A nod to Tess Gerritsen and TNT: Thank you for creating these lovely characters that we love to play with at times. And a special shout out to Saving Hope.

I am here.

I know what happened and how I got here, but I don't know where I am. No, seriously, I don't know exactly where I am.

Has it only been 4 days? Really? Seems much longer.

The day was a typical day with a pissed off me waiting in the morgue for Maura to give me the answers I needed. I'm angry a lot. C'mon, I'm a homicide detective. The day I stop being pissed, the day I stop caring, I'll turn in my friggin' badge. This current case had just turned into a serial killer and I couldn't sit at my desk anymore.

"Maura, please tell me you have something that can help us nail this guy down."

Maura explained the differences of this victim to the other two. This woman had defense wounds and hopefully would provide us a lead in catching the killer. Kent let us know when the results were in. I remember feeling the adrenaline rush I always get when there is a DNA match. I had Maura forward the results to Frankie.

"Frankie. Open your mail, we got a match. Find out where this guy is and let's go arrest this scumbag."

We read his convictions. In and out of prison since his teens, assault, aggravated assault, rape. I look at Maura. "Wish us luck. Hopefully, we can get this creep off the streets today."

"You'll bring him in, I have no doubts, just please be careful, Jane."

I could see the concern in Maura's eyes and tried to reassure her. "Always."

The next few hours were crazy. Frankie and I processed an arrest warrant and coordinated a plan to find and bring this guy in. Based on the layout of the car repair shop and the possible avenues of escape, we had a couple of uniforms with us. I sent Maura a quick text to let her know we were headed out. Once there, I gave directions for our deployment.

"OK guys, if we could have you two stationed at the back door located right over there, Frankie and I will go in the front." I waited until they were in position and we proceeded into the repair shop.

"Ready, Frankie?" I am so proud of my little brother, he has grown into an impressive detective. I know he has my back, just as I have his, on assignments. We walked into the shop and showed our badges.

"Jane." Frankie tilted his head to indicate a man in the back that was watching us. Audet. When he saw that we noticed him, he quickly put his tools on the table and casually headed to the back door. We drew our weapons and headed after him. We found him, arms raised, in the door frame of the back door. The two uniforms, waiting outside, had their weapons trained on him. Frankie cuffed him and read him his rights.

Once back in our car, I let Vince know that the arrest went without a hitch and that we were headed back to the precinct.

Frankie blew a sigh of relief. "I like arrests like that, Jane."

I grinned at him. "No kidding, let's just hope interrogation goes as well."

Maybe we jinxed ourselves, because it all went downhill from there. The doors opened to the precinct and we walked through, followed by Audet and the two uniforms. All of a sudden, all hell broke body slammed one officer into the wall, completely knocking the wind out of him. At the same time, he kicked out with his leg and connected with the other officer's knee, bringing him down. Audet turned to make a run out the door in the pandemonium he caused. I was closer than Frankie, so made a high running tackle on Audet to knock him over, but Audet was a solid man. He stumbled, but didn't fall. He slammed me into the door frame. Frankie tackled Audet in the back of the knees finally taking him down. Other uniforms swarmed to help us and took him away.

I brushed myself off and gave Frankie a high five.

"Nice tackle, Frankie!"

Frankie grinned. "You hit 'em high, I'll hit them low."

Maura appeared by my side, trying to examine me. "I'm fine, Maura."

She reached up to touch a swelling on my head. "Ouch!" I slapped her hands away. With the adrenal leaving my body, my head begins to hurt.

"Jane, you really hit the doorframe hard with your head, I believe you should go to the hospital, you may have a concussion."

"Nah. I didn't hit that hard. I might get a headache." I turn to head toward interrogation, but started to feel dizzy. I braced her hand against the wall.

"Jane! Are you alright?" Maura sounds far away.

"Uh, I guess a little dizzy." I took another step and slowly slid down the wall.

Maura was by my side. I heard her shout. "Call 911!"

I remember her getting blurry. I wanted to tell her to stay with me, but only managed her name. "Maur?"

I woke in a hospital room, confused. I remember that my head didn't hurt and I heard voices in the hall. I carefully swung my legs off the side of the bed and slowly stood up as Maura and a doctor entered. They were looking at the clipboard, having a very serious discussion, and didn't notice me at first.

"Hey. I'm feeling fine. Can you sign me outta this place?"

They ignored me. They looked to the bed and I heard the doctor say, "We're going to keep her sedated, in a medically induced coma, to give the brain swelling more time to go down."

Confused, I looked behind me and saw myself on the bed. I stumbled back. "What the fu..! What's going on?"

I watched as Maura finished her discussion with the doctor and came to sit by the me in the bed. She took my hand, "Don't worry, Jane, you will wake up soon. You have the top neurologist in the hospital. If you don't wake up soon, I will bring in the top neurologist of the country."

I looked down at my own hand and didn't feel anything. I walked over to the bed to poke myself. I didn't wake up and I didn't feel anything. I looked at all the machines and contraptions hooked to me. Nothing helping with my breathing, good. There's my heartbeat, good. I followed the leads from my head to another monitor - squiggly lines, so anything that's not a flat line must be good.

