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 4
Maura was agonizing over the flight delay. Her first-class ticket on the red eye, intended for some rest, turned into long hours of grief. She could not believe Angela was gone… Her other mother… The mother she felt the closest to. She let her tears fall. When she had left for California ten days earlier, Angela was packing for the trip.
"I have never been a fan of road trips… Frank Sr. would always get very cranky with three kids creating havoc in the back seat…" She had told Maura.
"But Ron is not Frank Sr. And you are not going with three kids, Angela. I am sure you will enjoy the ability of stopping whenever you feel like on your way. It is very freeing…"
If Jane felt guilty by incentivizing Angela, Maura should be blamed too. But Maura knew it was nobody's fault. It was an accident, a stupid car accident, just like the one that had robbed Frost from them all those years back.
The difference, of course, was that Frost had planned the road trip, and was excited for it. Angela had been on the fence until the very last minute.
Maura sighed.
And Jane… Just thinking of Jane's battered face during their video call… Maura didn't ever recall Jane being that beaten up, in all her years in BPD. Not even when she was beaten up by the perp when she was pregnant of Casey and suffered a miscarriage. Maura knew it was only because every time before, Jane was fighting, defending herself and other victims. This time, Maura was sure that Jane simply allowed things to happen, consciously or subconsciously thinking that she deserved the beating as punishment. It made Maura feel sick, and she had to sip her water and close her eyes until her nausea subsided.
She tried to focus her thoughts on Angela, her own attempt at a personal memorial of the strong and gentle woman who always treated her like a daughter, with a warmth not her adoptive neither her biological mother ever displayed towards her. Lulled by her own tears, she fell to a fitful sleep.
(…)
Pounding. Someone was kicking and pounding inside her head. Jane felt nauseous, but she had nothing to throw up. She forced herself to open her eyes, and in the fuzzy light of dawn she saw the clock showing 5.43AM. The painkillers they had given her were beginning to wear out. Good. She would be able to be awake for long enough for the burial at 9AM.
"Nina?" she tried, not recognizing her own hoarse voice.
Nina startled on the armchair where she had been precariously sleeping.
"Good morning, Jane… How are you feeling?"
"Awake." Jane urged Nina with her chocolate brown eyes.
"The doctor was not at all happy with your idea, Jane. Neither is Frankie. Or I, for that matter."
"Promise… Only… For… Burial…" Jane coughed, and Nina offered her a cup with a straw.
"Please?" Jane was begging, and Nina knew she had never seen her sister-in-law begging.
"I have the papers. But I will not sign them, Jane. You will. If you can't, obviously you can't leave."
Jane nodded. It was only fair. Nina brought the clipboard by Jane's hand, and gave her a pen. Luckily the wrist that she had broken had been the right one. Jane fumbled with the pen for a moment, and took another moment to adjust her dizzying eyes to the lines on the paper, before she signed it with her signature scrabble.
"There…" she raised her eyes to Nina.
Nina could see the effort Jane was making. Nina was sure this was not going cheaply on Jane's battered body. But Nina could understand that missing her mother's burial was not an option.
"I stopped home to grab a change of clothes for me, and I got some for you from your bag from Maura's home. Your clothes from yesterday were bloodied." Nina explained, picking a pair of slacks and a black t-shirt for Jane. She had to help Jane to change, and was sickened by the extension of the black bruising. It was mostly concentrated on Jane's upper torso, but there was some level of bruising everywhere.
Jane swayed to stand.
"You will need to agree to the wheelchair at least until the car." Nina insisted.
When Jane just accepted the wheelchair suggestion without even putting up a fight, Nina began to realize the real extent of Jane's pain. And she began to wonder if Jane would ever make through the burial still conscious.
Nina just texted Maura, who should be landing in another half an hour, to let her know Jane had left the hospital temporarily A.M.A., and asking her to go directly to the funeral home. And then she drove Jane there. She had picked her car when she stopped home overnight, to drive to Maura's house and then to the hospital, so she and Frankie could both be mobile as needed.
Frankie was waiting for them on the front door, Nina having texted him when she was five minutes away.
"Jane… You should not be here…" Frankie inspected his sister, scared by how beaten up she looked.
"Just… for… burial…" Jane spoke, extending an arm to hold on to his to try to get out of the car.
She swayed, feeling dizzy and nauseous with the splitting headache and the overall pain in her body, and he offered his support until she steadied herself.
"Pop? Tommy?" Jane asked him.
"Cavannagh will bring them in time for the burial." Was all that Frankie offered, his jaw locked in an angry expression.
Jane nodded, and concentrated into the slow walk inside the funeral home, Frankie carrying more of her weight than she did herself, while Frankie held back all family from pestering Jane, and placed a chair for her close to the head of the casket.
(…)
The plane had barely touched down when Maura turned on her phone. She sighed frustrated with Nina's message. But being honest with herself, and knowing Jane for ten years, she should not have expected anything different from her best friend. Nothing would keep Jane away from Angela in these last moments, save for a coma.
Maura got out of the plane and out of the airport as quickly as humanly possible, and headed straight to the funeral home, where she left her luggage by the reception.
The place was flowing with family, several of them Maura had met on one occasion or another along the past ten years, some were complete strangers.
She spotted Frankie and Nina.
"I am so sorry…" Maura hugged Frankie.
"We all are, Maura… She loved you like a daughter, you know that…" Frankie cupped Maura's tear-stricken face.
Maura nodded. "And I loved her like a mother, Frankie. The one mother really close to me… Where is Jane?"
