Author's note: There is some cussing in this chapter, I think maybe Three words. Also I apologize for the delay and to make up for it wrote a longer chapter. Enjoy.
Catching Up
"Have you found anything?" A strained voice entered Detective Barry Frost's ears as his hunched shoulders straightened and a groan escaped is lips. His dark eyes were blood shot and his whole body radiated exhaustion. Sluggishly he looked at the clock on his computer and sighed when seeing it said that it was almost six in the morning. It was yet another night he could add to the countless he had spent the entire night on his computer trying to dig up what Jane discarded and still had nothing of substance to show for it. Tiredly he turned his chair around and gazed somberly at the weary human being that was Maura Isles.
Both looked at the other with mute understanding and both felt a sense of growing frustration with themselves at not having found anything out about their MIA partner. Frost sighed again and spoke bitterly "Not a single damn thing, its like she suddenly developed the skill of an expert hacker who is used to erasing all of their whereabouts." His muscled tensed for the thousandth time as his frustration grew at the lack of progress on any front in finding his partner.
He looked around the bullpen and his bloodshot eyes landed on the desk that used to be Jane's, that used to hold her unorganized and un finished paperwork with at least three coffee cups standing on it, but not anymore. Some new guy had already replaced her, had organized and finished her paperwork and discarded her coffee cups.
"Well it has been two months." He thought sourly and immediately tried to shove the intruding thought from his mind and tried willing himself to keep the energy up to find Jane. He had more then a little trouble accomplishing either.
Maura looked silently at Frost as she saw the multitude of emotions chase each other across her friends face. Gently she laid her petite hand on his shoulder and smiled slightly at him, hoping that something that at least resembled warmth shown in her eyes.
"You have to rest Frost, its proven that humans perform worse when they are tired then when they are rested." Frost chuckled humorlessly at her statement and cynically replied
"That never slowed Jane down." Maura stiffened at his statement and took a step away from him as if he had slapped her.
"Well you're not Jane." As soon as the words left her mouth she instantly regretted them as she watched Frost close his eyes tightly and visibly suppress a harsh retort and manage to only utter "You don't have to tell me that."
Awkward silence swallowed them both as Maura's comment floated in the air and seemed to stick to everything in the office, starkly displaying how nothing in the space surrounding them had any trace of Jane left, there was only memories left to fill the mammoth void.
Maura nodded her head silently at nothing in particular and turned away from Frost and whispered over her shoulder as she moved away from him "We'll find her Frost."
Frost watched her move away and gritted his teeth at the reply burning in his throat. "What good would it do if we did?" He thought darkly instead as the feeling of helplessness weighed down on his already weary shoulders.
He had done everything, had pulled out every trick in his arsenal to try and get a lock on Jane through the cyber web and had only found exhaustion for his efforts. He was at his end; he couldn't keep looking for a woman who obviously didn't care about him or the people who loved her.
Sighing he again tried to push away the nagging thought that had grown like a weed inside his mind but to little avail, the evidence was just too strong to not come up with his current conclusion: That Jane didn't give a flying fuck about any of them.
Tiredly he pushed himself out of his seat, organized his desk, put his computer into hibernate mode and proceeded to weakly walk out of the bullpen and into the cold night air.
Walking lethargically to his car he shouldered past his inhibitions at driving in this state and just as he was about to get into his car, something caught his eye. Turning his head quickly he realized her was looking at a silent Korsack, stoically sitting on the hood of his car with only his usual suit on, looking up at the night sky. Frost rubbed the back on his neck as a quick war ragged in him as to whether he should go over and see why Korsack was doing here so late in the night. Sighing as the curiosity beat out his tiredness he trudged over to Korsack's car and stood a few paces away from him.
"Keep sitting like that in this cold weather and you'll catch your death." Frosts smooth voice gently broke the silence and alerted Korsack of his presence. Korsack turned his head toward his friend, smiled sadly, scooted over and patted the space he had been occupying moments ago. Frost shrugged and sat down quietly and looked out at the night sky silently, respectively waiting for Korsack to decide where the conversation was going to head.
"No matter where she is in the world, she'll be looking at the same moon and stars as I am and through that connection I'll be with her." Korsack's rough voice cut through the silence abruptly and caused Frost to jump slightly.
"Excuse me?" Came Frost's incredulous reply. Korsack chuckled and continued to look at the stars, repeating his statement
"No matter where she is in the world, she'll be looking at the same moon and stars as I am and through that connection I'll be with her." Frost stared at him, trying to comprehend this new angle of finding a connection to Jane and shook his head at Korsack's logic upon finding no faults in it.
"The moon can be seen anywhere and by anyone so through gazing at it, you could be with anyone in gazing at the same object at the same time." Frost spoke to himself, marveling at how he had not thought to think of something as simple as that.
"How did you think of that?" He asked curiously.
"Jane told me once when I caught her looking at the moon for a long time." Frost tilted his head and asked again
"Who was she hoping to be with?" Korsack's burly shoulders slightly as he dryly spoke.
"She wouldn't tell me, just said that she could be with them by looking at the moon and prayin' that they were lookin' too." Korsack finally looked away from the sky and over at Frost, uttering quietly "I bet my badge she was prayin' for the Doc."
