It had been years since Maura fidgeted like she found herself fidgeting outside of yet another strange office. The soft hum of the white noise machine the only constant as she crossed her legs, then uncrossed them. Clasped her hands together, then allowed them to rest at her sides. Smoothed wrinkles from her skirt, then fiddled with her collar. Checked the clock on the wall, then glanced at the watch on her wrist.
A few weeks had passed since her initial appointment with the psychiatrist and nothing, it seemed, had changed.
"Maura?"
The doctor immediately stopped fidgeting and looked up at the woman standing in the doorway. She wore tapered black trousers and a geometric print sleeveless blouse, her grey hair pulled into a low bun. Maura smiled as she realised the woman was similar in age, and shared the same Italian features, as Angela. The blonde briefly wondered if the resemblance would help or hinder her ability to confide in the woman.
"Good morning," Maura smiled. She stood up and offered a hand to the other woman. "It's nice to meet you, officially."
"And you, too. Please, come on back."
The two women walked down a short hallway before entering a small, warmly lit office. There was a small couch and a handful of chairs placed throughout the room. The office overlooked the harbour and Maura smiled when she saw the bright autumn colours of the trees.
"Fall is my favourite season," the woman explained as she stood next to Maura at the window. "I tried to bring the colours of the season into the office, but nothing beats the real thing."
"It's lovely," Maura smiled.
"Feel free to take a seat anywhere," the older woman said. "All I ask is that I get this chair, since my back isn't what it used to be and this one seems to ease the pain the best."
"It's all yours."
"Thanks. Now, I don't make a habit of trying to learn about my clients before we meet them, but your reputation did precede you. At least in the professional sense. Would you prefer to be called Dr. Isles, or can I call you Maura?"
"Maura, please."
"Good. I know we've worked hard for our titles but I was hoping you'd say that. I'm Lisa. Though I answer to ma, nona, doc, you name it," the woman smiled.
"The classic Italian-American selection of names."
"You're familiar with them?"
"Very much so," Maura laughed. "Jane, my…" she trailed off, brow furrowing slightly. Just as quickly as it drifted off, Maura's attention returned. "Jane, my best friend," she re-started, "is Italian and her mother is as quintessentially Italian-American as they come."
"Well there's the root of all your problems," Lisa laughed.
"Oh, no," Maura insisted. "They're the ones I can go to with anything. More often than not they're the ones helping me solve all my problems. I don't know where I would be without them."
"But I'm gonna go out on limb here and say they don't know you're here today, do they?"
"No. I think it would break their hearts to know I was here," Maura sighed.
"So, and please stop me if this is jumping in too much too fast, but if you can usually go to these people with anything why can't you talk to them about you being here? What's different about this time?"
"I am," Maura said softly.
"What do you mean by that?" Lisa asked.
"Every other time I've gone to them, the pain was caused by an external force. My mother, my father, my ex…" the blonde stated. "They were external forces that could be fought against. They're a family of police officers, so fighting bad guys is what they do. But this time the cause in internal. They can't fight a bad guy when the bad guy is in my brain."
"Getting a life altering diagnosis can certainly impact how you see yourself," Lisa replied. "I was diagnosed with gnarly fibromyalgia a few years back. While it was a relief to finally have an answer, it also destroyed me. I had to take some time off work to recoup and come to terms with it."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Thank you, but there's no need for apologies," the older woman smiled. "I've got a great support system at home, doctors who listen, and I've never felt better. I have bad days, but I have a plan in place for when they happen. All of which I would like you to have."
Maura smiled sadly. She knew that what the therapist was saying was true. As a doctor, she knew the importance of a support system and she knew, at least logically, that her illness was no different than any physical ailment. But it was the other side of her brain, the side ruled by emotion, which was causing her grief.
"It's hard, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"Living in a body that doesn't work," Lisa clarified. "Trying to fight against the very thing that's tasked with keeping you alive. Realizing that even though your body's one job is to keep you alive and well, it can't even do that properly."
Maura let out a brief laugh.
"It's honestly been the most exhausting years of my life."
"Has the psychiatrist offered you anything to help with sleep? Lack of sleep isn't uncommon with mental health diagnoses."
"It's nothing to do with lack of sleep," Maura corrected. "I sometimes struggle with metaphors, but lately it feels like the only way to describe how I'm feeling is like I've been tossed into the ocean in a heavy gown and no life preserver. And I spend my days just frantically trying to keep my head above water."
