A/N: Thank you for the follows, favs & reviews. These are like early Christmas presents. :-)

(P.S. For those of you who are aware of the actual Boston mayoral election that took place in November this year – any similarities with people/events in this story are purely coincidental… most of the time… :-))

(P.P.S. I can't write/read without music to get me into the right mood, so if you're looking for a few songs to add to your playlist, try "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" by Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright for this chapter.)

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Chapter 2 – Day 1 (cont'd)

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Darkness.

Darkness and silence.

The quiet before the storm.

And then without warning, an overwhelming wave of sensory information washed over Jane's mind as she slowly awoke from her unconsciousness… the faint cries of people in the distance… the pungent smell of burning flesh… the metallic taste of blood in her mouth… the intense and high-pitched buzzing sound in her ears… the roughness of the stony pavement beneath her back… the stinging pain in her chest… and then the warmth of a hand tugging at her arm… tugging again and shaking her… and forcing her to open her eyes.

Jane squinted, and when her vision finally cleared, she found Maura bent over her, covered in dust and debris, worry etched across her face and blood trickling down the side of her head. The blonde seemed to call her name but her voice was drowned by the buzzing sound still filling Jane's ears.

Ignoring the ache consuming her body, the detective slowly sat up and instinctively squeezed Maura's hand to let her know that everything would be fine. But when she looked around and took in the scope of devastation and the helpless faces of all the other victims nearby, Jane realized that the word fine would be banned from her vocabulary for an indefinite time.

Suddenly, she felt overcome by a subliminal fear. A fear that something else was very wrong. Breathing heavily against the broken ribs in her chest, Jane tried to piece together the fragments swirling through her head. Why are we here? We're… We wanted to do something… We wanted… Her eyes found the ruins of the restaurant. Oh God. No. No!

Before the medical examiner could hold her back, Jane let go of Maura's hand and stumbled to her feet. She staggered towards the still burning building, each faltering step accompanied by another memory pouring back into her mind. She remembered the long ride and the traffic jam. She remembered their dinner plans and the wedding. She remembered her partner.

"FROST?!" Jane cried out in despair.

One of the first uniformed officers who had begun to arrive on the scene rushed towards the brunette and stopped her from getting closer to the flames. She tried to resist his gentle grip and refused to believe what she was seeing.

"Frost?" she called out again, her voice cracking and succumbing to the pressure in her chest.

When she felt Maura's comforting hand on her shoulder, Jane gave up her resistance and let the blonde pull her away from the officer. With her eyes still fixed on the remains of the restaurant, she sank to her knees and silently cried.

Frost…?

Minutes later, the chaotic scene of death and destruction began its transformation into a formal scene of crime and investigation.

Police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances arrived from all directions, their sirens echoing through the night. Uniformed officers, firemen, and EMTs jumped out of their vehicles and gasped in shock at the devastation unfolding before their eyes.

Crime Scene Response Units unpacked their equipment, then began to document each and every particle of debris for their subsequent reconstruction of the fateful blast.

Shortly after the first responders, the media started their conquest of the neighborhood. TV vans came to a screeching halt, and reporters from stations big and small darted back and forth trying to find the most expressive spot for their breaking news.

"It… it seems as if a huge explosion has destroyed several buildings in this street…," a nervous greenhorn from local TV stuttered into a camera.

"Given the high level of destruction here at the scene, police expect dozens of casualties," an old-school anchorman calmly explained into another camera just a few feet away. "And according to first witness reports, mayoral candidate Andrew Connelly may be one of them. At this point, we do not know whether he was still inside the restaurant at the time of the explosion."

"Of course, this raises one hauntingly familiar question," a female reporter wondered with the zeal of a real-life Lois Lane. "Is this another terrorist attack?"

And as the media continued with their commentary and speculation, as ambulances took off with those who couldn't walk on their own, and as police gradually gained control of the scene, the dark of the night descended upon the people of Boston and merged with the darkness that had seized hold of their hearts.

Two hours later, just a few blocks away from the site of the explosion, the emergency ward at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was crowded with people. Victims of the attack were limping inside or being wheeled in by EMTs. Physicians and nurses triaged all new arrivals and treated those whose wounds couldn't wait. Several cops rushed from gurneys to chairs to more gurneys and more chairs and recorded names, statements, tears of despair. Family members and friends anxiously searched for their loved ones and tried to get hold of a doctor or a cop or anybody in the know.

In the midst of the chaos, Maura was leaning against the nurses' desk, trying to keep her eyes open while dealing with a seemingly endless stack of paperwork. Her clothes were still dirty, partly torn at the hemlines, and covered in ash, but her face and hands had been cleaned and small patches of gauze covered the various scratches all over her skin. Ignoring the subtle tremor of her hand, she scribbled down responses to the myriad of meaningless questions that the insurance and release forms presented to her in a much too small font. When she finally reached the end of the last page, she let out a sigh and rubbed her tired eyes, then quickly glanced over the forms again before handing them to a nurse nearby.

"Are you sure you don't want to sit down for a moment?" the nurse asked with concern when she noticed the blonde's trembling hand and her overall shaken appearance.

"No, I'm fine, thank you," Maura absentmindedly assured her and grabbed a small plastic bag with pain medication waiting on the counter. Under the worried eyes of the nurse, she turned around and stumbled down the hallway, slowly making her way through dozens of people who barely registered with her mind.

