Chapter Three
Maura had long ago drifted off, her arm twitching with sleep as it lay across Jane's stomach. Jane, however, was wide awake, peering up at Maura's ceiling, running small, nervous circles across the hand draped over her midsection. If she had been at her own apartment, she would have turned on the television to the home shopping network or something equally mundane, and let it trample her thoughts, but Maura's touch half pinned her, half paralyzed her.
She had no idea what Maura had wanted by asking her to stay, and had simply followed the blonde's lead, throwing on a pair of her own sleeping shorts that had been left over who knows how long ago, and climbed into bed. They had lain facing each other, Jane's head propped up on her elbow, Maura's resting on her pillow. She hadn't meant to lace her fingers through Maura's own, but once she had, she didn't let go, and that's when Maura sidled closer to her, draping a hand across her waist in a gesture both natural and terrifying.
Jane raised her head slightly, peeking at the clock on the far side of the bed. It was a little after midnight, which meant she'd been lying awake for a little more than an hour. A cell phone trilled loudly into the silence, making her jump. Maura jolted awake, used to such disturbances, and Jane reached for her own phone, waiting for its expected ring.
"Dad?" Maura asked, her voice still thick with sleep, and Jane forgot about her own phone, flicking on the bedside light and turning towards the smaller woman. Middle of the night phone calls were never good news in their world, but this was especially true over the past week. "Did they stabilize her?" Maura continued, her face paling, even under the dim light. "What kind of clot?" A panicked nod as she climbed out of the bed, tangling herself in her sheets. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Dad – " She started to speak again, but looked down at the phone, which had already gone black.
Jane had already lurched into action, pulling on her trousers, which were draped across the end of the bed. "Maur, what happened?" she asked. She didn't like the way Maura looked over at her, dazed, her usual clinical expression disappeared from her face.
"My mother had a hematoma," she said. "In her brain. A blood clot."
The words were like a fist balled into her stomach, but she crossed the room in two strides, rubbing Maura's arms gently, as if revving her out of her daze. "Let's get you to the hospital. We can be there in less than ten minutes."
Maura nodded, moving again, clumsily pulling on a pair of flats. "He said they stabilized her."
"Good. That's good." Jane pulled on her jacket.
"Stabilized," Maura repeated under her breath, her eyes searching the bed for something. She fumbled through the sheets, then more panicked, lifted them up, her hands grazing underneath them.
"What do you need, Maura?" Jane asked, rounding the bed.
"My phone," Maura murmured. "Where's my phone?" Her hands picked up their pace, her face morphing with frustration. "Where's my phone?" she said again, louder. "What if he calls? I need my phone." Her words were clipped with fearful anger.
Jane moved to the bed, attempting to help, but Maura yanked the sheets from the bed, her voice now panicked. "Where did I put it? What if he calls again?"
If her dad called again, surely they would hear the phone, as loud as it was, but Jane kept this to herself as she helped Maura search, finally spotting the device on the floor near the edge of the bed. "Got it," she said, watching as Maura's shoulders visibly sunk, relief fluttering through her. Jane placed a calming hand on the small of the medical examiner's back, leading her out of the room. She had mistaken that flutter of relief. Maura's back rigid beneath her hand, the sinewy muscles fluttering as quickly as Jane's own heart beat.
She tried offering assuring words on the way to the hospital, but soon found they had little effect on neither of them, and they rode the rest of the way in silence. Anxiety washed over Jane as they stepped out into the brightly lit hallway, the same one she'd found Maura in over a week ago. A week ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed since then. She followed Maura, her strides wide and long, the white lights hurting her eyes, as they found their way to the right wing of the intensive care unit. Phillip Isles appeared at the end of the hallway, his head bent toward his phone.
"Dad," Maura called, picking up her pace into a half-run, and the gray-haired man looked up at her, his face downcast, but composed. Jane expected him to offer Maura an embrace, or a comforting touch, but he simply leaned down to her, pressing a formal kiss against her cheek, as if the two were meeting for a casual coffee in his Parisian townhome. She crossed her arms over her chest and bit the inside of her cheek, a reminder that right now wasn't the time to act as arbiter of good manners.
Maura didn't give him much time to give any more of a greeting, anyway, and launched into a series of questions. "Where was the hematoma located?" she asked, her hands on her hips.
