~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ch15, Everything

It was time to tell her everything.

Maura's small frame was dwarfed by the picture window at the back of the kitchen as she gazed out toward the water. The morning light was bright and the sun reflected radiantly from the snow into the room. With the sky clear it had all the elements of a beautiful day, despite the below freezing temperature. Maura's heart quivered in her chest while she stood in her robe. She held a warm cup of coffee pressed too firmly between her hands and stared out in the direction of the surf. Everything ends, she thought. This dream she had been living these past days was destined to end. Maura knew she'd messed with fate. She felt she'd stolen her own future away by trying to be anything but completely honest with Jane, who deserved to understand the full extent of what was happening with her memory loss. Maura's intuition tugged at her and kept telling her that it was more than likely that Jane would never forgive her after learning that she had deceived her this way, in what some might see as taking advantage of Jane in her most vulnerable condition.

Maura lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip of the tasteless coffee. She hadn't slept well after Jane's panic attack and needed a boost from the caffeine and so she forced the dark black liquid into her body. She needed her mind to be clear and sharp today to keep things under control. She needed to take care of Jane, to make sure Jane understood she did all of this FOR her. Maura knew the strong-willed and stubborn, yet devastatingly charming woman well enough to comprehend that she could very well react negatively once she grasped the truth of the situation.

She had suppressed the reality of Jane's memory loss very well during the past 24 hours. She paused all tragic thoughts for a moment and let her mind relax in a pleasant warmth from the immense and powerful beauty the two of them created with every touch. What happened this past week was virtually beyond her control, starting with that dangerously mesmerizing kiss in the kitchen back at her home. After all the years of yearning, she succumbed to the desire she felt for Jane; she was only human, after all. She relived the escalating tenderness and love they had shared together over the past few days. For an instant, she thought, how can this be so wrong? Shaking her head, she refocused. She needed to help Jane.

Maura was certain that Jane would be embarrassed, frightened, and likely angry to discover that a person she believed she could trust could betray her. Maura wasn't sure if Jane could ever forgive such a betrayal. The normally empirical mind of Doctor Maura Isles kept slipping into a haze of uncertainty, rationalizing, why did she ever think that caring for Jane on her own was a good idea? Or that sleeping with Jane was actually a healthy and ethical thing to allow to happen, no matter how much she wanted it? Maura believed that any reasonable person would know by now that whatever hope she may have had of a relationship with Jane was about to abruptly end.

"Maura."

Lost in her thoughts, Maura nearly spilled her coffee when she heard Jane's voice. The sound from the other side of the room was muffled. Maura's eyes were clouded with tears and her heart so heavy it held her in place. She struggled to turn toward the voice. Jane saw the near miss with the coffee then rushed to Maura's side to try to make eye contact. Maura was having trouble focusing.

"Maura, baby, what is it?"

Maura finally looked into Jane's eyes. She saw fear and love there. She wanted to believe that Jane would forgive her, but she didn't even forgive herself in this moment. Maura opened her mouth to speak, but the weight in her heart stopped her and the tears slipped down her face. She stood staring silently at Jane. Jane took Maura's coffee cup and slid it onto the smooth tile surface of the counter, then pulled Maura to sit on the stool next to the kitchen island.

Jane, freshly showered and dressed, placed her hands on Maura's knees and attempted to decipher what was happening with Maura. They sat there for a moment while Jane tried to find the words to say what she needed to say. Maura was a smart woman, Jane thought, she must know how much she has forgotten about their life together. To Jane, Maura's tears gave her feelings away, she must know that Jane was losing her mind. This perfect, loving woman with the gold specks in her stunningly hypnotizing eyes, was suffering because of her. Jane cringed at the thought.

Quietly, she reached to smooth away the tears from Maura's face and whispered, "Maura. I need you to know something."

Maura dropped her eyes and stared blankly at Jane's collarbone, refusing to allow her own reality to enter the moment.

Jane removed her hands from Maura's knees and repeatedly rubbed her palms against her own denim clad thighs. Jane was nervous. She finally stopped her fidgeting and lifted Maura's chin to force eye contact. "Maura, I need you to know, I love you. I have loved you from the moment we met. You are my entire heart and I can't stand the idea of losing any part of you or of us." She closed her eyes a moment and drew in a deep breath. "Maur, sweetheart, I know you know I forgot stuff, important things, and stuff." She knew she was struggling with words and cleared her throat to continue. "I've lost a good sized chunk of my memory and it's really freaking me out."

