DISCLAIMER: I do not own this show, the books, or these characters. I only borrow them.

In Remembrance: 9/11/2001

Chapter 27

Maura pulled up to the home of Angela and Frank Rizzoli, and before she even had time to turn off the car and step out, the front door opened. Maura hurried up to the porch in order to grab the duffel bag out of Jane's hand as she was already starting to descend the few steps. Angela was following her daughter with a medium sized roller suitcase and a book bag.

Jane saw Maura's questioning gaze on the multiple bags and said, "Blame Ma," as they continued on to the car.

"Janie!" Angela turned to Maura. "Ignore her. First she wanted her clothing at the hospital. Then she wanted something to read because she was bored, not to mention all the medicine and bandages that take up lots of space. But NO! It's all my fault because I went to get the items she wanted and needed."

"Why don't you leave the clothes here Jane? You stop over enough that it would work."

"I did. These are what wouldn't fit in my closet and dresser."

Both Maura and Angela couldn't help snickering. Maura said, "And she complains that I have too many clothes."

"My closet isn't the size of my entire bedroom."

"And even if it was, most of the space would still be taken up with her sports equipment," Angela joked as she put the bags she had in the trunk and closed it. She turned a caring gaze toward her daughter and gave her a quick hug. "I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."

"I know Ma," Jane rolled her eyes, "you've only told me a thousand times."

Angela was already half way back to the front door, but she turned back and shouted back, "Don't take that tone with me, young lady." She turned back and smiled as she entered her house. Both happy and sorrowful that the residence belonged once again to just her and Frank.

Maura thought the sarcastic bickering was endearing. She wished she and her mother would have been close enough to tease each other rather than just the proper interactions they always had. "What was that about?"

"Ma swears that my apartment is going to be condemned as it hasn't been cleaned in the last five weeks. That or the dust bunnies are going to take over." Jane was walking toward the passenger door and so she missed seeing the blush creep up Maura's cheeks. "Ma thought she would stock the apartment with groceries too, and then we are having our usual family dinner at my newly renovated place...I think she is either worried that I wouldn't clean and would starve, or, worse, that I would clean and try to carry heavy groceries and lift too much." She couldn't help groaning over her mother's hovering even when she tried to leave the nest again.

"That's probably a good idea." At the glare from Jane, over the hood of the car, Maura added, "You wouldn't want to be injured and then take longer to get back to work full time. Would you?"

Jane hated that Maura knew her so well at times. She had her hand on the door handle and was about to open it and get in when a small, tan, furry head peeked over the bottom of the window. Her annoyance at the earlier situation dissipated, and she couldn't help but laugh at her small dog. "Maura, you are going to have to pry Jo away from the door, or she is going to tumble out when I open this door."

Maura did as instructed, but, rather than putting Jo in the backseat, Jane watched as she held onto the wiggling mass of fur until she was seated and with her seat belt fastened. Maura then dropped the giddy dog in Jane's lap. "I tried to have her sit in the back as it's safer, but she wouldn't stop whining until I put her on your seat. And I know if she was in the back while you're up here, since she hasn't seen you for awhile, it would be even worse. She really missed you." Seeing the dog standing on her back paws while balancing in Jane's lap, front paws on Jane's chest, and trying to slobber all over her owner's face even though she could only reach the chin, was an amusing sight that backed up Maura's theory.

"Be glad you are tiny, Jo. Else I would toss you in the back for putting weight on my chest."

Maura wanted to ask Jane if she was still in a lot of pain, but she knew she would never get a truthful answer, especially if the answer should have been yes. She knew her friend wanted to get back to work too much to let a little pain get in her way. Jane wanted to get back to normal as soon as possible. Maura just hoped she wasn't doing it as she herself often did, to forget for a little while the emotional pain from the shooting a month ago. Maura knew that didn't work out as well as one might hope. When one forgot so much that remembering at the end of the day that Frankie wasn't out on a call or just in another department and would stop in to say hello when he had a chance, hurt all the more.

"So what's up with the mutt? I thought we were going to your place for the night as we were picking her up."

"The detectives and I have been working on an odd case...I have a feeling it's not over, so your place is in town, and since we we're going to end up there anyway, I thought it would be better to be closer." She didn't add that being closer also meant she could get to sleep quicker as this long case was taking its toll.

Jane didn't ask about the case. She didn't have to, as her questioning gaze asked it for her. That look always got more answers than verbally asking anyways.

"So far we have had two victims. A twenty-something female and a 31 year old male. Both shot in the head, with a missing finger. Frost and Korsak are looking at a hate crime angle as not much to go on yet. The odd part though is that they were killed at the same time, but dumped on different days." Maura knew that there was no way a body would have been missed for a full day if it was laying by the Boston Common Frog Pond as a lot of people walked by there each day. "Frost and Korsak mentioned they were going to be in the office today working the case so they might need to call for information, and there is always the probability of more bodies. Once someone has more than one killing to their name as you well know...so your place it is."

