So. Here's the deal. I pounded this out in two hours. And I'm not really sure if any of it makes sense and I know it's absolutely (most likely) riddled with grammatical errors. So. But. I'm posting it tonight because... well because. I have a lot of feelings and if I don't post it, I'm going to obsess over it and I need to sleep. Anyway. You've been warned. It may not make sense. I'm sorry. Thank you for reading. And I'll shut up now.
Love.
They're speaking to her, Frost and Frankie and Korsak. Even as her brother grabs the keys to the handcuffs off the desk and struggles to get the cutting metal off of her wrists and ankles. His hands are shaking. Even as Frost pushes Dominick Bianchi against the wall, none too gently, and slaps his own pair of cuffs over the man's meaty wrists. Even as Korsak leans over her, not touching her, just watching, taking in the scene, the same way he did so many years ago in that basement when she was scalpeled to the ground, not tied to a bed. They're speaking to her, but their words are garbled and unknowable. Somewhere between their lips and her ears, the vibrations are getting mangled – pulled and pushed until they sound more like water rushing over a cliff than exclamations and questions.
She's speaking, too. "Maura. How is Maura? Maura." Over and over, even as they release her from this prison. She can't think of anything else. She doesn't feel the blood slowly seeping back out to her extremities. She doesn't notice the action taking place around her. "Maura. Where is she?"
And it's not until the medical professionals have arrived, until one EMT, male, reaches out a gloved hand as though to steady her, does she acknowledge the other people in the room. She flinches at the contact, thinking for a split second that it's Dominick again, her husband. No. Not her husband.
But, Korsak snaps at the man immediately, sending him from the bedroom – her bedroom – except, it isn't her bedroom, is it?
"Jane. Janie." It's Frankie. Her brother. Her baby brother. He's calling her name softly, beneath the din of the warm bodies filling the apartment with their incessant motion. "Janie."
She stares at him, her dark brown eyes seeing him, yes, but not - looking straight through him. "Maura. Frankie, how is she?"
"She's waiting for you, Janie. But we have to get you out of here, okay? We've got to get you looked at."
She shakes her head. "Maura."
"We'll take you to the doc, Janie," this is from Korsak. Korsak – the man who has seen this all before, the man who has lifted her out from such a place and carried her into the light, the man who has seen her weakness, who knows it. And suddenly she's crying. Great, big tears sliding down her face. Jane Rizzoli doesn't cry, not ever. But she's crying now. And the blood is rushing back to her extremities, pulsing to her fingertips, her toes. She kicks off the pink heels in a fit of movement, sending them flying over the edge of the bed. She notices Frost glance at Korsak, but the older man puts up his hand, staying him. She's still crying, unable to stem the flow, and the pain in her wrists is biting, and the prickling in her fingers and her toes stings, worse than it ever has when one of her limbs has fallen asleep and she's had to shake it back awake. She's crying and she can't stop.
Vince approaches the bed slowly, as one might a wild animal and she releases a great, wet, laugh into the room. A laugh because it's so ridiculous. He's afraid of her. No – she stares at him through a haze of water and he stares back determinedly. He's not afraid of her. She's the one who is afraid.
"Maura," she manages and her voice catches on the name, on the prayer, on the plea.
"It's alright, Janie," he murmurs, crossing the final foot between them and reaching out. She backs away, but only for a moment, because then he's wrapping his arms around her, holding her tightly. So tightly she cannot get away, she cannot escape. She flails, hitting him once, twice in the shoulder blades. Maybe she's screaming now, that one name over and over, but her own voice is muffled in her ears.
"Maura! Maura! Maura!"
Until Vince squeezes her tighter and then lifts, straining his old muscles to get her off of the bed and fully into his arms. He hasn't fought her, hasn't attempted to restrain her in any way or stem her tears. No one else is speaking. Her brother is staring at the floor and Frost is staring at the computer screen that is still filming, playing out these moments, a mirror of the real world.
He's holding her like a child, like her father once did when she was very small and fell asleep in the car on the way home from the drive in movie theater. That's the way he's holding her. She stops fighting, worn out, hardly able to breathe.
"That's it," he murmurs into her hair, turning and heading for the stairs.
She reaches up, wrapping her arms around his neck and laying her head against his chest.
"I've got you," he says so that only she can hear. "I've got you." And it's the same thing he told her before, the last time she was in this position, exposed for the whole world to see, no longer herself, no longer Detective Jane Rizzoli, youngest to ever be promoted to detective in the Boston PD, no longer the badass female, homicide detective. "I've got you." You. You. You. It echoes in her ears. You – this woman, alone and scared and naked. You – and by you he means Jane Rizzoli, the girl whose father left her family, who loves a woman who might be dying, who might be dead. The girl whose entire world has been flipped on its axis, whose north is south and south is north, who sees no way up, no way out. "I've got you."
