"Please don't say anything," Maura murmured as Brenda's eyes fluttered open. "You'll be in a lot of pain, and you don't need to say anything." She took a shallow breath. It was true, but more than that, Maura wasn't sure she could bear to hear that voice. "Once you're fully awake, I can give you more painkillers. I'd have run an IV, but we're low on anything in vials until the next ship comes."
It had been a couple of hours since Maura had walked into the exam room, seen Brenda laying there, bruised, broken, impossible, impossibly fragile. Had been a couple of hours since Maura had so much as moved, save for a few light shivers as Brenda mumbled herself back into consciousness.
"Sharon," she'd muttered, wincing as her shoulders shifted slightly.
Maura's heart had clenched at that, despite her being certain there was no way she could possibly feel more wound-up, more floundering.
"You're all right," she'd whispered, still not letting herself so much as brush the other woman's hand. Sat with her fingers knit tightly together in her lap, or worried them at her elbows. "You'll be all right."
Who she was talking to, Maura wasn't entirely certain.
"Sharon," Brenda had mumbled again, and Maura had thought briefly of Jane; the twisting feeling in her core suddenly threatening to overwhelm her.
It had been twenty-five years. Half her life. Half again of that—she had often tried and failed to stop herself from remembering—a life half-lived. Wandering through the deep labyrinth of sorrow and fear and self-hatred. Spending years and years there, until the pain had subsided enough, until the ugly, pointed questions she demanded of herself had faded gradually into the background. Until she'd allowed herself, softly, slowly, hardly at all, to love someone new. To at least feel that thrill of attraction, of interest. To not press, to not nudge, to not hint or whisper, in case it happened again. Shattered again. After a life half-lived, to let herself feel the shivery, glittering rush of adoration without it being dragged down into a fathomless sea where every fear was answered with emptiness, with nothing, with more questions; where every possibility for love was drowned, pulled down, tugged beneath the black waves by hands that scratched at her, clawed at her, demanded to know what had changed, what had made her worthy of someone else's heart.
Nothing, she'd thought for a decade. Had been blank, smooth, dipped in acid and left to dissolve inexorably into herself.
And then she'd met Jane, had slowly let herself love Jane, had slowly felt Jane's love for her in return, had waited, so long, so cautiously, until Jane had taken that first step on her own, rain-soaked, broken, frantic, in that tiny cabin in the middle of the clearing.
Maura had promised herself, after that long lonely night half a lifetime ago, once she'd realized Brenda wasn't going to call her back, let alone come back, that she wouldn't fall again, not like that first time, not like with Brenda, and she hadn't. She'd been careful, she'd been secretive, she'd tried so hard to keep it close to her heart, and when Jane had loved her back, well, that was what Jane had chosen, and Maura had gotten to feel the sweetness of being loved for herself, of being fallen in love with after being known for a long time.
Not that harsh, consuming fire of being loved immediately, of being seen and felt and wanted on some submerged and wild level, of being craved and needed, of craving and needing, but not knowing, not being known. Even though it had taken Maura half of half of her life to forget that feeling, had taken her years and years to not want the harsh pull of someone's teeth—Brenda Leigh's teeth—on her lip before she even knew their name.
"You got shot." The honeyed accent still clear, despite the foggy rasp in her voice.
"So did you."
Maura answered her without thinking. Hadn't thought about how she'd taken her wool coat off but not put her white jacket on, having recognized the woman in front of her in the beat between. Hadn't realized she'd been sitting there for hours in a sleeveless knit dress, one that showed the shiny white scar on her shoulder, worrying her hands at her bare elbows. Hadn't realized how chilly she was, or, indeed, that her body registered anything against the dense gray fuzz of this impossible moment.
The clinic was kept very comfortable, it was one of Seabrook's first town charter agreements, but Maura realized she was shivering. Stood abruptly and retrieved her white coat from the hook on the back of the door next to her gray wool overcoat. Felt immediately better as she covered herself, shielded herself from Brenda's warm brown gaze.
"I'm supposed to get shot at," Brenda said, still finding her breath. "Didn't think that was really a concern of y'all doctor-types."
"What a strange world we live in now, Brenda Leigh," Maura said, before she could stop herself. Felt tears immediately sting at her eyes. Felt foolish, felt stupid. Had seen the constellation of scars on Brenda's body as she'd forced herself to do a cursory exam, not that she didn't trust Katie, but she needed to see for herself. That it was her. That she was real.
