A/N: So, I was going to post this yesterday, but apparently this website decided to flop. However, here it is now. I can't wait to hear your response, so make sure to leave a review should you feel so inclined!
"I guess Nina wasn't sure how far out the guys were when she called," Jane said, shutting her car's passenger door when Maura's legs folded into it. "But, the attending's stabilizing, and I'm goin' in for a potential perforation."
"Really?" Maura wondered aloud. "who's the attending?"
"Crowe. He's newer. Hasn't been around in trauma long. Guessing he wanted me in to make sure things went smoothly," Jane explained, trying not to speed through the intersections knowing that Maura hated it so much.
"Ah, yes. Well, extensive facial trauma. Seems similar to the Brannon case. But he was stabbed?"
"From what they told Nina, guess so. Stabbed and beat up pretty bad. Which is why I'm guessin' Crowe didn't want to fly solo with all the new residents hangin' around," said the trauma sugeon.
"I see," replied Maura, looking out the window to the moon.
"So," Jane began after a minute or two of silence from her ride-along.
"Yes?"
"Quite a night, huh?"
"I would say that. And it doesn't look to be over any time soon."
"We uh, we gonna talk about it?"
"About what?" Maura asked, turning to look at her friend-turned-lover. Those long fingers drummed non-rhythmically against the steering wheel and all that Rizzoli energy screamed to be let out. She licked her lips at the memory of it being let out all over her.
"What we were doing when we got this call!" Jane growled, her leg bouncing to match her hands. They pulled into the hospital's front parking lot.
"We were having sex, Jane. You and I are both consenting adults, and sex is a perfectly natural part of life. Especially for people as attractive as the two of us," Maura commented as they both exited the car and powerwalked double time toward the trauma unit's locker room.
"So it didn't mean anything to you?" Jane asked, her voice a harsh whisper as they passed exhausted patients' families on their way through the lobby and down the stairs.
Maura held open the door to the locker room and opened her combination lock before answering. "I never said that. There is more to my fondness for you than my attraction to your form," she said, freshly scrubbed, watching Jane strip and hurry to do the same, "though it is quite a fine one."
Jane turned a pinkish red, and held the door open for Maura on their way out as she hopped into her surgery-appropriate shoe. They made their way to the trauma bay's desk. "Well, you've got a not so bad one yourself," she said as they approached Nina standing by the desk and the hall to the resus room.
Wait.
"Nina?" asked the ENT, before the brunette could. "Why aren't you in the resus room?"
The woman looked grave, near tears when she tried to answer. Instead she just shook her head. Maura saw her face, and immediately knew. She ran, as fast as she could, toward the chaos. Jane set off as well when Nina grabbed her arm, full lips quivering, but words strong: "Jane, no. That's not a good idea."
Jane pulled back as if burned. "Who?"
Nina just shook her head again.
"Who, god dammit?" she all but screamed, and other personnel began to look up at her.
"Tommy. He's alive, but-"
"Shit!" shouted the trauma surgeon, bolting away from her friend. "Shit!"
"Jane!" Nina called out, running down the hall after her.
Inside the resus room, a hurricane had struck.
Nurses moved about, hooking up her little brother to IVs, monitors, and needles. At least, to the man she was told was her brother – his face was so bloodied and his torso so bruised that he almost refused to be recognized. Residents took blood from his femoral artery, shoved a catheter up his urethra to drain his bladder and fill it again with water for the ultrasound. Doctor Crowe affixed a cervical spine stabilizer on his head and neck – a faux crown for the anti-prince he had become.
Maura shined a light in his pupils and ghosted her hands over his face. It seemed to unfold in slow motion, her touch, but in reality, Jane knew it happened at lightening speed. A trauma tech, on his way to test blood and urine, bumped into her, nearly spilling everything.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Rizzoli!" He said, nodding to her as he recovered and rushed out, and it was then that she made her decision. She approached his body, and the stench of blood made it hard to keep the contents of her stomach in check.
"What do we got?" She barked in the best impression of herself that she could muster, and Crowe immediately fired off his vitals. Not good. Pulse weak and thready, blood pressure falling.
