Title: A (not so) ordinary day
Number of parts: 1/1
Pairing: Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles
Synopsis: "It should have been an ordinary day for Doctor Maura Isles."
A/N: The characters and universe don't belong to me. All rights goes to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro and TNT.
A/N 2: It's just a weird dream I've had one night that I decided to write down and post here.
It should have been an ordinary day for Doctor Maura Isles. She had followed her morning routine despite the obvious lack of sleep she was suffering from. That case was one of the most emotionally intense she had worked on since she was a medical examiner in Boston. Their murderer was clever and had decided to play a game with Homicide squad (with her homicide squad) and taunting them. He had threatened every single one of them, had attempted to their lives (but never seriously enough, he was only trying to scare them and was delighted to see that they weren't that easily scared). His last attempt was in the form of a car bomb that had exploded when the detectives were close enough to be hit by the blast but not enough to be seriously injured. Only a couple of cuts and bruises.
They had had a break after that bomb. The killer had given them time to recover so they could go back to their cat and mouse game. They had increased a level in violence and had decided against only one of the detectives on the cases: the tenacious and never giving up Jane Rizzoli. Everyone was worried about that change in their killer's behaviour and Jane had had to reluctantly accept to have uniforms following her everywhere for her protection. She was keeping them at arm's length, refusing them to be too close and to importune her in her work. She had refused to give up on the case just because some twisted mind had decided that she would be a perfect prey. She wasn't gonna let anyone get in her head the way Hoyt had done years ago. If they thought they could get to her, they were wrong.
The so reckless Jane Rizzoli wasn't worried but her family and colleagues were. She wouldn't give up until she caught the guy and her perseverance paid off. The detectives were watching a location where their suspect had been seen a couple times and finally, they caught them. It was just a matter of minutes and anything could happen in such a period of time. Minutes that could go fast, or minutes that could go slow, but minutes that had changed the course of lives.
Maura hadn't seen Jane that morning. The detective hadn't come to pick her up for work but the medical examiner didn't worry (although her intestines were convinced that something was really wrong) because Jane was at work. She was either questioning the guy or filling paperwork to conclude that case. They would see each other later that day. Maybe they would share a cup of bad coffee before going on with their lives until a new case showed up. That's just how their life was. At least, it was never boring. Each murder was different, each criminal was different. Sometimes the cases would take an interesting turn and they would meet good people who would remind Maura why it was so important to not lose faith in humanity: among the monsters, you could find the most gentle and incredible people. Jane was one of these people for Maura.
The morgue was quiet when she stepped in that morning. She had gotten a call on the way telling her that one of the officers that was the case had been killed on site. 'Officer, not detective,' Maura had thought to herself to calm down her racing heart. The difference was minimal and the loss was great. Losing a colleague was never easy. She had to confirm the cause of death before the body of the poor officer was given back to their family for the funerals. It wasn't the first time Maura had to do that, but it never got any easy. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and stepped toward the black body bag laying on one of the tables. A feeling of apprehension was curling in her intestine as her hands fiddled with the zip fastening (why was it already partially open?). She unzipped the bag and opened it to have a look at the unfortunate soul that had landed on her table.
The ground vanished under her feet at the sight of dark messy curls matted with dry blood framing a face that shouldn't be so pale. The eyes were closed but Maura knew that they were chocolate brown that would lack their usual spark of life. The nose and lips were covered in blood that had run down her cheeks and chin. Two bullet wounds had pierced the skin of her torso. One in the abdomen, the other straight in the heart. She was given no chance. And Maura couldn't believe what she saw. She had dreamt about that scene a thousand times in the past. She had always feared the day when one of her colleagues would end up on her table. Too many medical examiners had to go through that painful moment in their career but none of them had had to find the body of their best friend in a body bag.
Jane was dead. The bastard had lost, he was surrounded so he took a shot and put an end to the life of the most incredible person Maura had ever met. Her heart ached, her hands were shaking, her mind was numb. Jane was dead. Her so brilliant mind couldn't accept that reality. It couldn't be. How would she survive without her best friend? Jane was dead. Maura cupped her cheeks. She was still warm. She hadn't been gone long. She hadn't even said goodbye. She hadn't gotten the chance to. She had been taken from them. How unfair was it? How would she tell Jane's family? It had to come from her. They wouldn't want to hear it from anybody else.
