A/N: I'd just like to apologize in advance for any errors in tonight's update. Charlie did her usual awesomeness when it came to editing this chapter, but Google Docs, which I use to write and she uses to give me edits, was not working properly. We'd both go in to fix something, only to have it disappear the next time the document was opened. I think we got all the edits done, but if something slipped through, I apologize for it. Hopefully Google Docs will be back to behaving properly by the next update. And thanks Charlie for all the hard work!

I felt sick to my stomach. How could they not tell me they'd replaced me? I had been working so hard on getting better, so I could go back to work with the BPD. I had allowed myself to hope, when all along I knew I shouldn't have.

I felt betrayed by Cavanaugh and my partners. Why hadn't they told me that they were bringing someone in? Someone who had clearly been told that he was replacing a "chick that left"?

And how could Maura have kept that from me? How could she have hidden away that information? Why would she do that?

What was I supposed to do? Even if I could requalify for duty, would there even be a position open for me now? I suddenly felt weak in the knees.

I looked around, looking for a way to escape. I knew I was perfectly capable of driving myself home in Maura's car, but my doctors still hadn't cleared me to do it. But what did it matter, what the doctors said at that point? Everything they'd been feeding me so far had been a complete and utter lie. I was never going back to work for the Boston Police Department. The trauma surgeon in Hartford had been correct, right from the beginning. I toyed with the idea of just driving home and making Maura find a way back on her own.

As tempting as the idea was, I didn't want to go home to Maura's house, and taking the car anywhere else was pretty much stealing it. I was angry with her for keeping the arrival of the new detective a secret from me, but I would not steal her car. My way out came when a police cruiser pulled up next to me.

"Detective Rizzoli?" The uniformed officer was clearly surprised to see me. "Is that you? Are you back on duty?"

His words were like a slap in the face.

I peered down into the open window of his cruiser. The name on his badge said "Foley". I didn't recognize him, but he clearly knew me.

"Um, no. I'm just waiting for Dr. Isles to finish up," I said vaguely.

"It's got to be at least ninety degrees out there. You want a ride home?"

"Actually, I was wondering, could you take me to my brother's place? It's not too far from here."

"Sure. Hop in," he said cheerfully, leaning across the center console and pushing the front passenger side door open for me.

I got in and gave him Tommy's address, and he pulled away, babbling on about how great it was to see me doing so well. In the ten minutes it took us to get to Tommy's apartment, Officer Foley had told me about how once, years ago, when he was just a rookie at his first murder scene, I'd taken him aside and given him pointers on keeping the scene secure and not losing the contents of his stomach. He explained he'd been a nervous rookie back then, and I'd been instrumental in helping him get over his fear of gruesome crime scenes. I had no recollection whatsoever of the conversation, and I doubted that I'd been anything but condescending toward him, but he seemed appreciative of whatever I'd done for him.

As we pulled up in front of Tommy's apartment, he smiled at me. "Good luck, Detective. It'll be great to have you back on the force."

I wanted nothing more than to rip into him and scream at him that it looked like that was never happening, but instead I just got out of the car and threw him a "thanks," over my shoulder.

I made my way up the stairs into the lobby of Tommy's apartment building and pressed the buzzer next to Tommy's mailbox. Of course I got no answer. I realized it was just after four o'clock, and Tommy probably worked until five. And since it was Friday, he was probably going out with his buddies after work.

Dejectedly, I went and sat outside on the steps to his building. I thought about calling him, but realized I'd left my cell phone in the console of Maura's car. I dropped my head into my hands and willed myself not to cry.

"Janie?" I heard quietly a few minutes later. "Hey, are you okay?"

I looked up to see Tommy holding TJ in one arm and a sack of groceries in the other.

"Whatcha doin' here, Jane?" he asked softly. He put TJ down and sat on the step next to me.

"They replaced me in the homicide unit. Last week. I just found out today," I said flatly.

"Oh Jane, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I thought they were waiting for you to come back," he murmured quietly.

"Maura, Frost, Korsak, Cavenaugh, and Frankie, all kept it from me," I responded angrily.

"Maybe they didn't know either?" Tommy suggested, trying to be helpful. "I mean, I don't think they would keep that from you," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "It just doesn't seem like them."

