Prometheus - Chapter 38
The morning felt unusually still; even the light spring breeze that wove through the trees bordering East Huron Street seemed to be doing so on tip-toe. Maura glanced above her head self-consciously, as she approached the monstrous double doors leading to the foyer of the hospital building, as if something were watching her, and taking notice.
The corridors were full of their usual bustle, but nobody spoke to her as she made her way down to the end of the south wing. Nurses retreated, furtive glances thrown in her direction as they disappeared into one of any number of rooms and nurses stations, attempting to look busy and unaware.
They all knew, why she was there.
The closer she came to the room, the tighter her chest grew, until only two feet away her hands became too clammy even for her and she shoved them deep into her coat pockets.
Once inside her eyes found him like a beacon; seated in a chair by the window, his body dwarfed by the same clothing that would had fit him so perfectly only two months ago. She tried not to notice how firmly he pressed himself into the frame, the pristine white sheets of the bed behind him as pale as his face, a grim smile pulling at his lips as she stepped closer.
"Everything's still happening out there…." He said, and Maura wondered if the soft lilt of his voice had sounded different, in the days when it wasn't burdened by so much horror. "It moves like I'm supposed to be part of it."
"You are a part of it, Jackson."
"Like nothing had ever happened." He murmured. Outside, a tree bent gently as the wind lifted, tossing leaves into the air.
"In spite of it." Maura answered him. "You go on in spite of what happened. Because there's more out there for you and nobody deserves to take that away."
Jackson turned to look at her then, searching her face for some evidence of a lie. The scar that crossed from his right temple down to the bridge of his nose was fading slowly, his hair – now much longer – fell haphazardly over his forehead.
If she squinted, Maura could almost see the man who came in, two months ago. The broken body that hid within it a fractured soul.
Finally, he sighed. "I'd be ungrateful, wouldn't I?"
Maura tilted her head. "For what?" She asked, and a more genuine smile touched the young man's face.
"You saved my life."
In the stillness that followed, Maura found an uncomfortable chill creeping up her spine. "It was a life worth saving." She said quickly, "It still is."
Jackson's smile faded to something sadder, and Maura couldn't help but be reminded of a clown standing in the rain; bright and cheerful makeup dissolving from its face, revealing the deep pain underneath.
"Jackson." She took a step towards him. "Don't-"
"It's alright," He waved her off with a quick flick of his wrist, and the mask was back again. Turning to the window, he took a deep breath, the rise and fall of his shoulders all but masked by his now-bulky jacket. "Onward and upward." He murmured.
Maura reached into her pocket, pulling out a card with a number etched neatly in blue biro on the back.
"Take this." She said, offering it to him over his shoulder. "Use it, if you need it."
Slowly, Jackson's fingers closed around the business card, and he pulled it to him, twirling it carefully between his thumb and middle fingers. After several seconds he twisted his neck around to face her, the shadow of a glint back in his eyes that somewhat loosened the vice in Maura's chest.
"Dinner?" He asked, a little too suggestively to be genuine.
With a quiet chuckle, Maura removed her left hand from her pocket, making clear to show her engagement ring before she answered.
"If you need it."
Maura pressed the phone between her ear and shoulder as she gathered the small documents and returned them to the box they had come from. The grey of the early-morning light cast her apartment in an eerie shade of grey, and were it not for the warm pendant glowing above her kitchen island, Maura would have found the scene almost macabre.
"It was just another diversion." The thick fatigue in Anna Frost's voice made Maura wince; reminding her of the back to back shifts spent in surgery, where by the end she could barely command her feet to take her beyond the cafeteria. "I could have sworn we were on to something, but-"
"I'm sorry." She replied, unable to find a more appropriate response for what was clearly the utter obliteration of the first spark of hope in five years.
"That son-of-a-bitch has us at every turn. I just… I've never seen anything like it."
Straightening, Maura placed the lid carefully down and reached for her phone so she could hold it more firmly against her cheek.
"There is a reason he has been able to evade authorities for this long, Anna." She offered, knowing full well t was a hollow placation. Maura heard Anna blow out a deep breath.
