Maura clutched Jane's hand as they wheeled the stretcher through the hall and into a trauma bay. Jane opened her eyes once the stretcher stopped moving and Maura could see the pain in her eyes as she looked up at her. Tears started to burn in Maura's eyes as the flurry of activity continued around them. She wanted to lean in and tell Jane everything was going to be okay, but she couldn't get the words to come out.
"Dr. Isles-Rizzoli, you need to move. We need to get at that leg." Dr. Chris Barnett, one of her colleagues spoke, while pulling the oxygen mask off Jane's face. "Ma'am, can you tell me your name?"
Maura moved to the other side of the stretcher and picked up Jane's other hand, gripping it tightly. "Her name is Jane Rizzoli, twenty-five years old. Blood type O-negative, allergic to penicillin. She's my wife. This is my wife." Maura managed to get out frantically. She swiped the back of her free hand across her eyes, trying to wipe away the tears so Jane wouldn't see how upset she was. "Chris, you might want to call in another doctor. I'm staying right here."
Dr. Barnett gave her a brief nod. "Can someone page Dr. Davidson please? We're gonna need an extra set of hands."
Maura gave him a fleeting smile in thanks and started to stroke Jane's hair, trying not to look as Dr. Barnett lifted the blood-saturated gauze gently from Jane's thigh and placed it back down as soon as blood started flowing again. "Someone hold pressure on this! We need to cut her pants off…trauma shears please!" He called. A nurse moved in and placed her hands over the gauze, eliciting a painful groan from Jane.
Maura leaned in close, the pained expression in Jane's eyes almost proving too much to bear. "Jane, honey, I know it hurts…can you tell us what happened?"
Jane's eyes struggled to focus but she fought through it and managed to gasp out a response. "I…got jumped…from behind. Took a….hard hit to…the ribs and…the son-of-a-bitch…stabbed my leg." She groaned again as Dr. Barnett started to palpate her ribs.
"We're gonna need to x-ray these ribs." Dr. Barnett called out. "Someone hang some blood, she's lost a lot." He leaned in opposite Maura. "Jane, you're bleeding pretty bad from your leg and you've lost a lot of blood. The nurse is going to start an IV and get some pain meds going, and then we will transfuse some blood. We are probably going to have to sedate you to further examine the extent of the wound and to suture it. It looks like you may have broken a few ribs, so we will get some x-rays while you are under sedation. Do you understand?"
Jane nodded, her jaw tightly clenched. She turned to Maura, noticing the terrified expression on her face and her tear-stained cheeks. "I…love…you Maur." She squeezed Maura's hand. "I'm sorry I…got hurt."
Maura leaned in and kissed her. "I love you too. You're going to be okay Jane. You're going to be okay."
"Okay, blood is hanging. Pushing the Fentanyl and Versed. Okay Jane, you're going to take a little nap now." One of the nurses called out.
Maura squeezed Jane's hand again and kissed her forehead. "Just relax and let the medication work honey. I'll be here when you wake up."
Jane's eyes were starting to lose their focus and her eyelids started to droop. "Love…you…Maura." Her hand went limp in Maura's as the sedatives took full effect.
A sob escaped Maura as she took in the sight of her unconscious wife on the stretcher. She felt Dr. Barnett's hand on her shoulder. "She's going to be fine Maura. It's a pretty deep wound, but I think we should be able to close it. Do you want to stay here?"
Maura desperately wanted to stay by Jane's side, but wasn't sure she would be able to stomach the sight of a gaping wound on her wife's leg. She shook her head and released Jane's hand. "I-I don't think I can. I'm feeling pretty shaken up." She admitted with a shaky breath.
Dr. Barnett gave her a sympathetic smile. "Go wait in the on-call room. I'll come get you as soon as we're finished and she's ready to go up to the floor." He gave her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder as she nodded. "We'll take good care of her. I promise."
