cheek, breaths erratic and face twisted in pain. Blood stained the sheets where her hands gripped into tight fists.
"Jesus.." She hissed, snagging the security tag around her neck so tightly it pulled at her collar. "Shit-"
Slamming the card against the reader Maura's mind whirled with an array of why and what and how, but the trauma surgeon in her swept them aside as she pushed open the door and quickly crossed to the bed, trying to ignore the way the rattle of the gurney and the choked sounds of pitiful whimpering clamped a vice around her heart.
"Jane?" Pulling on a pair of gloves, the doctor grabbed a handful of tissues and advanced to the bed, placing her hands on either side of Jane's face. "Jane?" She tried again. Pressing more firmly into sunken cheeks.
Jane's face was deathly pale, blue tinging the corners of her mouth, and her eyes…. Her eyes…
No…
White-hot anger swelled from deep within Maura, and she whirled around to where the young orderly was standing behind her in the room, fingers clenched around the handles of the incident trolley.
"Who the hell has been in here!?" She demanded, "Who was it? Was it him? Was it Jameson?"
Susie only blinked, confusion written on her face.
"I- It wasn't..-" She stammered. "I don't think-"
Another strangled noise came from behind her and Maura turned quickly back around, her rage diffusing instantly into dread at the terror written across Jane's face, as more vomit spilled out of her mouth.
No Jane….
"She's choking." She said. "Jane…Shit. I don't even know what they've given her…" Maura immediately moved to release the restraint around Jane's right ankle. "Susie -wait outside."
"-But-"
"She's choking!" Maura repeated, shifting back toward the head of the bed. Jane's eyes were wide and unfocused, movements were becoming more and more erratic… her breaths more and more obstructed. Maura shot the orderly one last look of desperation. "I need her out of restraints now."
Apprehension and… something else flashed across Susie's face and she nodded, stepping backwards to the door. Maura had only enough time to register the look of – understanding? Suspicion? Recognition? Before she turned back around, hands moving swiftly over Jane's body, the sound of the security door re-engaging the only sign she was alone.
"Okay Jane, I'm going to need you to trust me again." She said, heart in her mouth as her fingers shifted down to the restraint by the woman's right wrist, lowering her head to Jane's ear. "Please, please trust me."
Please…
She released the buckle in one move, using the momentum to roll Jane carefully away onto her left side barely in time for her to throw up again, watery bile pooling on the concrete. Maura braced her right hand on Jane's hip, rubbing firmly backwards and forwards with other hand along the line of her spine between her shoulder blades, as coughs racked the woman's body and she struggled for air.
"Breathe, Jane…" She pleaded, leaning closer. "Breathe."
Please…
After agonising seconds, a single, unobstructed breath was pulled in, then out of Jane's lungs, followed by another. Relief flooded Maura and she slipped her left hand into Jane's hair, her right shifting upward to rest lightly on Jane's ribcage. Her fingers curled protectively around the other woman's side as wave after wave of nausea rolled through her body… until all that was left were occasional whimpers and flinches at things unknown and unseen.
"That's it," She murmured softly, combing her left hand through curls damp with sweat.
It seemed like an eternity before Maura began to feel a steady rise and fall under her palm, and she held herself quiet and calm until her own breaths matched the same rhythm and the knot in her stomach began to slowly uncoil.
The voice that told her to step away; to leave the ward, regain control and composure and explain this… investigate it, solve it… just simply wasn't loud enough to obey. Maura simply brushed her lips gently over the skin of Jane's nape, closing her eyes and lingering a moment, before shifting away to rest her forehead on the pillow.
She barely heard the movement, before the ghost of fingertips skated across the back of where Maura's hand rested above Jane's hip, then fell away. The touch came so unexpectedly the doctor was unprepared for the way it ignited all the way along her arm, straight to all the empty spaces in her chest, until all she could do was bite down on her lower lip as hot tears stung the back of her eyes.
"I'm here," She whispered into the silence, her nails drifting along Jane's scalp before combing through her hair again. "I'm here."
"Maura, we have to release him." The words reached her like those of a life sentence. "I'm sorry."
In her hands, the clipboard she was holding turned icy cold.
Of all the outcomes, this was not the one she had envisaged.
"I… don't understand." She cursed the waver in her voice, schooling herself before continuing. "The tests are not conclusive."
"Our resources are not infinite, Dr Isles. The tests are conclusive… enough."
"The episode two days ago still hasn't been resolved. It isn't right."
"The decision is made."
She dared a step toward him. "This is irresponsible, sir. He doesn't have family, he has been deployed for five years, his support network-"
"Veteran affairs is aware of his case. They will support him."
