Author Notes: Well that was a challenging week when it came to writing. My plan was to write Lullaby, which I appear to have hit a block with. Instead of moving onto Slide, I stuck with it and it went nowhere. Eventually I moved over to Slide, then got a horrid cold, then had training yesterday/today. I have to work tomorrow (but I'm hoping there'll be a chance of writing due to the event that's on). Here's hoping for a better week next week - it's my last full week before I go away so I would like to get a few things done at the very least - like finishing 439 miles and maybe Lullaby, but it's possibly too much to expect from myself.
Jane stood up the second Maura walked through the door. That was the first sign that something was wrong. She felt it, deep in her bones. There was no reason for anything to be wrong, which was why she passed it off as something of nothing.
"I'm sorry I've been longer than I expected," she said, dropping her purse just inside the entranceway.
"It's, err, fine."
The crease etched between Jane's eyebrows was the second sign. The sigh that followed, a third. Until finally, Jane moulded her lips into a circle and breathed out quickly.
"What's wrong?" she asked, no longer caring about her desire to pretend that everything was fine. It wasn't. She knew it. Jane knew it. She was almost certain that Jane knew she knew from the rabbit in the headlights expression in her eyes.
"Come sit down," Jane said, perching on the couch and patting the space beside her.
She shook her head. She glanced around the living room for Luke, but he wasn't there. She walked into the kitchen, despite being able to see very clearly that her son wasn't in the room. She moved around the island and opened the back door. She didn't know why she went there first. It was just as possible for him to be upstairs taking a nap, or doing homework.
The words she wanted to say caught in her throat, laced with tears. A gale blew outside the door. She stared up at the darkened clouds. Trees rustled. Birds squawked. She pushed the door until it caught on the latch and turned around.
"Where's Luke?"
She knew in her heart, before Jane could speak. She stood up, watching her cautiously. Maura stepped closer, and closer, until she could see the light glistening in her dark orbs. She reconsidered running upstairs to check, but she knew Jane well enough to know that something was very wrong.
"Jane?" Her voice wavered. She tried to regain her composure but she couldn't find the energy.
"His father came for him an hour ago," she said.
She stood up tall. Her eyes dropped at the sides, the only evidence of her emotional link to what had happened. Maura had seen her cop face; she'd heard her cop voice. Stoic, together. She'd even been on the receiving end of it. Except no previous experience could prepare her for that moment.
"What do you mean he came for him?" she asked. The question had no purpose. There was no answer that Jane could give that wasn't already covered in her mind. She didn't need an answer. He still had full custody. He could do what he liked.
"I'm sorry." Jane reached out her arm and rested her fingers against her shoulder. They shook. The expression on Jane's face broke and a couple of tears skirted down her cheeks. "I tried to stop him."
She shrugged her hand away and stepped back. Her heart leapt into her throat, pushing tears out of her eyes and across her skin. She stared at Jane. She needed her to laugh, to tell her it was some elaborate joke the two of them had cooked up while she'd been at work.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
Jane covered her face, wiping at her eyes. She shook her head. "Maura."
She turned away. Jane shouted to her. She ignored her calls and ran for the stairs. Every footstep reminded her of twelve years ago. Every beat of her heart so loud so wondered if anyone else could hear it. Every tear that collided with its predecessors merged with long since dried droplets.
The bedroom door was closed. She still hoped, deep down inside, that if she opened it, he would be there. Further down, she knew she'd find an empty room. As empty as the room she'd walked into twelve years before.
Footsteps approached from behind. She span, hopeful, desperate. When she saw Jane, she crumbled. Her knees losing their stability as she fell to the floor.
"Oh Maura," Jane whispered, kneeling beside her. She wrapped her arms tightly around her front, holding her in place. She struggled, desperate to push her away. The fresh sting of tears rolled down to her lips, salty water coating her skin. She pushed again, forcing Jane back.
"Don't."
"But..."
"Please go."
"But Maura..."
"No."
She flattened her hands on the carpet and counted her fingers. She grasped the tiny strands, too small to pick up, too small to hold. The methodical act of counting; one, two, three, four, five, over and over again brought a semblance of calm in an otherwise frantic moment. Her head was focused, fooling her heart into believing that everything was okay. Only, it wasn't okay, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't fool her heart forever. Jane dropped her hand to her shoulder and she started wailing. She pushed with her hands, throwing Jane's away. Putting one foot in front of the other, Maura ran to her bedroom and slammed the door.
On the other side, she could hear Jane's voice. "You're scaring me. Let me help you."
Picking up a pillow, she wrapped it around her ears and closed her eyes, lying down on the bed. She sang softly to herself the song she used to sing to her son. The melody was off but the words came out like she'd carried on singing it every day since. After a while, the sounds around her dissipated. Her heart rate slipped back into normal range. She lay on her back, staring up at the white ceiling.
x
"Hey, Korsak," Jane said.
She sat in her car on the street, half hoping that Maura would come out begging her to return. After an hour, she realised it was wishful thinking. She'd never seen Maura so...broken. The only thing she knew how to do was solve crimes. She wasn't a counsellor, or a therapist. She didn't know how to help her. Yet all she wanted was to make her feel better.