She gave Jane one last kiss and exited the trauma bay, stripping off her gloves and tossing them out. She twisted her wedding ring on her finger absently as she walked down the hallway, feeling almost as if she were in a daze. I should call Angela- she thought – It's late, but she'll want to know. As she passed the nurse's station, she picked up her phone and headed to the on-call room. Sitting down on one of the beds, she dialed Angela Rizzoli's number. The phone rang several times before a very groggy sounding Angela answered.
"Angela? It's Maura. Sorry to wake you, but Jane's been injured and she's being treated here at Mass Gen. She's stable for now, but I thought you should know."
Maura braced herself for the onslaught of questions she knew were coming.
Angela arrived in record time, and Maura explained the situation again to her as they waited for an update. Angela clutched Maura's hand tightly, but Maura was glad to have someone to wait with. Time had never passed so slowly for Maura. She had done her fair share of ER rotations over the past couple years and had seen a lot of harrowing things. But nothing compared to the panic she had felt when she saw Jane lying in the back of that ambulance with crimson blood staining her leg. Nothing could have prepared her for that.
Maura felt Angela's grip on her hand ease, and she glanced sideways to see that Angela had fallen asleep. But even in sleep, Maura could still see the worry etched on her mother-in-law's face. Angela was a good woman who cared deeply for each of her children. She had a tendency to overstep her bounds with them, but there was never a doubt that she loved them. As Maura watched Angela sleep, she was struck by how different Angela was from her own mother. Besides the obligatory phone calls on major holidays or her birthday, her mother didn't seem to have much regard for Maura's well-being. Because of it, it had taken Maura some time to adjust to having a mother-in-law like Angela.
Maura slid her hand out from under Angela's and shut her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose as she did, trying to alleviate some of her tension. Her eyes stayed shut for a few seconds, replaying the past couple hours. When she opened them, she spotted Dr. Barnett walking towards her through the glass panel in the door. She stood, anticipating his arrival.
The door opened and Dr. Barnett appeared, his scrub cap in his hand. "Sorry, I looked in the on-call room first. She's doing well." He started, wanting to ease the look of apprehension on his colleague's face. "The wound was deeper than we thought, but didn't involve the femoral artery. We were able to irrigate it and close, but it required two layers of sutures. She's going to have to stay inpatient for a couple of days so we can administer antibiotics intravenously, but she should be able to go home after that."
Maura's shoulders slumped in relief, and she sank down into the chair again. Dr. Barnett sat down next to her and she glanced at him, noticing how tired he looked. "Thank you for everything Chris. Thanks for taking care of Jane."
He gave her a tired smile. "She should be coming out of sedation in the next few minutes. They've got a room for her on the sixth floor. Do you want to come back and see her?"
She nodded. "Let me just update her mother and I will be in shortly." He stood and headed back down the hall. "Thanks again Chris."
"Don't mention it Maura. You'd do the same if it was my wife." He replied. "She's still in Trauma Bay 2." He secured his scrub cap on his head and disappeared down the corridor.
Maura gently tapped Angela on the shoulder, rousing her easily. "Angela, Jane's going to be fine. They are bringing her out of sedation and moving her upstairs. I'm going to go check on her, but I will come get you as soon as she is settled in her room, okay?"
Angela yawned and nodded. "How long will she have to stay?"
"Dr. Barnett said a couple days or so. They want to treat her with IV antibiotics to prevent her from developing an infection. It's just precautionary." Maura patted her lightly on the knee. "I'll be back down to get you as soon as I can."
Maura left Angela in the waiting room and headed through the door into the ER. There were still a couple nurses in the room, checking Jane's vital signs and preparing to transport her up to her room. Maura paused in the doorway, taking note of the small puddle of blood on the floor and the discarded bloody gauze and other medical detritus that was strewn about the room. She had to steady herself, and took a tentative step into the room. One of the nurses looked up and gave her a reassuring smile.
