Full disclaimers on Chapter 1.

Stop NOW if DRAMA/TRAGEDY is NOT something you are interested into reading, or if it is a bad trigger for you.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.

I am not a native English speaker, and I don't have a beta. So all mistakes are 100% mine.

Enough of disclaimers and warnings – read at your own risk. Reviews are always welcome!

Chapter 87

"I stopped by the church today. They could hold the service tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, whatever is more convenient to us."

Maura felt lost. For a moment she was not even sure which day of the week it was.

"Today is Friday. Tomorrow is Saturday." She spoke more to herself, trying to situate back in time.

"Yes. Saturday might make it easier for people to participate on the service. The ceremony in the church typically lasts around two hours. It is mostly conducted by the priest, but then there is the opportunity for one person to speak."

"I did find Jane's final message…" Maura offered. "She finished it."

"Maura… Would you do us the honor of reading her message? I think I speak for all of us in thinking you would be the best one to voice Jane's last words?" Frankie asked, gently.

Maura raised her eyes to him. She was not sure if she could do it, but she knew she wanted to.

"I… I…" she stuttered. "Yes." She nodded, not trusting her voice.

"So that part is settled. Part of the service would be the viewing of the body, before the priest begins the ceremony. But since she wanted cremation, we could have a picture of her, and maybe the urn with the ashes. And it finishes with the priest blessing before we move to the cemetery." Angela spoke gently, as if what she was saying was hurting her and was hurting everyone in the room. Because she knew it was.

"Can we have flowers in the church?" Maura asked, unsure. Maura wanted flowers.

"We can."

"I will take care of the flowers, then… What about music? Jane wanted 'Tears in Heaven' to play…"

"Yes, we can have that before the church ceremony begins." Frankie added. "I will prepare a file with Nina so they can play it."

"During the priest ceremony it needs to be church music, but whenever Jane went to church, she used to love when they performed the musical version of Psalm 23 in the choir or the organ." Angela explained. "I asked the priest if he could have it performed either by the choir or by the organist and he assured me they will have it…"

"Okay… So if we set up like 1PM on Saturday, by 3PM we would be moving to the cemetery."

"I will work with the funeral home and with the cemetery to have all the details ironed out then."

"We will stop by the church to have it all finalized as well."

They said their goodbyes to Maura. Angela insisted gently with Maura: "You better have eaten when I stop by later, missy..."

Maura just nodded.

After they left, she called the funeral home to explain the arrangements, and they confirmed the details for transporting the ashes following all of Maura's requirements.

She then called the cemetery so they would also have everything ready for Saturday after the ceremony.

Maura called the florist to provide the details of what she wanted in the church as well as in the cemetery.

She realized it was almost noon, but hunger was the most distant thing from her mind right now. She walked back to her office, the notebooks there…

And she realized that if before she was not ready to see the notebook with the message for her, now she was craving it. She needed to "hear" Jane's voice. And right now the closest to that seemed to be the notebook she had so hastily closed earlier today.

Jane's handwriting likely had never been the greatest. After Hoyt, she had to re-learn how to write, that much Maura knew because Jane told her so herself. But over the years Maura had learned to read even the most garbled of Jane's handwriting if she paid enough attention to the context. On the notebooks, Maura noticed Jane had made an effort – probably because she was thinking through the things she was saying, they were not jotted down notes, but heartfelt messages.

"My dearest Maura…

I begun writing these messages following the 'Chasing Daylight' book inspiration. As a way to express my gratitude to people for the small things that usually just go unnoticed, without either part realizing that as whole they made for something important and meaningful.

But, when I think about you, about us, I wonder how I could even possibly begin to do that…

Because you, my friend, was kind and generous to me even when you didn't know who I was. I was Tiffany, then, what you thought I was a prostitute with a bad attitude, trying to get a coffee and a donut from Stanley and without any money to show for it. And despite the looks of my undercover outfit, despite the fact of how germ-exposed my undercover profession looked to you, and despite my clearly sharp tongue lashing at everyone around me, your first instinct was to try to help me, even then.

When we met again, you helped me. I had just been authorized to be back to desk duty after Hoyt. You picked up the pen and papers that had fallen from a table I was using at the cafe. And then you helped me to find my morgue legs again, to be comfortable around someone handling a scalpel without freaking out. You helped me to get back to field work when even my doctors and physical therapists had given up on my rehabilitation. You are a pathologist, not an orthopedist or neurologist. And still, you were the one who made it possible. I don't know if you know – and thinking back I don't think I ever told you that – but you gave me my life back then…

I don't know exactly when our acquaintance morphed into friendship, but I do know the moment realization downed on me that you were my friend, and not any friend… You were the friend I trusted in a moment of bleak despair. Hoyt was back, and I escaped my apartment looking for safe haven in your house, a house I had never set foot on before. You were the person I first thought of. Someone I could rely on not to judge me, not to push me, but who still would be there to talk through things with me and keep a cool mind if I so desired to do. That was when it downed on me you were my friend, and that you actually were the best friend I ever had.

