WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGERS (threats of Non-con/rape)
I haven't left you with any cliffhangers so far...i have been nice?...now i'm being a little bit mean :/ ...but i promise not to leave you hanging for too long. Next update will be in a day or two.
P.S. LOVE the reviews. XXXX
Chapter s1x
"Maura, I had a bad dream last night."
"About Hoyt?"
"No."
"Do you want to talk about it, Jane?"
"Not really..."
Maura raises her eyebrows and Jane drops her gaze to the counter and sighs, "I dreamt I moved to Afghanistan with Casey and we got married. He became a General and got everything he ever wanted. The wife, the kids, the career."
"Mmmmhmmm." Maura says to indicate she is still listening keeping any internal disappointment hidden.
"And I came back to Boston to visit everyone for Christmas. But you were all gone."
"Gone. What do you mean?"
"Ma, Frankie, Korsak, Nina...you...everyone...all gone, vanished, like you had never been in Boston. It was like an alternate life where everything had changed. Nothing was the same...and I wandered BPD and the morgue but no one I knew was there. A very grumpy old couple lived in your house. And Frankies apartment was full of exchange students. I spent Christmas in Boston alone. Do you think that it means something?"
"I do, Jane."
"What. What does it mean?"
"Well-I don't know exactly...but dreams are often the subconscious mind trying to tell the conscious mind something important. So it definitely means something."
"Maura" Jane sighs her annoyance and rubs her face.
"Well, maybe it means you feel you will lose everything you care about if you marry Casey and leave your home."
"But that won't really happen...I won't lose you. Right?"
"True, you won't lose any of us. It was just a dream."
Jane reaches out and takes Maura's hand rubbing her thumb across the back in thought, "When I woke up, Casey was there. And I thought...I felt...he couldn't take my fears away from me...because I am afraid of loosing myself because of him."
"I think you just interpreted your own dream Jane."
Jane squeezes Maura's hand gently, "He tried to comfort me and everything, he was really sweet, and it should have been nice...but...it felt so confused, and I wanted to call everyone and check you were all still in Boston...without Casey thinking I was insane."
"That would have seemed a little strange."
"I know they are just feelings, but it felt like he was forcing me away from what I care about by giving me an ultimatum. I wanted to run away from him. And he isn't enough alone...I need my family. He couldn't comfort me the way you all do. They way you can."
Maura squeezes Jane's hand back comfortingly and gives her a soft reassuring smile. She secretly hopes Jane will stay.
"What are you going to do Jane?"
"I don't know. Part of me loves him...I really do. But I don't want to end up resenting him later because of my own choices. I can't be me and be his too."
Jane pulls away from Maura's comfort and straightens up.
"Maur, I don't think I can give up the things that matter to me...I don't think I want too."
Casey comes back more agitated than when he left. Maura stays quiet. She doesn't want to agitate him further nor does she want her fat lip to be further injured. He paces back and forth mumbling to himself but Maura can't make out any complete words.
Maura lowers her head and focuses on a patch of carpet on the floor. She wishes she could be invisible because she has what Jane would call a 'gut feeling' that this situation is going to get very bad.
Suddenly Casey sits down in his chair and puts his head in his hands and sighs.
Suddenly he is calm and the agitation is gone.
His breathing evens out. His pupils return to a normal size.
He picks up a cellphone off the table and stares at it for a moment.
The pad of his thumb caresses the little buttons. Bottom to top. Repeat.
And then he looks up at Maura. His eyes are steely and she can't quite read his expression.
She can only tell he is determined, he had made up his mind about something.
"I met with Jane today." It's almost a whisper. Casey looks back at the phone. Maura feels her mouth open in surprise.
"I made a mistake." He breathes out through his teeth.
Maura studies him, again trying to understand when she lacks half the puzzle. Her heart feels like it speeds up and slows down all at once.
"Is she ok?"
'Please don't tell me she is dead.'
He looks up at her but she can't read him. Can't read the expression on his face. He hides things so well...too well.
"We talked."
Casey begins to press some buttons on the phone and then holds it out to Maura.
She takes it cautiously and presses it gently to her ear, never taking her eyes off Casey. He doesn't take his eyes off her either.
It rings twice before being answered, "Rizzoli."
"Jane..." Maura breathes, relief floods her at the voice of her best friend on the other end of the phone. "...It's so good to hear your voice."
Maura stopped thinking logically, maybe it's the change of chemicals in her system as her cortisol levels drop dramatically or maybe it's that Jane's voice confirms she is alive, but it definitely has something to do with the fact that she began with an assumption.
"Maura. Jeez. Are you ok?" Maura smiles at Jane's tone which is filled with worry and hope and relief. She feels loved because of the way Jane asks, like a parent who is mostly angry they had to worry at all and at the same time relieved to hear their name from your lips again. That familiar little flicker of emotion in the last infliction that says 'I care more than words can say' and that gentleness that sounds like home.
