Madison bursts into tears when she sees Jane. She allows her mother to take her rain jacket off of her, and smooth her hair before running up to the foot of Jane's bed and standing there, rocking back and forth and crying.
Jane feels a lump in her throat too.
"Hi, kiddo," she manages.
"Jane, Jane," Maddie says through her tears. "Jane, Jane, Jane."
And the detective realizes what she's waiting for. After each run in with Reagan, Maddie wouldn't come to her until Jane told her she could, until the brunette made sure it was over, and that no harm would come to the child.
That's what she's doing now. Waiting for the OK.
"Come here, honey," Jane says now, and she watches as Madison puts her fingers to her imaginary collar, crawling slowly up onto the bed to sit near Jane.
When she's close enough, Jane takes the little girls fingers gently in her hand, kissing them.
Maddie cries harder and leans forward, putting her arms tentatively around Jane's neck.
"I missed you," she whispers.
Jane feels one tear roll down her cheek, and she squeezes Madison harder.
"I missed you too."
.
"I have nightmares," the little girl whispers. She's sitting crosslegged on Jane's bed, her whole body leaning forward towards the detective. Her mother has left in order to "let them talk," but Madison's voice still drops to a low, conspiratorial whisper, and Jane smiles gently, and leans forward so that she can whisper too.
"I do too."
Madison looks greatly comforted, and she lets out a deep breath, her shoulders falling with relief. "You do?"
Jane nods. "Totally." It had taken her therapist almost two days to wring this same confession from her, but when she admits it to Madison, it feels like bravery, not cowardice.
"What do you do?" The child asks now. "When he comes and grabs you while you're sleeping."
She has not framed this occurrence as a nightmare, and Jane has to suppress a shudder. It is true. Madison has captured it perfectly. Reagan seems to creep out of the darkness of each night and grab at her. She will wake up heaving and yelling, and more recently kicking until her hips are burning from the exertion and the pain.
"I...try to tell myself that it's not real. I...turn on a light and look around to reassure myself," Jane says slowly. I stay up for the rest of the night.
"Do you cry?" Madison's earnest green eyes look up at Jane, and the detective holds out her hand for the little girl to take. She does immediately.
"Yes," she says after a moment, a confession her therapist has yet to be rewarded with. "Sometimes. But it's okay to cry. It's okay to feel sad and angry and hurt over what happened. I'm sure your mommy has told you that."
Madison nods, and her hand squeezes Jane. "I just...I'm not sure," she says. "I wasn't sure…"
"Wasn't sure of what, kiddo?" Jane asks gently.
"Anything," Madison says biting her lip. "I'm not sure of anything until you tell me."
Jane sits back against her pillows. "Come here," she says. "Slowly," and Madison obeys, picking her way slowly up the bed until she can ease herself into Jane's lap. She presses her head into Jane's chest and sighs, like relief.
Jane feels it too. "Listen," she says quietly, running her hand through the light curls. "Listen...it's okay not to be sure of things. It's going to take some time to feel safe everywhere again...even for me…" Maddie squeezes her a little, mindful of her injuries. "But your Mommy is someone who's just as safe...who's safer even than me," Jane says, and Madison pulls away to look up into the detectives face.
"My mommy?" she asks, looking incredulous.
"Yes," Jane says. "She missed you so much, Maddie, and...she's going to make sure that nothing bad like that ever happens to you ever again."
"She doesn't tell me stories so I'll fall asleep."
"Have you asked her to?"
Madison looks caught. "I...no," she admits.
"Well then how is she supposed to know, kiddo?"
Jane means it as a little joke, but Madison's eyes fill up with tears, and she presses closer to Jane, less mindful now of the brunette's many bruises.
"She doesn't call me kiddo. She won't let me eat just peanut butter sandwiches. I have to walk fast. I'm not allowed to touch my neck...I...I...can't sleep in the hallway when I am tired."
Madison reels these new rules off in a high shaky voice, like she wants to get them all out before she bursts into tears, and indeed, when she is finished, she looks up at Jane expectantly, her lower lip quivering.
Jane's heart feels wrung out.
"Honey...Maddie…" Jane wraps her arms around the little girl and pulls her closer, kissing the top of her head. "She...you...you can't sleep in the hall because you have your own bed in your own room where you would be most comfortable," Jane says finally, tackling the easiest of the rules. "She just wants you to be safe and comfortable, baby, and the hallway isn't a good place to sleep."
"We slept there every day."
