A/N: This is my first R&I fic, hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing. I don't own any of the characters; they belong to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro and TNT.

In Dreams

Chapter One

Every time Maura closed her eyes, all she could see were images of Jane struggling in Bobby Marino's ruthless grasp before turning the gun and firing a shot at him through her own body. The thought that haunted Maura was that Korsak, Frost and even Jane and Frankie's parents would think she had abandoned them in the hospital waiting room. This was not so, but only Maura and those who had taken her captive knew the truth.

She had been lying in a small rowboat in the middle of Boston Harbor long enough to be thoroughly numb with the cold, only made worse by icy-feeling rain pouring down upon her in the dead of night. Even though it was early autumn, it felt like the middle of November. She fought to keep her eyes open as long as possible, knowing hypothermia would become inevitable sooner or later. If I can just hold on long enough, she thought, someone will find me. Come on, Korsak, Frost, someone. You know I would never leave my friends when they need me the most. When they need all of us together.

There were no other boats in the harbor, and Maura couldn't remember ever feeling more alone. She kept looking up at the dark moonless sky, the falling rain mixing with her tears as she tried to focus on how to survive instead of what had happened earlier in the day. The ocean and raindrops together had somewhat lightened the bloodstains on her dress, but they were also stealing the color from the rest of her world as things grew darker and dimmer. Were Jane and Frankie even alive? Would she ever see them again?

As the rain continued to fall, Maura kept her gaze fixed on the sky, hoping in vain for a break in the clouds. She shivered so fiercely that the boat moved a bit from side to side. Her thoughts were becoming fuzzier as the night wore on. Even the terrible visions of he standoff were beginning to grow more distant, an observation that caused a feeling of alarm, given her encyclopedic medical knowledge. What may have been a few minutes or hours later, her eyes had almost closed altogether when an eerie flash of light suddenly filled the sky.

7 Hours Earlier

After the chaos of Jane's rash move to stop Marino, Maura sat silently in the hospital waiting room with Korsak and Frost. Korsak was stirring his coffee without bothering to look down, and Frost was pacing back and forth from the bank of chairs to the two-story window on the other side of the room.

"How long has she been in surgery?" Korsak asked absently.

"Two hours," Maura said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "That doesn't necessarily mean good or bad news, though. The duration of the surgery could be due to the extensive damage, depending on the trajectory of the bullet, causing them to need extra time, or..." She couldn't bring herself to even think of the possibilities, so she stopped speaking and tried to block out the images that filled her mind. Normally she could objectively assess every possibility and analyze it for likelihood and statistics, but this day had been different from anything she had ever experienced. Maura glanced down at her coral and white dress, still covered in the darkening stains of Jane's blood.

Staring at the outline of the bloodstains, Maura felt the room begin to spin around her as she tried to choke back the tears that threatened to undo every last vestige of composure she had worked so hard to keep throughout the day. Suddenly she knew she could not stay in the waiting room for another millisecond. "Going outside for a minute," She muttered as she stood up and left the waiting area as quickly as possible. Korsak and Frost nodded in understanding, barely looking up.

As she pushed the door to the parking lot open, Maura was instantly, if only temporarily, relieved to be alone. Without anyone else to see, she could let her tears fall freely. She didn't notice that it had started to rain as she leaned against the building, head turned away from the mostly empty parking lot. Nor did she notice the two men who crept up to her side until it was too late. She didn't have time to scream or cry out before one of them had started to drag her away, pressing a chloroformed rag to her face. She fought to stay awake and out of the darkness that threatened to take her over, but it came anyway. The last sensation she felt was a syringe in the side of her neck, speeding her descent into unconsciousness.