Maura's eyes snapped up toward Jane's and her facial expression grew more intense as she listened to Jane.

"Don't try to tell me you don't know. Why else would you be crying?" Jane pressed. Maura turned her face to the side.

Jane needed to tell Maura everything she was feeling but she needed to be on stable ground. Balanced on a stool in the kitchen didn't feel like the proper place to have such a talk. "Listen, it's probably too cold to go for a walk like we planned. I really want to talk with you about this. Let's go in the living room and sit down together, ok?" Maura didn't move. "Maur, come on. Come with me." Jane took Maura's hand and stood.

Maura followed in silence wondering what direction this conversation was about to take.

Maura didn't want Jane to be lost anymore. She wanted to tell Jane everything. Her darling Jane deserved to know the truth. She deserved to have help in sorting her memories.

As they sat together on the sofa, Maura wiped her streaming tears and steeled herself to accept whatever Jane was about to say.

Jane could see clearly how much Maura was hurting and her heart ached for what Jane believed she was doing to her. She knew the only way forward was to tell Maura what had been happening. Jane needed to trust that Maura would use that big brain of hers and help her through whatever became of her memory. Jane also felt like telling Maura the truth of the extent of her memory loss might be the thing that broke them for good. It was just too much. Jane looked down and began to massage the scars on her hands. She was more than nervous. Jane felt as though losing her memory and losing all she thought she'd had of Maura was like dying. She couldn't put Maura through any of the pain of that.

"Maura," Jane paused a moment gaining courage, "What I'm about to say might cause you to be upset. Well, even more upset than you are now. Just, Please, don't run away from me. I need you. I need you to help me. Please. I know you know my memory is messed up." Jane shook her head, she didn't know how to even begin. "I need you to know the extent of it. How confused I am. How lost I am."

Maura looked toward Jane and she became faint witnessing Jane admitting to feeling lost. She wanted to end the confusion immediately, regardless of the loss she would feel if Jane left her forever. She loved Jane enough to risk everything.

"Jane." Maura tried to interject. Jane kept talking.

"Maura, I don't even know what is real anymore. I mean, I know I love you. I do. But I don't even remember our first kiss. I feel so terrible about it. I want to remember, but I just can't. It's as if it never happened? How can that be?" The pain of this feeling was all over Jane's face. "Yesterday was so beautiful. Last night was so beautiful. Maura, you, you are so beautiful. Why can't I remember our life before getting knocked in the head?"

"Jane." Maura tried to grab Jane's hands as she was gesticulating.

Jane stood up as she spoke, no longer able to remain still. "What kind of person am I? Why can't I remember the most important moments of my life? I am not even a whole person anymore. In my head I think I still have my apartment. Why? I feel so lost. " Jane turned away from Maura. She couldn't face her in this moment. "Maur," Jane's head fell forward in anguish. "Maur, last night, I kept getting flashes of remembering wanting to be swallowed up, wanting my life to just stop. It's like I hated my life and I wanted you so much, but I couldn't have you. It was like a nightmare." She turned to face Maura again to gauge her reaction. "Last night, I felt like I was having a heart attack and I truly felt my mind wasn't even my own."

"Jane!" This time louder as she stood, Maura held Jane's hands still and tried to get her attention.

Jane stared back, even more confused as to why Maura wouldn't let her speak.

"Maura, what? I need to tell you this." Jane's voice was stronger, pleading to force Maura to hear what she had to say. "I can't trust my own memories." Jane shuddered. "If I can't remember, I don't think I can make you try to carry all the burden; to be the one who remembers our past life together. It's not fair that you are the only one remembering our wedding, our life over the past few years."

Maura's head jerked forcefully when she heard Jane say 'years'. She wondered if maybe Jane had suffered much more significant memory loss that she'd thought.

"Maura, I don't want you to have to retell our life story as if I wasn't even present." Jane felt handicapped and if she didn't get her memory back soon, she wouldn't stay with Maura and let her suffer, no matter how much Jane wanted them to be together.

"If I can't remember, I think I should leave." Jane's words shocked Maura.

Maura's quaking voice broke through, "No, Jane, I have to let you know." She pulled Jane back down to sit beside her again on the sofa. Jane didn't want to budge from her position, but she eventually relented and sat beside Maura, who did not release Jane's hands.