Maura looked her in the eye. "You shouldn't be here, Jane." She said as she pulled her off to the side. "Your judgment could be compromised."
Jane scoffed despite the tightness in her throat. "I'm the best surgeon in this room, Maura."
"That's true," Maura said, calmly, a juxtaposition to Jane's rage. "but that's on a good day, an objective day. Tonight is the opposite of that. Don't endanger his chances because your reason is clouded."
With her eyes so clouded, Jane wondered if Maura was right, if reason wasn't too far behind. Still she had to try. "You think I'm gonna leave my brother's life in the hands of Crowe and some residents? After he's here because I took his protection?! He's here because of me, Maura!"
"That's bull and you know it, Jane. He gave it to you willingly, and he knew the consequences. You don't want to trust him to Dr. Crowe? Fine, trust him to me. He's got frontal sinus fractures, orbital fractures, and a damaged trachea, so he's going to need me more than anyone else right now-"
"Dr. Isles!" Crowe called out, perspiration forming on his bald head, "We've got fresh epistaxis here."
She ran back to Tommy to inspect. When Jane saw her face go pale, she nearly fainted. "That's CSF. Nina, I need you to start him on 20 mg of Vancomycin now!"
Nina had taken her place again as the uniting force in the resus room, and she answered the call with gusto. "20 mg starting now," she said, hooking up the proper bag and clearing the residents out of the way of the gurney.
"We need to take him to the OR now, Jane, so I need to you to leave," Maura said with authority, but kindness, sadness in her eyes.
It killed her, but Jane nodded. "Take care of my baby brother, Maura," She pleaded, a hiccup and a few tears finally escaping.
Maura kissed her cheek. "Of course," she whispered before heading out with Crowe toward the operating room.
"Nina, don't let these guys screw it up," she said as her friend walked by. "You're my eyes. My lifeline, and I'm usually the best one in there," she said, and Nina laughed through some tears of her own. "So I need you to be more than that to them."
"I'm going to do my job to the best of my ability, and you know that's head and shoulders above the rest, Jane," Nina offered quietly, her hand brushing Jane's arm.
Then she, too, disappeared around the corner.
When Maura finally spotted Jane, she sat in the waiting room, alone. Her nasojugal folds were nearly purple from lack of sleep, and five hours of waiting, of knowing she could do nothing but wait for the surgery to be over, had to have been hell. "Where's your family?" she said, not knowing much else of what to do besides sit next to her and run a hand along her back in wide, sweeping circles.
"I didn't wanna call them until I knew he had pulled through. Which is what I gather you're here to tell me," Jane said, more in a sigh than in a voice.
"Yes. He did pull through. He is in the ICU now, recovering from the surgery," Maura answered. The slump in Jane's shoulders and the sob that tore through her throat filled Maura with emptiness, even though she knew they were the products of relief.
"How'd it go? How is he?" Jane asked after she had composed herself, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
"Dr. Crowe was… green," Maura said, "but with Nina's help, he found the bleed and closed it. I performed several facial fixations, and he now has a titanium plate to stabilize a frontal sinus fracture. Honestly, now it's a waiting game. You saw me order the first dose of antibiotics for him to prevent meningitis."
"Jesus," Jane said, slumping back into her chair. She put a hand in Maura's lap, and Maura took it in both of her own, beginning to rub at the tense joints. "He's alive."
The specialty surgeon chuckled out of sheer relief. "He's alive, yes. I can't say how he will be exactly when he emerges, but he has a tracheostomy, and my professional opinion is that he will need swallowing therapy from a speech-language pathologist. So he will be here for at least a week and a half."
Dr. Rizzoli nodded. "Guess I better call in the cavalry."
"Guess so. And Jane?" said Maura.
"Yeah?"
"This is not your fault. It never was. It was the fault of the men who did this to your brother."
"Thanks, Maura," Jane replied. She pulled her phone out from her white coat pocket, unwilling to let go of her friend's hand. Luckily, her friend did not mind the connection. "Hey Ma? Yeah, I know it's late, I'm sorry. But you and Pop need to get down here to the hospital. It's Tommy."