"That does sound exhausting."
"It is. I can't seem to remember a time when I wasn't treading water. Metaphorically of course."
"Does anything make it easier?" Lisa asked.
"Jane does," Maura smiled. "When I'm with her, it's easier. Instead of feeling suffocated and like the entire world around me is simultaneously muffled yet deafeningly loud, it's calm. Like I can finally stop trying and just, well, if we're going with the metaphor I can finally just lie back and float."
"She sounds very special."
"Without a doubt. But, like I said," Maura sighed as she smoothed her hands over her thighs. "I couldn't ever tell her about the dysthymia. She knows she is important to me, and that's all she needs to know."
"Is it, though?" Lisa asked. "If Jane is holding on to a metaphorical life preserver, she can't toss it to you unless you tell her you need it."
"You make it sound so easy," Maura replied. "This is a life altering diagnosis. Even if my psychiatrist is right and this is something caused by my environment and not my genetics, and is therefore temporary and treated relatively easily, it still could change everything."
"What could it change?"
"Pardon?"
"What would telling Jane change? And that's not a rhetorical question," Lisa repeated. "Therapy isn't meant to be easy. It's meant to ask the tough questions because, without those answers, we won't get too much further than the surface."
"It would change everything," Maura repeated softly.
"What, exactly, is everything?"
"Our working relationship. Our personal relationship. The way she interacts with me which would then change how others interact with me because they'd notice the changes."
"Can you elaborate?"
"Jane is already incredibly protective. But if I told her the truth about how much I've been struggling, she would be even more so," Maura said. "She would make every excuse to come to my office during the work day just to keep an eye on me, and our colleagues would notice that and it would be obvious that something was wrong with me. Jane would feign a broken shower or lack of heating in order to spend nights at my home which would tip her mother off that maybe there is a reason Jane has been with me so much more frequently. Soon all of BPD would know something is wrong with Dr. Isles and I'd be met with the stares and curious looks I've finally been able to grow out of."
"Okay, we'll circle back to that last part because there's definitely something there," Lisa replied gently. "But let me push you a little farther. What would happen if Jane was coming to your office every day or spending nights at your home? What would be the result, positive or negative?"
"I wouldn't be able to keep it all in anymore," Maura stated plainly. "I'm barely staying afloat as it is. If I opened up to Jane, the floodgates would open and I would be crushed to death with the weight of it all. If it's just me dealing with everything, I can compartmentalize and keep it all pushed as far back as possible."
"Another question, then. What is different about you opening up to Jane, which you feel would cause everything you've tried to keep tucked away to flood out and destroy you, and you opening up to me?"
Maura visibly tensed and brought her eyes to the carpet.
"She would find out that I love her. And that…" the blonde trailed off.
"And what, Maura?"
Hazel eyes lifted to look into warm, compassionate brown ones across from her. Despite the compassion that she found, Maura's eyes filled with tears. With the tears, once again, came the crashing of waves around her. Her hands came to fiddle with the necklace around her neck, tugging it as if that would help the blonde breathe before she became completely submerged.
"And that I want to die."
"Hey, Janie."
"Call me that one more time, old man, and I'm tossing your doughnuts out the window."
Korsak threw his hands up and laughed from behind his desk.
"You got it, Detective," he laughed.
"See, I know how to get you to behave," Jane smiled as she handed him a Boston Joe's cup of coffee and a white pastry bag. "Bear claw, your favourite."
"You know the way to this old man's heart," Korsak grinned. "Speaking of favourites, you hear from Maura? I saw Popov at the elevators on my way in instead of her."
"Maybe Maura called him in to finally sack him for all the times he comes to scenes smelling like a distillery," Jane shrugged.
"Could be, but I haven't seen her yet and usually we cross paths by now."
"I'll call her office," Jane suggested. "She usually tells me when she has vacation booked, and you know my Ma would be nagging us if she thought the doc even looked a little big sick."
Jane hopped onto her desk and picked up her phone from its cradle. She dialled her best friend's office number from memory as she took a sip from her own coffee. Korsak watched as Jane's eyebrows furrowed as the phone rang, rang again, and rang until Maura's voicemail greeting came through the speaker.
"She's probably just in the lab and not her office," Jane tried to explain. "I'll run down and check in."
