A/N: This is my first go at writing Rizzles, as I only recently discovered the show Rizzoli & Isles (yeah, I'm always late to any party, lol). I do not own Rizzoli & Isles – otherwise, the show would have been openly gay, obviously. In my story, Jane has never had a miscarriage. Rizzles is endgame. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Another Loss
Jane's POV
(Trigger warning for topic of miscarriage)
You get the phone call very early on one of your rare Sundays off. Groaning, you blindly reach for your cellphone from under the covers, praying that it's nothing to do with serial killers. You've only just solved a very gruesome case. A man who had started a new existence – complete identity change and all – after murdering his parents and brother years ago, fell back into his old pattern and brutally took his partner's and son's lives before he went underground. It took you and your team at Boston PD weeks to find him and actually come up with the evidence needed to link him to both the old and the recent crime. You are exhausted and urgently need a break.
"Rizzoli?", you mumble into your cellphone, pressing it to your ear, half expecting to hear Korsak's voice on the other end of the line.
"Jane – it's Maura", you hear another, much lovelier voice, though. Immediately, you are wide awake and throw back the cover from your sparsely clad body. You know this can't be good. Over the course of your long friendship, Maura has called you at all possible hours of day and night – but never without a legitimate reason. After all, as the Chief Medical Examiner of Boston, Massachussetts, she works with you closely and is well aware of your busy schedule. She'd never dream of calling you at 6am on a Sunday off just to chat about trivia.
"Maura – what's wrong?", you ask and clear your throat that sounds gravelly after a whole night's sleep.
"Jane", her voice almost breaking now, a pleading undertone clearly audible to your ears that have become so attuned to her various moods over the years, "I think it's happening again – I think I'm having a miscarriage..."
She hasn't even finished speaking when you're already half out the door, slipping into yesterday's clothes on your way out of your apartment, grabbing your keys from their usual spot on the front room cupboard before letting the door fall closed with a loud thud behind you.
"Okay, Maura, where are you?", you ask, trying to keep your voice calm and steady for her sake while you take two steps at once, unlocking and pushing open the garage door where your unmarked is parked. You do have a car of your own, too, but as you figure that getting her to the hospital will be the task at hand, the one from BPD will serve you better as you could let the sirens wail, if necessary.
"At – at home", she hiccups through sobs. "And I'm bleeding, Jane – oh God, there's so much blood..."
Your heartbeat racing in your ears, you throw yourself behind the wheel of the inconspicuous black vehicle assigned to you, and somehow manage to put your cell on speaker phone so you can continue to talk to her.
"Maura, honey – stay where you are, okay? I'll be with you in a minute – I'm already in the car, and there's almost no traffic – we'll rush you to the hospital, Maur – don't worry..." You talk as much for her sake as for your own. Guilt is nagging at you for not spending the night with your bestie. You did spend some nights with her this week, so why not this one, too? You know that your reasons have been mostly selfish: You wanted some peace and quiet for yourself after the latest work frenzy, and also you somehow came to the conclusion that it would be necessary for you to learn spending nights on your own more often again; you told herself that Maura would probably not want you around all the time while being preoccupied with her pregnancy and afterwards, with a newborn full of various needs you don't know half of; but while it's true that you didn't want to impose, it's even more true that you wanted to prepare yourself for a new chapter in your own life, a chapter where Maura quite possibly would not be nearly as present as she'd been during your last years of close friendship.
When you arrive at her house at a new personal record, you almost fly out of the car; you unlock her front door with the key she's given you a lifetime ago and you barge into the hallway, loudly yelling her name, scared shitless of what you are going to find, of what will be a probably disturbing sight of your best friend in the world in severe distress.
"I'm in here, Jane – the bathroom!", you hear her muffled voice and you don't waste any time asking her if it's okay for you to enter, you just do and find her sitting hunched over the toilet, panties blood-soaked around her ankles and there are also red blotches of blood on her thighs and from what you can see of the toilet bowl from your angle, there's a lot of angry red in there, too. Helplessness threatens to overwhelm you although you've been trained to function under the most difficult circumstances imaginable; but this is different because this is not some victim left to bleed out on a crime scene, this is your best friend, the one person you perhaps love even more than everyone else including your biological family and she's bleeding and weak and visibly shocked, her mouth hanging slightly open while she's gaping at you with the most heartbreaking expression on her face, one that simultaneously asks "Why?" and pleads you to help her to make all of this go away, to turn back time.
And you wish so badly that you could.