Jane grits her teeth. "That doesn't make it a good place. Is your bed scary?"
Madison shakes her head. "It just doesn't feel right."
Jane knows that feeling better than any other, but she swallows hard, trying to stay in the right role. "You have to give it a chance," she says quietly. "You have to give your mommy a chance, Madison. Promise me...okay?"
Madison hesitates. "Can I come back and see you?"
"If you listen to your mother...if you promise to try and tell her when you're scared...or you want help."
"Okay," Madison says, and Jane kisses the top of the little blonde head again.
"Okay."
.
Dr. Isles returns to pick up her daughter ten minutes later, and she's followed into the room by Jane's attending, Dr. Lewis, and her mother.
"Uh oh," she says with an uneasy grin. "I never like to see the two of you show up together."
Dr. Isles glances at Jane, but has eyes only for her daughter. She holds out her arms, stepping closer, and after a glance over her shoulder at Jane, Madison slides down off the bed and lets her mother embrace her.
"Did you have a good visit, darling?" She asks. "How do you feel?"
Madison shrugs, allowing her mother to begin to feed her arms into rain jacket.
"What did the two of you talk about?" Dr. Isles tries again.
Madison shakes her head. "Can I stay a little longer?"
"Jane," Dr. Lewis says, pulling her attention. "Angela and I are here because we need to talk about what happens when you discharge."
"I thought that was weeks away," Jane says, her interest caught. "You saying it's going to be sooner, doc?"
Dr. Lewis smiles. "Sorry, you're still looking at three more weeks of rehab. We need you at least using the walker with confidence before we let you out of our sight."
Jane groans good naturedly, smiling. "So...what's the word?"
"You can't go back to your apartment, Janie!" Angela says, before the Dr. Lewis can even open her mouth again. "At least not right away. So, your doctor and I agree that you'll come home with me when you get discharged. You can stay in Frankie's old room downstairs, and I'll take care of you."
Jane is not smiling anymore. She's sure she looks horrified. She stares between her mother's happy and expectant face to the doctor's amused and sympathetic one.
"No," she says, and for as panicked as her insides feel, she is surprised her voice is so calm.
"Jane," her mother begins, but the brunette is shaking her head.
"No. Nope. No way."
"But why-"
"I love you, Ma, but I'm not spending my rehab at home with you fussing at me 24/7. I...I'll just go to my apartment and-"
"It's a walk-up, Jane...no way," her mother says. "You wouldn't make it up the first flight."
"I'll be fine," Jane says, trying not to panic. "I'll-"
"You can stay with us!" A voice pipes up cheerfully, and before she can do anything more than match the voice with the speaker, Madison has struggled out of her mother's hold and climbed back up onto the bed with Jane, rain jacket half on.
"We have a whole house that you can stay in. No stairs!"
"What?" Jane and her mother and Dr. Isles all speak at the same time.
Madison's eyes are alive with excitement and delight. "Mommy!" she says, turning to look at her dumbstruck mother. "Tell Jane she can stay in our guest home! No stairs!"
Maura looks too shocked to speak, and for a moment, Jane simply watches the panic slide over her features.
"No," she says gently to Madison. "No, kiddo, I can't stay in your...guest house."
The smile slips off Madison's face. "Why?"
There are about a hundred reasons, but Jane is unable to verbalize any of them to a six year old. Because your mother didn't want me to see you in the first place. Because you have a guest house and I have a one bedroom apartment that is probably the size of your bed. Because I think your mother would remove my heart while I was sleeping.
"Because…"
"Because Jane will need someone to take care of her," Dr. Isles cuts in smoothly, smiling at her daughter in a way that is more threatening than kind. "Now, come on, Madison. It's time to go home."
Maddie lowers her chin. "No."
Out of the corner of her eye, Jane sees her mother and Dr. Lewis raise their eyebrows at each other, clearly amused.
Dr. Isles, on the other hand, looks even more taken aback than before. It does not appear that she is used to her daughter pushing back. "Madison," she says carefully. "I promise that we can come back and see Detective Rizzoli very soon. But right now you need to-"
"NO!" Madison says, voice rising. "I don't understand! That doctor says Jane can't have stairs. We don't have stairs in the guest home, Mommy. Why can't Jane stay there? Why can't she?" Madison doesn't wait for an answer. She spins on the bed and throws her arms around the brunette, her whole body shaking with her tears.
"Don't say no, Jane!" she wails. "You promised you'd never leave. Not 'til I was safe. I'm not safe yet. I'm not, I'm not!"