"Don't leave your doughnut unattended while you're down there," Korsak pointed out. "Frankie likes to root around your desks for snacks if he's on night shifts and didn't bring breakfast."
Jane snatched her doughnut from her desk and glared at the older man enjoying his own pastry.
"I should take yours just based on the fact you never told me that 'til now," she threatened.
"Snitches get stitches!" Korsak countered. "I know better than to come between two Rizzolis."
"Confidential informant, not snitch," Jane grinned. "Be back in a sec."
With that, Jane crossed the bullpen in long strides and headed straight for the stairwell. She remembered how run down Maura had looked recently and her concern for the blonde didn't allow her the luxury of waiting for the elevators.
The detective took the steps as quickly as she could, paying hardly a second glance to the colleagues she passed on the stairwell and as she made her way through the lab. When Maura's office came into view, Jane noticed the curtains were still drawn and the door was shut. Not a common occurrence, but also not yet cause for concern.
"She's not in."
Jane stopped just short of her best friend's office, hand already outstretched to the doorknob.
"I haven't heard from her, but Doctor Popov says he got a call to come in."
"Has anyone in the office heard from her?"
"Not that I'm aware of," Susie replied. "I was going to come up to your desk to ask if you had. Doctor Isles calls herself a friend to most every staff member down here and usually we get a message on the group chat if she's going to be out."
"You have a group chat for all the morgue staff?" Jane asked.
"Why wouldn't we?"
"No reason," the detective laughed as she shook her head and imagined the discussions taking place on said group chat. "So Popov is the only one who has heard from her?"
"I'm not even sure he has," Susie explained. "It sounds like the Maura spoke to her contact at the governor's office, who relayed the message to Doctor Popov."
"That's not like Maura."
"Precisely why I was going to come up to your desk," Susie replied. "I'm not sure I would feel comfortable calling Doctor Isles to ask what was going on, but I know you two are close and if anyone could find out what was going on, it would be you."
"Yeah. Thanks for letting me know, Chang. If you hear from Maura today, could you just let me know?"
"Of course, Detective. I'll come upstairs as soon as I hear anything."
Jane reached into her pocket and pulled a business card out. She pulled the pen that she had haphazardly stuffed into her ponytail and scribbled her personal cell phone number onto the back.
"Here's my personal cell number," Jane smiled as she handed the card to Susie. "Feel free to text me. Lord knows we can't have you leaving Popov unattended," she said with a nod towards the man in the lab across from them.
"Thank you. I'll be sure to do that," Susie grinned.
"Just don't go adding me to the death group chat!" Jane called over her shoulder as she turned and made her way to the elevators.
Jane pressed the elevator button repeatedly with her right hand while pulling her cell phone out with her left. She frowned when she saw no missed calls or texts from the blonde doctor. Stepping into the lift, Jane began typing a message to her best friend.
Hey, heard through the grapevine you took the day off. Hope it's nothing serious. Let me know how you're doing ASAP—I'm a bit worried.
Hitting send, Jane only had a few moments to ponder Maura's whereabouts before the doors to the bullpen opened and she was whisked into action by her partners.
Between Frost, Korsak, Frankie, and her mother, Jane was kept busy well into the night. Between chasing paper trails, visiting half a dozen houses and businesses hoping for a lead, and being locked in cold case storage praying for a connection to their current case, Jane had only found a few brief moments to check her phone. She never had more than those brief moments, so her plans to call the blonde were put onto the back burner of her mind.
Finally, when it was nearing 10 o'clock at night, the team finally called it a day.
"Robber last call isn't until 11," Frankie noted as they all tidied their work areas up. "Anyone up for a night cap? My treat."
"After finding out you root around my desk for snacks, it should always be your treat," Jane teased. "But no thanks. I'm gonna swing over to Maura's. I haven't heard from her all day and just wanna check in."
"I'm sure she's fine, but let her know we missed her today," Frankie replied.
"What the rookie said," Korsak added in. "Let her know we missed her and that we're here if she needs anything."
"Thanks, guys."
With that, Jane pulled her leather jacket on over her blue button down and made her way towards the parking garage. She pulled her hair out of its ponytail and ran her fingers through her curls from scalp to ends. Taking one last glance at her phone and still seeing no contact from Maura, Jane slid into her cruiser and began the drive to Beacon Hill.
