DISCLAIMER: I do not own Rizzoli & Isles nor any of the characters from the show. I am writing this purely for entertainment, not profit. Rizzoli and Isles are property of Tess Gerritsen and TNT.

Please find the full disclaimers in the beginning of Chapter 1.

Chapter 5

Jane was exhausted. She felt her hair was dusty, and she felt there was sand even inside her mouth, gritting her teeth.

She had been on the road for three days. Her body had protested every minute of it, trying to purge all the damage the alcohol had made to it in the previous three weeks. Bus, train, bus, and the last train. She bought her ticket to the final destination of that specific train route, knowing she would jump off before a station many stops prior to the final destination. She didn't want to leave any trail.

With her she had only a backpack, with a couple pairs of jeans and some flannel shirts and t-shirts, underwear, and socks. A pair of well-worn sturdy hiking boots on her feet, and she was wearing simple jeans and a sweater with a hood and sunglasses. A swiss-knife was all the protection she carried, stuck on the inside of her boot, the money folded on the bottom of her boots. Her backpack also had a few flasks of antibiotics Dean had handled her and insisted she carried, and some other basic medical supplies.

She looked at her map one last time – the bend of the road two miles before the station, where the train would slow down enough for her to get out, was approaching. She had paid for her ticket, but she had moved to one of the cargo wagons, so she could leave without being noticed. As the bent of the road approached, she marveled at how slow the train had to go – it was a very sharp elbow on the tracks. She jumped without difficult, rolling on the dry grass and catching some more dust.

She waited until the train was long gone before she stood, dusting herself up. She checked her clock – 3.17PM. She would need to walk about two hours north before reaching the supposed location of the farm. She looked up to the sun to calculate the directions, and used a small manual compass that she stored again on her backpack. Confirming she still had one full bottle of water, she began walking.

There were no roads in the straight line she was walking, but the trees were sparse, and the vegetation was high. She removed her sweater and placed it on the backpack, and walked at a good pace. It was just a few minutes over 5PM when she finally spotted the farm. She separated two lines from the barbed wire fence, and stepped between them, near some thick bushes.

She wanted to assess if she was being observed or if the farmhouse was under surveillance. Dean didn't have more details. The farmhouse was a single floor wooden house, rectangular with a porch around. From where Jane was, she could see the well, closer to the bush, and the farmhouse, on the other end. For all she knew, she could even be on the wrong farm.

After Dean finished planning and made sure she ate pizza and drank a significant amount of Coke, kept hydrated and promised to go to bed, he left – not before helping her with the message to let her family know she was going to disappear temporarily for an undercover assignment that she could not disclose more details about. And not before making her leave the payments to her apartment rent and other bills scheduled for a few months at least, so nothing would be impacted even if her absence was long.

Jane had thanked him, and promised to be careful and to pay back the money he gave her, but she did not apologize – he was the one who did, again. After he left, Jane had prepared her backpack, taken a proper shower, and went to bed. She thought she would be too agitated to sleep, but she was so emotionally drained that she actually slept like a rock. She woke up very early, though, and got ready for the journey.

She hailed a cab the old fashion way, and paid in cash when she arrived to the bus station, as she did for every ticket and every meal on her way. The past three days had seemed surreal, and Jane had prepared herself mentally for the fact that all that happened was just an illusion or a hallucination, induced by the unusual amount of alcohol she had consumed, and that she would find nothing, that Maura was not alive. But she needed to at least give it a try, there was nothing else she had to lose anyway.

As Jane watched the door of the farmhouse open, and when a teenage boy came out, Jane was sure she had made a mistake. The teenager had close-cropped hair, was wearing clothes too big for his size, and was sporting a pair of crutches, and slowly and painfully began to move towards the well. Each step was dragged and calculated.

Jane sighed and prepared to move out of the fence, assessing how much daylight was left for her to try to find the correct farm.

But then something caught her eye.

The teenager was not a boy, but a girl – Jane could see the outline of breasts under the coarse oversized shirt. And then the girl whimpered, in pain. And Jane realized that was not an unknown teenage girl. That was Maura. Jane had to use all her willpower not to jump from her hiding place and meet Maura mid-way. Instead, she controlled her breathing not to hyperventilate and kept careful observation of Maura and her surroundings.

Maura was really alive. And in pain. Jane was very quiet, and over the wild pulse of blood rushing through her temple, she could hear Maura muttering to herself, as she got closer, breathing shallowly as she painfully moved one step at a time.

"Fifteen paces left. I can do it." Maura panted. One more step. "Fourteen paces, Maura. Just fourteen more."

Jane realized she had begun to cry when the view of Maura became too blurry, and Jane wiped her eyes with her dusty hands.

"Eleven steps. Gosh, I am thirsty…" Maura stopped, and moved a weary hand across her sweaty forehead.

Jane noticed Maura was practically dragging her feet underneath her, her arms truly carrying all the burden of her lithe body using the crutches.

She resumed moving, and Jane could see every step was more hesitant than the previous one, as if Maura's strength was quickly being sapped.

"Five steps, Maura. You need clean water, or you will die." Jane heard Maura muttering closer to the well now.

When Maura finally reached the well, she was panting, and Jane could see her shirt was soaked with sweat. There was the effort. And the pain. But it looked Maura was also running a high fever.

Jane watched as Maura pushed the empty bucket that was on the top of the well down, hearing the splash on the water. And then watched as Maura braced herself for pulling it up.

"Roll seven times." Jane heard as Maura muttered again to herself, and watched Maura moving the first roll, her face wincing in deep pain. Clearly that movement was even more painful to Maura than the walking had been. And that was saying something…

Maura stopped between each roll, panting heavily, before moving again.

"Four. Please. Please don't fall." Jane watched as Maura seemed to use her entire strength on trembling arms to keep from letting the hand crank escape or fall back.

Jane noticed the pause between turns were longer, and she knew Maura was losing the battle.

"Two… No. No. No." the hand crank escaped Maura's hand and hit Maura's chin, and the bucket rolled back down. Maura fell back from the well border to the floor with a whimper and a dull thud.