"Jane?" It's your mother's voice, you realize she must have heard a car pull into the driveway and looked out of the windows of the guesthouse and because she's a busybody who often gets up even before sunrise, she's now what you would normally call "snooping on you" but this morning, you don't mind.
"Ma!", you yell, startled by the volume of your very own voice, "we're in the bathroom – Maura is having a miscarriage, I think – call an ambulance, Ma, do it RIGHT NOW!"
"Oh my God", you hear your mother sharply inhale behind you, because you have not yet found the strength to close the bathroom door behind you, and you are quite relieved that you are at least blocking her view so she can't properly see the full extent of what's going on, but turning back to her, what escapes your throat is a snappy, "Ma, GO! Call them!", and then you are kneeling next to Maura and the toilet, grasping her violently shaking hands, asking her to stay strong, reassuringly telling her that the ambulance will be here in an instant, and the seconds have never felt this long and this frightening, you wonder if a woman can die from having a miscarriage, after all she's losing so much blood and she's as white as her pristine sheets that have probably cost more than your quarterly income – and then you hear the unmistakable sound of an ambulance wailing and you release a giant sigh of relief, your own hands feel all clammy and wrong, like someone just screwed them onto your body – and then you hear your Ma ushering the paramedics inside, and then the bathroom is full of people and someone asks you to get out of the way, and then you are outside of the bathroom and then they take Maura outside, two paramedics supporting her on their way to the ambulance, and you follow them and they tell you to get in, and one female paramedic with a blonde ponytail even tells you that you can hold your wife's hand on the drive to the hospital and when you try to open your mouth in order to correct her that you two are just friends, you find that your throat is too dry to emit more than just a grunt of agreement, and then you're at the hospital and Maura is being whisked away from you on a gurney and you pace around in the reception area and only came to a halt when your mother comes bolting through the doors suddenly, running up to you and loudly asking whether Maura's okay and you can only stare at her like a deer in headlights and because she's your mother, she instinctively understands – how worried you are, how panic has rendered you speechless – and pulls you into an embrace you would otherwise not allow, but at this very moment, on this surreal Sunday morning, you let yourself be pulled into the hug, uttering a wordless prayer of Please God Please God Please God although you're not even religious anymore because in a job like yours, you cannot really, it would just make you hate Him for his inertia and indifference so it's much easier not to believe in higher powers at all. But right this instant, when there is no perp to catch, no culprit to interrogate, praying at your mother's bosom for your best friend and her baby (a baby you are very sure does not exist anymore, judging from the amount of blood and stuff you saw in that toilet bowl) is the only thing you seem to be able to do.
R&I-R&I-R&I-R&I-R&I
After long, agonizing hours of waiting, you are permitted to see Maura; you enter her room hesitantly and are instantly shocked at how pale and fragile she looks, lying on the hospital bed, like a shell of the effervescent femme fatale she normally embodies. A smile, tired but genuine, lights up her features and you feel a complicated mixture of emotions tearing at your heartstrings; relief because she is still able to smile, pride for being the one that can make her smile even in so dire a situation, sadness for your inability to do anything tangible for her. You move further into her room; of course she has one of her own, it's one of the advantages of having a career like hers and being wealthy but while you'd usually tease her for it, maybe even make a snide remark about her shelteredness, you now only feel a pang of relief for her, for the privacy this one-bed hospital room grants her after all she's been through.
You imagine that maybe, they would even have placed her in a room with a happily pregnant woman otherwise; arent hospitals normally always on the brink of full utilization? They probably would not be able to put a patient's trauma into consideration. You are glad that Maura does not have to put up with that, too. This has already been enough of a nightmare for her.
You cross the room with long, awkwardly self-conscious strides and sit down on the edge of her narrow hospital bed, ignorning the visitor's chair in the corner. You want to feel a little closer to her right now.
Another wobbly smile crosses her face. "I'm sorry for creating a fuss", she says, her voice sounding a tad raspier than normal.
You instantly shake your head. "Jesus, Maura, you don't have to apologize for anything, right? I am so, so sorry this happened. The guilt is still present, bubbling under your surface of calm and collectedness, and you continue: "I am the one that should apologize."
She looks at you positively bewildered. "What would you possibly have to apologize for, Jane?"
You fiddle with her sheets instead of meeting her gaze directly. "Well, I should have been there... when y'know, it happened... why didn't I just stay the night for God's sake", you almost berate yourself, your voice an angry self-accusation that you could cut the air with.