And she cries, all the way down the flight of stairs, the other cops, her colleagues, her friends, standing back out of the way, averting their eyes respectfully from their fallen hero. Because that is how they see her, even now. Even when she cannot remember her own name, her own place in the world. Even now, when all she can see is a haze of tears and all she knows is a single word, falling from her lips as snowflakes do from the sky, they salute her as their hero. "Maura. Maura."
He calls his mother from the car, speeding along behind the ambulance, lights blazing, sirens blaring. He does not go into detail. She'd never be able to stomach it. But he doesn't know his mother as well as he thinks. Angela Rizzoli – she could handle it. She's handled worse, but he doesn't tell her and she doesn't ask.
"We've got her, ma. On our way. Mass Gen. Yeah." Short sentences – easier to manage.
"She's-"
"She's alright. We'll be there in ten." Frost takes a hard right and Frankie leans into the curve.
"Maura –"
"Is she okay?" he cuts her off, picturing his sister. His brave older sister who used to tell him stories about vanquishing giants and monsters at night when he'd crawl into her bed, afraid of the dark. His older sister, who taught him everything he knows about being a cop. His older sister who has only loved one person in her entire life, has only truly given her entire being to one other soul.
"They've got her stabilized now, but," she pauses, and he can see her in his mind's eye, wringing her hands and glancing fretfully down at the linoleum floor.
"We'll hurry," he answers. He promises. "We'll be there."
She's not sure how she gets from the ambulance to the hospital bed. Except that suddenly everything smells sterile and there are people rushing around her. There's nothing seriously wrong: dehydration, lacerations on her wrists and ankles, vitamin deficiency. Nothing too serious. But Korsak doesn't leave her side and Frost and Frankie are waiting just next door, and there are only women around her.
The doctor, short and solid and unfazed, barking orders. Two nurses, looking harried and tired after having pulled the midnight shift. But there will be cops in the waiting room. Boston won't let its finest detective sit in a hospital alone. And these women – they are under great pressure, but they don't show it. They speak her name, gently, until she looks up at them, uncomprehendingly. "We're going to clean the cuts," the younger nurse explains, walking her through each step. Explaining and then waiting until she nods before reaching out to touch her.
She's not sure how much time has passed since the door banged open, swinging freely on its hinges and she knew what it was not to be so lost you can't see land any longer, but she knows it's been too long. "Maura?"
"Not yet, Detective Rizzoli," the older nurse responds, avoiding glancing at the clock on the wall, even as Jane stares at it. Not yet.
"She's upstairs, Janie," Korsak steps in, glancing apologetically at the nurse when he gets in her way, but she sidesteps him and pats his arm and so he stays. "She's alright. She's waiting for you."
"I-I have to go to her," she tries to sit up, but her head swims and she sees three Vinces where there is only one.
"Not yet, Detective," this time more forceful and with a gentle push on her shoulder to get her to lie back down.
So she stares at the wall and waits, forcing her breathing to come in even, measured seconds as they dress her cuts and clean her up. Vince leaves when they begin to undress her. They offer a shower; she does not acknowledge them. And so they slip her into a gown, and the younger nurse, she can't be more than 23, does up the buttons. They dress her – like one might a child.
But, when they've finished, she does not feel like a child. She feels older than she ever has. Weighed down and exhausted and longing for sleep. But she can't. Not yet. Not until, "Maura?"
"Alright, Janie," she jumps, not having realized that her old partner had reentered the room. "Here," and he helps her down, off of the bed, and into the wheelchair. She doesn't argue. They're going against protocol here. She should be sedated, sleeping off the ordeal, the physical side effects of it at least. But they're setting her free, they're letting her take the elevator up, four floors, Korsak behind her, tapping his finger incessantly against the handle. She wants to ask him to stop, please, but she cannot take her eyes off of the red light, moving up, slowly, from 1 to 2 to 3, 4, dinging on 5.
Barry and Frankie are waiting when the doors swing open. They must have taken the stairs because they're breathing heavily. But she doesn't spare more than a moment for them, glancing instead down the hall. She was here, not even two days ago, she was here. Pacing these floors, staring out that window, watching the snow fall and time pass by without her. But suddenly it's as though she hasn't lost anything, it's the same day, nothing's changed. Except for her. Time has stood still here. She's the one who left, who rejoined the world, only to find it was not as peaceful as it looked from behind that plane of glass.