"Right frontal lobe," he said. "The nurse couldn't wake her up, and with the brain swelling, they went ahead and did an MRI and found a small clot." Maura punctuated his words with a nod. "They gave her an anticlotting medication and are monitoring it." He rubbed his hand over his jaw. "And now we wait."
"Do they know the extent of any damage?"
"They don't know. They say they'll know when she wakes up."
Maura looked up and down the hallway, as if unsatisfied with the answer. "Where is her doctor?"
Phillip gestured down the hallway, resigned. "Wherever doctors disappear to." His blue eyes appeared gray under the lights, matching his hair, which fell across his forehead. His wrinkled dress shirt still cut sharply across his shoulders, despite its wear, and was tucked neatly into his trousers. The neatness of his clothes had the effect of making him seem aloof, even though his constant vigil by Constance's side belied this. Jane nodded at him, gave him some words of condolence, but kept her hand at the small of Maura's back.
The three of them sat, with Philip and Maura performing constant rotations in and out of Constance's room. Jane kept a constant vigil in the small waiting room, really just a cluster of chairs in front of the nurse's desk. She didn't feel as if she was serving that much of a purpose, but she was unwilling to leave.
After another switch, Maura paced into the waiting room. "I'm going to grab some tea from downstairs," she said, the shaded contours below her eyes illustrating her exhaustion. "You want anything?"
The thought of a task brought Jane to her feet. "I'll get it," she offered.
"No, no, I need to walk," Maura said, wringing her hands. "Coffee?"
"Sure," Jane said with a nod, her hands falling uselessly by her sides. "Two - "
"Two sugars, two creams," Maura replied automatically. "I got it." She started to walk away, but turned back, her brow furrowed. "Thank you," she said softly, her eyes darting to the floor. "For staying."
"Of course," Jane replied, but Maura had already turned, heading for the elevator. She sank back in her chair, letting her own tiredness numb her mind. Another nurse headed into Constance's room, and a few seconds later Phillip walked out of the room. "Just a routine checkup," he said. "Whatever that means." He sighed, sitting down in the chair next to Jane and putting his head in his hand. "Where's Maura?"
"She went to grab some coffee," Jane replied, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. "If you want something, I think she took her phone."
He shook his head. "No, nothing."
They sat quietly, letting the sounds of the hospital wash over them: the roll of a food cart with a squeaky wheel, the sound of rubber-soled shoes padding across tiled floor, the quiet banter of the nurses behind the desk. "It's amazing how we blunder through the days, isn't it?" he asked, a vaguely French lilt to his voice. "Like we have all the time in the world."
"Ignorance is bliss," Jane replied, balling her hand into a fist at her knee.
Phillip let out a shaky exhale. "I used to think so. When I was young, I used to think I had all the time in the world." He chuckled. "I'm not young anymore, but up until a week ago, I still thought that."
"What's the alternative? Waking up every day with the weight of death on your shoulders?"
"Isn't that what you and Maura do?" he asked. "She's so clinical. So goddamned smart, rationalizing everything." It took Jane a moment to realize he was talking about Maura, and she turned fully to look at him. His face wasn't angry, or even judgmental, but held a look of devoted concentration, as if he was picking up his daughter and studying her in his mind. "Neither Constance nor I were ever science-minded," he said with a faint chuckle. "Poor Maura, growing up with a couple of liberal arts parents. We were amazed by her, sometimes frightened by her. Can you believe that? Frightened of her."
Jane sat impeccably still, afraid that the smallest movement would shift the exchange, or require her to offer some sort of response. But Phillip went quiet, and her shoe squeaked against the floor. "Constance and Maura have been getting along well," she said, just to say something.
Phillip nodded. "Yes, Constance raved to me about this trip. She said she was looking forward to talking a few things over with Maura." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know if they ever got around to it."
"What sort of things?" Jane asked, protectiveness creeping into her voice, straightening her spine.
"Just about our lives together. Wishing we had both been more available. It was a regret she expressed to me." He looked at Jane, defensiveness reflecting in his eyes. "Nothing about Patrick Doyle," he said. "As far as Constance was concerned, Maura would never know him."
"But Maura did know him."