TJ started to fidget, reaching out to pick up a stick on the step below us. "Come on, I need to get TJ inside and start making his dinner. You want to stay for dinner?" Tommy asked.

"I'm not hungry. But I can't go home. I can't even look at Maura right now."

"You're welcome to stay as long as you want, Janie. But don't hold this against Maura. You know she can't lie to you. I'm sure she would have told you if she knew something was going on," Tommy said strongly. "You know she wouldn't do that," he repeated.

"She can't lie, Tommy. But she can withhold information. She did that once before, about you when you got caught up in that bank robbery thing," I pointed out.

I kept vacillating between outright anger, betrayal, and utter sadness. I couldn't pick a feeling and stick with it, but one thing I knew for sure was I didn't want to see anybody related to work. Not then, and probably not ever again.

"Look, just come inside and let me get TJ settled. Then we'll figure this out, okay? I'm sure there's an explanation for it all." Tommy got up and walked inside the building. I followed him in.

He opened the door to his apartment, and I collapsed onto his couch while he started making dinner for his son.

I must have dozed off, because when I woke up later, Tommy was giving TJ a bath, and I could hear him on the phone while he was washing him up.

"I don't know, Ma. She just showed up on my doorstep. She fell asleep almost as soon as she got here. Something about being replaced in the homicide unit."

I could hear TJ splashing around in the tub, and Tommy paused speaking to let TJ have his playful little outburst.

"I think she thinks Maura was keeping this from her. I haven't been able to get in touch with Maura. I don't know, Ma."

"No, she has nothing on her but the clothes on her back, as far as I can tell. No cell phone, no wallet, nothing. I don't think she planned this. I think she found out about bein' replaced and just took off," Tommy said quietly into the phone.

"Well someone's gotta let Maura know she's here. She can stay as long as she wants but someone's gotta tell Maura. Maura is probably frantic looking for her."

I didn't want to tell Tommy that Maura probably wasn't frantically looking for me. She was probably still diligently working the crime scene, unaware that I'd left. Tommy paused and listened to whatever my mother was saying, and I wondered when Tommy became the responsible adult he suddenly was. Fatherhood had been good to him, it seemed.

"She said she can't go home, Ma. And I ain't gonna force her. You call Maura and tell her Jane is here and the two of them can work it out. I have TJ so I can't go anywhere, and I really don't think Janie should be alone. She's scaring me, Ma. It's like the first day I saw her back in the hospital. She just gave up."

I wanted to scream that I hadn't 'just' given up. I had put months of grueling effort into getting better, and then I wound up getting my one piece of hope snatched out from my grip by some guy in a bad suit that didn't know how to work homicide investigations.

"Well of course I'll try to feed her!" Tommy snapped indignantly. "She fell asleep as soon as she got here. What was I supposed to do, feed her in her sleep?"

"Ma, just help me figure this out. Filling Janie up with food isn't going to solve this problem. I'm scared for her. I don't like when she's like this."

I heard him pause again to listen to whatever Ma was saying.

"Ma. Ma! Just get in touch with Maura so she doesn't panic when she can't find Jane. Tell her to call me. Or just come here. I'll wake up Jane and try to talk to her as soon as I'm done puttin' TJ to bed."

Tommy hung up and took TJ out of the tub. I rolled over so I was facing the back of the couch. I took the throw pillow I had been laying on and covered my head with it. It was the closest I could come to shriveling up and disappearing.

I stayed that way all through the bedtime story Tommy read to TJ. I tried to still my movements and regulate my breathing so he would think I was asleep when he came back out. Instead of Tommy walking back out to see me though, he stopped in the kitchen. I heard him open the refrigerator door and then close it again a moment later.

Then I heard him give himself a pep talk, and it was all I could do to not forget all my problems, sit up and tell him how adorable he was being.

"Tommy, you can do this," he said quietly, his voice just above a whisper. "Just wake her up and talk to her. She did this for you so many times before. Just do it."

He pulled in a ragged breath and then walked over to the couch. I could hear the floorboard creak behind me.

"Janie," he said.

I ignored him.