"Veteran affairs is more under-resourced than we are!" She snapped, the edges of the clipboard digging angry red lines into her palm as she gripped it tightly to her chest. "You knowthis, James."
The man in front of her released a deep sigh. "Maura," His voice was firm, though not unkind. "We've had this conversation before. We are having it again. You are too close."
The sentiment stung, and Maura clenched her jaw.
"He's not ready."
"Tate is so much further than anyone expected." He said.
"So much further…" She repeated, unable to hide the resentment in her tone. "Even if it is not far enough?'
"It's done, Maura." This time his words left no room for argument, his willingness to humour her now worn. Maura felt her stomach sink. "He will be discharged tomorrow."
They both stood in silence, Maura acutely aware of the battle she was losing… had already lost.
"Do I have the opportunity for a final consultation?" She asked, quietly
After a long pause, the man nodded. "Tomorrow." He said. "In the meantime, go home to your fiancé. Have dinner. Relax. You've earned it."
Maura watched him leave, disappointment and…. Something else she couldn't quite place taking root in her stomach.
It's only after the door closed that she recognised it as failure.
Maura swept into the corridor like a hurricane.
The moment she closed the door to the ISO-Ward, Korsak – who had been loitering further down towards the door, approached her carefully, eyes wary.
"Maura-" He began but she cut him off, before he could start with any form of reason, excuse of platitude, so forceful was the adrenaline still coursing through her body.
"I have to go back in there to fix this." Maura told him, then jabbed a finger in the Sergeant's direction "-I want footage." She spun around with her hands on her hips, then back again, pacing the short distance in front of the ISO Ward.
"We'll get it, Maura." He said. "The guys are looking at it right now."
She shook her head, glaring at the floor. "If it was Jameson…I swear, if he was here-"
"He's not." Frost's voice from down the corridor startled her, and Maura turned to see the younger man advancing on them both, snowflakes collected on the winter coat buttoned tightly to his collar, his face creased by a deep frown. "I just phoned him. He's out of town." Shooting a nervous glance through the ward windows he looked back at Maura, his voice low. "How is she?"
"Alive." Maura's response was clipped, and she found herself clenching her jaw to repress a scoff. "Which-" She continued. "-is a hell of a better situation than she was five minutes ago."
Frost's eyes darted across to Korsak, then back again. "What happened?"
In an attempt to curb the edge to her tone, Maura pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head.
"I am not entirely certain." She said. "There is obviously some form of sedative in her system, and that-" She pointed back through the window, then resumed her pacing. "-that was a result of extreme panic caused by some sort of trigger and I swear to God… when I find out who was in there I am likely to report them for medical negligence-"
"Maura-" Korsak started, but was interrupted by a soft voice from behind her.
"It was Agent Dean."
Maura whirled around, eyes wide, to find Susie Chang standing nervously, fingers clasped together and teeth worrying her bottom lip. Over her right shoulder, Maura caught a glimpse of the incident trolley she had been wheeling earlier, haphazardly docked in the main ward area.
"Susie?" Maura felt the word on her tongue but barely heard it, and she took a step toward the young orderly, "What do you mean?"
Chang lowered her head for a moment before straightening, her eyes locking on Maura's.
"He was… he came a couple of hours after you left. He was here, when they found Ramsay. I had to leave, I didn't think he'd-" She trailed off, and an unpleasant thickness gripped Maura's tongue, closing her throat.
"Susie, tell me." the words took effort, but nothing seemed to be as difficult as calming her racing heartbeat. "Please." She breathed.
"It's… it was a technique they use with her." Susie's eyes fixed only a fraction longer on Maura's face before darting away. "I know Alex spoke to you." She added, then let out a caged breath, directing her attention to the wall. "When I started, I was briefed on Rizzoli. That she was a –" The orderly glanced back a Maura, almost apologetically. "-they thought she had information. They thought, if she was…. confused enough… she might remember things she… otherwise wouldn't."
Maura froze, her own voice echoing in her ears.
'Jane, your bed- The sheets- was that a nightmare?'
Fragments of image and sound started to converge in her mind; tiny puzzle pieces pulling together into one, ominous shape.
'Was it… a memory? were you- remembering?'
'Jane... Are you saying no to both because you are not sure?'
Shaking away the ghost of cold fingers curled around hers, Maura drew a long, careful breath in and out of her lungs.
"They used sedation to regress her." She murmured.
Susie nodded. "They did. But… that isn't everything." She, added her jaw working around the words like she was chewing on lead.