Phillip scoffed. "She didn't know Patrick Doyle. She saw what he wanted her to see, which is exactly how he lived his life, like some sort of prism, showing his beauty to some, blinding others. You saw right through him, though, didn't you?"
Jane swallowed, her thumbs rubbing the sweaty scars at her palms. "I know that Maura needed time with him," she said, her throat tightening. "She wanted the other piece of the puzzle. Whatever she felt about Doyle, however conflicted, she just wanted that last piece."
"Her biological mother."
Jane nodded, but didn't say anything, and wished the nurse would come back into the hallway so that Phillip would head back inside. This wasn't her place, to be discussing this. It felt like a betrayal of some sort. But she offered one last piece. "Her questions won't die with Patrick Doyle."
"No," he said. "No, I guess they won't."
"She mentioned him, you know."
Maura's voice startled both of them, and they turned quickly to look up at Maura, who stood holding two steaming Styrofoam mugs. "Maura, Jesus," Jane said quietly.
Philip stood, his knees cracking. "I'm going back in," he said stiffly.
"She mentioned Patrick," Maura pressed, not moving. "When she woke up. She said his name, Dad."
He turned, his broad shoulders slightly stooped with exhaustion, much more so than Jane remembered when she saw him a few days earlier. "Maura, this isn't the time to discuss this."
Maura swallowed, a fleeting uncertainty crossing her brow. "I'm not sure there's a 'good time' for anything anymore," she said.
"We'll discuss this when your mother has recovered, Maura." His voice had a practiced sternness, as if he were used to ending discussions with a simple change of tone, and Jane glimpsed what had made him such a renowned professor.
Recklessness passed through Maura's eyes, a look that Jane had seen only once or twice before. "What if she doesn't recover?" Maura asked, the mugs starting to shake slightly in her hands. "What then?"
"Maura, I'm going to be with your mother."
Maura set the cups down on a table, and strode towards him, blocking his way. Jane stood, her hands steadying one of the cups, which wobbled dangerously against the faux wood. "He came to visit her. Patrick Doyle knew her, and she knew him. And you're keeping something from me that I have a right to know." Maura's eyes were pure steel, but Jane saw her lip quiver.
Phillip's hand went to her bicep, his tall frame bending toward her. "I don't give a damn about Patrick Doyle," he said. "If you think that a criminal's dying wish is more important to me right now than my wife and the woman who raised you, then you are sorely mistaken." His voice was a low rumble, and he pulled her out of his path, striding past her into the room.
Maura seemed surprised to still be standing there, in the middle of the hallway, but Jane moved forward, replacing Phillip's icy touch with her own warm hand, rubbing gently. "Maur, why don't you sit down for a second," she said, motioning her to a nearby chair.
Maura shrugged out of her grip, shaking her head, a hand covering her mouth. "No," she said, inhaling sharply. "I – I – need to use the restroom." Jane watched her back away, hurrying down the hallway, her loose top falling slightly off her shoulder, her flat shoes scraping the tiled floor.
Jane made it through half the coffee, pacing among the small group of chairs, still alone. Phillip was still in with Constance, and Maura had yet to come out of the restroom. She sat her coffee back down, which she suspected had been decaf, and made her way down the hallway. Stopping outside the restroom, she rapped her knuckles lightly against the door.
"Maura," she said, quietly. "Let me in." She heard only silence, but tried again, this time with a different tactic. "What if I told you I really had to pee?"
There was a slight pause, and then: "I'd tell you to go down to the first floor." But there was the slight click of the lock as it unlatched, and Jane said a silent 'thank you' before pushing her way inside.
Maura sat on one side of the square floor, slumped against the white wall, a silver handicapped bar above her head. Her eyes were raw and swollen. "I was a monster out there," she said, shaking her head. "What the hell is wrong with me?"
Jane slid down the wall, coming to rest next to her. "Well, for one, I'd say you're exhausted. And two, I'd say that all of this is fucking hard to handle, Maura."
Maura glanced at her hands, which were clasped in her lap. "I shouldn't have acted that way with him. His wife is lying in that room."
"And his daughter is locked in the hospital bathroom. So yeah, maybe the guy deserves a break," Jane said. "So do you."