"Doctor Isles?"
The voice of Vince Korsak didn't reach her in the numbness of her shock. The Sergeant glanced between the bloody corpse and the shocked medical examiner. He sighed and put a hand on Jane's shoulder. He shook her lightly.
"Come on, Rizzoli. Nap's over. Get up now."
It was inefficient. Jane didn't move, didn't open her eyes. Korsak frowned. Was she playing the prank on him as well? The best jokes were the shortest. They had paperwork to fill and she wouldn't escape it by playing dead.
"Rizzoli, we've got the guy in custody and you've scared Doctor Isles. Clean yourself up and come upstairs."
Still no reaction. Now that was worrying. He checked for a pulse, glanced at his watch for a moment and was satisfied with the result. Slow and steady heartbeats. It was like she had really fallen asleep and wouldn't wake up. She was breathing, her heart was beating but she was out of it for some reason.
He unzipped the bag completely to look for any suspicious sign. Like the dark stain on her pants. He was about to check her pocket but was stopped by Maura who had come back to her senses after seeing him monitoring Jane's pulse. She had checked by herself, had felt the pulse under her fingers. Relief had flooded her but she was still too shocked to do anything else but feel that pulse beating under her fingers. Jane was alive. Out of it, but alive.
She pulled a syringe and a broken vial out of Jane's pocket. The pieces of glass had cut through the fabric of her pants and several of them were deeply stuck into her skin. That explained how the fluid got into her system. Maura put together the bits of glass that had a label on it until she could read the content of that vial.
"Rohypnol."
"Isn't that forbidden in the US?"
"It is. What is Jane doing with that?"
"You'll have to ask her."
"It's gonna take some time. Rohypnol is ten times stronger than Valium. It's often used by rapists because it paralyses their victim but leaves them conscious. It causes a loss of control of your muscles, confusion, somnolence and amnesia. You can do whatever you want with a person drugged on Rohypnol, they won't resist and they won't remember anything."
"No wonder why it's forbidden. She's gonna sleep through it then?"
"She'll be out for around eight hours."
"We can't leave her here."
People would ask questions and neither of them would be able to explain the situation. It was unlikely that Jane would give them an explanation. What were they supposed to do with Jane? What would she remember?
With the reports of the officers and detectives who were on scene, things became clearer. The plan was to use Jane as a bait to stop the murderer. She had wandered around the place to lure them out. They had stolen her gun (unaware that it was loaded with blank bullets) and fired on her without a second thought. The blood pockets had exploded (making them believe that they had successfully shot her), she fell as if she had really been shot and pretended to be dead while they were arrested. Her body was placed in a body bag (voluntarily left slightly open for her to breathe) and placed in the back of a medical examiner van they had borrowed for the operation. She was supposed to get out of the bag once she was in the safety of the van but something had gone wrong and she had found herself unable to move at all.
Martinez had given her the vial of Rohypnol; Jane explained the next day once the drug had fully worn off of her system. They hadn't known if the murderer would take the bait and she wanted to be sure that she would look as dead as possible if they were to check. The vial had broken in her fall and she hadn't realised it before being in the body bag. She had apologised many times to Maura for scaring her that way. She had never intended to. She wouldn't have pulled such a prank on her.
She had gotten a good lecture from her mother and from her best friend. If Angela was still mad that her daughter kept putting her life on the line, Maura hadn't been long to forgive her (after all, Jane was fine). Jane wasn't allowed to go back to her flat though. Maura had insisted for her to stay at her place so she could keep a close eye on her and make sure that she was fine, that the side effects of the drugs were inexistent.
Jane had been suspended for a few days for owning Rohypnol. Martinez had worked his way out of trouble by putting all the blame on Jane and got no punishment for providing. It was infuriating. She would have a few words with him as soon as she was back to the precinct.
Thankfully she had Maura in her life. Maura who had taken her in, who had taken care of her and listening to her (after yelling a lot). They had had some rough times in the past but they always found their way back to each other. Ending a rough day sharing a couch in Maura's house and laughing about the stupid little things of life was one of the things she loved the most. What more could she ask for?