Maura frowned, casting a brief look at Frost and Korsak, who were both watching the young orderly with varying degrees of concern.
"What do you mean?" She asked. "What isn't everything?"
Casting a glance to the ceiling, Susie pursed her lips together and pressed on.
"There was a theory that if they could… recreate.. certain circumstances with the right stimuli-"
No.
Maura's eyes widened.
NO.
"The right… stimuli..?" she almost spat the word, causing Susie to flinch. "Am I to understand they were attempting to recreate her experience?"
Chang nodded, slowly. "They believed they could force her to share the information they thought she had."
"That's absurd!" Maura snapped, spinning to face the wall, her back to all three of them. Without thinking her eyes immediately sought out Jane, huddled under her thin hospital blanket, the sight only fuelling the disgust churning in her gut. Swinging around again she threw her arms outward, "There's no evidence that even works!"
For several long, weighted seconds, the only sound in the corridor was the persistent buzzing of its fluorescent tube lighting above their heads. As Maura studied Korsak and Frost more closely, a grim truth slowly dawned on her and her heart plummeted, hands lowering back down to her sides.
"You knew..." She whispered. "This whole time-"
Korsak nodded. "Yes." He said, touching his fingertips together in front of his body. To his left, Maura could see the shadow of a wince creep across Frost's face. "It was a direction from the FBI."
"From the FBI.." Maura repeated, slowly, half to herself. She turned back to Susie, the set of her jaw now causing the muscles in her cheeks to ache. "And Dean was there?"
Susie nodded. "Some of the time." She answered. "But when he wasn't-"
"Wait, don't." Maura held her hand up toward the orderly, palm forward as if it alone could possibly be a barrier to the truth. "-Don't finish that sentence. I know who you are going to say."
"Her psychiatrist believed it was possible to-"
Maura made a sound deep in the back of her throat, silencing her.
"Doctor Nolan suggested this as a genuine course of treatment!?" She hissed.
Perhaps it was her tone, or the use of a name, but all three suddenly stood ram-rod straight, blinking in confusion, which rapidly diffused to reluctant acceptance, until eventually it was Frost who broke the silence, his hands finding their way into his trouser pockets.
"Not treatment, no." He said, quietly, glancing back to Korsak. Before adding, "There was…a general consensus that she was untreatable."
It felt as close to defeat as she would allow, and Maura shook her head, forcing down the heat that had returned to sting her eyes.
"So they were essentially using psychological torture in an attempt to get information." She bit out, and for the first time, the true weight of the last 48 hours began to sink onto her shoulders, an all-encompassing, suffocating pressure.
It was all she could do to force herself to straighten, before she passed a hand over her face, fingertips dragging over her chin as she regarded both Korsak and Frost.
"Did you ever consider, that maybe she had no idea who the Surgeon was, because she never had the chance?" She asked. The waver in her voice forced her to hold her breath a moment. "Did it not occur to any of you that she might not have the information you are looking for?"
"No, it didn't." Korsak finally answered, his eyes solemn. "People were dying, Maura. People died." With a sigh, he looked toward the ISO ward windows. "She was always treated as hostile." He said, absently. "She always was hostile-" Finally, he turned to her, face drawn. "We never saw the other side of her."
Maura allowed his words space to breathe, within the confines of the infirmary's concrete walls. The resultant silence reminded the doctor of an odd form of Mexican stand-off; nobody comfortable enough to leave, nobody willing to add to the sentiment.
Until Maura herself did.
"Because you weren't looking." She finally said, awareness drawing any latent bitterness from her tongue. Then, she murmured the next words so quietly only the three of them would hear. "And he knew it."
At the tiny nod in her peripheral vision, she sighed.
"Last week, when she was in isolation.." Korsak spoke again, "After you-" When he caught Maura's eye he paused a moment, before lowering his voice. "-Afterwards, I put in a formal request for it to stop."
"Clearly it didn't work."
"..No, it didn't." The Sergeant said, and somewhere between the syllables Maura heard the undertone of more regret.
"This.." Maura blinked up at the ceiling. "Can't continue. I need-" She shook her head. "-I need to get my head around how to approach this." Turning to Korsak, she gestured to the swipe card still fastened around her neck. "I need to restrict all access to and treatment of Rizzoli to myself, Chang and Hinkler. Can you arrange this with security?"
Korsak nodded. "I can. But… the Warden's access-"
"I expect Jameson has a master key." Maura responded, pressing her lips together into a thin line "-I will deal with that." Her fingers curled around the card and she stepped back toward the door to the ward. "I'm going to check on her, make sure she is stable, then I'm going to work out what to do." Turning to the door she threw one final command over her shoulder, before pushing inside.
