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.
For full disclaimers, please refer to the first chapter.
Chapter 3
"Congenital heart disease, Maura. There was nothing that could have been done." Kent explained quietly to the pained woman pacing the autopsy room.
He had tried to prevent her from being there – she didn't need to see this, after all.
He had tried to console her on their way here – to no avail.
And now he understood why – she was blaming herself.
"It could if I had noticed it before…" Maura voice sounded broken and high-pitched. She felt like a caged animal that had been hurt.
"Maura, you know that is not how it works. Unless she had any symptoms, you would have no way to figure it out."
Maura just shook her head, tears streaming through her face unashamedly. "I can't…" She shook her head again, grabbing her purse and leaving the room more quickly than Kent could stop her.
"Maura?..." he still called behind her, but he could hear her heels already on the stairs.
He shook his head, discouraged, and just hoped that Jane and her family could help Maura see things more clearly. And then he went back to finish what he had started.
Maura hailed a cab, and gave her address. She could not control her sobs. The pain was unbearable. She had failed her daughter. She had failed Jane. She had failed herself. And she had failed the entire family. She wanted to disappear. To dissolve in thin air. Not to be any longer. Maybe that would stop the pain. Anything that could stop the pain.
The house was empty, and she thanked a God she didn't believe into for it. She couldn't face anyone. Not now. Not ever again. She looked at her medical bag. A precise cut from a scalpel and all would be over quickly – she could join Mia. But she shook her head – nobody needed to deal with her drama in the middle of all that. She had caused enough damage already. She could always do it in a different place where nobody would ever know and never see the bloody outcome.
She quickly scribbled a letter to Jane, tears blurring her eyes and hastily finding their way to the paper, smudging some sentences. Unsure where to place it, she opted for the inside of the pillowcase. Jane would find it when she finally had a chance to lay down later that day.
Maura collected a few things in a handbag, her documents, her electronics, a change of clothes, and walked out of the house, just to see Angela stepping out of a cab.
Angela tried to approach Maura, but Maura just shook her head, keeping her distance, and repeating "I am sorry… I can't… I can't…", before she entered the same cab Angela had just stepped out of, leaving a stunned Angela behind.
"To the airport." Maura managed to sob.
She didn't remember the ride to the airport, crying the entire time. The cab driver had to touch her knee to get her to pay attention to him when they had been stopped for a couple of minutes already by the curbside of the airport departures area.
She handed him a hundred-dollar bill, more than double the fare, but didn't wait for the change. She walked to the counter.
"Quickest option to get to Paris…" she managed to ask, between sobs.
"A flight departs in two hours, ma'am."
"First class." Maura handed her credit card. She needed the solitude of a seat without neighbors. Where nobody would see or ask her anything.
"Are you sure you are okay, ma'am?" the employee handed her the ticket, concerned, after pointing her out to the priority security checkpoint and the first-class lounge.
Maura just nodded. She was far from being okay. But there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Again, she didn't recall how she passed through security, but she found herself on a quiet corner of the lounge, where she turned her chair to the wall and let her sobs shake her thin frame.
And employee came to find her.
"Boarding for your flight is about to close, Dr. Isles." He offered, concerned with the state of devastation the woman in front of him was at.
She nodded, grabbing her handbag, and following him, her feet unsteady. He had to support her elbow a few times on the way to prevent her from falling.
Maura was the last one to board, and she had barely fastened her seatbelt when the plane began taxiing. She closed the privacy door for her seat, marking the button not to be disturbed, leaned against the window, and let her pain, grief and guilt consume her.
When they landed in Paris almost eight hours later, she felt disoriented, dehydrated, and empty. It was almost as if the contours of her body had blurred, and there was only this splash of raw pain and grief and guilt that remained instead of her being.
She vaguely recalled going through the French immigration. It was after midnight when she landed in Paris, and the streets were blissfully empty as the taxi took her to the small apartment her parents had always kept in the capital.
"Mademoiselle Isles, I was not expecting you." The porter offered in French, panicking. She always gave notice so they could clean and stock the apartment. "Mademoiselle Isles?" He asked, concern on his voice seeing her devastated appearance.
"Merci, Philippe. I am just spending a couple of nights." She managed to respond in French, quickly escaping his scrutiny to the elevator.
She entered the quiet and dark apartment. The Avenue of the Champs Elysees was right below the veranda. The veranda was high enough, she thought… A jump from there would certainly do the trick. But, again, she thought of all the commotion and damage to other people living in the building. It seemed to her all her options to end her pain quickly would cause damage and commotion to someone else.
She sighed exhausted, curling up in bed. She wanted Mia. She craved Jane. She had lost both of them. And she would never have them again. She wailed out loud. Maybe pain and grief and guilt would finally swallow her whole if she just surrendered herself to them…
Only they didn't. At first light in the day, she crawled to the kitchen, her body craving water, before she laid down on the sofa, too weak even to get back to the bedroom. Disappear. How could she disappear? She needed to disappear.
She fell asleep, feverishly, exhaustion taking over her body that had been grieving for more than twenty-four hours uninterruptedly. And she found herself in the empty desert spaces of the savannah. Working. And walking through the scorching sun, from small village to small village separated by endless miles of deserted land. Until she vanished in a cloud of sand. She woke up with a startle, and she knew what she had to do.
She sent her resignation letter to the governor. She sent her instructions to her lawyers. And she entered the website to apply for her new destination, buying her one-way ticket. Maura had found the perfect way to vanish out in thin air without causing any commotion to anyone else.