"I really thought-" The other woman started, then trailed off almost long enough for Maura to wonder if she had fallen asleep on the phone, until her voice came back again, stronger, more frustrated. "-Hoyt was one of those profiles you had suggested. Kicked out of medical school, would have been in his late forties now, except-"
"-He's dead?" Maura didn't know why the answer came to her so completely, but when it involved the Surgeon, it seemed like the only possibility.
"He's dead."
Shaking her head, Maura picked up her empty mug of coffee and moved over to the sink, setting it down gently and turning on the tap just warm enough to soak any permanent lines from the ceramic.
"How?" She asked.
"In a fire, twenty two years ago. Autopsy, investigation, death certificate, the lot." Anna sighed again. "It wasn't ruled a homicide, but.." She trailed off for a moment. "They think it was him, too. Possibly one of his first. Nolan is treating it like another Red Herring; not worth our time. I swear Maura, I wanted to shove the truth down her holier-than-thou throat."
At the sound of the name Maura bit down suddenly on her lower lip, her hand stilled on the tap as she stared into the swirling mixture of coffee, dish soap and water.
Anna must have sensed the shift, as her voice came more softly… regretful on the opposite end of the line. "Barry told me what happened." She said. "Is Jane alright?"
Maura let the words settle, picking up a sponge and trailing it along the outside of her cup.
"She wasn't." She answered, finally. "-but she is now. For now, that is-" Images of Jane, frightened and choking, pervaded the doctor's mind. Gritting her teeth, Maura's eyes slid closed and she braced herself against the sink. "Anna, I know I am asking a lot of this relationship but I need to know…"
"I had no idea, Maura." Anna cut Maura off before she could finish, the tone of her voice mercifully revealing no offense. "I didn't even know there were… interviews." Maura could hear the open disgust wrapping around the word. "I would have told you. I have no love for Dean or his practices."
Maura shook her head. "Which Nolan condoned."
"She what-" Anna spat, "Are you serious? God, no I would never…"
Allowing herself a small moment of relief at the words, Maura nodded into the empty room, "I thought as much, I just-"
"-Had to ask. I understand." There was a pause on the other end of the line, and a subtle shift in understanding, before Anna added- "We still have that Grange, you know."
Without skipping a beat Maura chuckled despite herself. "I know, do you think it has decanted a bit too long?"
But Anna only scoffed good-naturedly. "Please, do you take me for an amateur? It's back in the bottle, sealed for… Friday night?"
Maura smiled into the phone, the impending anxiety of the day a forgotten memory.
"Of course." She said. "Oh, and Anna?" Maura paused a moment. "The Surgeon-" She began, feeling the crease of her brow as she worried her lower lip. "Doesn't seem to do anything without a reason. When it comes to this… Hoyt-"
"I'm already following up, Maura." Came Anna's reply. "I'm-" She paused. "-I'm in too deep to let it go."
This time, Maura sighed into the phone, the resulting static filling her ears. "Be careful, Anna." She said. Her eyes darted across the kitchen island to where the box lay, now packed.
"Always am. Always will." Anna answered. "See you Friday."
When Maura entered the infirmary, winter coat wrapped tightly around her body, Suzie Chang greeted her with the same bleary-eyed expression she imagined Anna had sported much of their conversation.
"She's fine." Was the first thing out of the young orderly's mouth; and it sparked a guilt in Maura's gut, that the orderly would so clearly understand what was important for Maura to know. "I've left her without the… you know." She gestured to her wrists. "-she was good about it. Great, in fact."
"Thank you, Suzie." Maura replied. "And the other patients?"
"Just Sullivan from B block, possible appendicitis but we're keeping an eye on it." With a glint in her eye Maura had no idea how Chang could have mustered, she added –"or food poisoning, but Bertha from the mess hall would be devastated-"
A smirk pulled at Maura's lips. "I imagine she would."
Suddenly Suzie's eyes darted downward, to the box tucked carefully under Maura's right arm.
"Diagnostics?" She asked.