Jane sighed. Truth be told, she had no idea what Maura must be feeling, and wasn't sure she could offer any suitable advice. "Look, Maura, I can't imagine what you're going through right now. All of this would be bad enough on its own, but together..." She shook her head, pressing her hands against her knees, cracking her knuckles.
Maura reached out, stilling her fidgeting hands. "Don't do that," she said. "It's habit-forming."
Jane nodded down at her. "Yes, that's why I do it." She noticed that Maura didn't let go of her hand, and she took it in both of hers. "What if I cracked yours? Is that habit-forming?" It was a lame attempt at a laugh, but she managed to get one, and that eased her a little. "When's the last time you saw Phillip?" she asked.
Maura shrugged, looking ahead in thought. "Oh, I don't know. Two years? Maybe? I mostly kept up with him through my mother."
"Did you ever spend time with him as a kid?" Jane asked. She always had trouble reconciling her own constant barrage of family with Maura's isolation.
Maura shook her head. "No. But I do remember one weekend I had just dissected a frog I'd found out by the pool. I had rubber gloves, some tiny scaling knife I'd found in the pool house or something. My dad came out and asked what I was up to, so I launched into this horribly crude frog anatomy lesson." She laughed faintly at the memory, but it was forced. "And I looked up at him, Jane, and he looked absolutely horrified." She shook her head. "I guess I wasn't the most endearing child."
It was Maura's bashful smile that unsettled Jane, the insecurity masked as contentment. "I can name a lot of people, including myself, who think you're pretty damn endearing, Maura."
"No, I know," Maura said, shaking her head. "I just mean, my father's no different than he's always been. I don't know why I expect him to act differently all of a sudden. People don't work that way." She used the bar above her head to pull herself to her feet. "I should get back out there," she said, reaching a hand out to Jane.
The hallway outside the bathroom was quiet, except for a middle-aged woman who stood impatiently by the door, shooting daggers at Jane and Maura as she pushed past them into the restroom. "I guess she didn't know about the one on the first floor," Jane said.
"Why don't you go home and get some rest?" Maura suggested. "There's nothing left to do but wait until she wakes up."
Jane shook her head. "If you haven't noticed, I'm pretty good at waiting. I'm an expert at waiting."
Maura stopped her with a gentle hand on her forearm. "No, Jane, it's fine. After that blowup, my dad and I need to sit in our requisite therapeutic silence together. I'll give you a full report tomorrow."
Jane cocked her head, and saw the calm resolve reflecting back at her. "Complete with full medical jargon and seventeen syllable words?"
"Yes."
"Okay." She was uncertain, pulled fished Maura's keys from her pocket, pressing them into her hand.
"No, Jane, it's fine, take my car," Maura pressed, pushing the keys back.
"I love you Maura," Jane said, continuing their push of war with the jangling keys. "But I hate your car. I'll call a cab." She pulled the shorter woman in for a hug, silencing any further protests. Maura wrapped tightly around her waist, and they stood like that for a moment. Jane pressed a kiss against Maura's forehead before pulling away, giving her hand a tight squeeze before turning to the elevator. Maura smiled at her, the sadness pooled underneath her eyes, but muted with some new sense of hope.
Maura held her mother's hand, tracing the fine lines that belied her age, which gave her some eerie sort of comfort, and she wondered if it was something she had done as a child. The nurses had left, the doctor had come and gone, all of them probing her mother, both physically and mentally, testing her reflexes, her knowledge. Maura stood, watching, her exhaustion so heavily weighing on her that she even failed a few of the probe questions.
The questions that had nagged her earlier were still there, but lighter now as she watched her mother fall back into sleep. Suddenly, she realized she had no idea if her mother even knew what had happened to Doyle. As far as she knew, her father hadn't explained to Constance what happened, but that didn't mean her parents hadn't shared some private conversation about it.
He walked in behind her, and although she expected his hand on her shoulder, he didn't place it there, and instead hovered on the opposite side of the bed. He always seemed different around her mother, and now she realized why. She had never recognized love in his eyes when he looked at her. It was always as if he were studying a stranger. She looked up at him, and when he met her eyes with that same, foreign look, she felt the air whoosh slowly out of her.
"I'm going to Patrick Doyle's funeral," she said plainly, as if describing the weather, or the whiteness of the walls.