At the end of the ward, she finally reached a small treatment room to her right and wearily leaned against the doorframe. Too tired to speak and too unsure of what to say, Maura just watched in silence how a young nurse in maroon scrubs finished patching up Jane, who was sitting on a gurney with her shirt taken off and her head hanging low, pressing an ice pack onto the naked skin below her bra to numb the ache of the fractured ribs in her chest. The nurse covered the grazed flesh on the heel of the brunette's left hand with a small patch, then put the tray with gauze and antiseptics away.

"If you have trouble breathing or need stronger medication, you just give us a call, okay?" the nurse warmly advised.

"Okay…," Jane quietly agreed without looking up.

As the nurse noticed Maura waiting at the door, she gave her a friendly nod and comfortingly patted Jane's arm. "Take good care of yourself, Detective."

Once the nurse had left the room, Maura hesitatingly approached the fragile frame of her friend. She leaned against the gurney and held up the plastic bag in her hand. "I got your medication… and I've taken care of the paperwork…" She glanced at Jane who didn't show any reaction and just kept staring at the floor. "Your mother is on her way, but it will take her a while to get here from Tommy's… The traffic out there must be utter chaos…"

When Jane still didn't react, Maura reached for the detective's hand, both to let Jane know that she was there and to have something to hold onto herself, to keep her knees from giving in, to make her feel less alone.

The touch of Maura's warm fingers seemed to wake the brunette from her apathy, but she still didn't look up. "He was so excited about the wedding…," Jane whispered.

"I know…," the blonde sighed, tears filling her eyes.

"Tell me we're just stuck in some really fucked-up dream…," Jane begged and finally looked at Maura with equally watery eyes.

"I could," Maura said quietly, and her heart ached at the sad gaze of the broken detective next to her. "But I would get hives…"

When the brunette let her head sink again, Maura mustered all the strength left in her tired bones and stepped in front of Jane and pulled her into a close embrace. The detective didn't resist and buried her face in the medical examiner's shoulder, her back trembling as she gave in to her tears. Maura wrapped her arms around Jane and they just leaned against each other in silence, their bodies seeking comfort from one another and their minds mourning together for Detective Frost.

Mere hours after the horrible explosion in the heart of the Brookline neighborhood, most streets had fallen quiet and dark, but the Il Camino ruins were well lit by industrial-size floodlights that had been placed strategically at various spots amidst the debris. The fires had been extinguished, and the remaining firemen at the scene were now analyzing and verifying the statics of adjacent buildings — a residential complex, a private two-level parking garage with more apartments on top, and a number of small stores at street level.

Workers had begun to remove chunks of debris that had already been photographed from every angle by the CSRU techs still diligently documenting the scene. Employees from a deli just down the street were providing them with snacks, soft drinks, and coffee to help them through the night and to do their part in keeping their street, their neighborhood, their city alive.

At various spots around the scene, reporters had transformed their TV vans into makeshift mobile homes in anticipation of a long night and continued to deliver their news updates to viewers near and far. The gray-haired anchor was still among them, still speaking calmly and professionally into a camera, still extracting hard facts from the drama developing at the scene in his back.

"So far, twenty-seven people with major and minor injuries have been admitted to Beth Israel, eleven of them still in critical condition," he read from a dust-stained sheet of paper. "The number of those killed in the blast, especially in the well-frequented Il Camino restaurant in this street, is expected to be between twenty and thirty. As of now, we do not have any confirmation whether mayoral candidate Andrew Connelly is among them, but we do know that Boston Police have lost one of their own — a young homicide detective who was dining in that restaurant tonight. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of the victims of this terrible and cowardly act."

A few feet away from the anchor and his cameraman, Sergeant Vince Korsak stood quietly and let his eyes wander over the devastation, his lips a thin line and his blank stare hiding the turmoil in his heart. Detective Frost had been more than a colleague, even more than a friend — he had been like his son, and now he was gone. A melancholic smile flashed over the sergeant's face as he remembered his constant banter with the young detective, their teasing and their jokes about each other's flaws, but also the deep respect they had held for one another at all times.

As Korsak watched in trance how CSRU techs in white Tyvek suits and assistants of the medical examiner's office started the grim and tedious process of recovering bodies — or what was left of them — from the scene of the blast, he was joined by Lieutenant Sean Cavanaugh, whose already small eyes had turned into tired dots of distress.

"Any news from Rizzoli and Doctor Isles?" the lieutenant asked quietly.

"Doctor Isles called a few minutes ago," Korsak informed him, his voice barely loud enough to be heard. "They're okay… given the circumstances… Jane is supposed to stay home for a few days, but Doctor Isles wants to come in tomorrow and help with the identification of the bodies. I don't think that's a good idea though…"

"Can you keep an eye on her? Make sure she doesn't bite off more than she can chew…?"

"Yeah, sure."

Cavanaugh looked at Korsak from the side and studied his face, clearly more concerned for a friend than for a colleague. "How are you holding up, Vince?"

The sergeant shook his head in uncertainty. "I always thought the Whitey Bulger years would be the worst of my career… but this…" He turned to his boss and fierce determination flamed up in his eyes. "I wanna find the sonofabitch who did this and make him regret it for the rest of his life!"

"We'll find him, Vince," the lieutenant nodded and supportively patted Korsak's back. "We'll find him."

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