Maura found herself smiling, and reached to clasp a gloved hand around the young orderly's shoulder. "Something like that." She answered. "Now go home. I know you have the next two days off-" Her smile widened at the look of relief on Chang's face. "And… I believe Brett requested a swap with Alex tonight, so he has the night off as well."
Maura caught the flash of surprise, before Suzie ducked her head, a tinge of red creeping along her cheeks.
"We… it's not-" She stuttered, "I mean, I'm not-"
The doctor chuckled and shook her head, squeezing Suzie's upper arm once before letting her hand fall away. "It's alright." She said. "You're not the first and you won't be the last."
Suzie nodded quickly, still unable to make eye contact. Before the red could deepen any further into scarlet Maura moved past her, smiling to herself at young love and all the scandals it created. For her and Ian, they had to keep their relationship a secret almost a full year before finally, a transfer and an appropriate lead time of "initial dating" allowed them the freedom to be a couple in the eyes of the hospital.
But Maura's smile faded almost immediately as the memory turned sour, sinking low into her stomach and twisting around her recollections of torrid anger and icy fear. Her hand was already on the handle to the ISO-ward before Maura realised it; the lanyard wrapped around her fingers, pressing lightly against the magnetic reader.
In different circumstances, Maura might have had time consider why her instinct had taken her there; or to appreciate the warmth that spread across her chest when Jane turned towards her as she entered - clear eyes, healthier complexion and tiny smile greeting her. Instead, the intensity of it took the doctor aback, and she found herself immediately searching the room for charts and equipment, busying herself with the fold of the corners on the bed as Jane watched her quizzically.
Once enough inspection had passed to gather herself, Maura's eyes found Jane's, and she smiled.
"Good morning"
"Hi." The rasp in Jane's voice rippled through Maura like a calming tide, washing any remnants of discomfort away. "Welcome back to the Hotel California."
Maura chuckled and rolled her eyes. "I bet you haven't even been to California." She said, settling the box under her arm onto the lower shelf of the equipment trolley, before moving to the right side of Jane's bed and prodding the muscle around her wound lightly.
"I'll have you know-" Jane's retort tapered into a wince as Maura pressed a little too close. She shot Maura I side-glance out of squinted eyes. "I have. When I was at least five. OW-"
"Five, huh?" Maura echoed, ignoring Jane's grumbled complaint, instead taking hold of her forearm and pulling it upward, other palm flat against her shoulder, testing the movement. "Were you one of those kids who dragged their parents to Disneyland?"
"The LAPD, actually." Jane replied, almost absently as she concentrated on the rotation of her arm. "I was convinced I could help them catch 'all the bad people'"
Maura tried to hide the flinch in her own movements at the idea of a five year old Jane, full of bravado, ready to take on the world. There was something about it that was so true, so complete in the picture she was assembling of this woman, that it saddened her in equal measures.
"That's a very honourable goal for a five-year-old." Slower this time, Maura pulled Jane's arm out from the mattress, towards her own body, pausing when Jane screwed her face up in a sign of pain. "One to ten?"
"Four."
Maura nodded, returning Jane's arm carefully to the mattress. She'd treated people with gunshot wounds before, and four was usually the number she would hear after weeks, not days. Her eyes flicked down to where Jane's right hand rested lightly on the sheets, scar silvery under the fluorescent lighting.
"I'm guessing Science Museum."
The comment took Maura by surprise, and she quickly looked back to find Jane watching her.
"When you were five." Jane clarified after Maura didn't reply, her brow furrowing as if she was surprised Maura was struggling with the link. "You would have dragged your parents to the science museum?"
"Oh." Maura answered. Her mind immediately swept her back to her early memory – somewhere near five years old –sitting on the linoleum floor of the staff room of the museum of modern history, with a book, a lunch box of fruit and cheese, and a promise of 'This won't take long, darling' that seemed to stretch on for days. Blinking, Maura busied herself with the tape attached to Jane's dressing as she smiled the memory away. "Something like that, I suppose." She said.