"Is this where you tell me you're gonna be late?" he asked.
"Something like that."
"You know, you're already late."
"I know."
Pushing her away hurt harder than Jane ever thought possible. She loved Maura, so much that she'd probably die for her if it she had to. The lies she could handle, keeping her past from her was tolerable. But outright rejection? She didn't know how to feel about that.
"I need you to do a background check on a Greg, Gregory probably..." she hesitated.
"Gregory who?"
She stared at the steering wheel.
"Jane?"
Her eyebrows creased, her face contorted.
"Jane? Are you still there?"
She sighed. "I, I don't know his last name."
"I don't know what this is about, I wanna do what I can, but unless we have his full name there's nothing we can do."
"I know." She pinched the bridge of her nose and stared back up at Maura's home. She still hadn't come out, still didn't want to invite her back. "Sorry. I need to go home. Cover for me?"
"Jane."
"I know," she said, groaning. "I'm sorry, okay? I need the rest of the day."
"We don't have any new leads, nothing's really happening with the case. The only issue is the pressure we're getting from the Mayor's office…I think Frankie and I can handle it."
"Thanks, Korsak," she paused, pressing her lips together. "I'm sorry. I'll be in early tomorrow."
"You'd better."
She ended the call. There was little she could do when she didn't know who she was dealing with. The only way to help Maura she could think of was to look into Greg's past and find something that could help. Without his name, she was helpless.
After another hour passed, Jane drove home and ordered pizza. Sitting on the couch watching reruns of the latest sports should have been a good enough distraction. Then again, she'd never faced something quite so difficult before. Even the miscarriage, in some strange way, had been more like a blessing than a curse. Had she wanted to be a mother? She wasn't sure. Would she have been any good at it? She couldn't answer. Having the decision taken out of her hands made it easier somehow.
Nobody had mattered as much to her as Maura, and now she didn't know where she stood. Getting to know her son, no matter how short a time they'd spent together, she got a glimpse into the Maura she didn't know. The Maura before she met her. They'd never really talked much about it. She shared snippets; bits about life at school, and her family, but there was still so much Jane didn't really know about Maura. She liked to believe she knew her better than anyone, when actually, the last couple of weeks only made her realise how little she really knew.
x
Ten am the next morning the phone rang. Maura rolled over and stared at Kent's name on the screen. She hadn't called to tell him she wouldn't be coming in, and he would undoubtedly be worried. She wondered whether Jane would have told him, but his call suggested otherwise. Her stomach groaned. She felt a sense of hunger somewhere in the pit of her stomach, though it was so far distanced from herself that she didn't know if it was real or a figment of her imagination.
"Hello," she whispered, holding the phone to her ear.
"Did I wake you?" Kent asked. "Are you sick?"
"I won't be in today," she said, neither confirming nor denying his questions.
"The Mayor's office called. They want an update."
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I don't have an update."
"Are you okay?" His voice sounded caring, like he genuinely wanted to know if she was or wasn't okay.
She shrugged and shuffled further under her bed sheets. "I won't be in for the rest of the week."
"But what about the Mayor?"
"Call Pike."
"Call...what?" Kent's voice drifted off. She pressed the end call button and placed her cell on her bedside cabinet. It rang again. Kent's name shone on the lit screen. She muted it and turned it face down. She couldn't handle more calls. Not today.
x
Jane had sat in the office staring at the case documents for most of the day. She tried to piece together the Mayor's son's final moments. His death required her full attention and, despite being worried about Maura, she insisted on giving it to him. He deserved that much, especially given how absent she'd been the day before. Despite the hours of work they'd put in, they were no closer to a result. The woman Albert Smithson had been seen talking to was nowhere to be found. All avenues were running dry. At lunch she wandered down to the café and ordered a sandwich.
"I thought you would have told me," Kent said.
Jane span around, his sudden appearance made her jump. "Told you what?"
She glanced at him, then away again. She knew Maura hadn't told anybody about Luke, about who he really was, excepting her mother. But had she changed her mind?
"That Maura's sick."
"Oh." She shrugged, her eyebrows tugged together. She wondered at what point in the day Maura had spoken to Kent to let him know, and felt disappointed that she hadn't been informed of the same information. "That."
"Yes, that," he said. "Why didn't you tell me? Did you forget?"
"No, I didn't forget."
"It would be very like you to forget something like that."
"Kent," she said, staring into his eyes. "Shut up."
"Well, that's not very nice now, is it?"
"Unless you have something more enlightening to say other than the fact Maura isn't in work, then please, tell me, but until then, I'm trying to have my lunch in peace."
"What lunch?"
"What lunch? The lunch I'm waiting for, obviously."
"Obviously," he said, rolling his eyes. "We've got the results back on the fluid Maura found on Albert's groin. Looks like Master Smithson had a dirty little secret."
The silence that followed only sought to piss Jane off further. She waited, and stared at him, until waiting she could do no longer. She glared at him, and sighed. If she didn't know any better, she'd have been sure he was doing it on purpose.
"What is the secret, Kent?"