"Janie, come on. We gotta talk," he said a little more forcefully.

I continued to ignore him. He lifted the pillow up from on top of my head and said my name again.

"Jane."

I didn't stir. I honestly thought if I ignored him long enough, he would go away. I should have realized he was a Rizzoli, and that was never going to happen.

"Jane, I know you can hear me. Come on. We just gotta talk, that's it."

When I didn't move again, I felt him bend down over me. Suddenly there was something ice cold against the back of my neck. I shot up so fast I nearly knocked Tommy over.

"What the hell, Tommy!"

"Shh! You're gonna wake TJ!" He hissed at me. Then he handed me the bottle of non-alcoholic beer that he'd used to touch the back of my neck. "Sorry, you know I can't keep anything real here," he said, motioning to the bottle.

"That's okay. I can't have the real stuff anyway," I said, twisting the cap off. "You gonna join me?" I asked.

"Can't. Tastes too much like the real thing. Makes it too tempting, you know?" he said sadly.

"But yet you keep this stuff in the house?" I asked him.

"Yeah, for when the guys come over. They're pretty cool about it. They know why I don't drink and they respect that."

"Sounds to me like you finally found the right set of friends Tommy," I said proudly.

"Yeah, well… I got other responsibilities besides myself now," he said quietly.

"You're a good father, Tommy." It was true. He had become a great father. Better than ours had turned out, that was for sure.

He blushed and looked down.

"I'm proud of you," I said to him, watching him avoid my gaze.

"I'm proud of you too Janie," he said quietly. "Everytime life knocks you down, you fight and fight and fight until you can get back up again. I finally learned how to do that from you."

"Not this time, brother. This time, life got me good," I said quietly.

Tommy grimaced at me. "Look, I know I'm the last person in the world who should be giving advice, but you gotta believe me, Jane. You can't give up. You've come so far. You don't even know the whole story. You can't just lie down and stop living because of what you heard today."

"What am I gonna do, Tommy?" I whimpered.

"You're going to have to talk to somebody, Cavanaugh probably, and ask what the hell is going on. I don't know why they wouldn't tell you they were bringing somebody in. It's not like them. It would be too cruel. You don't know the whole story, and you can't just give up based on what happened today," he encouraged.

"I don't know what happened. I mean, right up until dinner last Sunday, Cavanaugh was still pestering me to get clearance for desk duty. Why wouldn't he say that he was going to give my position away? Why do people still feel the need to hide stuff from me?" I buried my face in my hands, too upset to even look at my brother.

"I don't know. But here's the thing, Jane. I didn't know this was happening. And if I didn't know, that meant Ma didn't know, which meant that Cavanaugh probably didn't know because he would have told her. And you know Ma can't keep her mouth shut. She would have told me, or Frankie, or Maura. And if any of us knew, we would have told you. You got every right to be mad, but don't be mad at Maura because I really don't think she knew."

"Tommy, she parked a block and a half away from the crime scene after she spent fifteen minutes trying to talk me out of riding there with her. I think she knew more than she was letting on," I argued.

Tommy shook his head. "I don't believe it. I don't think that Maura would do anything to risk losing you again. You weren't here, Janie. You didn't see what she was like after you left. I saw her. And you know what? She reminded me of what you wound up lookin' like the first time I saw you awake in Hartford. She gave up. She had curled up and was just waitin' to die. So I don't think she would risk goin' through all of that again."

Tommy had a point, and I really wanted to give Maura the benefit of the doubt, but something still didn't sit right with me. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand how any of this could happen.

"You should call Maura," Tommy said, handing me his phone. "Just call her and tell her you're here. You don't have to go home. But don't scare her, Jane. Don't make her look for you."

I pushed his phone back at him gently, shaking my head.

"C'mon Janie," Tommy chastised. "If you don't call her, I'm gonna hafta. I can't do that to her, and I don't know how you can."

"How could she keep this from me?!" I yelled.

"Daddy!" TJ yelled from the bedroom. "Daaa-dyyy!"

"Shit Jane," Tommy said as he stood up. "I have to go put him back to bed, but this conversation is not over." He stood up and walked back over to TJ's bedroom, and I laid back down on the couch.