At least she saw sadness there, when she told him that, but she suspected it was reserved for her mother. "You're an adult," he replied. "You can make your own decisions."
She wanted him to say something more, but couldn't articulate exactly what that something should be. So instead she turned her attention back to her mother's hands, her fingers following a bright blue vein towards her wrist.
"Maura," her father said, and he waited for her to turn her attention from the blue vein up toward him. "All this time, all these years. We just wanted to keep you safe. That probably wasn't enough, was it? But we loved you. Even if we didn't know how."
It was meant to be some sort of revelation, some great vindication of her childhood, but she didn't know what to do with it. So she just said, "I know."
She stayed until morning, then drove home in silence, the sky outside her windshield a dreary gray. Turning into her driveway, she recognized Jane's car, and felt a sudden, hopeful flutter in her chest, which quickly turned to embarrassment. Jane was probably helping Angela with something or other, being a good, dutiful daughter. Just like she was a good, dutiful friend. Maura climbed out the car, fumbling with her keys as she walked towards the front door, wondering whether she had remembered to feed Bass yesterday or not. She stopped short at the familiar figure on her stoop, now in a fresh change of clothes.
"Jane, what are you doing here?" she asked.
The brunette clapped her hands, rubbing them together. "Well, I figured you very well couldn't go to a funeral in sleepwear, so I thought you'd eventually have to come home and change."
"How did you know I was still going?"
"Because you said you were. I've never known you to say you were going to do something and then not do it. It's not exactly lying, but I'm guessing it's too close for comfort."
Maura smiled a genuine smile, which felt as if it were cracking through plaster that coated her jaw. "Thank you," she said softly. "Jane, I owe you a lot of beers after this," she said, half laughing, half sighing.
She waited for the brunette to crack a joke, but the brown eyes that peered down at her were serious, apologetic even. "Maura," she said, her voice huskier than usual. "I'm so sorry. I understand completely if you don't want me there."
"Do you want to go?" Maura asked, surprised that the question hadn't occurred to her.
Jane looked helplessly down at her hands, studying them, and when she looked back up at Maura, her brown eyes were glassy. Maura felt something shift inside her, and she wondered how she had managed to ignore Jane's own struggle. "Yeah, I think I need to go," Jane whispered. She stood, shaking her hands, as if wringing out whatever guilt had just flushed through her. "In the meantime, while you get ready, I will definitely be having a beer from your fridge."
"Did you at least get some sleep?" Maura asked, unlocking her door.
"I managed to fall asleep with Jo Friday for a couple of hours," she said with a nod.
"Good," Maura said, walking inside, a calmness settling over her as Jane followed her. "That coffee I got you was decaf for a reason."
"I knew it," Jane said as she headed towards the kitchen. She continued to ramble as Maura headed to her bedroom, taking comfort not in the words, so much as the feel of them filling up the empty space around her.
Maura took a sip of the Dunkin Donuts coffee she had bought on their way to the cemetery as she stared out of the car window towards the small group that stood over Patrick Doyle's grave. There weren't many people, which signaled that either they were afraid the ceremony was being tracked by the FBI, or else Paddy Doyle didn't have many people in his life who actually cared about him. Maura wasn't certain which was sadder. Or if she cared.
She watched as the people slowly left, angling toward the straggle of cars that were parked along the curb. One woman, however, stayed near the grave, her head bowed as she waved away the minister, who tucked his head into his chest as he made his way toward his car, following the group. Slowly, the cars curved through the cemetery, heading away, but the woman stayed, staring down at the stone that marked Doyle's grave.
She felt her face flush. She felt foolish. She couldn't summon the courage to get out of the car or to ask Jane to drive away.
"Maur?" Jane's voice tunneled towards her, but it was the hand perched delicately on her knee that caused her to start, sloshing her coffee over the edge of her cup.
"Sorry," she said, settling the cup in the middle console and fishing through her purse for a tissue. Why had she not brought any? Did she really not think she'd have any tears to shed for her biological father?
"Don't worry about it," Jane said, but she didn't replace her hand on Maura's knee. "You doing okay over there?"
