Hi, all. As promised (and requested) here is the sequel to Head Above Water. This will feature snippets of Maura's time in treatment, and her interactions with her parents and the treatment team.

Thank you so much for the lovely reactions to Head Above Water. As someone with mental illness, your kind reactions to this little labour of love have been so wonderfully overwhelming.


The moment Constance realized her daughter needed more help than just a relaxing few weeks in France was the evening of the day she landed.

She knocked on Maura's bedroom door just before dinner was due to be served. The blonde had spent the past several hours with a private psychiatrist, only to emerge and go straight into her room. Constance and Arthur had received a brief overview of the man's findings, but were left with lingering questions and the promise that a full report would be delivered to them the next day.

Constance waited several moments for her daughter to reply to her knock and, when she didn't reply, the older woman gently pushed the door open and scanned the room for the blonde. Constance couldn't help but gasp when she realized her daughter wasn't lying in bed, as she had suspected, but was sitting at her vanity with several prescription bottles in front of her.

"Oh, ma cherie," Constance breathed as she quickly made her way to her daughter.

"I haven't done anything," Maura reassured her voice flat and lifeless. "I was just-"

"Contemplating?"

"No," Maura replied. "Thinking. All the advances to modern medicine and I'm still not happy. So much potential in these bottles yet…nothing," she trailed of.

"Maura, darling," Constance said as she, in an uncharacteristic move, knelt down to meet Maura's own downturned gaze. "These things take time. As a woman of medicine I know you know that. Dr. Blanchet is typing up a treatment plan as we speak and your father and I will spend every cent in our savings if it means you'll be happy."

Maura scoffed.

"I would hope it wouldn't take that much money."

Constance, instead of replying, took her daughter's hands in her own and squeezed them gently. Though it had been nearly a year since she last saw her daughter and she knew changes were to be expected, Constance felt her chest constrict as she finally took stock of her daughter. She had lost several pounds and her eyes, once bright and passionate, seemed dull and dark.

"Talk to me, darling," she implored softly. "I know I haven't been the best mother, but I want to be better. I want to be there for you."

Maura finally lifted her eyes off of the prescription bottles filled with baseless hope and looked to her mother, her eyes filled with tears.

"I don't know who I am anymore," she choked out.

"What do you mean, darling?"

"He said it isn't dysthymic disorder," Maura explained, illuminating what she and the psychiatrist had spoken about. "He's changed my diagnosis to major depressive disorder."

"And even with that, you are still the same beautiful, intelligent, passionate woman you have always been."

"But I'm not!" Maura exclaimed, pulling her hands from her mother's and crossing the room to stare out the expansive window that overlooked the stables.

The two women remained silent as Maura allowed the tears to fall freely. Constance pushed herself up and sat on the edge of the bed, watching as her daughter so obviously battled her own mind. They remained in silence for several minutes, neither of them quite sure what to say.

"All my life I've struggled with my identity," Maura finally spoke. "First it was just the simple fact that I was adopted. Garrett came and went in a flurry and I had no idea how to identify myself without it being in relation to him. Then I learned about Hope and Paddy and had to re-evaluate what it means to have the blood of a mobster in my veins."

Though Constance wanted to reassure her daughter, she kept her mouth shut and allowed Maura to continue.

"When Jane and I fought, I then had to realise I didn't know who I was without being Jane's best friend or an unofficial Rizzoli," the blonde continued. "It seems every few years I'm forced to realize I don't really know who I am. At least not without it being tied to others. And now this man has diagnosed me with a major mental illness and I'm left questioning everything yet again. Questioning who I am at the very biological level."

"I echo what I said before, that you are the same beautiful, intelligent, passionate woman you have always been," Constance reassured her daughter. "Even if your genetics have left you pre-disposed to this illness, nothing changes. You still proudly demonstrated against arts budget cuts as a teenager. You completed highly complex degrees as a young adult. You earned your Chief Medical Examiner title and overhauled the entire Boston Police Department laboratory. You proved yourself selfless and kind and good, regardless of any major depressive disorder in your genetic predisposition."

"If only it was that simple," Maura sighed as she watched snowflakes begin to fall outside her window.

"I don't expect my words to have any impact on you and how you're feeling," Constance admitted as she stood from the bed and walked to her daughter. "But that doesn't make them any less true. You have become a good person, Maura. Despite everything you're questioning, you have become a good person. And that is who you are at the biological level."

"How do you know?"

The words Maura whispered struck her mother right in the chest. She realized her words were half empty praises, emptied by years of distance.

"I know I haven't been there," Constance admitted sadly. "And even when I was there physically, I wasn't always present emotionally."

"I didn't mean it like that," Maura tried to explain as she looked away from the stables and to her mother.

"Even if you didn't, it's still the truth. I wouldn't know all of the wonderful nuances that make you who you are," Constance smiled sadly. "I won't ever be able to fully make up for all the years I left you alone. And it shouldn't have taken a diagnosis like this to wake your father and I up, but it has. And we are here to support you in every way we can. We love you so much, darling."

"I love you, too, mother," Maura smiled sadly.

"I know a place," Constance said, broaching the subject gently. "A treatment centre just outside of the city. The Foundation has sent donations there in the past so your father and I have toured it and met some of the staff."

She didn't finish her offer. Instead, Constance let the unspoken offer hang in the air between her and her daughter.

Finally, Maura nodded.