"Too true about the more victims comment. It's not over til the fat lady sings, huh...assuming she's not one of the victims."

"Jane!"

After a minute to ponder, Jane asked, "Can we stop in at headquarters and say hi to the guys? I haven't seen them in soooo long."

Maura knew Jane wanted to see what was going on with the case. She would barely glance at her partners before she would dive into the witness statements and crime scene photos. "You will be in Monday and can see them then."

"We could go so you could pick up your notes in case the guys need to call you." Seeing Maura glaring over, she tried a different route, "Drop off a suggestion," the withering glare got darker, "Um...take a bathroom break. You know I really gotta pee."

"It's a good thing your house isn't too far. She pointed to her car's GPS even though she didn't have it on as she knew the way to Jane's apartment very well by now. "You're even in luck, it's closer than headquarters." Now the death glare was on Jane's face and Maura just gave an annoying Cheshire Cat grin.

"It's so not fair. I'm missing a serial!" Jane sounded very peeved.

"Jane, don't sound so happy about serial cases, or so annoyed that you are missing one...that means that we've already had multiple deaths and no clue if or when we will get more."

Jane could tell that it was really getting to Maura based on the tone of voice and so decided to let the topic drop. They finished the ride in silence.

When they arrived at the apartment, Jane noticed Maura start toward the trunk and said, "I really just need the duffle bag in tonight. Ma packed it like she used to our diaper bags: change of clothes, something to entertain us...I think she shoved in yesterday's newspaper; I just hope Pop was finished with it, there is probably also MREs or granola bars or something, and a bottle of water, or five...you know, for in case we get lost and stranded...in my living room. The only difference is that instead of diapers and baby wipes I now have bandages and medication."

Maura chuckled at the comment while also wondering briefly if her mother would have even known what a diaper bag was or what should go in one. She was glad that they only needed her overnight bag and the duffle bag to go in tonight; that way she could get both and the big bag of dog food she brought to make sure Jo would have dinner too. She let Jane carry in her hyper dog so they could make it up the stairs in one trip.

Jane opened the door and set the dog down. She thought it was amusing to watch as Jo wandered around her domain sniffing everything as she went, reminding herself of home.

Maura almost tripped over the frantic dog as she took the bags back into Jane's bedroom. She could hear Jane in the living room calling out for pizza. When she walked back into the living room and saw Jane without the cellphone, she asked the question even though she already knew the answer, "Pizza?" It was not her meal of choice.

"Yes. I really need a pizza..."

"Want," Maura added even though Jane was still talking, and if she did hear, decided to ignore the comment on her word choice.

"Ma thinks if you want pizza, any Italian meal will satisfy that craving. So we don't do pizza often. The only pizza I've had since I got out of the hospital was after we cleaned Frankie's place last weekend. It just made me want it all the more."

"There have been studies about what your body is lacking when you have certain cravings. For oily, fatty foods, your body needs calcium." -book by Dr Colleen Huber, choose your food like your life depends on them – the chemistry of man.

"Well, it's a good thing I ordered extra cheese then," Jane said with a grin.

Knowing the 'what's for dinner?' question had been taken care of, Maura decided to work on the 'where are we eating?' part as she started cleaning off the small table near the kitchen. She knew Jane would have been fine eating out of the box while sitting on the couch, but Maura had still not been dragged down to that level of 'Jane' yet.

Knowing Maura preferred to eat at the table, Jane didn't say anything when she watched her tidying the space up, but, when she went over to start on the counter, Jane said, "You might as well leave it. Ma will just reclean everything anyway."

After seeing Angela working in Frankie's apartment, she knew that truth behind those words, and so she went over to the couch to join Jane.

Jane was flipping through the channels to see if there was anything on she would want to watch. Not finding anything, see turned the station to the history channel, knowing that Maura liked it, and stood up. She started walking toward her bedroom to grab a change of clothes. "I think I'm going to go get a shower..."

"Remember to make it a quick one, and no harsh scrubbing," Maura couldn't help adding the warnings that she knew Jane would have been given by her surgeon. "Let me know when you are finished. I'd like to see how you are healing, and then I can reapply your bandages."

Jane came back in with an arm full of clothes and a towel, "Speaking of that, can you remove the ones on my back. It still hurts to twist enough to pull them off myself."

Maura lifted up the back of Jane's shirt and unclasped her bra so she could pull off the bandages on Jane's left shoulder. She tried to be gentle as she peeled off the tape, but she could still hear Jane gasp in pain a few times. "Sorry." She was glad to be finished as she was sadly starting to understand the concept of causing a friend's pain hurt her more. First all the stuff she missed out with Frankie, and now with causing physical pain to Jane.

