Monday
It was Jane's first day back on the job. She'd requested a new partner, and he seemed nice enough, not flinching when he shook her butchered hand. Korsak seemed kind of annoyed. She knew Frost would have been filled in on who she was, what had happened, who Hoyt was and what he done to her, but he had an easy charm to him, a calm and cheerful temperament even in the face of Korsak's grumpiness.
"We got a body, let's go," Frost said, grabbing his jacket. Jane reached for hers.
"Ok, but you're driving - I don't have my car back yet."
"Ok, but you're buying coffee," Frost countered. Jane looked back at Korsak, who was staring gloomily at his computer.
The body was pretty tame, as far as Jane had seen them. Straight through gunshot wounds, four to the chest. There was a pool of blood and a blonde woman crouching over the body.
"What are we looking at here?" Jane asked, snapping her gloves on, feeling the tendon burn as she made a fist. She crouched next to the body, and the other woman looked up at her.
Oh shit.
It was Doctor Isles - they'd met once, when Doctor Isles had just moved to Boston, and shortly afterwards she'd done several rotations through the Commonwealth. Jane had always wondered if their first interaction had anything to do with it. The icy stare of the Doctor - no, the Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - landed on Jane for a long moment, taking in her pantsuit and unruly hair for a long moment before looking wordlessly back at the body.
"Multiple bullet holes," Jane said, trying to start a conversation. "Looks like a headwound too, huh?"
"Detective Rizzoli, I am unable to speculate at this juncture," she said sharply, and Jane turned to one of the crime scene techs, pointed at where she wanted photos.
"What's this on his fingers," Jane asked, turning over his hand once the photos were done. "Looks black... Sticky... Printer dye? Canned paint?"
"Again I must inform you that I cannot speculate," Doctor Isles said, and Jane grunted, lifting herself to her feet and walking over to where Frost was talking with the uniforms, setting up an canvas area as well as a trashcan radius.
"C'nya go over there? Queen of the Dead won't talk to me," Jane grumbled.
"Uh... Sure," Frost said, walking over. Frankie laughed and mimicked throwing up a moment before Frost started gagging.
"He always do that?" Jane asked as Frost ducked off into the bushes.
"Pretty much. Weak stomach."
"Aw hell, he's not going to be going to the autopsies, is he?" Jane asked. "ME and I have beef from my days in Vice, she's not gonna talk to me."
"Sure you should be going to autopsies?" Frankie asked, concerned. "He's junior, make him go."
"Yeah, let him barf all over her morgue, great idea, I'm sure she'll love me for that."
"I just worry, ya know?" Frankie said.
"Worry on Sundays," Jane said, aiming a gentle punch at his shoulder, her hand smarting. Maybe she'd come back to work too soon.
Doctor Isles came over, and Jane watched her navigate the grassed field in her blue heels, fashionable matching blue dress swishing around her knees, blue earrings glinting when they caught the sun. Jane looked down at her own outfit again and groaned.
"Why's she havta be so..."
"Pretty?" Frankie asked, and Jane smacked him again, grabbing at her hand a moment later.
"Do you need a doctor, Detective?" Doctor Isles asked, stopping at her side, and Jane shoved her hands in her pockets, feeling the scars rub against the fabric of her pants.
"No, no, we're all good here."
"In that case, you may want to tend to your partner," Doctor Isles indicated towards the bushes from which Frost was staggering. Jane nodded and walked over.
They stopped at a convenience store, Jane for coffee, Frost for mints. He was obviously embarassed but he'd been nothing but kind to her so far, and Jane didn't want to burn any bridges.
"You tried Vicks?" Jane asked, and Frost nodded. "Immersion therapy?"
"Oh, I'm fine with gore on tv and video games, but put actual blood in front of me and my brain tells me that's supposed to be inside the body."
"It takes time," Jane said, looking out the window. "Everything does," she added, rubbing her scars.
Jane went down to the morgue, looked through the window. One of the other ME's was in there and Jane saw the scalpel in his hand. Hoyt. Scalpel. She saw the knife cut in and turned away, barging into Doctor Isles and spilling her coffee down them both. Jane looked down, trying to regulate her breathing like the therapist had taught her. She could feel the panic rising in her chest like a wave of nausea. She needed to get out of there.
"Sorry... Wow, I'm lucky you're in scrubs, I couldn't afford to pay for that dress you were wearing earlier." Jane fidgetted. "Uh. Sorry. I gotta go."
"You aren't going to stay for the autopsy, Detective Rizzoli?" Doctor Isles asked.
"Would I be welcome to?" Jane asked, only slightly calmer now that she wasn't watching a scalpel slice through human flesh.
"You or Detective Frost, either would be acceptable."
Jane rubbed her hands again. "Maybe not today," she said, looking up. The cold expression she'd seen that morning was replaced by something curious and slightly concerned. Perhaps this had been an olive branch, extended to mend what was broken between them.
"I had forgotten. Welcome back, Detective Rizzoli."
"Um. Thanks. And look, I'm sorry. When we met I wasn't..."
"You were having a bad day, and I made an assumption. Now you know why I don't guess, Detective Rizzoli."
"It's Jane," Jane said, with a half-smile, pushing her hair away from her face. Her smile turned the Doctor's face back to stone.
"Do you have spare..." Doctor Isles gestured to Jane's outfit.
"Oh! Oh, it's fine."
"We have spare scrubs in the lab. I'll have to get a fresh pair anyway."
"I'm not - no offense - I'm not going back to the squad room in scrubs," Jane said. Doctor Isles looked like she wanted to say something else, but she shrugged and went into the lab, presumably to get fresh scrubs. Jane pinched her nose, looking down at her stained shirt. If she put her jacket on, wore it for the rest of the day she might get away with it.
"You'll have to go get the report," Jane told Frost when her phone dinged. "ME already hated me, then I knocked her coffee all over her." Frost paled and Korsak snickered.
"Just to the lab?" Frost asked.
"Or her office, I'm sure one of the techs can hand it over."
"No need," Doctor Isles said from behind Jane, who turned in surprise, hands up to protect her face from the person who had snuck up on her. Doctor Isles placed the report in those same hands. ".35 calibre, time of death between 2 and 3 am."
"Y'get anything on that black stuff?" Jane asked, leafing through the report.
"The black substance is still being tested," Doctor Isles informed her.
"Thanks, Doctor Isles," Jane said, feeling Doctor Isles' gaze still on her hands, aware that her team had noticed her extreme reaction to Doctor Isles sneaking up on her.
"It was no problem," Doctor Isles said.
"No, that was really fast. I owe you a coffee."
"No thank you," Doctor Isles said, turning and leaving abruptly.
"Now I see why she doesn't come out of the basement," Frost said.