Jane acts instinctually, wrapping the little girl in her arms and holding her close. "Shh, Maddie," she whispers. "Yes you are. You're okay. Your Mommy's here and I'm here, and everyone is safe and okay. Everything's okay."
"I need you to check the bed for him, Jane!" comes Maddie's muffled voice from the folds of her t-shirt. "Make sure he's not there."
"He's not," Jane says, trying not to cry herself. "I promise he's not."
It takes nearly 20 more minutes, and a hundred more assurances, before Madison will let her mother carry her from the room. Dr. Isles doesn't say good-bye to anyone, she barely looks at any of them as she hurries out the door, and when it clicks behind her, the room is silent, everyone it it, visibly shaken.
It is Dr. Lewis who finds her composure first. "You two went through a lot," she says quietly. "What you feel for that little girl is totally normal, even though she's not yours."
Jane was unaware she needed to hear that until the words are out of the doctor's mouth. She tries to smile, but her mouth barely moves.
"Jane," her mother tries, but Jane holds up her hand, unwilling.
"Please Ma? Not now?" She asks, hoping her tone will convey just how exhausted she is.
And mercifully, her mother lets the subject rest.
.
But Dr. Maura Isles returns four days later, a day earlier than scheduled, and without her daughter in tow.
She bursts into Jane's room, coming up short when she sees that the detective is standing, leaning heavily on her walker, and panting with the effort, but standing.
"Oh," the doctor says, looking around, as if for a doctor or aide. "I didn't realize that you were…"
"Halfway mobile?" Jane grins at her. She is in a good mood today. It hurts less than it ever has to stand, her ankles and knees no longer wobble uncontrollably, and her shoulders and biceps are regaining their strength quickly. She is starting to believe people when they say she is looking better. She feels better.
"It's good, right?" And she is asking the doctor in front of her. "I can get myself up now…" she trails off, glancing behind Dr. Isles. "Is it Thursday?" she asks. "Have I lost a day?"
"No," the doctor says, seeming to come back to herself. "No...I...I came to talk to you myself."
"Okay," Jane says good naturedly, starting to lower herself back into her chair. "Let me just….there we go. What can I do for you, Doctor?" She asks, but doesn't let the other woman finish, her good mood and her optimism making her a little more talkative than usual. "Actually," she continues in the same breath. "I'm glad you came by, because I wanted to talk to you about Madison."
The doctor colors, her lips straightening into one thin line of disapproval.
"We talked a bit, you know, before the whole melt down at the end, and I just...I know it's not totally my place to suggest things to you, you know, for your own kid, but-"
But the doctor scoffs, her eyes flashing. "No. It's not," she says shortly. "It's not your place at all."
Jane blinks, but is not immediately offended. They have all been through a lot. All of them.
"Right…" she says slowly. "I just thought that-"
"She's gotten worse," the doctor says, and she looks at Jane with an expression that is both imploring and accusing. "Since she saw you. More nightmares, more habits, more crying...You said it would be good for her. The therapist said so too, and I believed you. I should have known better…"
She appears to be talking more to herself than to Jane, but the detective leans forward a little in her seat, trying to bring the doctor back into a conversation.
"Hey, Dr. Isles, I'm sorry...I...I think it will get a little harder before it gets better and I-"
But the other woman has not stopped talking simply because Jane has started, and she raises her voice as she goes on so that so that when Jane stops talking and tries to listen, she catches the yelled end of the doctor's sentence, harsh and fully accusatory now.
"What did you do to my child?" Dr. Isles cries.
Jane's mouth falls open. Somewhere, in the rational part of her brain, the detective understands that the woman in front of her is scared and worried and overtired.
But at the forefront, blaring like a siren, is the realization that this woman, this god damn, fucking, woman has just accused her of…
"What?" she growls, and if her voice could physically injure, then this word would have left the doctor impaled.
"I…You…" Dr. Isles falters for a second before regaining some of the emotion that had pushed her here in the first place. "She told me you slept with her."
Jane blinks. "Platonically," she says bitingly. "You would rather I'd let him do the biblical translation?"
Maura flinches like she's been hit. "I...she...she won't go near the bed. She wants to sleep in the hall."
Jane wishes she were still standing. She wants to look this woman in the eye.
"You have to check underneath it for bad guys," she says harshly.
