******SUICIDE TRIGGER*******

Universe 201

Maura snapped her eyes open, chills running all over her body; the nightmare slowly fading from her mind's eye. As always, it had been a dream about Jane's death, as always it kept her from getting a good night's rest. She had stopped crying as often as she did, only now was she numb. She had finally changed the sheets last night, allowing one sob to be let out and the presence of Jane finally leaving her bed.

Maura knew she shouldn't have put the book in her purse. But she couldn't help it. The novel brought her closer to the woman she once knew. All of the little notes that Jane had written in it, the torn pages, the pages with the corner folded down countless number of times, brought her comfort. She was sitting in her office working on her report of the death of a sixteen year old boy when she stopped. No one was in her office but that's what made her stop. Jane wasn't here.

Jane was always here when she worked.

Slowly she turned her attention back on the report. She could hear her techies laughing in the room opposite from the morgue, the hum of the freezer as it kicked back on, cooling down the decaying bodies, the elevator dinging as it opened its doors to welcome passengers. Maura rested her head in her hands sighing, trying to stop the oncoming headache. She could feel it starting to pulse at the base of her skull, demanding attention. The doctor opened a drawer on her desk and took some ibuprofen, hoping it would stop the pain in her head. Putting her loopy signature at the bottom of the page Maura flipped the folder closed, resting her hand on top of it thinking.

She stood up making her way to the bullpen. Maura has avoided going there, the presence of Jane to fresh. She ran her hand through her hair, trying to calm her nerves. With a ding the elevator doors opened to Detective Crowe laughing with Detective Brooks, who was sporting a bruise on his check where Maura had hit him. They quickly sobered when they saw who it was.

"Detectives." She said politely, stepping off of the lift. She felt their eye's on her back as she walked down the hallway, growing more and more confident with each step. The door was propped open showing Frost rubbing his face, tie undone, wrinkled shirt.

"Detective Frost." He looked over at the blonde woman stepping towards him, shocked.

"Maura, what are you doing up here?" She forced herself not to look at Jane's desk, but out of the corner of her eye she saw it covered in cards, flowers, notes and letters alike.

"I've just come up to drop off my finished report on our John Doe." A gruff voice said behind her,

"Hey, Doc. Good to see you." Maura turned.

"Detective Korsak, it's nice to see that your bullet wound wasn't that threatening and that you're OK." She forced a smile on her face, trying to appear more pleasant towards the older man. But inside, she was screaming at him. She was blaming him for everything. A quick vision of her grabbing Frost's gun and firing it into Korsak's chest flickered past her mind's eye. Maura swallowed surprised at the violent thought.

"Yeah, it was nothing really." The man looked absolutely haggard. His graying hair was a lighter color now, his face showing more lines then it did before. Frost's voice made her turn her attention back to the man.

"No cause of death?" Maura frowned. She could have sworn she wrote the cause of death down. She leaned over Frost's shoulder so she could read the report. Only half of it was done.

"Oh…. It seems I was too eager to come up here that I didn't finish the report. I'm sorry about that." Frost smiled, handing it back to her.

"It's alright Dr. Isles. It's been a hectic week." She returned his smile with a fake one of her own.

"However, I can tell you the cause of death. A stab wound to the chest, causing cardiac arrest." Someone huffed behind her.

"Yeah, like we said." Detective Brooks stood there, smirk on his face. "But I'm glad you can confirm it Doc." Maura narrowed her eyes at him, opening her mouth to retaliate when Frost spoke up.

"Watch it Brooks." The Detective shrugged walking over to his lonely desk in the corner, no one willing to give him Jane's. Maura said her goodbyes going back down to her office. Today was going to be a long day.

"We got a fresh one for you Dr. Isles." Maura held open the plastic flaps as the men wheeled in a gurney with a black body bag on top of it.

"Appears to be a thirty-ish Caucasian woman; EMT's tried to revive her in a lobby of a hotel but were unable."

"Name?" Maura asked while she was signing the necessary paperwork.

"Jane Doe," Maura flinched at the name but they didn't seem to notice. "She didn't have any ID on her." She said a soft 'Thank you' and they unzipped the bag and moved the woman while Maura went to go change into her scrubs. After finishing up the report on the John Doe Maura had nothing else to work on, her long nights allowing her to catch up with any paperwork she needed to get done. She stepped back into a silent room, the woman laying on a table, the men leaving her to her work.

As Maura put on gloves she looked her over. Her lips were pale but her cheeks still held a faint red, showing that at one point she was alive. Black hair sprawled out around her head, her clothes lying awkwardly on a forever unmoving chest. Maura managed to get the woman's clothes off, putting them in bags. A dirty hoodie, a band shirt, and scuffed up jeans. The only piece of jewelry she was wearing was a locket. The little door swung open as she was putting it in the bag, reveling a small photo of a little girl, a daughter perhaps. Maura clicked it close, grabbing a sheet covering the now naked woman from her waist down.