"Jane, listen to me, please. You are not misremembering. You do still have your apartment."

There was silence for a moment while that last statement hung in the air. "What? Why Maura? Why did I keep my apartment?" Jane's tears were about to fall; she was so utterly confused.

"Jane, sweetheart, when you hit your head and received a concussion, you did lose some of your memory."

"I know, Maura, that's what I'm trying to tell you. I can't remember our wedding or moving in with you at your place." Jane hurriedly corrected, "Our place, but I do remember wanting to be married to you. I do remember trying to find any excuse I could to be near you." Jane pulled her hands from Maura's and covered her own face. She didn't know what to think. "I think I am going crazy."

Jane's revelation of finding any excuse to be near her stirred Maura's love for Jane and squeezed her heart even more. Maura's heart felt as if it was dying the death from a thousand cuts. Jane was obviously in immense distress. Maura knew she needed to handle this delicately.

Jane's entire body was tensed. "Maura, I need to talk with the doctor to get my memory back. I want my memory back!"

"Jane, please, listen to me." She paused a moment while Jane refocused on her.

Maura once again took Jane's hands. She needed to feel connected to Jane right now because she felt this might be the last moment they actually shared together, as a couple. Once Jane realized the truth, she could easily just let go of everything.

"Jane, the life you are remembering is real." Maura took in a deep breath through her mouth then pursed her lips and let the air exit through her nose, building the nerve. She slid her hands up and firmly held Jane's wrists, her eyes holding Jane's, "Before you hit your head, you did live in your own apartment."

Jane observed Maura's serious demeanor and tilted her head while drawing her eyes into a squinting, confused stare as she strained to put it all together. "But Maura, all my stuff is at your house, OUR house."

Maura braced herself before she spoke. This was it. The terror she felt from the beginning of this ordeal surged toward the surface. She must face her fear, for Jane's sake. She would be truthful with Jane, even if it meant losing her. Her voice was shaking and she tried to compose herself, "Jane, your head injury produced a condition called Dissociative Amnesia. You didn't remember your real life, but you did remember this fabricated life where you and I are married." Maura was in agony, she wanted nothing more than to actually be married to Jane. "Jane, we were never married." She was dying a little inside knowing what might happen by Jane learning the truth, not of her memory loss, but of how Maura reacted, playing along in what Jane would certainly see as a game.

"Fabricated life? What? We're not married? I…" Jane withdrew completely from Maura. A pitiful and sad expression instantly appeared across Jane's delicate features. "But we, we live together, we...sleep together." Jane started rubbing at the scars in her hands again. Jane paused. Finally, her voice breaking in a nearly soundless whisper, "We love each other."

Maura's usually masterful command of the English language vanished. Tears welling again in her eyes, she imagined the incredible pain Jane must be feeling. She wanted it to all go away. She wanted Jane to understand how much she actually did love her. She wanted Jane to be healed, to understand that the life they both want was right here, to be had, to be lived. She reached again toward Jane to comfort her.

At that touch, the synapses in Jane's brain began to fire and reconnect the neural circuits. The imagined clicking sound of a million domino's rapidly falling, one into the next, as her memories rejoined caused Jane to reach her hands to her head. She recoiled and her face turned hard. "No!"

Maura jumped at the strong and determined force in Jane's voice. It was a jolt she felt go through her entirely. The finality of the sound from Jane's powerful "No!" still echoed in the tiny cottage.

She felt slapped with an irrational feeling of rejection. Despite Maura's powerful emotional responses, she needed to get her head back into the situation. Jane was the victim here, not herself. Jane was the one dealing with the immediacy of her returning memories. Within seconds Maura reverted to doctor mode as she set herself out to calm Jane.

Jane remained standing with her arms up, her fingers sliding through her hair as shaking hands slid slowly back across her forehead. Jane felt like she was going to throw up. With eyes pinched shut, Jane forced out all the air from her lungs through the tiny opening between her clenched teeth. She husked out, "The fuck?" Jane opened her eyes, remembering she was not alone in the room and glared at Maura. Jane had no idea what was happening. She was stunned by her own thoughts. And what happened in the past ten days? Did she actually sleep with Maura? Did Maura actually…? Why would Maura pretend they were married?

