You'll Never Walk Alone

by Typhoon73

Sequel of The List. This is about Jane's and Maura's twenty-two years old daughter Elizabeth aka Liz Rizzoli-Isles. They are going with her through her first years as a police officer and experience their daughter's first true love. It isn't that easy for the married couple, especially not for Jane.

32. Chapter 32

Hey, guys. Again, thank you for reading, following and reviewing. I know that this is just a short chapter today, but I hope you'll like it anyway.

And I do hope that you had a great Easter time with your famile.

T73.

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Liz is sitting at her desk and has her faced buried in her hands as she feels a tap on her shoulder. She isn't really sure if she wanna be disturbed or if she wanna hear about the next setback.

The young woman exhales loudly through her mouth and drops her hands to look into Maura's face in the same moment. "Hi."

Maura is smiling softly at her. "Hey."

Liz is stretching her back and sighs. "What can I do for you?"

"When was the last time that you have been home and slept for real," Maura asks and hands a folder to her daughter.

"Uh, three days, I think." The younger woman answers and opens the folder.

"You should go home and have a good rest before your big day."

"Mom, I still have time."

"That's what you say for over a year now." Maura counter and raises her eyebrows.

Liz is looking up and blinks a couple of times. "Did we just made a quantum leap forward right now? I thought Sullivan and Moyer got killed three days ago." She says and chuckles as her mother lowers her eyebrows. "Why exactly are you giving that to me?"

Maura is shrugging now. "I think that I am still used to see Ma sitting at that desk and that she demanded to have the tox screen immediately. And it is an undeniable fact that you look like your Ma."

Liz groans loudly and gets up to her feet to put the tox screen on Frankie's desk. "Thank you, that don't put pressure on me." She pauses and rubs tired her eyes. "Why am I not surprised that you have found acid in their system?"

"Maybe because Moyer had been heard talking about a scary clown who followed them." Maura states and has to smile. She already has noticed that Liz has the same approach like Jane and somehow she likes it.

Liz nods slowly and her mind is going a hundred miles an hour. "Yeah, but LSD is hallucinogenic, when the shooter has worn a clowns mask and followed them Moyer could have think that the mask is the real face."

Maura is watching how her daughter is rolling up the sleeves of her white dress shirt. She knows the sign and takes a step closer. "You are going home, now."

Liz is blanking and frowns. "Excuse me?"

Maura's look is firm and she crosses her arms over her chest. "Go home and get some rest. You have nothing to prove to anyone."

"Mom -"

"I mean it." Maura says resolutely and takes a deep breath. "Go home!"

Liz sighs heavily and nods approvingly, gathering her belongings. "One hour."

Maura is smiling a little but doesn't say a word as she is watching her daughter leave for the day.

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Adam is frowning a little as soon as he feels the mattress dipping and cracks an eye open. He has been sent home by Maura too and knows that Jane won't be really pleased about that, but the doctor has been right. Tired eyes are going to miss something important.

He can see Liz' back and stretches his arms over his head to make her notice that he is awake. Since three days they are working this case, and since three days none of them had been home.

Frankie has been the first one who Maura had sent home because he sat in his chair and felt asleep in it. He didn't find the strength to take issue with his sister-in-law and grabbed his belongings.

Liz has propped her elbows on her knees and her hands are buried in her hair, frowning deeply. She had thought that she already worked hard cases, but this one is not only difficult it is also a case in which the public is interested in, and that doesn't make anything easier. No matter what kind of lead they have, it always ends in a dead end.

Adam is looking long at her and is searching for words of cheer, but this time he doesn't find any. "Hey," he whispers and frowns again.

Liz is jumping a little and turns her head after a second. "Hi. Did I wake you?"

He shakes his head and tries to smile, but he knows that he has failed. "I was just snoozing. Maura sent you home too?"

She is chewing on the inside of her cheek and just nods.

"You know that Jane is going to freak out?"

"Mom is right, we can't give one hundred percent if we are tired out."

Adam is turning onto his back and is squinting up at the ceiling. "No matter how hard I try, I can't fall asleep. It's like -"

"I know." Liz agrees as he trails off and nods slowly. "I know, I am not if I can sleep either."

He is placing an hand on her back and sighs. "Let's try it anyway, even if we only have a nap."

She takes a deep breath and finally lays down. She isn't sure how, but she is falling asleep within five minutes. So much about not being able to fall asleep, is her last thought.

A loud bang of a door is awaking her with a start and then she hears a loud voice. Liz can tell that it is a female voice but her brain is sleepy so it can't tell her what actually is going on, and a alarm in the back of her mind is setting off as she sees that Adam isn't in bed anymore.

She can see that it isn't day anymore and that doesn't make the uneasy feeling go away. She is thinking about to get her gun and see what is awaiting her in the living room, but then she recognize Jane's angry voice and groans.