His blunt statement caught the follow detective off guard and look at him like he had another head.
"Jane hoping to be with the Doc? You're kidding right?" He spoke amusement spilling from his mouth as he waited for Korsack to say he was joking but Korsack didn't say anything, only looked at him seriously. Finally Frost humored the senior detective.
"Ok let's say that she was hoping for the Doc, why not just actually go see her? I mean come on man they were always attached at the hip at all times but working hours, sorta." Frost said, humoring Korsack's proposal and waited in slight amusement at how Korsack couldn't get over the thought of Jane and Maura secretly wanting to be together, well at least Jane wanting to be with Maura. It had always been a joke between the two of them but that was all it was, a joke. Right?
Korsack shifted around on the hood and confidently drew out how he came to his idea
"Think about it, I mean yeah they were always togetha but things changed when Jane shot herself, rememba? The Doc hardly went to see her when she was in da hospital; it was only once Jane got home that she really came around again ta see her and even then that wasn't very often. Also didn't you noticed how distant Jane got from Maura when Maura hooked up with Frankie? I mean come on, what sort of friend gets distant from their best friend when said friend gets into a happy relationship? I'll tell ya, the kind dat wishes it was them and not the other person the said friend was with."
Frost stared at Korsack and started to go back through the past year of how Jane and Maura's relationship changed from the way it had been for years. He started to notice that Jane did get distant from Maura when she started to date her brother, he noticed that Jane also got quieter, more withdrawn and seemed to bury herself in so much work she had no time for anyone else.
Frost leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together and just thought of how odd Jane had been acting the past year, wondering how in the hell he hadn't seen it.
"How could we have missed her changes? Looking back there were so many signs that there was something really wrong but I never noticed, not once." Frost spoke tensely and looked sharply over at Korsack and noticed that Korsack had a pained expression on his face and knew instantly that he felt exactly the same way. Both wondered how they couldn't have seen just how much their fellow partner and friend was hurting and how much she'd been changing.
Silence encased them as they sank into the endless depth of their thoughts and regrets. They stayed sitting there so long that both winced when the first ray's of the sun shown brightly in the purple sky.
Suddenly Frost sat up straight and demanded "Do you remember having any sort of conversation with Jane about any place besides Boston? Did she ever talk about anywhere else? Anywhere at all?" His voice was alive with excitement at the possibility of opening a new lead to finding Jane. He watched Korsack carefully as the older man's face scrunched up in concentration, willing his memory to give him any sort of answer.
"No, I don't…. Wait, Yes! Yes she did!" Korsack replied suddenly. Frost's face lit up like the fourth of July and all but jumped to his feet and faced Korsack. "Well what place did she say?" He demanded forcefully.
"Hold on I'm tryin' to remember, it was a while ago like over seven months ago." Korsack stood and began to pace trying to force the memory to come to him in its entirety.
"We…Were at a stake out… Yeah, yeah that sounds right. We were in my car I think and I think it was when she and I were staking out the main suspect in the Sage case. I was driving and she was in the passenger seat." He turned and faced his own car and pointed out where they both had been and closed his eyes again as he valiantly tried to remember the conversation they'd had and began to pace slowly again.
Seeing Korsack's struggle at procuring the conversation, Frost began to throw suggestions at him. "Were you guy's talking about baseball teams? Or nice cities to live in for retirement?" Korsack stopped pacing, leveled a glare at him and growled out "You're not helping any" and proceeded to pace again.
Frost sat dejectedly on the hood and muttered out his last suggestion "Were you talking about other cities you'd like to work in?" Korsack stopped on a dime and whirled around to face Frost.
"That was it! We was talkin' about if we couldn't work in Boston no more which city we'd like to work in." Excitement filled Korsack's voice as the conversation began to come back to him.
"She was leaned against the window and had her window rolled up even though it was the middle of summer. I remember I kept teasing her about her love for the heat and I can't remember how we got to a different place to work but… She took her time answerin'." Korsack again began to lose the conversation and quickly began pacing again.
Frost silently watched his friend pace, knowing that the rest was up to him if they were going to know where Jane might have runaway to. He watched every move Korsack made and tilted his head when he felt the atmosphere around them change and he too stood back up to face the now still standing Korsack.
"Korsack…?" Frost spoke softly and blinked when the other detective turned around slowly, flushed and shaking slightly.
"Where would you go if you loved the heat and still had a soft sport for the cold?" The senior detective asked quietly. Frost scrunched up his face, thought for a moment and shrugged his shoulders, clueless as to where Korsack was going with this.
"Texas." Came Korsack's strong answer "She went to a place that would be similar to Boston in the sense of law enforcement, and kinds of people she'd have to deal with and had the type of weather she loves." Frost stared at Korsack, his eyes bulging from their sockets and felt his heart thump painfully against his ribcage as he realized that they may have just found the place Jane was hiding.
"Korsack, do you remember the city she named? Did she even name a city?" Frost smooth voice suddenly seemed dry and raspy, as his moth became as dry as the Sahara.
Korsack looked into Frost's eyes and nodded his head slowly, looked down at his hands and then back up at Frost.
"She said Dallas. She ran away to Dallas, Texas Frost."
TBC