"I…what?" The doctor seems confused by this. "There are no bad guys in our home."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jane can't help herself, her good mood is gone. She can feel her anger like a physical being in her chest. "Are you kidding me? Of course they're not real! But her fear is. And by you checking under her fucking bed for non-existent monsters, you're telling her that you understand that fear and you want to help soothe it." She stares at the blonde in front of her, who appears to be considering this. "You seriously don't know what I'm talking about?"
This seems to fire the doctor up again, and she points at Jane angrily. "Don't give me that," she spits, and her voice has every bit as much potential for injury as Jane's did. "My child never had any of these phobias or tics before she came into contact with you. She was never afraid to sleep. She never had such, peculiar dietary needs. She never…she...not until you."
"NOT UNTIL HIM," Jane bellows, and fury and adrenaline push her up out of her seat, where she leans heavily on her walker with one elbow, pointing right back at the doctor. "Not. Before. Him."
"I-" Dr. Isles tries to put in, but Jane talks over her, furious.
"I understand you are upset, Dr. Isles. I understand you are scared, because, from what you've just told me, you were successfully raising a cyborg child before she was abducted, but you cannot blame your daughter's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on me. I told her I had the power to make monsters disappear so that she would sleep without the abstract fear of rape looming over her all night. I made weeks of nothing but peanut butter sandwiches into a game so that she would eat them, and not waste away into nothing. So that she would still have some sort of strength so that WHEN he killed me, she'd have some sort of fighting chance.
"I let her nap in the hallways on my lap because it passed the time, because our downstairs collars were something completely different from our upstairs collars and it could be hours past dark before he decided to switch us. I taught her to do that thing with her fingers. So that when she accidently jerked it, the collar wouldn't choke her until she passed out. I told her stories, I made hand puppets, I tracked how tall she was on the door frame of our prison because it was a normal thing to do. You can be angry that she went through what she did. You can be scared that she'll never fully recover, but you will not fucking assume that I am the one who damaged her. I brought her back to you. The end."
As if on cue, there is a knock on the door, and both women turn to see Dr. Lewis in the doorway, looking a little out of breath. "You're yelling, Jane," she says calmly, though her eyes scan the room and then Jane's frame. "You're yelling, are you alright? Hello, Dr. Isles, is Madison's visit today?"
"No," Jane and the doctor say at the same time. "No," Jane continues. "Dr. Isles was just coming to explain to me all the ways I've fucked her child up beyond belief." If there is a stab of regret for saying this, Jane ignores it. "But I think she's done now...you're done now, right, doctor?"
Maura's eyes are wide and wet, her jaw clenched hard. Without a word, she turns and disappears out the door.
Jane lets herself fall back into her chair, slamming her hand down on the table in front of her with enough force to bring tears to her eyes.
She ignores those too.
…...
Jane is convinced she will never see either of them ever again. She throws herself into her rehab, and grudgingly, she begins to make plans with her mother for her discharge. There is no alternative.
But Maura Isles comes back. A week to the day later, she enters Jane's room without knocking and sets the cup of coffee down on the table next to Jane's bed. "I met Detective Frost coming off the elevator," she says quietly. "He instructed me to pick up some more cream for this."
Without looking at the doctor, Jane can tell that the other woman is working at a peace offering. She reaches out and takes the cup in her hands.
"Thanks," she says, and then because the doctor looks flustered and uncomfortable, she gestures to the chair opposite hers. "Sit, if you'd like," she says.
Dr. Isles does, looking a little relieved. She waits a beat, but Jane doesn't say anything more.
"I didn't mean to be harsh the other day," the doctor says into the uncomfortable silence. "And I...I certainly didn't mean to imply that you would have ever colluded with that man to...to hurt my-"
"She told me he bathed her," Jane hears the growl in her voice and knows that it will probably be mistaken as hostility, but she can't do anything to change it. She can feel Maura's eyes on the side of her head, staring at her.
"I'm sorry?"
"She said," Jane swallows. "Before I came, he would make her take baths," she looks around to see Maura's face, wide eyed and devoid of color, and rushes to continue. "I don't think that he ever...I mean...she said he didn't…" she gestures too hard with the coffee in her hand and some of it sloshes through the tiny hole in the lid, burning her hand. She doesn't care. "And I swear, once I got there I never let him do anything like that again," Jane dips her head, hoping to catch the doctor's eye. For some reason, it is very, very important to her that this woman understand, that she believe.
