Author Note: Thank you so much for the comments, favourites and follows - they are all appreciated so much. Writing the second chapter of this story has been fun and I hope I can do the idea justice.

The keys clattered in the bowl by Jane's door. She slouched onto the couch, her body exhausted from the lack of sleep and the long day. She'd been at the hospital since late morning. Korsak's surgery had been delayed by a couple of hours, and she didn't want to leave until she was at least certain his number wouldn't change again.

"Hey there, girl!" Jane said, grinning as Jo Friday jumped onto her lap and settled down. Her brow furrowed at the number above her head. The first she'd seen on an animal. It was a lot smaller than human ones.

She sighed. She'd watched more numbers shrink within minutes of the person's life, whilst sitting in the hospital. Too many near misses, doctors and nurses fighting hard against the clock, trying to reverse what was already expected to happen. She'd watched one woman die in front of her before anyone even realised. She just dropped down, her number flickered off, and she was gone. They worked for forty minutes before they were satisfied that she wasn't coming back.

"At least I have you," Jane said, running her fingers along Jo Friday's back. She reached up to her head, cautious in her desire to touch the countdown. Her fingers travelled through it, like a ghost sitting above the dog's mind. A smile crept across her face. The whole thing fascinated her.

By morning, Jane's neck hurt from sleeping in an uncomfortable position on the couch. She really needed to start using her bed again. Jo Friday yapped by the door until she took her downstairs to go to the bathroom. Jane stood by a tree and waited. She turned around and looked across the street. A couple were stood talking on a doorstep, their numbers healthy. An older woman pushed a stroller down the street, her number lower, whilst the little boy's was high.

"Not a dream, then," Jane said, gripping Jo Friday's leash tighter. "Come on, girl. I have to see Maura before my meeting."

The morgue was quiet when Jane walked in. No bodies were on the slabs; the crime techs were silently working in the lab. Maura wasn't in her office. Jane walked through to the morgue refrigerators. She ran a hand along the doors, trying to decide whether it was a good idea to open them, or not.

"Ricardo," she whispered, her hand resting on the handle of the little boy she couldn't save. She lowered her head and pulled on the handle. When she unzipped the bag, he appeared to be sleeping. But the absence of numbers above his head confirmed what she already knew. She reached a hand out to touch his face. "I'm sorry."

"What are you doing?"

Jane pulled her hand away and turned at Maura's question. Her tone was harsher than she'd ever heard it. She lowered her gaze further. Maura stepped forwards and Jane moved to one side as she zipped the boy back up and closed the door.

"You shouldn't be in here. Not while you're under suspension."

"I know," Jane said. "I just needed to see him."

"You could throw off the whole investigation."

"I thought you said it wasn't my fault," Jane said, confused by Maura's terseness.

Maura's expression softened. "It wasn't. Ricardo died of Tuberculosis. But you being here does not look good."

"TB?"

"Yes. I suspect he has had latent TB for much of his life. Unfortunately, in some cases, it can become active. Looking at Ricardo's medical records, he has not been treated for Tuberculosis, only a persistent cough. Antonio Vega wasn't financially stable enough to support his son's medical care, his visits to the doctor were minimal, which will have led to his deterioration and subsequent death."

"Could I have saved him?"

"No, Jane." Maura held out a hand, motioning for Jane to leave the room. Maura followed her. "He suffered massive internal bleeding. His lungs were filled with tubercles. Even if you had called an ambulance the second he went down, he would not have survived. Apprehending the suspect instead of getting Ricardo an ambulance didn't kill him. You didn't kill him."

Jane sunk into one of Maura's office chairs. Despite being exonerated of guilt, Jane still felt incredibly sad. He was just a little boy and he had his whole life ahead of him. His death had obviously devastated his father, to the point of suicide, and that was even sadder. Especially knowing that if Antonio had given his son the medical care he needed, he might have had a chance at survival. Now they were both dead.

"Antonio also suffered from TB. His case was a lot milder. Had he not chosen to die, he could have been cured. You should be checked over by a medical professional." Maura sat behind her desk. "You will need to be tested for antibodies, and you may need to start a course of antibiotics."

"Why?" Jane sat upright.

"You were with Ricardo when he died. There is a chance you may have become infected."

"Oh."