"Patience, don't want to spoil the surprise now, do we?"
"Don't we?" she asked, rolling her eyes. "What surprise? What the hell is going on?"
"Albert Smithson, knowingly, or otherwise, had sexual relations with his sister."
"His…what?" Jane's mouth dropped open. The barista behind the counter placed her sandwich on the counter top. She could hear them saying her name but she didn't turn. Eventually, they walked away. "His sister?"
"The evidence is quite clear. It's very possible he was unaware of the blood connection."
"I didn't realise…" Jane shook her head. "I didn't know there were any more children in the family."
"Neither did we."
x
It took a couple of hours after lunch to make the decision to use the spare key. Jane walked through the living area, her hands tucked into her back pockets. Her attention had been pulled in different directions; the new evidence was startling, and also cast a very unsavoury light on the whole incident. There was a new potential suspect, reignition of previous suspects, and many more things to consider. Yet she still hadn't been able to take her mind off Maura. The house was silent. Too silent.
"Maura?" she whispered. The couch hadn't been sat on since Jane was there the night before. The television remote was in the same spot. The coffee mug she'd used; the empty chip packets they'd eaten before Greg arrived. Nothing had changed. There wasn't any additional signs that Maura had been there at all.
She took the stairs one at a time, slowly, cautiously. She wanted to rush into Maura's room, but she knew the risk of doing so. Instead, she took it one step at a time.
Pushing her bedroom door open, Jane's shoulders dropped. It was after four and Maura was still in bed. She'd never seen her rest for so long. Even after surgery, or whenever she was sick, she'd camp out on the couch.
"It's important for recuperation to maintain a routine. Just getting out of bed, even if you don't leave the house, can do wonders. Particularly to ward off lazy patterns of behaviour and depression."
"Maura," she said, stepping toward the bed.
She rolled over, her eyes red and blotchy, her cheeks still covered in fresh tears. Jane's heart ached. She perched on the edge of the bed, painfully aware of how much distance there was between them; how much distance Maura had put between them. She sat up beside her, her eyes wide and frantic. Before Jane could speak, Maura wrapped her arms around her and sunk against her chest.
Every sob that followed, Jane tightened her arms around Maura's shoulders until she could feel every movement. It hurt to bear witness to Maura's heartbreak. But it hurt less knowing she could be there. She rocked them back and forth a few times, kissing Maura's head.
"You're gonna be okay," she said, placing extra kisses along the side of her face. "It's going to be okay."
Still curled into a ball, Maura wrapped her hand tightly around Jane's, hugging it like a pillow. She climbed up closer on the bed, tucking her knees up around Maura's side until it felt like she was as close as she could possibly get.
"It's not, I'm not," Maura whispered, her voice broke before the words even came out in full.
"You will be."
Maura pulled back. She stared at her, her eyes still wide, her face still stained. "He's gone. It's happened again and I can't do anything to change it."
"You can," Jane said, frowning. "You can fight."
"I can't." Maura shook her head. "I can't."
"Yes, you can."
"When I lost him." Maura tucked her hand around Jane's back and rested her cheek against her chest. She breathed slowly, but the fragility of her voice shone through. "I got home from a double shift at work. The house was quiet, dark. I walked upstairs to bed. I went to check on Luke, I went to say goodnight and he...he wasn't...he was already gone."
Every new word came with a barrage of sobs, and fresh tears. Maura's shoulders shook in Jane's arms. She could feel the strain, could hear the sadness.
"You don't have to tell me this."
"I do," she said, struggling to speak. "He'd already...filed for c-custody. The hearing was the n-n-next day. I didn't know they were going to...to...to leave. He didn't t-tell me. I-I didn't...he didn't...I-I..."
Great gasps replaced sobs, like she couldn't catch a breath. Jane held her tighter. "It's okay. It's okay."
"I d-didn't, I d-didn't...see him a-again," she said. Her breathing became more laboured.
Jane held her steady. She felt tears slip from her eyelids. She could feel the panic in every shake of Maura's body, yet she felt completely hopeless. After a moment she dropped her hands from her shoulders and cupped her cheeks.
"Maura, look at me." She stared into her eyes. "You need to breath slowly."
"I-I c-can't. Wh-hat if I-I n-nev-never see…him a-again?"
"You can. You will see him again, I'll make sure of it. Breathe with me." She breathed in slowly, every action exaggerated. She dropped her fingers down to Maura's and squeezed her hands, diverting her focus. "Slowly in."
"I-I c-c..."
"Let's sing then," she said, resting her nose briefly against Maura's. "One word at a time."
"O-okay."
"Baby shark do do do do do do."
Despite every struggle for breath, Maura's lips curved at the edges. She stared back at Jane, confused. Jane raised her eyebrows and smirked.
"That's what I like to see, more of those beautiful smiles. Don't look at me like that, though, you went to camp, you know the silly songs. With me, okay. Baby shark do do do do do do."
"D-do do d-do do do do"
"Yeah, like that." She stroked her hand across the back of Maura's. "Mama shark do do do do do do."
"Do d-do d-do do d-do do."
"That-a girl. Mama shark do do do do do do."