The radio played softly in the background as she navigated the dark streets. The leaves had started to fall and they glistened on the pavement thanks to a recent, albeit brief, thunder storm that evening. Jane could tell when she entered Beacon Hill not just because it was a route she had driven countless times before, but because the sidewalks and streets suddenly were cleared of all fallen leaves and debris.
Pulling into the blonde's driveway, Jane noticed the only lights left on were the bedside table in Maura's bedroom and the porch light. She couldn't help but smile at the porch light shining—Maura had installed a timer on the light shortly into their friendship so the detective always had a light on when she came in after a long shift. Jane had brushed it off at the time, but every time she arrived to her best friend's house and the light illuminated her path she couldn't help but smile.
Pulling into her designated side of the driveway, Jane quickly pulled the keys from the ignition and jogged up to the front door. She paused when she reached it, hesitating for the first time in years as she debated whether to knock or let herself in as usual. Her question was answered when her phone chirped.
Come in.
Doing as instructed, Jane let herself into the large Beacon Hill house and began her usual ritual—she kicked her boots off and pushed them off to the side, unclipped her badge and gun from her waist and slid them into the safe in the hallway, and did a cursory sweep of the downstairs before taking the steps two at a time to the second floor.
When she reached Maura's room, Jane stopped short in the doorway and watched as the blonde lay there on her side. She opened her mouth to ask where the blonde had been all day, but thought better of it when she noticed the uneven breathing of her best friend.
"I've been worried about you," Jane said simply as she leaned against the doorframe. Though the two women weren't strangers to offering physical comfort in times of strife, Jane sensed something different in this moment.
"I'm sorry," Maura replied softly. "I should be back at work tomorrow."
Pushing off the doorframe, Jane walked over to the free side of Maura's bed and sat down.
"I wasn't just talking about today."
Maura lifted her eyes from the duvet cover to look up and Jane. She had spent most of the day in bed gasping for air, though whether that was from her constant tears or the persistent sensation of drowning she hadn't been able to shake since her therapy appointment the day before, Maura couldn't quite tell. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot and she was wrapped in a chunky knit sweater beneath her bedding.
"I'm worried about you, Maur."
"Jane, please," Maura said. "I—"
"I know you're an adult and you can take care of yourself but Maura, something is wrong. And I know you know what's wrong but for some reason you're not telling me. Which, yeah, you don't have to tell me anything but—"
"I was in the hospital!"
Jane's mouth snapped shut.
"You were at the hospital today?" Jane asked, turning her body to be more face to face with Maura.
"Technically I was there overnight, but yes. I was at Mass Gen today," Maura replied softly, her eyes dropping down to avoid Jane's.
"Should I be worried?"
Instead of answering, Maura patted the bed beside her and beckoned Jane to lay with her. When the detective stood up and made a move to head to the dresser where her spare clothes were kept, Maura interrupted.
"No, please. Just come lay down."
Nodding, Jane pulled the sheets back and slid into the King size bed, wiggling slightly to nestle into the mattress and pillow before making eye contact with Maura.
"Can you tell me why you were in the hospital?" she asked.
"I want to," Maura admitted softly.
As Jane continued to look into her eyes and remain silent, Maura felt the never ceasing panic begin to creep higher and higher. The duvet suddenly felt as though it carried the weight of a small car and the swaying sensation that comes from being in the water too long began to grip her mind. She tried desperately to regulate her breathing and focus on the woman laying opposite her but soon her eyes glazed over and her breathing came in short gasps.
Seeing this happen in front of her, Jane immediately scooted herself forward to place a hand on Maura's shoulder.
"Hey, hey," she soothed. "Its okay, we don't have to talk right now."
Maura noticed the clear implication—they wouldn't be talking then, but would be shortly. But for the moment, that was enough. Maura nodded her head as tears welled in her eyes.
"Okay, come 'ere."
Nodding, Maura allowed Jane to wrap her arms around her and hold her as she sobbed. The weight of the duvet eased and once again felt like the goose feathers it was made from instead of the vehicle it felt like moment ago, and her swirling of her mind seemed to slow as she felt strong hands rubbing up and down her spire.
"It's okay," Jane continued to soothe as she allowed the blonde to sob into her chest. "You're okay. I promise. I've got ya."
Maura could only nod her head in acknowledgement.
The two women stayed like that, Maura's hands clutching the back of the button up shirt Jane still wore and Jane rubbing soothing patterns over the back of Maura's silk sleep shirt, until sleep claimed them.