"It's unlikely you'll develop TB, but it's a precaution you should take."

They sat in silence for a minute. Jane watched the number above Maura's head absently. It was calming, like watching a stop watch during a cross country race. The last week had been a bizarre turn of events, and Jane was glad to be able to put at least some of them to bed. Though she still had her meeting with Cavanaugh after lunch, and the countdown didn't appear to be going away anytime soon.

"Maura," Jane said, contemplating her current predicament. "What would you say if someone told you they could see numbers...above people's heads?"

Maura tilted her head to the side and frowned. "Have you been watching the sci-fi channel again?"

"Yes, I have," Jane said, the lie seeming the only obvious direction to go. "So, what would you say?"

"It would depend on the circumstances surrounding the hallucination."

"What if it's not an hallucination?"

"What else could it be?" Maura asked. "Scientifically, it's nonsense. It's possible that the person has been taking drugs. They may suffer from a mental or neurological illness such as schizophrenia or dementia, Alzheimer's disease, even Parkinson's disease. I would say if they haven't been taking hallucinogenics, they are more likely to be exhibiting signs of mental breakdown."

"But how would you know?"

Maura clasped her hands on the desk in front of her. "I have been through medical school, Jane, I know a thing or two about mental wellbeing, and hallucinations do not fit into that category."

"But, say, somebody saved their life and then they woke up the next morning and everybody had the countdowns above their heads," Jane said.

"Countdowns?" Maura raised her eyebrows. "So it's not just random numbers?"

"No."

"Hallucinations can be worrying. Particularly when there is so much detail and specifics. Would they be coupled with anything else? Hearing voices? Lack of sleep?"

"I suppose there may be some lack of sleep."

"Hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations only occur when a person is falling asleep or as they start to wake up. It's unlikely the hallucinations would continue throughout the day without there being a more serious neurological condition or mental illness."

Jane sighed. The explanations Maura presented to her were not sufficient. She didn't know what she was looking for, but everything Maura said sounded wrong. She knew in herself – or at least hoped – that she wasn't suffering from a mental breakdown.

"Is there any chance it could be something that science can't explain?" she asked.

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean, no," Maura said.

"You didn't even consider it."

"I believe in science, Jane. Not science fiction." Maura stood up and sat beside her. "I don't need to consider it. Science cannot explain hallucinations beyond mental and neurological diseases, some visual impairments, and drug and alcohol use."

"Wait," Jane said. "If someone's been drinking a lot of alcohol, they may see things?"

"It's possible," said Maura. "Though it usually occurs when there is a sudden withdrawal."

"Let's use me as an example," Jane said. "If I had been up all night drinking."

"Which you were."

"Not last nig…forget it," Jane said. "So I was up all night drinking, and then I woke up this morning and I could see numbers above people's heads. Would it be because of the alcohol?"

Maura shook her head. "Unlikely. It's more frequent in people who have a severe dependence, and then stop suddenly. Given the amount of alcohol you would have consumed, and how late you were drinking, you are likely to still have alcohol in your blood stream."

"Gotcha."

"I hope you didn't drive here this morning."

"I wasn't drinking," Jane said, gritting her teeth. She may have thrown the last week away in a drunken stupor, but that didn't mean she'd continued.

"Jane."

"Yes?"

"Have you been seeing numbers?"

"No."

Maura raised an eyebrow, her eyes fixed on Jane's. She attempted to avert her gaze, but Maura's eyes never moved away.

"No," she said, staring into her eyes adamantly. "I stayed up too late watching the sci-fi channel."

"Okay."

At five minutes to two, Jane sat outside Cavanaugh's office tapping her foot impatiently on the floor. After leaving Maura, she'd taken a quick trip to the hospital to check on Korsak – who was still unconscious – before returning to BPD for her meeting.

"Detective Rizzoli," Cavanaugh said, standing in his doorway. Jane stood up and followed him inside, taking the seat he offered her. "I'm sure you're well aware of why you are here. Before I reach a decision over your actions, you have a minute to explain yourself."

"Erm," she said, kicking herself for being so unprepared. She thought about her nights sat on the roof of her apartment building, watching the world go by in a drunken stupor. She thought about the mistakes she'd made with Ricardo, and the subsequent mistakes she made afterwards. "I screwed up. I thought I was responsible for the death of a little boy and I allowed it to get to me. I made a decision to drink heavily and continue to come into work like nothing had changed. I let myself down, I let Boston Police Department down and I let you down. I'm sorry."