Maura felt the heat rising on her cheeks as she worked, felt the weight of Jane's scrutiny until she could no longer bear it. Patting Jane's shoulder lightly as a confirmation she had finished, Maura moved back around the bed, pulling Jane's chart from the end of it as she did.
"You don't get along?"
Maura looked up from the words she wasn't reading, finding Jane staring far further beyond the walls she had become so expert at erecting when it came to this topic.
She considered her answer with a small, sad smile.
"To get along, as you put it…" She said, "Implies they would have known me at all."
Without breaking eye contact, Jane replied.
"Well they're missing out."
The simple sincerity in her voice made heat rush to Maura's cheeks again, and she turned away.
"Your shoulder seems to be doing much better." She said, changing the subject. "I think we can lower your dose of codeine, get you started on something a little gentler on the stomach."
Again, Maura felt Jane's eyes on her as she busied herself adjusting the information on Jane's chart. The silence lingered, each passing second moving them further and further away from the comforting ease of their conversation, closer to the places Maura feared, but knew were necessary.
Eventually, Jane was the one to break it.
"You came here for something else." She said quietly.
After a considered pause, Maura nodded, setting aside the chart and turning around in time to see Jane's eyes drifting across to the box on the equipment tray, before meeting Maura's own.
"You have questions." She said, even more softly.
Maura nodded. Something flashed across Jane's face; which Maura read as a mixture of resignation and understanding.
"Because I'm your patient." She murmured.
With a small shake of her head, Maura reached out, gently slipping her fingers around Jane's hand and squeezing, just once.
"No, Jane." She said, trying to keep her voice level around a renewed tightening of her chest. "Because it matters to me how you got here." Chewing on her lower lip, she held Jane's gaze as it flickered back down towards her. "It matters to me that you are safe."
The responding sigh was deep, and painful, and Maura pretended not to notice the sheen of tears Jane quickly blinked away.
"What is in it?"
Maura considered the question, before finally answering
"A history, of sorts."
"Mine?"
"Yes."
Jane sighed again and stared up at the ceiling, and Maura thought she heard the smallest tremor in the breath Jane took, before she spoke again.
"Ma gave it to you."
"She did." Maura answered quietly.
Jane nodded, then was quiet for long moments. Maura felt growing unsure, thinking perhaps she should not have chosen this route; that the both of them had now stepped off a precipice neither would return from.
Until-
"It destroyed her, coming here." Jane finally spoke, her voice small and laced with sorrow, attention stalling on the box. "She pretended it didn't, but I could see it in her eyes." Shaking her head, Jane blinked away. "I could see it in Frankie's, too. And then when Tommy…" Jane stopped, and Maura squeezed her hand a second time.
"He was arrested." Maura answered for her, and Jane's throat bobbed, as she swallowed around the words Maura imagined had remained, trapped inside her for so many years.
"What kind of example does an older sister set, being in jail for murder?" She all but whispered to the ceiling.
Maura heard the painful echo of Frankie's voice, only days ago. She knew there would be no platitude enough for the implications behind the words… not for Frankie nor for Jane. So Maura remained quiet, her fingertips unconsciously finding the steady thrum of Jane's pulse at her wrist, pretending not to notice the way it sped up at the change in contact, before levelling out again.
"You're a doctor." Jane finally said, and Maura was somewhat relieved she did not turn to see the redundant nod she gave in response. Jane's eyebrows twitched downward. "My father's an adulterer, my brother's a drug addict and thief, and I'm-" She halted several seconds, then blinked and looked back at Maura, "-is this something in the Rizzoli blood? Are we… was this always going to be my path?"
Maura frowned, Jane's skin still warm and grounding under her fingers as she considered her answer. "If you're asking me, is there a genetic predisposition to criminality, then no, there have been no conclusive studies…"
The words died on Maura's lips. She could have continued; could have rattled off journals and specialists and psychologists who argued both sides of the coin, but the look in Jane's eyes told her that none of it mattered. Instead, Maura lowered her head, smoothed her free hand along her skirt, and looked up again.
"Jane, may I ask you a question?"
