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 15

"Do you know where they put my backpack?"

Maura opened a locker by the side of the room – similar to the one that had been in hers – and retrieved Jane's backpack from there. Besides it, there was a plastic bag with Jane's dirty and bloodied clothes and boots.

"Here…"

"Open it… You should find a cardboard envelope…"

"And an album? Jane! Where did you get these?" Maura raised hazel eyes welled in touched tears at Jane.

"When I was looking for food… I saw this picture among the broken glass in the floor of the library, and the album was in the office."

Maura touched the picture and the album reverently.

"Most of our pictures are in the French properties. But they always kept the pictures taken in Switzerland there…"

"I didn't see others…" Jane apologized.

"I don't know if there were others, Jane. This…" And Maura touched the envelope and the album. "… This is already a gift bigger than I imagined could be retrieved from that mess… Thank you…"

The doctor chose that moment to enter the room, bringing the envelope with the image exams.

"Good morning, ladies." He offered politely. "I have good news." He continued, opening the envelopes and handing the images to Maura, who raised them against the light in the ceiling.

"The bleeding stopped!"

"Not only that, but it seems that whatever bleeding happened ended up drained through the cut, we couldn't find any remnant of a subdural hematoma." He approached Maura to look again at the image against the light.

"Correct, I also cannot see any sign of a hematoma."

"For the only non-MD in the room, is that good or is that bad?"

"It is really good…" Maura smiled gently at Jane.

"And here are her lungs. She still has some inflammation, but there is no sign of infection."

Maura breathed more relieved. After how battered Jane's body had been these past few days, in the limit of starvation, she didn't want the added complication of pneumonia.

"Can I leave the hospital now, then?" Jane asked, enthusiastically, and the doctor looked puzzled at Maura.

"Jane, although these are both exceptional news, you are still very weak. You took your body to the very limits of endurance…"

"All it means is that you can remain in this regular room. I anticipate, from your blood tests, that in another two or three days we can let you go. It will all depend on how your body recover its normal basic blood levels."

"Two or three days?" Jane whined, and Maura chuckled before thanking the doctor, who left them.

"How are you really feeling?" Maura inquired gently, moving to sit closer to Jane's bed.

"Like I could use a vacation in a very, very warm and sunny place, preferably by the beach, without having to move a finger…" she sighed, wearily.

"We should definitely arrange for that…" Maura chuckled.

"And how are you feeling?" Jane turned her attention to Maura.

"Could I join you in your vacation?" Maura teased, but Jane had seen the somber shadow that crossed her face before the studied façade was in place.

"Always…" Jane squeezed Maura's hand gently. "But I am serious, now…" She looked expectantly at Maura's face.

Maura sighed, and shrugged. "I honestly don't know how I am feeling, Jane, or how I am supposed to feel…"

Jane nodded, understanding. She remembered being in a similar situation when she had a miscarriage. Everything was so confusing…

Jane yawned. "Sorry…"

"Don't apologize. You are still in recovery, and you need to rest."

"But sleep is all I have been doing…"

Maura sighed, compassionately, while she lowered Jane's bed rest. "You have been on the brink of death, Jane… You put your body to its limit. It will take a while for you to feel back to your prime again…"

Jane nodded, her eyelids heavy.

"Don't fight it, Jane. Just relax and sleep." Maura whispered, her hand smoothing back Jane's curls.

In no time Jane was snoring lightly. Maura dimmed the lights, before finding a place to sit, and to be with her own thoughts for a while.

There was so much going on in her mind…

She was grieving for her parents. Only in recent years, since they met Jane, they had begun to change their relationship with Maura. It had been great while it lasted. And Maura felt sorry it wouldn't last longer. She was so grateful for them having adopted and raised her, given her all the opportunities she had in life, and she had learned that they loved her in their own reserved, detached and aloof way. There was still so much she hoped to explore and learn from them… But not anymore…

She was struggling with how to feel about killing a man. She had never killed before. The two times she had voluntarily drawn blood before she had felt really guilty. First with Leahy on the Boston strangler case. Then in the case of wolf boy. Both times she had used a scalpel. This time, she had used a pocketknife blade. This time, she had gone for the kill, no hesitation, actually consciously assessing and executing the best move to be as effective as she could in the kill. And although she had killed a man, allowing him to suffer for long agonizing moments while paralyzed and bleeding on the floor, she felt absolutely no remorse. She didn't feel any pleasure either.

Then came how she felt about Jane… Maura looked at the bed, where Jane was sleeping, unsuspecting of all that was going on inside Maura's head. She was still pale and it would take days until the haggard appearance she had acquired with all the effort of the past week would go away. Maura was not surprised at all that Jane had sacrificed herself for Maura. In the ten years they knew each other, Maura had lost count of the times Jane had put Maura's wellbeing first, even when it put Jane herself at risk. But she had been utterly surprised by how she felt – and how Jane reacted – when her tentative of CPR turned into an unexpected accidental kiss.

If Maura was honest with herself, that was the only brief moment since all this nightmare had begun that she felt good – in that fraction of a second her world righted itself in its axis, and she felt safe and protected and loved. Love… She knew she loved Jane. But realizing she had also been in love with Jane was too huge to grasp – although true. Maura had scrambled her thoughts and her memory to try to understand where the change began, but she couldn't – it was almost as if it was always there, just waiting and lurking beneath the surface. And Maura felt terrified about losing Jane, her straight best friend, if she ever suspected Maura's feelings had evolved from best friends to something more…

And for the first time consciously Maura thought about the complete failure of her mission. It had been eating at her since things began to derail. But now, physically sound, fed, rested, she could see that even if her parents had not been killed, her plan would likely have killed them. There was no way they could have faced the hardships she and Jane endured and have survived. It had almost costed Maura's and Jane's lives. Maura had to fight her guilty tears.