CH 1: Awakenings
The closed eyes of the sandy-headed blonde twitched under the stress of the recurring dream. Every time she had drifted off for the past two days, the same scenario replayed itself…she's running out of the front door and down the stairs of the police headquarters following after her best friend who's been taken hostage and she just…can't…get there…in time. She calls out to her friend as the gun goes Bang! And she's reaching forward as the detective falls to the ground, a crumpled mess of long dark hair coming to lie limply across her face. The city street around them teeming with cops, their weapons drawn, is silent but for her own voice calling out and of course but for the sound of the one gun, pointed into her friend's abdomen. Each time the scenario replays Maura Isles thinks she gets just a little bit closer, 1 step, 2 steps, maybe this time she'll get there and be able to…but always the gun goes Bang!
A slight movement under her face caused Maura to bolt upright out of her sleep, sitting in the worn and hard-backed chair by the hospital bed she had fallen asleep, her cheek resting on Jane's hand. Maura blinked several times and tried to wipe the exhaustion from her hazel eyes before looking up to catch the soft brown eyes of her friend looking back at her.
Jane was awake. She looked at her friend holding vigil by her bedside and almost didn't recognize her. Maura's hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, bumpy on the top with wisps pulled out in various places hanging haphazardly around her face – a very uncharacteristic look for the usually pristinely composed doctor. No makeup. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes gave away the intermittent and nightmare plagued sleep she'd been drifting in and out of for the past two days. The detective's eyes drifted down to her friend's ensemble, a cotton blend BCU t-shirt, a leftover from Maura's college days Jane pondered, and….wait a minute…
"You own sweatpants?" Jane blurted out groggily her voice unusually raspy, she swallowed hard and tried to clear her throat, it felt dry and scratchy. "Like, real sweatpants," she continued, "not those spandexy tights things you wear to yoga?"
Maura grasped her friend's hand; the laugh started out small but grew with the relief that her friend was ok. Jane was ok. She reached up and brushed away her tears that were starting to form hoping Jane didn't see them. It had been a long few days. Kneeling beside her fallen friend at the station, applying pressure to the wound, screaming, desperately screaming for the paramedics she'd never felt so unprepared, unraveled so out of control. Obviously with her profession, Maura wasn't the type to be particularly struck by the sight of blood on any "normal" occasion; seeing it leak out of a loved one though had truly been an otherworldly experience. The ride in the ambulance had been interminable and when a pair of nurses finally restrained her and wouldn't allow her to continue with her friend into the O.R. Maura had wondered if that would be the last memory she had of Jane.
She had prayed at that moment, an act that puzzled her later on. Yes, she knew a lot about religion – different religions, their history, the nuances of many of their practices, their foundational doctrine. But, she'd never been a particularly religious person herself, spiritual perhaps in some ways, she tried to live her life guided by the concrete realities of science but even the hardest scientist could not avoid and even marvel at the occasion of being confronted by the unexplainable or the miraculous. She didn't attend church, didn't consider herself an adherent to any particular denomination, but in that moment she had prayed…to a god, God, any god, "Please don't let this be the last time….there's so much I need…"
She shook her head free of that flashback.
"I see your sense of humor is still intact." Maura retorted, trying to compose herself. "I sent Korsak to my house to bring me a change of clothes so I didn't have to leave, this is what he brought back." She motioned in a resigned fashion. "I'm not even sure where he found these, I'm a little scared to think how far back in the closet he must have dug…"
"How long have you been here?" Jane interrupted.
"Two days."
Two days. "How long have I been here?" It scared Jane a little that she'd lost days.
"Just two days."
"Just two…." The memory started coming back, why she was there, "Oh my God, Frankie!..."
"He's fine! He's going to be fine." Maura said as she moved from the chair to take a seat on the bed next to Jane, squeezing her hand even tighter. She placed her other hand over Jane's wrist, lightly stroking it with her thumb. Jane squeezed her hand back. "The doctors were able to repair the internal bleeding, he's in another room…your parents are with him." Maura let a faint smile cross her lips; she continued lightly stroking Jane's wrist. She didn't want to let go…ever.
The look of relief on Jane's face was evident, "So, you've been here for two days, wearing a cotton t-shirt and sweatpants, sleeping in a chair, eating hospital cafeteria food and no doubt dealing with my mother? What's this gonna cost me when I get outta here? Don't tell me, I'm booked for whatever the newest, weirdest yoga class in town is for like…a year aren't I?"
Both women laughed, but Maura stopped laughing before Jane, taken by the sight of the dark-haired woman awake, alive, ok, Jane was going to be ok. Maura wasn't sure she'd ever felt a greater sense of relief over something in her entire life, not after any exam, not after any case she'd ever supplied the science for which cracked it wide open, not when she found out who her birth father was after all those years of searching. The feeling that began sweeping over her body was sharp, intense, panicky, urgent. At first she thought she was having some kind of post-traumatic stress anxiety attack as her heart began to race, So much I need…to say, So much I need…to do, echoing in her head and then everything propelled her forward and she delicately grasped Jane on either side of her face and pressed their lips together. It almost surprised Maura that Jane's mouth was slightly open but she seized on the opportunity and slid her tongue in tasting the warmth, drawing Jane's lower lip into her mouth…Maura's mind felt completely devoid of thoughts as she relaxed into the rawness of the moment.
The passionate kiss was cut short…
"OH! You're awake!" Angela Rizzoli stood in the entranceway, holding a water canister for the various vases of flowers in one hand and a cup of coffee from the hospital café in the other.
"OH! I…" Maura stammered as she jerked back glancing quickly to confirm the voice indeed belonged to Mrs. Rizzoli. Pressing one hand to her lips, she could still taste Jane on them; she looked wide-eyed at her friend who stared, shocked, back at her. Maura Isles didn't have any words, and that didn't happen often. "…I, I, should…go" Maura popped up off the bed and dashed towards the door.
"Mau…" Jane started to call out but her friend was gone, out the door down the hall, she didn't wait for the elevator, down the stairs as fast as she could go.
"Oh My GOD! MA! Will you ever learn to knock!" Jane exclaimed, rolling her eyes she threw a hand up over her face to cover it. Maybe, she thought, maybe when I take my hand down Ma won't be standing there and that won't have just happened. I'm dreaming, this is some kind of waking-dream-coma-thingy that Maura would have a fancy name for that I couldn't pronounce. She peeked out between two fingers, damn….
"What!" Angela Rizzoli exclaimed as she set her coffee down on the bedside table and went to watering the flowers. "Who knocks to enter their child's hospital room?...Besides, you've been asleep for two days…"
Another eyeroll.
Angela continued, "Two whole days!" She held up two fingers and looked exasperatedly at her daughter before returning to the flowers. "Frankie Jr. was awake two hours after surgery and here you are knocked out for two days! Your father and I were worried sick you wouldn't wake up, the doctors insisted you would be fine and that some people just take their time coming around, and of course I said, Well, if anyone will be the one to drag it out and worry her poor mother sick to death it will be my Janie…"
Angela's rambling became background noise as Jane gingerly peeped out of one open eye to see her mother watering and pruning the plants. She's not going to say anything, about what just happened? What did just happen? Jane moved two fingers up to her lips and lightly touched them; and, it felt like her heart skipped a beat.