"I...I did everything that I could, and I'm not a mother...I don't have kids but I-"
"Took care of my daughter as well as you could, under the circumstances," Dr. Isles says thickly, and Jane stares at her. She sounds like she's crying. "You made sure she had as much nutrition as possible, you tucked her in at night, you...you told her stories to keep her occupied…" She is crying. Jane looks away, feeling uncomfortable. "You did everything you could," Dr. Isles finishes.
"And you hate me for that," Jane supplies, and by the way that the blonde ducks her head and wrings her hands, she knows it is true. But instead of making her angry or upset, she feels slightly relieved. Here is an emotion that she can understand. Here is something she can connected with.
"It's okay," she says offering a smile when the doctor looks up at her, alarmed. "It's okay. I get it. Someone else taking care of your kid. Someone else doing the stuff you should have been."
But Dr. Isles shakes her head, looking miserable. "It's no excuse. I-I shouldn't have been so awful to you," she cries, knotting her hands in her lap. "It shouldn't make me feel...I should be so grateful to you. But all I can do is...is...seethe." She looks at Jane with wide light eyes, like she's afraid of the words that are coming out of her mouth.
Jane blinks, trying to make sense of it. "Because I was good to your kid?" She asks after a moment.
"Because you were better to her!" The doctor bursts out. "You were trapped in a house with a deranged sociopath, and you were beaten and tortured on what seems to me to be a daily basis, and yet you still paid more attention to my daughter than I have. You still took, you took, you…" the doctor seems unable to make herself say the words better care of her, but Jane hears them anyway. She sets her coffee down, because her hands are shaking. There are several ways that she saw this conversation going when Dr. Isles appeared at her doorway, but this is not one of them.
"Hey," she says now, because something about the way Maura bows her head, hiding her tears, pulls at Jane's heartstrings. "Hey...no...I'm sure that's not true," she starts to reach out, and then thinks better of it, curling her hand into a fist at the last moment. "Look, what happened to Maddie and I...what we went through just…it...pushed us together really fast. It was necessity. I had to pay attention to her. It doesn't mean that she cares more about-"
"Of course it does," Maura says bitterly. "You've proven your consistency. You've proven that you care more about her than anything...your health, your safety," she ticks the these things off on her fingers one by one, as if each one is a nail in her motherhood coffin. "You put her to bed every night for three months," she says, and she turns to look at Jane, her eyes bright and wet and really (Jane will think about it later), quite beautiful. "Do you know how many times I've been home to say goodnight to my daughter?"
"Probably every night since she got home," Jane says quickly, and the challenge in her words stops the doctor dead.
Jane takes the opening. "Look, I don't...I'm not pretending to know what kind of mother you were before Madison got abducted. But Korsak told me you were out of your mind with worry. He says there was no expense that you weren't willing to put forward, and that you were at the station hounding detectives daily," she pauses here, but when Dr. Isles doesn't answer, she continues. "Madison never stopped talking about you."
The doctor looks up, and Jane tries to smile. "She asked about you everyday, and worried about what you would do without her there...who would feed Bass."
The doctor's face crumbles a little bit, and she puts a hand to her face. "I want to help her. I want to be better for her," she says quietly. "But it's too late."
"No," Jane says fiercely, leaning forward. "It's not too late. Your kid is alive isn't she?"
Maura looks up into Jane's face at the words, and then it seems she is unable to look away. She nods.
"You can hold her and tell her you love her and that things are going to be different?"
Another nod. Is it Jane's imagination or is the doctor leaning towards her too?
"And you're going to make good on that promise," Jane says, her voice still low and fierce. "You're going to show her that it's different now. You're never going to take her for granted again."
"No," Maura breathes, not even blinking. "I won't. I promised her."
Jane sits back, finally dropping eye contact. She looks down at her lap, feeling unaccountably embarrassed. "So...then it's not too late," she says. "Not too late."
Silence falls, and Jane sits forward a little to rub at her lower back. She closes her eyes and tries to shut down the memories that are threatening to invade. Maddie with a black eye and split lip, the day Jane arrived. Madison eyeing Jane's sandwich half, her own already gone, until Jane relented and let the little girl finish it. Maddie couldn't run away when their captor returned home in one of his moods. Neither of them could. And so Jane had made the little girl turn around when he came for her. If she couldn't get the child completely out of the way, at least she didn't have to see. Madison, turn around! Cover your eyes, baby, that's it. She'd always willed herself not to make any noise.
She'd always been as quiet as she could possibly bear to be.
"Jane?"
The doctor's voice shakes her out of the past and she lifts her eyes, a little surprised to find that they are wet with the beginnings of tears. She looks away, and blinks, trying to clear her vision.