Liz gets out of the bed and out of the bedroom to look into her Ma's angered face. "What the hell is going on?"

"Why aren't you working anymore?" Jane barks harshly and Adam throws his hands up.

"Because all of us needed a little break." The younger woman answers in a neutral tone..

"Did I tell you that you can go home?"

"No, but Mom did."

Jane's eyes are furious and she stops closer. "Is Maura your new supervisor?"

The younger woman can feel the anger rising in her veins but she tries to stay in control. "No, but she has seen that all of us needed to rest. Frankie has fallen asleep at his desk and the other of us more or less had been sleepwalking. We reached our limits, Ma."

"Police work can be exhausting, and sometimes you don't go home for a couple of days." Jane says louder and her eyebrows are perked up high.

"We didn't sleep for three days." Adam states and is holding the lieutenant's gaze without flinching.

"Two hours." Jane suddenly says and looks at each of them.

Liz furrows confused her eyebrows. "What?"

The older woman is clenching her teeth now and suppress the urge to yell t her daughter. "It would have taken you two hours to drive to Moyer's place and to find out that his eighteen-year old son Nick went missing. I told you to drive there to interview his wife once again, didn't I?"

Adam has an expression like someone just kicked his balls and he has to swallow hard, and Liz can feel the color draining from her face.

Jane's facial muscles are twitching and she is one thousand percent sure that she is going to bite her brother's head off as well.

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Liz is leaning with her back against a wall in the hospital hallway and lets her head hang down.

They had found out that one of Nick Moyer's acquaintance's brotherhad been a big fish in the drug scene and that his father and his partner been close to bring that person down. The two adolescents even hadn't been close friends, they just met each other briefly and Nick accidentally said that his dad had been a cop. And that's how it all started.

Peter Hauser had offered Nick to earn a little extra money in passing by dealing himself, but he said no. So, Peter had made the decision to make the young man pay for that and let some of his guys shoot Sullivan and Moyer. But he soon realized his mistake after Nick told him that he is going to drop the dim on him for that.

Liz had noticed that Nick was something holding back, but she didn't press him. The voice in her head told her that he probably need some time because his father got killed. Greenhorn mistake, she thinks and closes her eyes.

Then, Peter had threatened Nick and the rest of his family and realized that he made the second mistake and knocked him out to get rid of him by beating Nick to dead.

Somehow, Frankie and Jane got Peter's brother to talk and they got to the club house before Nick got killed too.

"It wasn't your mistake." Someone says and Liz is meeting the brown eyes of her uncle.

She sighs loudly and shrugs. "Yes, it was. I have noticed that he wasn't telling the whole story, but I didn't ask for reason why."

"Something like that can happen, Liz." Frankie replies and leans with his shoulder against the wall. "And there are people who rather button their lips because they want to keep their loved ones safe."

"Maybe Mom's worries hadn't been that wrong." Liz says all of a sudden. "Maybe I should have find my own path before walking yours and Ma's."

"You are doubting your abilities as a police officer?"

"Frankie, Nick Moyer is laying dead-alive in a hospital bed because I couldn't put one and one together."

"Better dead-alive here than dead in the morgue, right?"

"But that's not because of me."

Frankie raises briefly his eyebrows and takes a deep breath. "Do you know how many mistakes Jane and I had made in the beginnings of our careers? We didn't join the force and know everything immediately, Liz. We had to learn the trade, also the hard way."

"Hard to imagine." Liz scoffs and shakes her head.

"But still true." He states and frowns. "Come on, let me get you an awful coffee from the cafeteria."

She smiles weakly and push off the wall.

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Maura is entering her wife's office two days later and is frowning.

Jane knows the expression by heart and opens a file that is laying on her desk. "No."

The ME is narrowing her eyes and sits down on a chair. "I haven't said anything."

"Not verbally, but your face is saying a thousand words." The Italian says and furls her brows.

"Liz is sitting at her desk without fuss or quibble, Jane." The doctor says and is crossing her legs. "You know that she don't need to be punished for a mistake, that's what she is doing to herself already."

Jane is pursing her lips and grit her teeth. She has been surprised that Liz didn't argue with her as the older woman told her that she would be on desk duty for now, she had expect a tantrum. But Liz only nod and agreed with that. "Because of that mistake, a other person almost got killed."

Maura is glad that her wife finally is looking at her, but sighs. "She is learning the same way like you did, Jane. You made wrong decisions too, and you got new chances too. Liz is young, but she is almost as good as you as you still have been in the field frequently. Chaining her to the desk is helping neither her nor the unit."