"Jane, here, let me help you." Maura felt the urge to ease any and all pain Jane felt as if her own life depended on it. Maura placed her hand tentatively on Jane's shoulder so she could bring her back to sit with her, to calm her and to comfort her. Jane reflexively pulled back as if Maura's hand was made of molten steel and then Jane darted off toward the kitchen. Once there, she ripped open the back door and landed on her knees on the snow covered deck. By the time Maura reached her there, Jane had emptied the contents of her stomach in a patch of now melting snow. She was shaking uncontrollably. Maura took a step back inside the door to grab a towel to hand to Jane.

"Jane, here, take this." From her position on her knees, Jane reached for the towel and wiped her face.

The sun was so bright on the glittering white blanket all around her, Maura squinted. She knelt beside Jane in the snow. She was still in her robe and it was cold outside. She begged, "Jane, come inside." Maura reached over and placed her arm around Jane's shoulder to try to get her to stand.

Jane practically yelled, "Maura, don't! Don't touch me." Maura withdrew her arm. She felt astonishingly wounded by Jane's reaction.

Jane knew that her words were hurting Maura, but she couldn't bring herself to behave reasonably. Jane was spiraling and her head was spinning. Jane wanted answers and she wanted to talk with Maura, but in this moment, she just needed to be alone. There was too much happening in her head.

Jane felt Maura's presence and she didn't trust herself not to say things that would hurt her further.

"Just leave me here. Go." Jane refused to look at Maura, her eyes disconnected and searching, her body still shaking. She lunged forward and started to throw up even more.

Maura retreated briefly into the cottage to rush to retrieve Jane's parka. She neglected to get her own coat. A short moment later, she returned to the back deck, "Here, Jane, please, at least put this on." Jane took the parka and covered her own shoulders and remained with her knees pressed into the icy, snow-covered wooden planks that were the surface of the deck.

Jane may have wanted to go inside and be out of the cold, but she was frozen in place, not by the snow but by abject terror and confusion. Right now, both her body and her mind were failing her.

Maura didn't go. She stayed out there, in the blowing cold air in nothing but her robe. She was afraid to leave Jane alone for any longer than a moment. "Jane, please, come inside."

"I said go, Maura. I need you to go inside." Maura perceived the building frustration in Jane's voice.

Maura receded inside the doorway to the warmth of the kitchen, but left the door wide open. She looked around for something to put over her, but there was nothing. Jane looked as if she was about to run. Noticing that Jane was wearing only socks on her feet, she felt the danger of Jane running was minimized. She decided to hastily get dressed and come back before Jane disappeared down the coastline. She needed to prepare herself for any event.

Before she went to dress, she put a bottle of water next to Jane's right knee.

Finally left alone, Jane took in her surroundings. She saw the mess she'd made in the snow and felt the ice burning her knees. Her hands were still shaking. Her entire body trembling in uncontainable tremors triggered by a combination of the cold and the panic she felt ripping her inside out. She suddenly felt very cold. She went to stand and knocked the water bottle over that was sitting beside her knee. Jane shook her head. Maura. She picked up the bottle and rinsed her mouth then put the bottle in the pocket of her parka. Jane stood and put her arms inside the parka and took hold of the snow shovel leaning near the doorway. She heaved the dirty snow away from the house to a safer spot in the bush beside the deck.

She stepped inside the kitchen. Her socks were covered in snow and would soon be wet. She hated that. Her knees were numb from the cold and her body ached to walk even a few steps. As her eyes adjusted to normal light, she went to the kitchen sink and rinsed her face and hands. Too physically and mentally exhausted to move any further, she leaned her elbows onto the sides of the sink and rested her head on her joined hands.

Maura returned to the kitchen. "Oh, You're in here."

Jane did not answer. She remained frozen to her spot against the sink.

"Jane, won't you sit?"

"Can't. Talk. Now." The harshness in Jane's tone felt foreign to Maura. Jane forced out, "Please, back off."

Maura's mouth dropped open a bit at the harshness from Jane. She stalked Jane with her eyes trying to determine if Jane was still ready to run. She saw the wet socks and turned to get Jane a fresh pair. She took a shuddering breath as if to wash the hurting words away from her. If comfort from a distance was all she was going to be allowed to offer, she would certainly do her best.

(This story is going to get increasingly frantic for a bit. If you can take it, you will be rewarded by the end for enduring this torture.)