Maura had her back to the woman, rearranging her tools, getting everything ready to tell what the cause of death was. There came a gurgle behind her, followed by a groan. The woman coughed behind her and the sound of someone parting their lips, breathing in a raspy breath, attacked her ears. She stood there frozen.

Dead people weren't supposed to make any noise.

Slowly Maura turned around, the woman had turned her head away from Maura, and she was gasping for breath. But wait; did she always have that small circle scare on her stomach? The small lined scar on her neck across her artery?

Or how about the ones across her hands?

"M…Maur…" The woman finally turned her head; suddenly flesh was being burned away. Lifted up and disappeared into the air, leaving behind puffs of smoke with it. The burns spread across the woman's body, tearing through skin, muscle, then attempting to burn through the white of her bone. Her organs burst through the thin, webbed like skin spilling out to one side.

Maura started to breathe heavily as her eyes traveled upwards, the invisible fire leaving nothing un-touched in its path. The black hair that laid on her shoulders and all around her head started to smoke and Maura could smell the hair burning, watched helplessly as it diapered, and leaving behind ash.

She could see the muscles in Jane Doe's neck move and strain against the burn. Jane Doe opened her mouth, the left side of her face completely gone. A hole in her cheek should lines of well kept teeth, her ear melted against her scalp before disappearing all together, and the left eye lolled around, bubbling in its socket. But the right one locked onto her eyes, the eye lashes curling up against the heat.

"What's wrong Maura?" Jane's voice asked. Maura's stomach dropped, noticing now how she was no longer looking at the dead body of the Jane Doe but at the dead body of Jane Rizzoli. Maura's eyes swept back over the body, stepping back, making her instruments clatter to the ground, useless.

"Maura?" Jane sat up, her small intestine tangling with her arm; she looked down and pulled them out without a second thought. Her eye spilled out of its socket, pooling inside her mouth through the hold in her jaw, she swallowed asking again with a half burnt away tongue, "What's wrong?" Maura turned, grabbing her mouth, running towards the sink, throwing up the meager lunch she had. Just then Frost walked in, spotting Maura throwing up.

"Maura, are you OK?" He shot a cautious eye towards the bare woman. If she made Maura throw up, Frost didn't want to be in the room, still queasy around dead bodies. Maura leaned against the sink, wiping her mouth off; still not looking at Frost.

"I'm… I'm better. What can I help you with Detective Frost?"

"Oh… I just wanted to let you know that we found out who our John Doe was and we caught the killer." Maura hesitantly turned towards him, not yet looking at the woman.

"Good, I'm glad Detective." He stood there looking at her, making sure she was truly alright.

"Oh well then… I'm going to head out, it's pretty late."

"Drive safe." Was all Maura said, watching him leave the room, throwing her a glance over his shoulder, before disappearing around the corner. Maura closed her eyes taking deep breaths, her hand resting against her stomach, trying to calm it down.

For the first time in her life, Maura Isles rushed. She rushed through that autopsy. She avoided looking at her face, looking at her hair. The cause of death was a piece of candy lodged in her wind pipe, suffocating her. Quickly Maura tagged the woman and pushed her into the freezer.

As soon as the freezer door slammed shut, Maura felt a thousand times better. Slowly she turned around, snapping her gloves off and throwing them away. She tugged her hair out of her pony tail. She wasn't paying attention as she walked into her office and she tripped over something.

She fell forward, but kept falling. Blackness enveloped her, coldness wrapping around her skin. Finally her body slammed into the ground, but instead of the rug she had thrown over the ground in her office, she landed hard against cool, dirty, concrete.

Maura gasped, the wind knocked out of her. The air seemed thick and she could smell things burning. Rolling over onto her back she had just enough time to roll out of the way of a falling beam. It landed next to her with a thud, shaking the whole ground. The doctor stood up, her black scrubs covered with white ash. Heat radiated off of the charred beams that littered the ground. Small fires danced around, giving the room an eerie lighting. Maura had no idea where she was, yet this place seemed familiar. Someone groaned off to her left.

Korsak lay there, grasping his leg, shoving wood off of him, coughing. Then slowly all noises faded out; the sound of Korsak shuffling around, the creak of the building, the growls from the fires. In slow motion Frost ran through a black window frame, looking around himself spotting Korsak. Maura watched as Korsak waved him off, telling him something, pointed at something. It clicked. Maura bolted, getting to Jane before Barry did. She was writhing, her back arched up, and hand's out stretched, body smoking. Just as Maura was about to touch Jane blackness engulfed her, tuning her out.

She felt like she was nowhere yet somewhere. She could feel her legs and arms outstretched around her, but she couldn't see them, the darkness blinding her. The headache was back, pounding against her skull. The throbbing grew louder and louder, it sounded like it was saying something to her. Even though she couldn't see Maura closed her eyes concentrating through the pain, trying to hear what it was saying to her.

"Maura! Maura, can you hear me?!" Maura's senses rushed back to her. Her eyes fluttered open to see Susie looking down at her. She helped the blonde sit up slowly.