I heard Tommy calming TJ and eventually TJ fell back to sleep. Tommy stepped out of TJ's bedroom and into his own, closing the door behind him.

"Maura, this is Tommy Rizzoli. I'm just lettin' you know Jane is here. She's really upset. When you get this message, please call me back. Or please come over and talk to Janie. Thanks."

That little shit, I thought. How could he? How dare he?

Tommy walked back out into the livingroom and I ripped into him.

"Whose side are you on, Tommy?" I growled.

"Nobody's. Because there's no side to pick, Jane. Maura deserves a chance to come over here and talk to you, and you need to hear her out. And if you don't have the balls to let her know where you are and to give her that chance, then I'm doin' it for you. You're an idiot if you're gonna throw away everything you have with her over somethin' you don't fully understand."

"Oh look at you! All high and mighty!" I yelled.

"I swear to god, Jane if you wake up my son again you're gonna hafta leave. One day, when your head isn't so far up your ass, you'll thank me for this. Don't throw away what you have with Maura," he hissed at me, before he stormed back into his bedroom, careful not to slam the door.

I flounced back onto the couch and covered my head with the throw pillow again.

I don't know how much later it was, it could have been minutes or it could have been hours, but there was a soft knock on the apartment door. I ignored it.

A few moments later the knock came again, a little more forcefully.

"Jane?" Maura called out. "Jane are you in there?"

I could hear the concern in her voice, and I wondered if it was as fake as the hope she and my doctors had been feeding me about going back to work.

A third knock, harder yet. Hard enough for Tommy to hear it in his bedroom and come out to open the door. I could feel his glare through the throw pillow I had over my face as he crossed the living room to open the door to his apartment.

"Hi Tommy, is Jane-" Maura stopped speaking and I could hear her heels clack across Tommy's uncarpeted floors.

"Jane? Jane what happened?" Maura asked, pulling the throw pillow off of my head and placing a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged her off violently.

"Jane?" Maura asked, the shock and disbelief evident in her voice. "What's going on?"

I just lay there in silence.

"Jane, you need to talk to Maura," Tommy said forcefully from somewhere behind Maura.

I didn't move.

"I don't understand, what happened? What's going on?" Maura was starting to sound increasingly agitated.

I couldn't tell if Maura was speaking to me or to Tommy, but when I didn't answer, Tommy did.

"She showed up here this afternoon, said she met some detective that had replaced her in the homicide unit while she was waitin' for you at the crime scene."

"Okay…" Maura said, processing what Tommy was telling her. "Then why is she angry with me?"

"She thinks you knew about it and didn't tell her, Maura," he said quietly.

"Oh, Jane, there's a simple explanation-"

I sat up and cut her off. "So you knew? You knew that they'd brought another detective in?"

"Well, yes, but-" Maura stammered, still unsure of why I was so angry.

"But nothing," I spat. "You knew that they brought someone in to replace me and you said nothing to me about it? You just kept it from me?"

"Jane, keep your voice down," Tommy warned.

"Fuck you, Tommy."

"Daddy?" TJ called from his room.

"Dammit, Jane!" Tommy growled as he marched back to TJ's bedroom again.

I glared over at Maura, who glared back at me in return.

"Well done, Jane," she said coldly.

"Maybe that's what I should be saying to you, Maura. Well done on keeping yet another secret from me," I said, my voice so low Maura had to lean in to hear it.

"I wasn't keeping anything from you, Jane!" Maura cried.

"Then why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me they brought in another detective?" I demanded.

"You're overreacting-" Maura started and I cut her off.

"And you're avoiding the question. You know what? I don't even want to hear your excuses. You can leave."

"I'm not leaving without you," Maura said sternly. "I am not leaving without you and you are going to listen to me."

"I am not going anywhere with you, and you can take your excuses home with you," I said, getting up and stomping into the bathroom, where I slammed the door behind me. I could hear TJ start to cry, and if I wasn't mistaken, I could hear Maura start to cry too.

I sank down to the floor, my knees pulled tight against my chest, and I finally let myself cry too.

A/N 2: Also, we are now officially in the home stretch. Just 9 more chapters after tonight's update, including the epilogue!