Maura finally made eye contact, and the beseeching, concerned brown eyes seemed to tug her forward, away from the gravesite and closer to her. She wanted Jane's hand back on her knee, but instead just cleared her throat, nodded her head. "I feel so stupid," she said, and the verbal confession surprised her. But Jane always managed to get the truth out of her faster than anyone.
The hand was back on her knee, rubbing it slightly. "Maura, there are a lot of things worth feeling right now, and 'stupid' isn't one of them. You're here because you need to be here. And the minute you feel like you're done, just say the word and we're out of here."
Maura glanced down at the hand, tracing Jane's fingers lightly with her own. This had been the hand that held the gun, the index finger the one that had pulled the trigger. She heard the loud pop echo in her ears, heard the crunch of bone as he hit the ground. She shifted her leg, letting Jane's hand fall away, and pressed against the car door. "I just need a minute," she said, knowing the explanation wasn't enough. She heard Jane's door open as well, but turned and looked at her over the top of the car, a slight drizzle from the gray skies falling between them. "Please, stay here," she said.
Jane pursed her lips, her brown eyes darting uncertainly to the side. It was a look that Maura had seen a thousand times before, and she found it oddly comforting, so much so that her lips twitched into a small smile. "You won't miss anything, I promise." It was a false levity, but even the practice of it made her feel somewhat better.
She made her way towards the grave, her heels digging into the soft grass, which was coated with a fine, damp mist. The woman still stood there, her black-clothed shoulders slumped forward, her head angled down, as if her entire being were arching towards the grave. Maura said nothing as she stepped up beside her, but the woman turned fully towards her. Her hair was gray, but was maintained with a perm, each curl coiled lightly against her head, whipping softly in the wind. Her thin lips dropped open in a small oval. Her eyes, an emerald green, held some deep memory, as if recognizing a ghost, and Maura felt something root her to the spot.
"Hello," she said, her voice just above a whisper, whether from the quiet of the cemetery or fear, she couldn't tell.
"You're Maura," the woman said, her eyes unmoving. She started to reach her hand out to Maura's face, but pulled it back, clenching it against her side. "You look just like her."
Maura's tongue went dry against the roof of her mouth. "Who?" she asked.
The woman didn't answer right away, but took another step closer. Maura didn't back away, and felt her ankles shake slightly in her heels. The older woman's voice was edged with a smoky grittiness, but the name rolled quickly off her lips. "Hope."
"Hope," Maura repeated, stretching the word out on her lips. It had echoed in her mind since the day at the warehouse, but she hadn't even let herself consider the possibility that it may have been a name.
"Patrick said you had her eyes. Serious eyes."
"Who are you?" she asked, knowing that it didn't make a difference. She would take answers from just about anyone at this point.
"Pardon me," the woman said, extending her hand, which was clammy as Maura grasped it. "I'm Linda Doyle, Patrick's sister." She didn't immediately let go of Maura's hand, but instead clasped her other hand over it. "I'm sorry we had to meet this way. To be honest, I never thought we would meet."
"Hope," Maura repeated. "Who is Hope?"
The greenish eyes widened slightly, and a hand went to the thin, parted lips. "He never told you," she murmured, her voice just catching in the wind.
Maura shook her head. "No." The breeze was picking up, sending a chill through her. "Hope is my mother, isn't she?"
Linda glanced down at the marker at the grave, then back at Maura, uncertainty flashing across her manicured eyebrows. "Hope Dixon."
Maura mouthed the words, unable to utter them out loud, instead savoring her mother's name inside her for a few minutes. "Do you know where she is?" she asked, her arm reaching out for Linda's and capturing it in a desperate vice, even though the woman didn't seem to be going anywhere. "Tell me where I can find her." It wasn't a question, so much as a plea.
"I can't do that," the woman responded, shaking her head sadly.
"Yes," Maura said, frustrated tears springing to her eyes. "You have to tell me. He wanted me to know who she was. He wanted me to find her." Her nails were digging into the woman's skin, but she couldn't let up.
The woman pulled out of her grip, taking her hand instead. "No, sweetheart, you don't understand. Hope Dixon is dead."
I should probably finish this one before the new season begins and this plot is ruled wholly implausible. Until then, let's have fun with it, ay? Please bombard me with reviews about how you hate cliffhangers, and I promise I'll update soon :)