Jane is studying Maura's face for a moment and furls her eyebrows. "Did Liz ask you to be her advocate?" She heaves a sigh as her wife is smiling at her. It tells her that Maura is in her office all by herself. "Fine, tomorrow she is back on full duty, but you are not allowed to tell Liz."

Maura is smiling broadly and bets back up to her feet. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." The Italian grumbles and watches Maura leaving her office again. She sighs loudly and leans back in her chair.

She knows that Maura is right, she also had made a lot of mistakes in the first time after she joined Homicide and that you only can learn from your mistakes, but somehow she rather would know her daughter at the desk until after the wedding and the whole darn thing instead of being on the streets.

Jane runs her hands over her face and groans loudly. In that moment, she is more than glad of having a own office.

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Adam is more than glad that he made it home instead of being caught in the brewing thunderstorm and furls his eyebrows as he finds the apartment illuminated and the balcony door open. He loosen his tie and makes his way to the said door, glancing at the brunette, who is sitting on a chair and rolling a whisky glass between her hands while she is watching the in-cloud lightning. "What are you doing?"

"Watching my emotions." Liz answers without looking at him.

"A thunderstorm is raging inside of you?"

"Mm-hm."

He sighs loudly and frowns. "Liz -"

"I know," she cuts him off and turns her head. "I know, I know. I don't need to hear it. It's just … the weather is mirroring my emotional state right now."

He nods slowly and scratches his chin. "So you think about leaving?"

"Where am I going?"

"Leaving BPD, I mean."

Liz smiles a little and turns the corners of her mouth downward. "I have to admit that I have been thinking about. But no, I am not leaving BPD or law enforcement at all. I love that job, you know?"

Adam nods approvingly and is sitting down on the other chair, ignoring the cold wind. He thinks that every police officer already had been at that point when they had doubting their abilities before they'd mad up their mind again. "Yes, I know."

"And I like watching brewing thunderstorms." The young woman adds.

He chuckles and eyes the bottle. "How much did you have already?"

She shrugs and takes a deep breath. "Two glasses."

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe three, who knows?"

Adam scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Maybe you should go to bed."

"Maybe I should drink more, though I have to work tomorrow." She replies with raised eyebrows and empties the glass.

The smiles on his lips disappears again and a frown is crawling up on his forehead. He can sense that something else is bothering the brunette right now. "Do you wanna tell me what's wrong?"

"No," she answers instantly with a sigh and doesn't look at him.

The tone of her voice somehow is stabbing his heart because it's ice-cold. "Eliza-"

"There are things I don't want to talk about right now, all right?" Liz snaps at him all of a sudden and gets up to her feet. "Just because we are in a relationship I don't have to share every single thought with you."

Adam is looking in surprise at her and furls his eyebrows. "All right, no need to be abrasive."

She stops dead in her track as soon as he says that and clenches her teeth before she steps inside the living room without another word.

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The next morning, Jane is sitting at her desk and looks at the door as soon as someone is knocking on it.

Liz is entering the office of her Ma and swallows hard. "You want to talk to me?" She asks and closes the door.

Jane nods and furls her eyebrows as soon as she notices that something in her daughter's eyes and body language has changed. "You shot yourself in the foot with the decision not to press Nick Moyer for more information."

The younger woman takes a deep breath and nods. "I know."

"I hope you'll learn from that mistake."

"Yes, I am."

Jane leans back in her chair and looks sternly at her daughter. "Good, because I decided that your desk duty is over. The next case is yours."

Liz isn't smiling or looking relieved. On the contrary, her face is unreadable. "I … was wondering if I could take a couple of days off."

Jane's eyebrows shoot up high in surprise and she isn't sure if she can trust her ears anymore. "You are asking me if you can take time off?"

"Yes." Liz answers and doesn't look at the lieutenant.

"From today onwards?"

"Yes."

Something deep inside the older woman is stirring but she can't tell what, and she gets up to her feet. "Elizabeth, is everything okay?"

Liz has to swallow hard and furrows her brows. "There are things that I have to deal with on my own right now, and for that I need to have a little time to myself."

Jane is trying to read Liz' face and can see that there is something more than wrong. She wants to force Liz to tell what's wrong, but she knows that this would be useless.

She rubs her left eye with her hand and heaves a sigh, being glad that it is just morning and that it is a slow day. "Okay, get your things and go home. Are three days enough?"

The younger woman isn't saying anything and shakes her head.

Jane stops to breath all of a sudden and frowns deeply. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Go home and get some rest, and the tell me how much time you need." Jane says softly and is telling herself to ask Adam what the hell happened last night and that she ask Maura to talk to their daughter tomorrow.

Liz nods slowly and she is still avoiding the eyes of the older woman as she turns on her heels to leave Jane's office.

The Italian is following the younger woman with her eyes and can feel the migraine starting in the back of her head.