"She's just starting to wake up Dr. Isles-Rizzoli. You can sit with her for a few minutes until we take her up." She pulled a rolling stool out and positioned it next to the bed.
Maura murmured her thanks and sat down beside Jane, picking up her hand gently to avoid disturbing the IV line. Jane stirred at the touch, swallowing a few times before her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes looked around the room before settling on Maura. "Maura. Hi." She croaked. "What happened?"
Maura knew that the sedatives often had an amnesia-like side-effect so she reached out to stroke Jane's hair, resting her chin on the side-rail of the bed. "You were stabbed Jane. They had to give you a lot of sutures, but you should be fine." Jane's eyes fluttered shut again as her body was still sluggish from the sedation, and she tried to fight it and open her eyes. Maura brushed her thumb across the creases in Jane's forehead before tracing down along Jane's jawline. "Don't fight it Jane. Get some sleep."
Some of the tension eased from Jane's brow. "You'll stay?" She murmured.
"I'll be here the whole time. I promise." Maura replied.
Jane awoke several hours later, the mid-morning sun shining through her window. As she opened her eyes, she blinked several times, trying to clear the fogginess from her brain. She tried to sit up, but had to groan when the pain in her ribs prevented her from moving. Eventually, her eyes focused and she glanced around the room, noticing her mother fast asleep in a chair in the corner and Maura curled up on a cot by the window. Even in her disoriented state, Jane could make out the worried look on Maura's face as she slept. Jane let her head fall back against the pillows and tried to remember exactly what happened last night. She knew that she had been a part of a drug bust that had gone wrong, and she remembered fighting off her attacker, but after that, there were only bits and pieces. She knew she had been injured, the pain in her ribs told her that much. But she also vaguely remembered taking a knife to her leg, so she lifted the blanket to investigate. Sure enough, there was a bulky dressing spanning from her hip to her knee. Man, that must have been some stab wound she thought. Jane closed her eyes again, drifting off after a few minutes.
She was awakened some time later when a nurse came in to check her vital signs. She immediately noticed that both her mother and Maura were absent. Just as the nurse finished her blood pressure, she noticed her wife standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in her hand.
"Hi beautiful." Jane smiled sleepily as Maura entered the room. "This wasn't quite what I meant when I said I would meet you in bed yesterday."
Maura leaned in and kissed Jane. "I'm glad to see your injuries didn't affect your sense of humor." She placed her coffee on the small bedside table and pulled the chair closer. Once she sat down, she picked up her coffee and took a sip. "How do you feel?"
"I've been better." Jane replied, noting the frown on Maura's face. "So, what's the damage report?"
Maura played with the cardboard holder around her coffee cup. "Three broken ribs and thirty-seven sutures. You're going to be in here for another day or so while they give you precautionary antibiotics."
"Damn." Jane responded. "Thirty-seven stitches, huh?" Maura nodded in confirmation. "That's gonna leave a mark…" She said dryly, noticing that Maura didn't smile. Jane sobered quickly and held her hand out, motioning for Maura to hold it. Once the smaller hand was settled in hers, she squeezed it gently. "I'm sorry…I shouldn't make light of all this. I gave you quite the scare didn't I?"
Maura didn't respond immediately, but Jane noticed tears brimming in Maura's hazel eyes. Jane suddenly wished she could pull her wife into her arms and comfort her, but knew her injuries would prevent her from doing so. Instead, she stroked her thumb softly across the back of Maura's hand. "I'm so sorry to put you through this Maura."
A tear slid down Maura's cheek as she looked up. "It's not your fault Jane. Unfortunately it's the nature of your job. I thought I had prepared myself mentally to deal with it if you got injured at work, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing my wife bleeding on a stretcher. It was a lot to process." She let out a shaky breath and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I'm sorry Maur. God, I want to hold you so bad right now."
"I wish I could hold you too Jane." Maura replied softly, sighing as Jane twisted her wedding band on her finger gently. "I love you."
"I love you too Maura. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay." Jane replied.