I spent some of my time wandering around the hospital, seeing the daily drama that happened. When things were too depressing I visited the nursery, I swear that the babies could see me. I waved at them. "Hey there, can you see me?" I made a funny face and the baby laughed. Then it happened, someone spoke to me.

"Yes, the can see us for some reason." I whipped around and there was a guy in a baseball uniform.

"You can see me?"

"Yup."

"Where are we? Do you know what's going on?"

The young man pushed back is baseball cap to reveal light brown hair. "Well, as far as I know, we're both stable, but in comas. I got hit in the head with the ball when I was trying to steal second. Knocked me out cold. They had to operate on me to releave some of the pressure caused by bleeding. I'm in the room 2 down from you."

I was so happy fo have found someone to talk to! "So, I was right, I'm not dead."

"Nope, follow me." We walked around the corner and looked in another room. "See this guy?"

I looked in the room. A big man was in the bed, his head wrapped in bandages, a woman by his side crying. The man was also standing on the other side of the bed, arms crossed over a leather biker's vest. He nodded at us.

We walked away. "That guy is dead. Motorcycle accident, no helment, so brain activity. He's just waiting for his wife to pull the plug."

I looked over my shoulder at the monitors surrounding his bed. There it was, a monitor showing a flat line. I shivered.

Baseball guy held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Rick."

I shook his hand. "Jane."

"I see my girlfriend going into my room, so I'm heading back there."

"Hey, Rick. Good luck."

Rick nods at me. "You too, Jane."

The rest of the time, I hang out in my room while I have visitors. When Ma visits, she sits and knits and I get the family gossip. Yesterday, she told me how she has a 'nice Italian man' for me to meet. She has told him all about me. In her vision, I'm going to meet this guy, fall in love, leave the force to have nice Italian babies with this man and cook for him. Oh, and she will be moving into the in-law-apartment. I stood by my bed self, yelling at myself to wake up before Ma has the wedding invitations printed.

Frankie visits also. Most of the time with Ma. He fills me in on the sports teams. He's ok.

My favorite visitor is Maura. She always looks so put together and beautiful, even if she has just come from the morgue. She sits by my side, holding my hand, massaging it. Reading to me, ok, so, it's one of her medical journals, but she has a nice reading voice. She will tell me about the antics of Jo and Bass and I smile. I feel calm when she is with me.

Tonight, Frankie has just left the room to get coffee. Ma has my hand and is patting it.

"You know, Janie. I fully expect you to wake up. Yes, I do. My Janie is too stubborn to die like this, so you are going to get better. And I hope you learn your lesson from this. Maybe it's time to find another job that's not quite so dangerous….."

I stop my pacing when I hear this. Yes, I tend to pace a lot when Ma visits. I thought this visit was going well until this point.

"Aw, c'mon, Ma. You know the force is my life. I'm not leaving it because of a little bump on my head! Sheesh, I get hurt worse playing basketball or flag football with Frankie!" I'm waving my arms around when Frankie walks back in, coffee cup in hand. "You tell her, Frankie!" I slap myself on the forehead, forgetting, again, that they can't hear me.

"What was that, Ma?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just telling your sister that maybe it's time she finds another line of work that isn't quite so dangerous."

Frankie actually snorts. "Yeah, right, Ma. Jane lives to be a detective and she's a damn good one!"

Ma flips her hair. "Hrmph. I know that Frankie. I just want her safe. Both of you."

Frankie sits down and takes her hand. "Ma. Its me and Janie you're talking about. Even if we have 'safe' jobs, we're going to play tag football at Thanksgiving or Basketball on any Sunday dinner and get hurt worse than she is now. You know that!"

I look at my brother as I watch my mother nod. "Thank you, Frankie! That's what I was trying to tell her."

A short while later, Maura walks in. She looks a little stressed tonight, maybe a tough day at work. Ma and Frankie say that they are going out to dinner and would be back to say goodnight. You sit down beside me and thread your fingers through mine. You stroke my hand. I see tears glistening in your eyes. You begin to speak.

"Jane, you need to wake up. You need to wake up because I need to tell you how I feel about you. That I believe you feel the same way, but we've been doing a dance of avoidance for so long. Life is too short."

My heart begins to pound while I listen to her. Am I hearing her correctly? Is she voicing the feelings I have buried deep in my heart?

"You need to wake up because you have so much yet to accomplish. You are an excellent detective. You need to get back to work and get those 'scumbags' off our streets."

"You need to wake up because your family needs you."

"Jane, you need to wake up because I can't do this without you." She wipes a tear that trails down her cheek. She stands up to lean over to place a soft kiss on my lips before she sits back down. I see more tears leak from her eyes and I reach out to touch her…..

"Hey." My voice is hoarse from dryness. You laugh and throw your arms around me.

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty!" My eyes widen as I realize that you heard me, felt my touch.

I know exactly where I am.

I am here.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the reviews. Chapter 3 is already in the works! Hugs to everyone!