"Janie," her mother is standing in front of her now, squatting to be level. "Janie?" she asks again, and the detective, no, the girl, forces herself to focus. This is her mother. This is the woman who raised her, who protected her, who packed peanut butter and fluff sandwhiches in her lunch every single day for twelve years. "Jane." Her mother isn't crying and she's surprised to find that she isn't either.
"Ma," she manages, and it's enough for her mother, enough for the matriarch to know that her daughter is, in fact, in one piece. Holding it together for now. And so she, too, holds it together, as she's always done in fact. Holding her family together, her children, her husband, herself. Even when it looked like her grasp had slipped, she'd always managed to hold it together. Jane didn't realize how much she was like her mother or how much she wanted to be like her mother until this moment. Until Angela Rizzoli kissed her palm and placed her hand softly on her daughter's cheek, ignoring the twitch that signaled Jane's fight or flight reaction, ignoring everything that had happened to bring them to this point.
"She's waiting for you," Angela whispers.
"I love you," Jane answers, and there are crystal shards in her mother's eyes, but she holds them at bay, because that is what she does. Jane is like her mother, and she wouldn't want to be any other way.
"She's waiting for you, baby," Angela repeats and she stands, spinning on her heel to lead the way down the hall. She does not look back to reassure herself that Jane is still there, being pushed along behind her by Vincent Korsak, the man who is always saving her, the man who promised, on Janie's first day as a detective to see her safely through, and the man who has not yet failed to uphold that promise, no matter the circumstances. She does not look back because she's holding it together, because she is a mother, and that is what she does.
The room is dimly lit, but Jane can see well enough to make out Constance sitting in the chair beside the bed, Richard standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder.
"She's here," Angela tells them, or perhaps that's Jane's imagination, but the parents stand as the party enters the room.
"She's awake," but that might not be real. "We'll be outside," and the two of them sweep past. Richard first, careful not to come too close. His wife pauses on her way out the door though, just behind the chair. There is a swoop of air and Jane catches the scent of lilacs from Mrs. Isles' perfume, but beneath that, honey and vanilla. Her stomach clenches because that is what Maura's skin tastes like, she can remember, faintly, the taste suddenly present on her tongue. "Thank goodness. Thank goodness you're alright, darling," and Mrs. Isles – Constance – presses the lightest of kisses to the top of Jane's head, not seeming to mind her greasy hair or the fact that she smells of piss and body odor and fear. Jane has never loved Constance Isles, but she realizes in that moment that she could, even when she shies away from the contact. "Thank goodness," and the woman is gone, leaving behind only the faint, cloying smell of lilacs blooming in the springtime sun.
"She's here, sweetheart. Here she is," Angela is murmuring to the figure lying in the bed, and only then does Jane make out her name, mumbled over and over again, a litany, a mirror for her own unceasing prayer.
Vince pushes her closer, close enough so that she could reach out on scarred and battered hand and pick up the delicate palm atop the bed sheets. She doesn't however. She merely stares at the hand - willing it to move, and only when it twitches weakly does she tear her eyes away, up to meet the clouded hazel eyes staring back at her.
"Jane?"
They're alone, but Jane doesn't remember anyone leaving. She stands shakily, steadying herself on the mattress, and then lifts her weight, her wrists screaming in agony onto the bed, carefully, ever so carefully laying her long frame down alongside the occupant of the bed.
"Jane."
She doesn't answer, instead leaning forward and placing a kiss on the thin cheekbone. And another and another. Until her chapped lips are numb. Until she is forced to pause to take a breath.
"Jane."
"Maura."
"I thought I lost you."
"Of course not."
"I thought you left me."
"Never."
"I thought I wouldn't see you again."
"I'll always be here."
"That's a lie."
"No. No it isn't."
"Humans can't last forever, Jane."
"Love."
"That's not an answer."
"It wasn't a question."
Maura is tired, Jane can tell. Her eyes are fluttering open and closed. Her breathing is sharp and ragged, but the detective can't let her sleep yet. There are things she needs to tell her, things she needs to say. Because she thought she was lost, too. She thought she'd left. She thought they wouldn't see one another again either. And there are things she needs to say before it's too late, before she loses her chance.
"Maura."
"Jay."
"I love you."
And Maura is kissing her, and Jane is kissing her back, and this woman, this woman she loves with her whole heart, her entire being is kissing her. She tastes like honey and vanilla and home and saltwater and Jane realizes that she is crying again. And so is the other woman. Their tears are mingling on their cheeks and dripping down to stain the bed sheets with heartache and longing and love.
"I love you."
"I love you."
"I love you." She isn't sure who is saying it, who is making promises they will always keep. But she cannot stop. She will not. She refuses to let go.