The first faint, nearly-vanished scar near Brenda's right hip had made Maura choke back a sob. She knew that one; Brenda had never elaborated on it beyond wryly advising Maura to avoid getting shot at any cost. A few light scratches on her arms, which Maura had let Brenda assure her were from the pet cats of her youth—I'm allergic, she'd said, makes the scars worse, but I still like 'em more than dogs, so oh well—a scattering of faded half-moons that looked suspiciously like cigarette burns, old wounds Brenda had always pulled away from Maura before she could ask, but now, all this time later—another neat round scar above her right breast and a matching one just along the edge of her shoulder blade; a long thin line up her left leg, a hash of marks just below her left elbow.
"Can you tell me your name?" Maura asked abruptly, draining any color from her voice, desperate to stay cool, distant, clinical.
"Maura—"
"Your name, please."
"Brenda Leigh Johnson," Brenda said. "Deputy Chief, Los Angeles Police Department, Major Crimes Division."
So that's how you know Dr. Morales, Maura thought, a sudden, odd stab of relief knowing they had been colleagues, that it hadn't been some elaborate, improbable, cruel joke.
"Do you know where you are?"
"Not the faintest," Brenda said. "I will acknowledge that my head hurts somethin' awful, and I recall you mentioned something about painkillers—"
"Do you know what day it is?"
Brenda frowned, though Maura couldn't tell if it was from focus or disappointment about the painkillers. "Well, last I recall is it bein' Saturday evening, and I certainly hope I haven't been out as long as all that, so I'm gonna venture that it's Sunday? Light outside says maybe around time for a late breakfast?" She pointed to the small, narrow window up close to the ceiling.
"Yes," Maura said, still working to keep her voice steady. "Can you tell me how you got here?"
"I imagine in the strong arms of the chivalrous Dr. Morales," Brenda sighed. "But beyond that, we were drivin' up from Northern California—around Redwoods—and when we were just gettin' over the Washington border from Oregon we must've hit something. I remember him talkin' to me for a little while but then it went black, and then I woke up here," she said, her voice soft, a hint of wonder, of anxiety. "Lookin' at you."
"And why were you coming here?" Maura ignored Brenda's last statement, again working to keep her voice flat, to not make it sound like an accusation.
"There was an earthquake. Real bad one. We couldn't . . . stay there any more," Brenda said quietly, not elaborating. "Only way to go was north, and after a couple days, Dr. Morales heard the broadcast on the AM radio."
They'd set up a dedicated signal a few years into the establishment of Seabrook, using equipment given to them by one of the rare transport ships that had incorporated the tiny community into its route. Twice a year they'd receive medical supplies, fuel for the town's array of generators, tools, sometimes bags of seed or a new piece of equipment for the small farms they'd established a few dozen miles inland. Always a few new people. Once, though, a hybrid generator and low-band transmitter that allowed them to continuously broadcast their coordinates for hundreds of miles, along with a short message instructing refugees to find them, that they could provide food, shelter, medical care, safety.
The signal had become less effective as the years had passed, as anyone likely to be traveling had already found them. On rare occasions, usually linked to some upheaval somewhere else, a small rush of new residents, five or ten, would arrive, thanking them for the broadcast, holding out an offering of unworn shoes, canned goods, fuel they'd collected, sometimes an injured companion. It had been at least three years since they'd greeted someone who had found them from the signal, yet Maura insisted, as the de facto head of the community, that they not shut it off.
"And my name?" Maura said, a little too sharply, even though it wasn't one of the standard questions. She had to be sure.
Brenda looked at her for a long moment, biting her bottom lip.
"Doctor Maura Isles," she said finally, dragging every syllable out. "Chief Medical Examiner, Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
Maura blinked. Sat back slightly.
"I didn't stop thinkin' about you," Brenda whispered, so softly Maura could, for a moment, let herself believe it was a figment of her imagination. "Not for one minute."
"I—"
"Please don't say anything," Brenda mumbled, wincing for a moment as she registered the pain in her head, then taking a deep breath. "You're not the one who needs to do any talkin' here, Maura."
"Let me get you something," Maura said, standing and turning before Brenda could see the flush spreading across her face. She busied herself at the medicine cabinet for a moment, pretending to search for the pills she'd already palmed, willed herself to breathe calmly, to push her emotions back down. She took a deep breath, turned back to face Brenda, set the pills next to a cup of water on the small table by the bed.
"Take these, you'll feel better. Please don't move too much, you have a fractured collarbone."
"I wondered what was makin' me feel so itchy," Brenda said, drifting her fingers over the broken place. Carefully leaned over, took the pills, sputtered a bit as she sipped at her water.
"Ow," she mumbled.
Maura stood a few steps away, unable to make herself move, her brain still clouded with a thick fog.