She smiles because it she feels closer to being safe than she has in a long time.
The husky voice cracks though the line again, the broken pitch making it obvious that panic beginning to rise, "Where the heck are you?"
"I'm not hurt. Jane. I'm-"
The line goes dead.
"No" She cries out angrily pulling it away from her ear to see what happened.
Jane is gone.
"Why" She screams and struggles as Casey forcibly yanks the phone out of her hands.
She looks into his face which is hard and resolute. It holds no compassion. He looks like all the worst guys in prison mugshot photo's she has to see.
Reality hits her and she whimpers. She had been mistaken, she had jumped to an assumption. She had assumed Casey Jones, after talking to Jane, had had a change of heart. She assumed he was going to let her go. She assumed he had, or intended to, made things right with Jane before it went too far.
"Crap" She swears as she watches Casey pull the battery out of the phone and toss it onto the desk.
She remembers why one should never assume.
She could easily have yelled out her location or that it was Casey that had her.
And now it's too late. She had missed her moment.
"Maura. Where are you?"
She can still hear Jane's last words. Questions unanswered. Responses Jane needed to hear to find her.
She tries to hold back her tears.
Casey is right in front of her watching her for this reaction and so she closes her eyes, she can't look at him anymore. Her heart misses a beat as the proximity between them decreases. He is far too close, she can feel it..
Casey breathes on her face heavily and her hair is moved by the strength of it.
"What do they call that again Doctor?...proof of life?"
Maura swallows the lump in her throat, she doesn't need to answer.
He leans closer and Maura backs herself further into the back of the couch, her heart is racing now.
"She will find your body one day." He grunts, "Who do you think will perform your autopsy?"
He smiles as he watches Maura's reaction. He see's the defeat in her eyes now. Defeat by his words, defeat because she let Jane down, let herself down. Didn't use that big brain of hers.
Defeat because she can't win.
"We can't trace the call because the phone is off." Frankie feels like he's yelling now. He has said the same thing three times now.
Jane growls, "Then find out where it was brought. Who brought it. When. Anything."
"We are trying Jane. But you need to remember it was a burner phone."
Jane sits down at the desk and puts her forehead down on it.
Nina who has been quiet up till now just observing finally speaks, "Maura wouldn't use a burner phone and turn it off after talking to Jane."
"Maybe she was a spy in another life." Frankie is only half joking. The whole mobsters daughter has already been thrown around the drawing board before being trashed.
Korsak enters the room, "What did she say Jane?"
Jane sighs heavily and rocks back in the chair to stare at the ceiling "Nothing helpful Korsak."
What was she missing.
"She did sound relieved."
Korsak looks at Frankie then back at Jane "Relieved?"
"Yeah. Like she was happy that I was alright. She said it was good to hear my voice. I asked if she was okay and she said she wasn't hurt...which doesn't mean she was alright. Then the call ended."
"At least we know she is alive." Frankie says then twists his hands together nervously, hoping Jane won't scream at him for his absurd and unhelpful comment.
"If she is someone's captive then they would have told her what she couldn't say." Korsak quickly adds, he had lots of experience working in the hostage division for six months back in the day.
"You'd think she would give me a clue." Jane groans sadly.
"Often that's not possible. Who knows what or who they are threatening to control her." Korsak puts his hand on Jane's shoulder.
"She called me..." Jane says her voice weak, "My number was the only one missing from her own phone. That isn't coincidence. They are telling me something, trying to get my attention. Why me?"
"Who ever is doing this...for whatever reason. You have my attention. What do you want? Just tell me what you want, damn it?"
It is the first time Jane has spoken to the media since Maura was taken. Korsak stands behind her on her left and Frankie on her right, both are watching Jane. Maura can hear the exhaustion in Jane's voice. Jane tries to hold back all her emotions but Maura can see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. At the end of her comment Jane turns her back to the camera and just for a moment before the footage ends, Frankie puts his hand on her shoulder and she shudders under his touch.
Casey plays the television footage back several times and every time it hurts Maura's heart just a little bit more. Like a knife is being pushed in just a little deeper.
Casey looks over at Maura and smiles his smug victorious smile. Maura tries to give him the death stare but knows it will have no effect even if he noticed.
"She is breaking." He gloats with too much glee.
Maura want's to tell him no one has every broken Jane Rizzoli but she fears he will try harder if he thinks she iis strong enough to get through this.
"I'm trying to decide what to do next..." Casey says as he continues to smile at Maura and then he looks her up and down slowly pausing on her breasts. Maura doesn't like the look in his eyes, up till now he had given her all the personal space she needed and never looked at her with this intent. Casey watches Maura squirm under his gaze. He is getting a thrill out of the power he has over her. Then he puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her backwards pinning her shoulders against the couch and holds her until she stops struggling.
"Do you think it would break Jane more if you were raped before you died. Or do you think it wouldn't make much difference?"
Maura whimpers
"Please don't Casey."
...to be continued...