"-And if Dean wants access to her he can bring a Goddamned warrant."
It was only after her eyes had begun to sting, that Maura realised she had been staring at the slow drips of Jane's IV tower.
Her mind had been somewhere totally different.
It was too much. There was too much to find purchase on any one thing. Agent Dean, the horrifying news of Jane's treatment after being arrested, the drugs she was never taking yet had in her system, Jameson's iron-clad grip on anything and everything, and now, Victoria Nolan, woven all the way through and all the way back to Jane's earliest days.
Pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes Maura leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
Ian used to tell her that medical conditions were like weather systems; complex, swirling masses of cause-and-effect that often had origins far away from where they exacted the most damage.
Learning to unravel them was to stand in the eye of the storm.
Maura lowered her hands, giving her eyes a moment to adjust through the spots that danced across her vision. She shook her head silently, as her gaze came to rest on the figure in the bed.
Jane… was a tempest.
It was several minutes later when Maura heard the shifting of sheets as the woman began to stir, and she couldn't help the way her heart thundered against her sternum as she rose, closing the distance to stand by the bed, resting the back of her hand against Jane's shoulder.
Slowly, Jane's eyes blinked open, clearer than before, and Maura had to supress the sigh of relief that had trapped itself in her chest.
"Hi," She said, smiling softly, "How are you feeling?"
Jane's throat bobbed with the formation of words that wouldn't make it, before she licked her lips and attempted again.
"You're still here." She rasped.
"I could say the same thing to you." Maura answered, gently, skimming her fingertips across the other woman's forehead, her stomach swooping slightly when Jane's eyes flickered closed at the touch. "You gave me a scare back there." She said. "Do you remember what happened?"
Eyebrows twitched downward, and a crease formed between them before Jane shook her head.
"-Sorry." She murmured, opening her eyes, and yet again, Maura couldn't help but be drawn to their intensity.
"No." She said, quietly, "Don't apologise, Jane. This wasn't-" Trailing off, she glanced up through the window, relieved to find nobody there. "It wasn't you."
"Did I- " Jane croaked out, and Maura suddenly became aware of still slightly bleary eyes scanning up and down her body, as if cataloguing things she may have missed. "I don't… -"
"You didn't hurt me."
At the answer to her unspoken question, Jane seemed to immediately relax, her shoulders sinking further into the mattress and breaths easing into longer, more controlled frequency.
"I did once." She whispered.
Maura nodded. "Once." She said, combing her fingers back through Jane's hair. "The first time we met." When she saw Jane's throat tighten again, Maura soothed her thumb gently over her temple. "You were afraid, and I was unprepared. You thought I was a threat. I understand."
Jane's frown deepened. "I could have killed you."
"You could have." Maura allowed a small smile to touch her lips, and resumed her attention to absently threading the dark locks of hair between her fingers. "But you didn't."
She thought she heard a sharp intake of breath, as Jane's eyes flicked down to where the restraints lay, unfastened at her ankles and wrists.
"I could still-"
"You won't." Biting down on her lower lip, Maura touched her forefinger to Jane's chin, encouraging her eyes back upward, like it was the most natural action in the world. "I'm not letting them near you, Jane." She promised, "Not again."
There was a brief moment, when Maura saw a sheen of moisture gather in the other woman's eyes, before Jane raised her eyebrows and blinked it away.
"I don't deserve-" She croaked out, but Maura shook her head before she could finish, pressing her middle and forefingers to Jane's lips.
"Shhh." She hushed her gently, trying to ignore the way the soft warmth caused her breath to catch in her throat…. Trying not to feel the hint of pressure returned….
In her minds eye, the winds raged above Maura's head.
"You do deserve protection, Jane." She told her. "And if I need to remind you of that every time I see you, I will."
Carefully, she moved her hand away, her fingers instead wrapping around Jane's left palm and squeezing lightly, as she prepared to stride, head-long, into the storm.
"Get some rest." She murmured, then she smiled. "I'll be back for you."
A/N: So... Hello.
I'm hoping beyond hope that 5,700 words makes up for the late update.
As an aside, I've seen a couple of people jump on this more recently and I have NO idea how you found it considering the update schedule probably relegated the story somewhere near page 26 on the fanfic list... but 1) Hi and 2) thank you for reading and for nudging me forward with your lovely comments and support :)
To those I got to chat to after last chapter, this did come a lot later than I hoped, but... still here :)
Looking forward to riding this one out with all of you
Tx