"No problem. More than anything it itches like a bitch."

"Fleas or mange?"

Jane turned around to stare dumbly at her odd friend. "What!"

"Why a female dog's skin would be itchy... Is it more like pinpricks and bites like fleas, or like an all over rash and mange?"

"Oww, damn it, it still hurts to laugh." Despite that though, it still took a good minute for her to get her breathing back under control so she wasn't pulling at healing skin. "And is that a new tool the docs use: pain 1-10 and stabbing or shooting, and now itchy: fleas or mange."

"Well?"

"Fine, I'll go more with fleas...and can we please stop talking about itching? It makes it worse." And with that, Jane walked into the bathroom, scratching lightly at the bandages still on her stomach as she went.

Fifteen minutes later, Maura heard the water from the shower turn off, and so she grabbed the tape and bandages and asked to join Jane in the tiny bathroom. She had Jane sit on the closed toilet side and turn so that she could easily bandage up the shoulder first. She teased, "Don't worry. I'm a doctor, I can do this."

"Who works with dead people," Jane joked back.

Maura hoped she kept the smile in place as she half-heartedly tried to continue the joking, "Yes, but I started in a hospital setting with...," she paused for a staged gasp, "Live people." While trying not to think that the last live person she worked on other than Jane had been Frankie.

Jane let Maura start on the bandages on her back with her light blue towel grasped tightly in front of her to cover up as much as possible.

Maura was pleased to see the pinking up of the skin around the sutures. The wounds were healing nicely on the outside, and she noticed over the last week that Jane's range of movement and endurance was improving well too. For a second she wondered about the emotional scars of the shooting, as she knew she herself had quiet a few that were still raw and oozing, but they both did better sliding into the normal banter rather then the touchy-feely. Maura asked Jane to turn around so she could apply bandages on Jane's anterior wounds.

"I can get the ones in front. Can I get a little privacy...please?" she added when Maura didn't move toward the bedroom door.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I have my own, you know." Maura chuckled as the blush on Jane's face deepened.

"Yes, I know, and that you are a doctor so have seen it all, but come on."

"I want to see how the healing is coming along. It looked pretty good on your posterior..."

"On my WHAT?"

"Posterior denotes anything toward your back, not just your buttocks. Whoever destroyed the meaning of that word for all mankind should be... pummeled." luckily she caught it before she said they should be shot.

Jane was still too shocked thinking about the posterior bit that she almost missed Maura threatening bodily harm to someone. It was a bit odd to say the least. She glanced toward the wall as she let Maura change the bandages on her chest and abdomen.

Maura thought about joking about people fooling themselves into thinking, If I can't see you, you can't see me either." Granted, she remembered a childhood development class she took in undergrad mention that it worked well in playing peekaboo with infants as their brain still thought that way. But she put on her doctor's hat and worked quickly and efficiently in changing the numerous bandages. "I'd leave the bra off when your finished." She had noticed the sutures in the front close to where the bra straps would be positioned were not healing as well. "The healing skin is weaker, so you wouldn't want to aggravate it more than necessary." At the look of horror on Jane's face she added, "I can take mine off too if it makes you feel better." She couldn't help the slight chuckle that escaped at that seemingly random suggestion.

"Ah, no, thanks," Jane now more embarrassed by Maura's state of dress or not of her own.

"Well, good."

"That's not fair being so happy about it."

"I achieved my goal. You were then too embarrassed about me to worry about what you felt uncomfortable with."

"Did you learn that in one of the classes at your fancy college?"

"Yes..." Maura let the answer hang in the air until the questioning glare from Rizzoli finally wore her down as it did most of her perps at work. "I learned that technique to deal with people...you know, live ones."

Jane just laughed, "So, who have you used it on at work?"

"Everyone."

"Even me?"

"Especially you."

"How come?" Jane asked leaning forward and not realizing that she was getting in Maura's space.

"Because you're...well..."

"What!"

"That..." Maura gesticulated madly trying to help with her point. "...in people's faces, assertive, very larger than life presence, and well it's... intimidating." As silence overtook the tiny room, Maura wondered if she might have said something to hurt her friend's feelings. She knew Jane might pretend to be all tough-as-nails, but she still felt stuff strongly.

"Oh,... thanks." Jane liked being that way so wouldn't change it and didn't see it as a bad thing.

Not knowing what to say to that reply, Maura just stood quiet.

Sadly Jane didn't even think about commenting on the 'shocked into silence' joke she normally would have jumped at, because, at the moment, she wanted to finish up in the restroom and get dressed. "I think I got it from here, thanks." She thought it was amusing to then see Maura blushing as she hurried out of the room.