"Jane". That one word already says it all, it somehow reveals all of her emotions, so soft and gentle does she speak it, but she continues nevertheless, "You are the best friend I've ever had, and you immediately came rushing to my side and you even sat with me when I – while..." There is no need to finish the sentence. Not even the most pedantic ME in the entire world can wear her mask of flawless professionalism 24/7. Right now, she simply is Maura Isles, a woman grieving another loss. Another version of her future gone, another disappointment she will somehow have to carry with her from now on, its weight crashing her down without anyone seeing. Anyone but you, that is.
You reach for her hand blindly; you find it effortlessly. Her skin is so wonderfully soft. It feels better than holding hands with a man, and you've even told her so once; she laughed easily in response and and told you why skincare is so important and that she could recommend some top-notch products but when you politely declined, she shook her head at herself and told you: "You know what, you wouldn't even need them, your hands already feel really nice." You could tell that she meant it despite the scars on your palms.
"Where's Angela?", Maura now asks after several minutes of silence and you truthfully tell her that the doctors would only allow one visitor today and that you both decided it shoul be you, not her.
She squeezes your hand a little at this. "It is good to see you", she admits. "Thank you for staying here for so long. I know how much you detest waiting."
You chance a curious look at her because how is she real? How can she be so kind, so unfailingly polite, so generous when everyone else in her situation would probably just throw a violent fit or totally shut down.
"I hate not being able to do anything to make you feel better much more", you admit and you know that her eyes well up with unshed tears before you even properly look at her again.
"Oh, Jane – your presence already helps. I used to be so alone before I got to know you – nobody would have been there for me, but you – you came rushing to me in a heartbeat", she says, almost amazed.
"I am so sorry for your loss", you repeat your earlier words. They come out muffled and hoearse because as much as you feel the need to say them, you are well aware that that is nothing that could actually ease her pain and also, haven't these words been said so often over the course of history that they already lost any meaning attached to them an eternity ago?
She does seem grateful to hear them, though. After a few minutes that pass in silence, you quietly ask her if she is feeling okay, physically.
She shrugs. "It was worse than the first two, but there is no need to worry, I-"
It takes you a moment to fully process the syllabylles she has just spoken. "The first two?", you echo, thinking that maybe, just maybe, you misheard.
She closes her eyes in defeat. "Yes, Jane. I am so sorry I did not tell you about the first one – back then, I told nobody. I am not a superstitious person, but – well, there was this illogical part of me that did not want to jinx it." A mirthless laugh slips across her dry lips and makes her wince in discomfort; it must have caused a spasm of pain in her body from the way she quickly places one of her hands on her lower abdomen while her face contorts once more.
You fight against the nonsensical feeling of betrayal; it's not like your friendship makes you entitled to every single detail in her personal life. And yet, you cannot entirely shake feeling like a failure at Maura's confession. Didn't you promise yourself to always be her safe place, the one person she could turn to whatever the circumstances?
"But – you can't lie", you state the obvious.
"Jane – I didn't exactly lie. I just didn't tell you about the pregnancy and you didn't ask. Also, I did want to tell you. So badly", she replies as if being able to read your mind, but after all these years of friendship, of course she knows the train of thoughts currently running wild in your brain.
You do not wish to worsen her agony by selfishly acting out like a spoiled child. You force yourself to tell her it's okay. You do know that while you generally are the more private of the two of you, there are things she wants to keep to herself, too, as is her right.
You stay with her until she starts to drift in and out of a fitful, light sleep. You would stay longer, the whole night in fact, if not for the stern, bespectacled nurse who finally ushers you out of your best friend's hospital room.
You pull out your cell on the elevator ride down and call your Ma to tell her how Maura is doing. She informs you that Sunday dinner at Maura's place is cancelled; she's been way too agitated all day and way too worried to dive into the normal process of elaborate meal-preparations.
You are glad she called it off, you are way past being exhausted. Besides, having dinner with your family but without Maura would feel...wrong. Your mother voices your exact thoughts. "She's family, Janie. I know I'm not her mother, but-"
You cut her off decisively. "No, Ma, it's fine. It's fine. You are like a mother to her. She once told me so herself."
You aren't normally this sweet with your mother, but you do know that she is almost as worried abou Maura Isles as you are. It is comforting to know that she has people rooting for her. She deserves it.
A/N: This idea for a Rizzles story just wouldn't leave me alone, so I decided to start putting it into actual words! Ofc, I'll still continue my first story, a Rolivia love story set within the "Law & Order: SVU" universe! I'll try to update both stories regularly, but there are always ups and downs with my motivation for writing (and the actual time I can put into it), but well – I don't even know yet if anyone is interested in this Rizzles story, so I'm getting ahead of myself I guess...