I would likely fulfill hundreds of these notebooks if I tried mentioning every single thing I am grateful for when it comes to you. What makes me sad is that most of them come to mind as things like 'shoot, I remember that so distinctly, so vividly, it warms my heart just to think of it, and I never even mentioned that to Maura'. Too many things I never even mentioned or thanked you for, simply too many for my taste. I am not proud of it. But, at the same time, I feel this tells so much about us… So much between us always went unspoken. And still we 'got' each other, and on my end I can say without a doubt that you 'got me' better than anyone else I know, and being completely honest you 'got me' even better than I ever 'got me' myself…"

Oh, Jane… Jane was the one who really got Maura, when not even Maura got herself. Maura knew she had been crying, she had to stop every other line to dab her eyes with a tissue, before continuing reading. But she could hear Jane reading that to her, and it comforted her, she felt surrounded by Jane while going through those pages.

Maura could see the changes in the writing, knowing Jane had not written everything at once. And she loved the fact that Jane had revisited these messages – hers and the others – in the recent past. It was such a tribute to Jane's character…

"As a detective, I remember putting together the clues for the puzzle that was Maura Isles, my best friend. Because everyone seemed to be either satisfied to know and label you as the genius prodigy – that you deservingly are. But every new fact I learned about you made me realize how special and rare and unique you really were.

I remember distinctively you sharing certain things that felt like a punch in my stomach, and that you mentioned as if they were not big deals. I think that is why you – and some others - might refer to as you being cold or detached. But, for me, those were the moments when I realized how really deeply hurt you had been, and how strong you forced yourself to be in order to raise above all of that and mention those things with a level of control or reason that were not compatible with the hurt. Those were the moments when I honestly wished I could turn the clock back in time, that I could have met you before, and that I could have been there to either defend you, or to protect you, to shake sense in the people around you, or at least to be there by your side when you were hurting. You have no idea how many times I felt like that. But every time it happened, it reminded me that although I could not go back in time, I could vouch to do all of those things now and then, and from then on.

And I tried. I know I failed, many times. I hurt you, many times. I made you cry, many times. And I bet the situations I remember or recognize when this happened are not even all of them. I bet there were many more situations where I hurt you or where I failed you or where I made you cry that I am not even aware of.

But I hope you know, by now, that it was never intentional, Maura. I don't think I am even capable of loving anyone more than I love you, my friend.

Yes, you are the smartest person I have ever met or I have ever heard of.

The most gorgeous, elegant and well-dressed woman I have ever seen.

The person with the best taste and eye for detail.

But that is far from what matters to me.

You are the kindest, most generous person I have met.

You are warm, compassionate, gentle, fair.

You have so much love in you, and those you love get swept off their feet, because there is nothing you won't do for them. Nothing.

I have experienced that firsthand.

Along ten years I experienced that firsthand.

But what I experienced these past nineteen months, since I woke up in a hospital in DC with you by my side, is just impossible to explain.

I need you to know that I am fully aware I only made through these extra nineteen months because of you. The same way you gave me back my life when you made it possible for me to get back to the field after Hoyt, you literally extended my life for nineteen months – by all accounts seventeen months longer than what Dr. Heinz expected it to be…

You lent me your strength, your serenity, your dignity in handling being hurt or feeling weak.

You taught me to be a much better version of myself.

You gave me the gift of time – of time for me to live. Of your time to live this with me.

I feel ours was always an unbalanced relationship.

I feel you always gave me more than I ever gave you back, Maura.

That you got the shorthand of this bargain.

But I want you to know that as little as it was I gave you, it was my everything. It was always everything I could ever give.

There was no part of me you didn't see or that you didn't get.

And I hope that knowing that may help make it be enough…

Knowing you, I anticipate that it will be hard for you after I am gone.

You, who loves routine, built your routine of the past nineteen months around me.

But there will be no me any longer.

I want to remind you that although I am not going to be there with you, the family and friends we share will.

They are there for you. Please, please let them help you, like you helped them all through these nineteen months of slowly saying goodbye to me.

Please don't think you need to hurt alone…

And please, I repeat, please, DO NOT go on a shop spree packing the studio closet with stuff (I bet this made you smile, didn't it? :-D ).

I will not be there, my dear, but I will, in a way.

The bounded notebook is entirely yours, to keep.

I wrote 366 pages in it, one for each day of the year (yes, googlemouth, I accounted for leap years!). What is written in each date has not necessarily relation with that date – I don't have a memory like yours, I wish I did.

But I tried to capture in each page some of those memories of us that I recall so vividly, that warmed my heart, but that I never thanked you for. I hope they bring a smile to your face, every day, like they brought to mine as I wrote them.

I love you, my dear.

And although you don't believe in the other side or another life, I promise you: if there is one, I will find it out and I will be waiting for you on the other side, because I will miss you terribly until we meet again."