"Jane," the other woman says again, softer this time.
"I'm fine," the brunette says, because the tone that the doctor is using is usually the precursor to pity, and there is nothing that she hates more. "It just twinges every once in a while...I'm-"
"Straighten your shoulders," the doctor interrupts, authoritatively.
Jane looks at her. "What?"
Dr. Isles sits up straight in her seat, gesturing across the line of her own shoulders to demonstrate. "I can tell from the way you sit that you normally slump your shoulders, but if you want your back to stop feeling like there's teeth in your spinal cord, then you need to straighten your shoulders and sit up."
Jane cannot tell if she is more caught off guard by the matter of fact tone in the other woman's voice, or by the fact that the doctor has just accurately described her pain.
"How did you know it felt like-"
"I'm a doctor," she says, dropping her eyes. "I understand pain."
"You're a cardiologist," Jane says, eyes narrowing a little. "You understand hearts."
This makes Maura look up suddenly, looking shaken, "I understand their anatomical make up, certainly," she says quickly. "I understand how to fix them and how to keep them functioning properly. The rest," She makes a gesture that is close to a shrug. "I am afraid I am woefully in the dark."
Jane pauses for a second, trying to reconcile this harsh, clinical woman, with the vulnerable, emotional mother of just a few minutes ago. Then carefully, she tries to straighten her spine.
Dr. Isles watches her, seemingly surprised that her advice is being heeded.
"It's going to feel uncomfortable for a moment," she says quietly, when Jane hisses in pain. "But it will relieve a lot of pressure in the long run…"
It already feels better, Jane has to admit. She glances at the blonde, sitting in the opposite chair, deliberately not looking at her...giving her space to settle.
"Thank you," she says, and the doctor glances at her, and then away. "It already feels better," she concedes, and Dr. Isles' mouth curls into a shy little smile.
"I'm glad."
More silence, and Jane is just about to try and tell the doctor that she's forgiven and doesn't have to stay, when the blonde takes a deep breath, and turns towards her, setting her hands resolutely in her lap.
"Madison was right," she says firmly, as though Jane has argued.
Jane shakes her head slowly. "What?"
The doctor looks flustered, "No...I mean...the other day, when she said we have a guest house. We do...have one, and it is all one floor."
"Oh," Jane says, and then as understanding dawns. "Oh, no...no Dr. Isles, I couldn't-"
"Please just hear me out," the doctor says, and when Jane falls silent again, she sighs. "It's nearer to your mother than your apartment is...and no one would have to live with you 24/7, so you could still keep the level of independence I know that you cherish."
Jane is shaking her head, trying to fight the way her heart leaps excitedly at spending more time with Madison. This woman hates her. Didn't she just admit it?
"I couldn't ask you to do that," Jane says quickly, putting her hands out. "I couldn't ask you...especially not for a woman you barely know. One who you just admitted makes you angry and uncomfortable."
The doctor doesn't deny either of these emotions, but she furrows her brow disapprovingly at the reminder.
"You'd rather live with your mother, and have her take care of you?"
"No," Jane says, probably a little faster than she should.
The doctor almost smirks. "You'd rather stay here after your insurance ceases to cover you, and pay out of pocket?"
"...No," Jane says, feeling anger and embarrassment creep up the back of her hairline. "But I can't just invite myself into a stranger's-"
"There is little alternative left to you, Detective," the woman says crisply. "And I have invited you, so you are not unwelcome...and we are not strangers." She says this last part slowly, like the realization is dawning on her too. "We have not been strangers since the moment you rescued my daughter."
Jane tries to think of something to say and comes up with nothing.
"Think about it," the doctor says. "I'll bring Madison by tomorrow morning, and we can discuss it further then, if you'd like."
She stands, and heads towards the door, stopping to retrieve her coat from the back of the door. Jane doesn't want her to go. She doesn't want her to stay.
She can't stop herself from calling, "Dr. Isles!" Just as the woman opens the door to the hall. She turns, looking surprised.
"You should call me Maura," she says. "There isn't any need to be formal, especially if you are going to be living in my house."
"Maura," Jane says trying it out, and for a split second, she is graced with the doctor's brilliant smile, sudden and spectacular.
Jane grins too, unable to stop herself. "Okay," she says. "See you tomorrow, Maura."
Dr. Isles, turns away, maybe to hide the return of her smile.
"Yes," she says quickly, as she pulls the door behind her. "You will."