While Jane was finishing up, the pizza came, and so Maura paid and gave the acne covered teenage boy a decent tip. She then carried the greasy box over to the counter and got out two plates and cups and silverware for herself even though Jane still joked about her eating her pizza with a knife and fork.

Jane came out of the bathroom and saw the box. "I was going to treat." She knew better than to even try to hand Maura the money as she wouldn't take it now.

"You can treat next time...when it's something I'd enjoy being treated too."

"I can't afford what you like." Jane said as she put ice in the glasses and opened up the now very flat two-liter of coke that she had in her fridge. As she poured her drink, she realized that she should have had a new one delivered. She would have preferred one of her beers in the fridge, but she knew there was no way Dr. Isles would let her get away with having alcohol yet.

"You know what I mean, Jane...Chinese, Thai, most anything outside of this grease in a box pizza." Seeing how flat the pop was, Maura decided to go with water.

"Well, if that is the case, I know a park with a mean hotdog stand." Jane laughed as Maura made it too easy, and the disgusted look on her face was so worth it.

They ate over talk of work intermixed with random jokes and funny stories that the guys had been in that Jane had missed out on. All too soon, the medium works pizza was polished off. More due to Jane than Maura, but it made clean up easy. Maura rinsed the dishes off and placed them in the dishwasher while Jane took the grease soaked box over to the trashcan and then wiped down the table.

Jane could see that Maura looked tired during dinner, so she didn't even suggest that they watch a movie, or a ball game like she would have preferred. Instead she said she was tired knowing that otherwise Maura would question the lack of visual entertainment that usually ended up their sleepovers.

"I'm going to check out the news real quick," Jane said as she delicately plopped down on the couch. She was already dressed in what she was going to sleep in: comfortable lightweight grey jogging slacks and the green t-shirt that she put on after her shower.

"Don't you get enough of those negative stories at work, Jane?"

"Usually, but I haven't been at work, so I've been living vicariously through the news."

Maura just shook her head and went to get a nice, long, warm shower, before she got dressed in her favorite beige silk pajamas.

When the news ended thirty minutes after Maura left, Jane could hear her shuffling around in the bedroom. She clicked off the television and walked into the apartment's only sleeping area, other than the couch that her brother had used on occasion when he needed to crash for the night. When she walked in the door, she saw Maura toss over a small jar. She had to lean farther than she would have liked but the jar looked glass so she wasn't about to let it hit the wall as she bet the yellow goop would not look pretty smearing it.

"Nice catch."

"Bad throw."

Maura was tempted to blame the lack of wind and horrible air resistance in the room, or how the jar was not aerodynamically sound, but she wanted Jane to remember the next part and not block it out with her 'google-speak' as Jane would call it. She hated that term as it wasn't very accurate. Most anything learned from google and wiki were not authenticated...peer reviewed journals were much better for facts. Maybe she should ask Jane to change the term to 'scholar-google-speak,' as it searched for journal articles and patents, but that was as far as she was willing to stretch that. "In about a week, start using that cream on the wounds to minimize scarring, even though your surgeon already helped out with that on how well he sutured you up"

Great, Jane thought, like a patchwork quilt, or not...they at least looked prettier. "What is it?" She opened the jar and took a wiff.

"Butyrospermum parkii."

She read the label as Maura said that so saw the spelling. "WHAT!" Jane was about to stick a finger in the jar but pulled back...Maura was just lucky she didn't drop it on the floor "I can't use that...it has sperm in the middle of the name...I prefer to get mine from the source thanks"

Maura just laughed. "It's Shea Butter, Jane."

"Oh God, why can't you just say that?" Then she groaned, "My Ma has some lotion with that in it...thanks, now I'm going to start laughing every time I see her use it."

Maura couldn't help adding "Squirt bottle or pump?"

"Mauraaaa!" but it was too late, as two women who were laughing so hard they were crying plopped down on the bed.

When the laughter finally stopped, Maura thought that she was pretty lucky. She might have missed out as a kid with not having sleep-overs and friends, but Jane more than made up for it. And, for the first time in weeks, she was able to fall asleep without collapsing from exhaustion or crying over Frankie...yes, there were tears still in her eyes, but at least for a more pleasant cause.

AN: So sorry for the delay, between some med stuff, and mind not with the story too much, it was 'fun.' Will try my hardest to get back on the weekly updates, especially since I believe Monday is season finale and we will all still need out R&I fix.

Thanks soo much for the reviews...got to 100, yay. Love getting reviews from new readers so thanks, and an even bigger THANKS to those who review regularly. You make me want to push even when I'm not really in the story as I know you are out there waiting. :)