There were several moments of silence, where Maura was almost convinced Jane would say no. Finally, Jane took in a long breath, and nodded.
"I saw the prescriptions." The way Jane blinked and furrowed her brow made Maura feel her question had not been expected. With a courage Maura didn't expect she would have ever shown, she continued. "They are almost all unfilled. Why did you choose not to take the medication you were prescribed?"
Maura saw the clench of teeth; watched the way the muscles moved underneath Jane's jaw, felt her heartrate increase under her fingertips.
"I did, for a week." Jane answered, the rasp of her voice now even more pronounced. "I couldn't concentrate, I couldn't think." Looking away, she continued. "All I wanted to do was get back."
"To the academy?"
"To my life." Jane's eyebrows rose, high onto her forehead and she blinked several times, then shook her head. "I made the mistake of believing it was mine."
'Everything's still happening out there…. It moves like I'm supposed to be part of it.'
The memory collided in Maura's mind with the force of a freight train.
"You were diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."
Licking her lips, Jane paused, mouth slightly parted, before she answered. "I was… too young, too stubborn to listen."
"You led Dr Nolan to believe you were taking the medication?"
Maura didn't miss Jane's flinch at the use of Dr Nolan's name, before she nodded. "I had to, to get back into the academy." Then she added, bitterly. "I had to do whatever she damn well told me to do."
"She has some… unorthodox treatment regimes." Maura agreed. "Not all of them safe."
"That's because she believes she has nothing to lose. With me." Jane laughed, the sound flat and humourless to Maura's ears. "I'm no life to save, in their eyes. I'm standing in the way." Suddenly, her eyes widened as they bore into Maura's, and she pulled away from her grasp, rotated both arms until they were palm-up, and lifted them off the bed, fingers extended to reveal the scars, prominent on her skin as she hissed. "But Maura, I would have pinned myself to the ground, before I would ever have-"
"Hey-" Maura's hands found Jane's almost of their own volition, keeping them steady, "It's alright." and her thumbs soothed gently over the scars as she laid them gently back to the sheets. "I know Jane." she said, softly, holding Jane's gaze until the angry flame flickered slowly away. "I know that. I've never doubted that."
But Maura saw the catch of Jane's breath in her throat, the way she lay back, never fully relaxing, even when she released their hands.
"That day-" Jane began, her voice almost too soft for Maura to hear, if she weren't so attuned to it. "I have gone over that day so many times in my mind."
Maura moved forward, carefully - so as not to alarm her – shifting herself closer, resting the side of her hip against the edge of the mattress, her thumb now easing a line along Jane's bicep.
"I knew what I was doing, going there." Jane shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "I remember… I remember thinking, all I needed were a couple of answers. I had… the name of one of the boats at the docks… It was the one thing I couldn't find any record of… in the investigation…. In the reports from the FBI…I knew Nathan would have access to the mooring register, I-"
Maura felt Jane tensing beneath her, heard the quickening of her breathing and felt the trembling of over-wrought muscles unable to be released.
"Jane, it's alright." She murmured, resting her other hand on Jane's good shoulder as she stroked a path up and down her left arm. "We don't need to do this now."
But Jane only shook her head. "I went to see him. I didn't know his wife-"
"Hey-"
"-I remember their driveway. The path leading to their house. I remember the colour of the leaves."
Maura squeezed Jane's shoulder, just once.
"-The next thing I remember, there's blood… everywhere.. all over my hands, my clothes… the walls... God, the carpet was drenched in it… and Nathan.. and Serena, they- I didn't-"
The tears began falling in earnest, pooling at the corners of Jane's eyes and spilling over to the pillow below. Under the sheet Jane's chest rose and fell in irregular bursts as silent sobs wracked her body. Utterly helpless, Maura could only shift her hand to gently brush the tears away from Jane's temple, and had only just opened her mouth to offer some words of comfort when she was startled by Jane flinching, her eyes flying open and fixing on Maura's face.
"Don't." She whispered. "You can't."
The edge to the command was missing, as if it were more a plea, than a direction. Maura frowned, unconsciously stepping backward and folding her hands together in front of her.