"Is that all you have to say?"

Jane nodded. "No, wait. Korsak nearly died yesterday. I got a kick in the gut and it made me see how stupid I've been. My job's important to me. Getting justice for people who can't defend themselves matters. I am my job and if you take it away from me, I don't know what I'll do."

"Don't worry, Rizzoli," Cavanaugh said. "You're not going to get fired. But this will be on your permanent record. You screw up again and I can't guarantee your job will be safe. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal clear, sir," she said.

"With Korsak out of action, I can't be two men down in homicide, so I'm willing to lift your suspension early. You'll be tested for alcohol every day until I am satisfied that you're no longer a risk to your unit. If you refuse, you will be let go. If you test above zero for alcohol consumption, you will be let go. If you turn up drunk, we will find any criminal charge we can and slap it on you. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Now get back to the squad room, they're about to go out to a body."

Running water sprinkled down on them from a couple of floors above, the drainage system had broken and the pipe lay on the floor in the alleyway. Jane covered her head with her jacket and ran under the stream to get to the body.

"What have we got?" she asked a young, male, uniformed officer stood beside her with a notepad. His number 525,552.55.02 suggested a good long life.

"An unknown female, possibly a hooker, Caucasian, mid-twenties."

"Do we know anything else?"

"Doctor Isles is with her," he said, scurrying away.

"You got a cause of death, Maura?" Jane asked, stepping up beside her.

"I just got here," Maura said.

Jane glanced at the woman's body, the side of her scull was covered in thick matted blood, her hair tangled up. The colour was drained from her face, and her legs were uncovered right up to her underwear. The thing that stood out the most, however, was the number still present over her head.

"She's still alive," Jane said under her breath.

"She's what?" Maura asked, looking from Jane to the body and back again.

"Did anybody check this woman for a pulse?" she shouted, glancing around the crime techs and uniformed officers. Everyone stared back at her blankly.

Stepping forwards, Maura placed a couple of fingers against the side of the woman's neck and focused her attention. A moment later, Maura took her cell phone out of her pocket.

"Can we get an ambulance to the alley behind Fifth and Maple? We have a young woman with a blunt force trauma to the side of her head. Her pulse is extremely weak, but she's alive."

Her eyes trained on Jane. The conversation ended and she turned her attention to the woman. Jane watched as Maura tried to stem the bleeding and attend to the woman's wounds long enough to keep her alive before the EMTs arrived.

When the ambulance arrived and the girl was shipped off to hospital, Maura packed up her medical bag.

"Jane, walk me to my car," she said. Jane followed, her brow creased. When they reached the car, away from the rest of the officers, Maura spoke again. "How did you know she was still alive?"

"I dunno," Jane said.

"You knew Korsak was going to need the defibrillator, also."

"Just a guess?" she asked, shrugging her shoulders. "He didn't look well."

She knew Maura was seeing through her attempts to dilute her actions. Despite bringing up the subject with the doctor, Jane wasn't entirely comfortable telling her the truth. She didn't want her mental wellbeing to be called into question when she'd just got her job back.

"Okay," Maura said, her eyes fixed on Jane's.

Jane lifted hers to Maura's numbers, anything to distract herself from the confused look on Maura's face. The number ticked down normally, a healthy 436,776.21.43 she'd come to accept as safe. As she stared longer, the number jumped down considerably and Jane's heart leapt into her throat. She rested a hand on the roof of Maura's car and allowed her eyes to meet Maura's. Her hazel eyes continued to stare back.

"What's wrong, Jane?" she asked, her brow furrowed.

"Nothing," she said, glancing between Maura's eyes and the lower number above her head. It wasn't dangerously low, but it was low enough for Jane to realise that something had shifted. At some point since finding out the girl was alive and having a conversation about it, the fates had changed. Maura's life was now getting closer to its end and Jane only had 120 hours 15 minutes 27 seconds left to change that.

Author Note: Thank you for reading this chapter! Comments, thoughts, feelings, are all welcomed and appreciated, as are favourites and follows. But as long as you've enjoyed it, that's all that really matters!