Eventually Maura falls asleep, after moments or minutes or days, she drifts off, the drugs – meant to ease her pain – making her sleepy and lethargic. Her body is shutting down, but her mind is as sharp as ever, and she fights the going, with every ounce of strength she possesses, she fights the blackness.
"Go," Jane urges her. "Go. I'll be here."
When the doctor's hold on her detective's hand has loosened, the brunette begins. If this were a letter, it would be full of flowery phrases and loose meanings. If this were a novel, she wouldn't know where to begin. But it is simply the exhausted ramblings of a woman just recently returned from Hell, a woman who should, by all rights, be downstairs, heavily drugged herself, free from the torments of her own mind. It is not a novel, it is not a dying breath or final request or last will and testament. It is simply all the words she'd been meaning to say and hadn't discovered until it was almost too late.
And so she begins: "You are beautiful. And strong. So strong, Maura. Did you know that? Stronger than me. Stronger than anyone I've ever met. And beautiful. Did I say that? So fucking beautiful." She isn't crying, but her throat feels tight and swollen. "Time is a funny thing isn't it? You'd say it's a human construct, and that we're the ones who always make it seem like there's never enough. There's plenty of time for everything, you'd say. Wouldn't you? Plenty of time. But I've got to disagree with you on that one.
"I thought I'd run out of time. Last night. This afternoon. There was this man, see but - no. Never mind." She blinks, seeing a man with a scruffy beard leering over her, but when she opens her eyes again there is the slightest hint of pink in the window. Dawn is coming, peaking slowly over a still-sleeping city.
"I never thought I'd love someone like you, Maur. Smart and talented and beautiful and wonderful. I never thought someone like you would love me. But here we are," she brings the pale hand to her lips. "Here we are. Thank, God." She's not thanking God so much as she's thanking Fate or Time, for slowing down, just the smallest bit.
"And I wasn't going to fall for you. I wasn't. I think I even swore to myself that I wouldn't. Because I knew that if you let me into your life, I'd fuck it all up. I'm the one who always fucks everything up. But I did anyway. Fall for you, I mean. They say head over heels, Maur, and I thought that was a load of bull. But," she paused for air, "now I get it." She's whispering now. "Head over heels. Heart over head. Yeah. I get it now."
The doctor shifts beside her, "Jay?"
"I'm here."
"Love you…"
"Sleep, my heart."
She waits until there is silence once more before pressing on, because if she doesn't get this all out, she's fairly certain she'll be buried beneath the words she left unsaid. Words have power, mass, meaning. Didn't Maura teach her that?
"I think, Maur, I think if we had had more time. If we had more time. I think I'd probably ask you to marry me. And it wouldn't be over home plate at Fenway and I promise I wouldn't wear my red sox jersey. But you would wear that beautiful gown you talked about. We'd be happy, Maur. Don't you think? If we just had more time."
"Janie," her mother's hand on her shoulder brings her out of her half-sleep state. She'd drifted off, lying there with her head on the pillow next to the patient. "Janie, you need to get your bandages changed," her mother's voice doesn't shake on the words.
"No," Jane shakes her off, sitting up and stretching. She winces at the tightness in her muscles, but takes the cup of water offered to her gratefully and gulps it down.
"Slow. Slow sips," Angela whispers like she used to when Jane was a child sick with the flu. "Slow sips," and her daughter slows her swallows accordingly. "You need to get your bandages changed."
"I'm not leaving her." She says it softly, but surely. She will not budge and her mother, biting her lip, nods.
"I'll have them do it here." They do not discuss the fact that Jane should be in a hospital bed of her own. They do not discuss what happened to Dominick, even though she can see in her mother's brown eyes that she knows and would tell her if she whispered his name. They do not say any of those things.
"Thanks, ma." Gratitude. So much gratitude.
"Of course." But she turns at the door, with her hand on the knob. "Janie?"
"Yeah," she pauses in the act of lying down once more.
"You are strong. You are –" she gulps and then smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes, "You're strong enough."
"I love you, ma."
"You, too," and she's gone.
Maura is awake when she finally gets situated again. Her wrists are aching. Her whole body is aching.
"Hi," the doctor whispers.
"Do you want water," Jane goes as if to sit up again, but a small hand on her arm stops her. They both stare at the placement, two inches above where the pristine white bandages end. There is the line and they, simultaneously, make the decision not to cross it. At least, Jane thinks they do, except it appears Maura does not agree, because she reaches out a thin finger and skims along the cloth.
It is her turn to speak.
"I'll be leaving you soon. Not as soon as I think some people expect, but sooner than I'd like."
"Maura –"
"You got to speak. Now I do."