Brenda didn't speak, just looked at her. After a few moments, she cleared her throat. "I suppose I owe you an explanation."
"You don't owe me anything." Her voice a little harsher than she'd meant it to be, though, she supposed, it was how she felt.
"Yes," Brenda said softly, "I do."
Yes, you do. You told me you loved me and then you disappeared. I loved you, and you were gone, and I had to live with it for half a lifetime.
"You look just the same," Brenda whispered after a beat. "Still so beautiful."
"Don't," Maura said. "Please."
"I'm sorry."
The words stung. The only words she'd been needing to hear that voice say for years, and here they were, but not in the right place. Not for the right reason.
"I am, Maura," Brenda said again, her voice dark and sad. "I am sorry. For what I did. For, uh, for just leavin' you like that. I felt awful, I swear."
Maura let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Well, I suppose as long as you felt awful."
Brenda frowned. "I did. I do. It was inexcusable, just disappearin'. But I had to, Maura, I didn't have a choice."
Maura crossed her arms, still standing halfway across the room from Brenda, small on the bed, pale, bruised, vulnerable. Thinner even than she had been as a young woman, her bones clearly visible against her skin, her dark eyes still clear, but haunted now. Her froth of curls mostly gray, but still wild, still beautiful. Like her.
She didn't speak.
Brenda fumbled her fingers together for a moment, biting at her lower lip. "Well I guess I can just go ahead and tell you now, since it don't hardly matter any more."
Maura raised an eyebrow.
"When we met, I was workin' for Metro PD," she said, hesitantly.
"Yes, I'm aware of that."
"I'm tryin' here, Maura, please let me try."
Maura sighed. Crossed over to the chair next to the bed, sat, re-folded her arms across her chest.
"That's where I ended up after I, uh, left the Company."
Maura froze. She felt like all the air had abruptly left the room, flashes of cruel faces, of dull black gun barrels, of Frost crumpled on the side of the road, of Jane coughing and shuddering on the floor of the laboratory.
And then she burst out laughing. The absurdity of it. The absolute inevitability.
"Are you—are you okay?" Brenda asked, shrinking back slightly.
"You were in the CIA," Maura sighed, shaking her head.
Brenda nodded glumly. "They recruited me out of college. Spent too much of my life on them, doing whatever they told me, going all over the place, and then one time it . . . went real bad. I told them I wanted out, but they're not so big on retirement over there." She shrugged, winced. "So I told them I'd put a burn notice out on myself, that very day, across all the wires, unless they let me go quietly."
Maura watched her, motionless.
"I think they would've burned me themselves except I had too many contacts in Russia and things, people who would've just loved to get their hands on me, see if I might be interested in switchin' sides." She rolled her eyes, winced. "Not that I would have, of course, but it was good leverage."
"Mm-hmm," Maura murmured.
"But that day, well, the day before, when I said I was goin' in for a promotion, well, it wasn't . . . it wasn't quite that," Brenda said, her voice soft, dull. "They let me go, sure, for a while, but I always knew it wouldn't be forever. Knew they'd need me to do them another little favor someday. And it ended up being that day."
"Ah."
"I ended up goin' back to Kyiv that night. Did some things I didn't want to do. And when I got back a few months later, you were gone back to Boston, and I . . . I just couldn't. Face you. Not after what I'd done. To you. To other people. I couldn't let you see the person I was. I was . . . I was so ashamed of her. Of myself."
Maura sat impassively, though she could feel hot tears collecting in her eyes, slipping down her cheek.
"And then I made some bad choices, tryin' to be someone else, to start over, did some real dumb things. Moved back to Atlanta for a while, did a few more dumb things. Got called out to Los Angeles to join the force there, and I figured I was so used to goin' where I was told, that it didn't really matter what I wanted, so I went."
A long pause, the air heavy between them.
"But I mean it, Maura. I never once stopped thinkin' about you. I'd look you up sometimes, just to see how you were." She laughed a little, bitterly. "And I guess to torture myself, since that's the least of what I deserved for what I'd done."
Maura sighed.
"Not that I'm throwin' myself a pity party," Brenda said quickly. "I really do mean it. I deserved to not have you, knowin' you were still out there. Seein' your successes, how happy you looked."
"I wasn't happy," Maura whispered.
"Me neither," Brenda whispered back. "All I ever wanted was you."
Maura felt her face threaten to crumple, tears spilling freely now. "I have to go," she said, standing abruptly. "I have other patients to see."
"Yes of course," Brenda said softly. "You go on now."
"I'll ask Dr. Morales to check on you in a bit. Please get some rest."
"Yes ma'am."
Maura spun away, left the room before Brenda could see her shoulders start to shake.