"Jane-"
It was almost machinelike, the way Jane took a deep breath, eyes hardening and tears dissolving away, disappearing into the fabric. Finally, she blinked several times, and pressed her lips together, turning towards Maura as she did.
"Do you know what the most dangerous thing about this place is?" She asked softly. "It's not the other inmates, or the guards, or even Jameson…" Lifting her left hand, she tapped her forefinger lightly against her own temple. "It's here."
Maura searched Jane's eyes for a moment, before shaking her head. "I… don't understand." She murmured, and she watched as Jane's eyes flicked upward to the ceiling and she drew another, longer breath in then and out of her nose.
"It's the thought that maybe… just maybe you don't belong here." This time, when Jane looked to Maura, the plea that she understand, to see the truth hidden within her words, was clear. "It's hope, Maura."
It may as well have been a knife slipped expertly between the doctor's ribs. Her breath left her, her ribcage locked as she stood mutely, hot, prickly discomfort worming its way up her spine as they fell into silence again, and all Maura could hear was the thundering of her own heartbeat in her ears… the painful thud against her sternum.
With another quiet sigh, Jane shook her head.
"Macey helped me see that." She said. "And she died, that single fucking lesson on her lips."
"I'm sorry." Maura choked out, reflexively, the sound was weak around the dryness in her throat, "I only-"
"I know." Jane cut her off, gently. "I know what you're doing. I-" She paused, closing her eyes a moment, as the ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. "-you've reminded me of someone I thought had died, a long time ago."
Jane paused, and Maura watched the set her jaw, the tilt of her brow, and knew Jane was waging a war with herself. Slowly, her eyes opened again.
Clearer.
Stronger.
And Maura felt the tiles under her feet tremble.
"-But it is a poisoned chalice, Maura. Don't you see? No matter how you look at it, no matter how much I would have wished my life to have turned out differently. I have taken three lives, destroyed three families." Jane's gaze once again drifted to the small box on the supplies trolley beside the bed, as she added "-not including my own."
Maura felt her own tears prickling behind her eyes, and barely registered the warm touch of fingertips brushing across her left wrist, until they curled gently around her palm, and suddenly the intimacy of the action was burning into her skin.
"I wish… you and I had met in a different lifetime." Jane whispered, squeezing Maura's hand once so that she had no choice but to look at her, finding an unfathomably deep sadness written on Jane's features, yet a grim acceptance in her eyes that made Maura's heart ache. "But this is the one we have. And in this one, I'm a murderer."
And I need you to believe me.
Maura shook her head. "Jane, what you're asking-"
It was only seconds; a small tug and Jane was upright, her upper body flush against Maura's and her hand cupping the base of Maura's neck, and Maura barely had time to register surprise before Jane's lips were pressed to hers; and with the same instinct that had driven Maura all morning, and possibly long before, she felt her own palm find Jane's cheek, fingertips tracing Jane's jawline as they moved together, slowly, gently, assuredly… and for blissful seconds all Maura could feel was the skin under her palm and the caress at her nape and the way every fibre of her body seemed to ignite when Jane's fingers slid effortlessly into her hair…
…and it was everything…
Until all of a sudden reality came hurtling at Maura full-force, and her eyes widened, gasping against Jane's lips as she moved her hand to the other woman's chest, pushing them apart, feeling Jane's warm breath in retreating bursts across her cheek.
Maura stood completely still for several moments...
...And then she fled.
A/N 1: Well... that happened.
A/N 2: You know that part where an author apologises profusely for taking so long... I've pretty much run out of apologies on this one. I wonder if I keep saying this and if at 39 chapters I'm a 39-time broken record but, I am so immensely grateful for you all, for reading and commenting and poking and nudging (and sometimes kicking and screaming). Truly. You are all 95% of this story now. I can't wait for us to see it through :)
A/N 3: Many Many Many thanks to my silent beta. You know who you are. Your faith in my writing and in me is something I will never, ever take for granted. And I'm truly grateful for you too :) Tx