And Jane is silenced because she didn't realize she'd been speaking to someone who might possibly hear her.
"I've always been the one left behind, you see. And I was so used to it. I knew exactly what to expect. The feelings, the hurt, the tiredness, the moving on and getting over it. I was always the one being left and so I didn't realize what it took to actually leave. But now, now I think I know. And it's horrible, Jane."
"Yes."
"Yes," she's staring towards the window and Jane wonders what she sees. If she sees the same man that is haunting her, peering over her shoulder, breathing down her neck, even now. If she sees them, as they are, as they were, as they might have been. Or if she sees something else entirely, something Jane is not privy to, being still so far from death as she is.
"Yes, you see the leaving, that's where the true pain is. But even now, I won't really know what it's like. Because I'll be leaving and I'll be gone and I won't have to feel it. You see?"
"Yes." Because she did. Clearly. And it hurt already.
"I thought it would be… easier than this. But it's not like a book. It's not black and white and clear cut. This isn't life and death as we see it every day. As I forced myself to see it: laid out on a table with all the parts in all their proper places. This isn't like that."
"No," she growls, her voice low and deep in her chest.
"You aren't black and white," Maura runs a hand along her cheek and Jane does not flinch. She would never.
"You are alive and beautiful, rough and smooth, and you are where I fit. Perfectly."
"Nothing is perfect." It's an argument she's heard used against her many times.
"This." Maura nods. "This is perfect, sweetheart. This is the definition of perfection. You and me. Here. Together."
"But you're leaving."
"Jay – "
"Don't go, Maur. Don't leave me."
"Oh, my darling. I thought you'd left me. And I thought that once again, I was the one being left behind, before I could have my chance to be the one to disappear. And I hated you. For those however many hours. I hated you. Even as I loved you, even as I got ready to leave you. I hated you."
"Don't."
"But now. Now, I'm the one I cannot stand. In this body that's betraying me. It's letting me down. My cells are rebelling, fighting their natures. That's what leaving is; refusing to accept one's place and searching for something new, something else, something better. Sometimes we have to leave, you see. I didn't know that before. That sometimes it's the only way."
They're in the hallway – the four of them. Angela. Constance. Richard. And Dr. Wilde. And they are all four staring at the door, as though it will open magically and they'll be allowed back inside, as though what is going on inside the room might suddenly be revealed to them.
"I checked her vitals while they were both asleep," the Doctor explains.
None of them look at him.
"She's…stronger." He sounds confused. "Her pulse is stronger, her breathing is steadier. She's seemed to have pulled out of the nosedive."
They all look at him.
"Wh-what I'm saying is – you could take her home, I think. After tonight. If things keep on this way – you could take her home." For the end. But he doesn't say that.
"You said –"
"Jane." Richard cuts off his wife.
They all look at him.
"She was waiting for Jane, but now…"
"We could take her home?"
"Maybe. We'll see."
None of them look at him.
"Only way to what?"
"Only way to survive. Only way for the left behind to survive."
"Don't. Please," and she's never begged for something the way she wants to beg for this.
"Sometimes you have to leave."
"You don't."
"I do."
"No."
"Yes."
"No!"
"Jay –"
"Fight for me, Maur. Fight for me the way I fought for you."
"That's not fair."
"It is fair."
"I'd be leaving you that much sooner, my darling."
"No."
"Yes."
"Jane."
She stares fiercely out the window, at the daylight that has the audacity to shine through the glass.
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
"Was it worth it?"
"What, Maur? Was what worth it?" But she's being dense on purpose.
"All of this?"
And finally, she looks at her. Really looks at her. This woman that she loves, that she thought she'd never see again, never hold again, never kiss again. She's messed up. More so than before. And everything has changed in the past 48 hours and nothing has changed. It's as though it was simply a nightmare, as though she's finally woken up to find that they are exactly where they were two days ago: one of them dying, one of them being left behind. Except it's all just a little bit different, just a little bit off. Because the wrong one did the leaving and now everything's confused, and the Fates aren't sure who's supposed to be going where. Aren't sure who to take, aren't sure who's stepping off the boat and who's staying on for another go, and there's a window here. Perhaps. A window of opportunity.
"Of course it was." She means it. Even though she's messed up and can still feel his hands on her. Even though she won't be able to get a full night's sleep for the next seventh months. Even though, if the Fates do get things sorted out and she finally fulfills her proper role in this mess, she won't be whole ever again. Even then, "Of course."
"I love you."
"And I you."
"And I cannot leave you."
"Please."
"I will not."
There's a window of opportunity, if they can only grab it.
Fin. Plus an Epilogue which will be up...erm...soon-ish.