"Are you alright?" Maura rubbed her face.

"Yes… no…I mean, I will be." She sat there for a few more seconds before standing up moving towards the couch and sitting down. Susie stayed with her making sure she was truly alright, after five minutes of small talk Susie finally left her. She had told her that she was on her way out when she spotted Maura through the window on the ground. Maura brought her hand up to her head, the head ach there along with a tender bruise on her scalp. Lips pressed against the spot, taking away the pain.

"I saw you fall…but... you know there's nothing I could have done about it." Jane rasped. Maura didn't reply, didn't even open her eyes. "But I'm glad you're alright." Arms wrapped around her pulling her into a hug. Maura's head fell against Jane's chest. She kept her eyes closed, focusing on the person hugging her. She could feel Jane's breath on the back of her neck, smell her soft perfume that she wore. But something was something missing.

No sound came from her chest.

Maura jerked away, no one sat there. She was all alone in her office again. She quickly changed rushing home, trying to stop the tears as they fell to no anvil.

The door slammed shut behind her, as she crumbled to the floor. She thought back to all those times Jane had hugged her had caressed her. There in the pit of her chest was a strong thudding that meant Jane was alive, that she was real and would always be there for her. But today in her office, her mind clicked, all the times since Jane had come to her after her death, there had been no beating, no tale tell sign that Jane was in fact alive.

She knew her mind was making everything up, she knew that it was just a copping mechanism, but she couldn't lie about the fact that she loved those moments when Jane came. Loved how her mind had conjured up such a realistic Jane to help dull the pain that seemed to stab are her at every mention of the lanky brunette. But now, she fully understood, now for some un-godfull reason, she finally got it.

Jane was dead.

There came a shuffling noise as Bass turned the corner, spotting Maura on the floor he came over to investigate. The tears dried on her cheeks as coldness laid a blanket on her. Her mind seemed to finally stop. It stopped spitting out facts, thinking about what she needed to get done, about her family, it just simply stopped. A pressure in her chest seemed to lift, allowing her to breath. But one thing that stayed, one thing that haunted her, was the numbness she felt. No emotion weaved through her, no flicker of pain. Nothing.

Something flashed through her mind. Yet another dark thought.

Yes.

She knew where Jane had kept her spare gun in Maura's house.

Jane had insisted that Maura kept it there, just in case she said.

"Just in case." Maura said out loud. She sat up and reached out, pulling the entrance way table's drawer open. The table was taller than her sitting position; so her hand searched randomly before it came into contact with the cool metal. The gun reflected the light that was on in the hall, Jane had kept it clean. It felt heavy and awkward in her hand. Just as Jane had showed her, she loaded it.

Maura knew where she should put the gun to get the best results. Not in the mouth, there was a chance it could ricochet off of her jaw bone and simply hurt her. No she didn't want that. She wanted to end it and maybe, some fluke in science would allow her to go to an afterlife she didn't believe in and finally be in Jane's arms, hear the heartbeat that she listened to so many times when they laid naked in her bed. To be able to thread her fingers through that wild mane of hair, to feel the strong muscles move and shift with ease as Jane would pick her up and spin her, kissing her.

Maura didn't cry as she put the gun to her head, right behind the temple. She didn't shake, didn't think. She knew she had to do this. Had to simply let go of this world filled with its suffering and pain. She just needed to feel something, anything. But what she wasn't anticipating happened so fast.

Something crackled like electricity, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A loud boom echoed through her house, making pictures on the wall's fall, glass shattering everywhere. Vibrant light assaulted her eyes, making her gasp and drop the gun. Then came the noise; a high pitch eeeing sound, she clapped her hands over her ears, blood trickling down her nose. Bass retreated into his shell, not knowing what was going on. Electricity snapped around, leaving scorched marks on the walls, finally they gained purchase and stayed there, dancing around a central spot. Slowly, a hole started to appear. Wind started to rush towards this hole that was getting bigger, the electricity attaching to it zapped and crackled. Her hair was flying around and she felt her body being pulled closer towards this thing. The gun flew forward with the pull but missed the opening instead landing on the edge, it cut it in half.

Bass's shell started too slid across the ground. She dove, grabbing her tortoise holding him down. The hole was massive now; burning threw the walls, table, and floor. Her house groaned when the top of the hole reached the ceiling, cutting through the support beams. A crash came from behind the bright hole, maybe the ceiling falling in on itself? But she couldn't see; her eyes were locked on a murky image that was on the other side of the hole. It looked like a person, a lanky woman who was yelling something, pointed at a terrified man. Black curls moved with her as she slammed the man against something.

Maura screamed as the tug from the massive hole finally pulled her off of the ground and into it; along with Bass, her front door, table, and purse.

If you have ever attempted or thought about suicide,

You're beautiful and I love you.

And even though I don't personally know you, just know that you are and forever will be in my thoughts.

Please,

Take care. -FTP