At first, when she arrives, she feels empty. She feels as though she simply cannot pick up and start over one more time. The house she has chosen looks out over the white sand of the beach, and the clear stunning blue of the ocean, but the inside of the house is grey.

She fills it with furniture, and then, because it feels like she is trying to crowd out a ghost, she removes half of it. She spends four days rearranging furniture, and then, when she is satisfied, but still empty, she gets a job doing peer reviews for an insurance company over four hundred miles away. The work is dull, and not difficult, but it fills the days.

For almost two months, her life goes on like this. She is impervious to the beauty of the ocean outside her door. She does not hear the waves or smell the way the air is always scented with sea salt and lavender. She wakes up, does her work, eats because she knows her body needs her too, and goes to bed.

For seven full weeks, she manages to hold onto hope simply by telling herself that she is barely a third of the way through the time span it took for Jane to return last time.

And then they begin to come, And Maura's life is reignited.

...

…...

Maura doesn't want her to go in. She can feel the doctor's resistance from the moment they pull up to the scene, and when she opens the door on her side and moves to get out of the car, Maura grabs her upper arm to hold her back. Jane turns to look at her, and even if Maura wasn't pushing such desperation and fear, the Invictu would be able to read it in her eyes.

[Don't go in there.]

Jane shakes her head, and Maura's grip tightens around her bicep, the desperation she is pushing melting slowly into terror. [Jane. Don't go in there. Let the police handle him.]

The brunette doesn't have to scoff out loud to convey what she thinks of that statement.

[No one can handle him.] She tries to make the feeling that goes along with this simply factual, but Maura still shudders a little as Jane finishes. [No one but me.]

They'd arrested Pazerretti for the murder of Frank Rizzoli. Korsak had told them on their way to the precinct. They'd come and taken him from the crime scene, and he had gone peaceably at the time, saying nothing.

"They put him in a holding cell," Korsak had glanced at Maura and Jane in the rearview mirror, "to wait for questioning. They had no reason to believe he was anything but a deranged murderer. Pazerretti doesn't exist anymore. Jane doesn't really exist. There was no reason to be suspicious."

And the brunette had grabbed at her head as something white hot and sharp like a needle had shot through her brain.

"Well," she'd said, leaning to the side and pressing her forehead against Maura's neck, an attempt to hold Pazerretti off. "He's not in that cell anymore."

Now they sit together in the back of Korsak's squad car, Jane's head pressed firmly into Maura's shoulder while the doctor tries to convince her to stay.

"Please," Maura's voice, when she speaks out loud, has a way of cutting directly through the brunette. "Please," Maura says again, like she knows what her tone is doing. "I love you more than he ever will. Than he ever could."

Yes. Yes, and that is why she has to go. That is why she has to go in there and face Him. That is why she cannot keep running.

She opens her mouth to tell Maura this, that she understands now what love is, and that there is no way she's going to give it up, but at that moment the four SWAT members that are heading up the front steps of the precinct are tossed back like they're attached to bungee cords. And Jane doubles over in the back of the cruiser, pressing her back into the passenger seat in an attempt to stifle her groan of pain. Maura can hear Pazerretti in her own head this time, insistent and furious. Demanding.

[JANE.]

As soon as it's passed, she unfolds herself from the back of the car, heading towards the great double doors of the precinct. She can feel Maura struggling out after her, calling her name, her voice increasingly panic stricken.

And she shouldn't do it, because she doesn't know if it's true. She shouldn't promise what she can't guarantee, but that is her doctor stumbling after her, starting to cry, and so she turns around and she wraps Maura up in her arms.

[Be strong].

And in her arms the blonde is trembling. She pushes rage and fear so intertwined that it is almost impossible to tell one from the other. "No," she cries. "Don't do this to me. Don't do this to me again. I cannot live without you. He might have been your first. You might think you owe him something, but I. cannot. breathe. without you. Don't you get it?"

It almost breaks her, that voice. It almost rips her apart on the spot. But Pazerretti will not wait much longer, and she has to go. She has to.

When her lips touch the doctor's, half of her is pleasure and the other half is pain. Searing, scorching pain, and she knows that Pazerretti's hold over her can only grow, can only destroy.

"I cannot die...with you." Jane tries to push it with as much conviction as she can. Even if it isn't true, even if it doesn't work, she owes the doctor this much. "I'm in you. Trust it."

Maura looks up into her face, her green eyes watery and afraid and...strong.

And she lets Jane go.

...

…...

They come slowly, like wanderers, and Maura does not realize that she was expecting them until they arrive. Korsak comes first, travel bag over one arm, wiry little dog tucked safely under the other. She has not seen him in anything other than business casual, and she smiles when she sees him heading up the long winding path to her house, jeans rolled up above the ankle.

He doesn't knock, but pushes the door open onto the little living room and looks around, his own face breaking into a smile when he sees her.

They embrace without talking, and Korsak lets the little dog down to sniff around the house. They stand there, in the light from the windows, smiling, and Maura realizes that this is just the beginning. That more will show up.

That she will show up. Eventually.

"There's a two bedroom, half a mile back that way," Korsak says, and Maura knows that he expects more too. She knows the place he's talking about, she's seen it on her walks around the little town, registered it as a viable option without realizing that's what she was doing.

She nods. "Yes," she says, "But for now...come into the kitchen and get a drink."

He smiles as he follows her through the little hall that connects the living room and kitchen.

"Only get here by boat," he says, sounding fake bitter. "Ridiculous."

Maura smiles into the cabinet as she grabs two coffee cups from the top shelf.

"The water looked calm today though," she says, "You can't have had that rough a trip."

There is a brief silence, like Korsak is weighing the next sentence on his tongue. "Do you think it will be...when she comes? The ocean, I mean."

Maura's smile can only widen. It is a beautiful thing to imagine, the sea pitching and rolling, unsettled and choppy. Or even just the big blue expanse parting all together, revealing her Invictu. Home at last.

"I don't know, Vince," she says after a moment. "We'll have to wait and see."

...

…..

When she finds him, he is in the middle of the bullpen, sitting on a desk, his fingers pressed together like he's praying. But she knows for a fact that he does not believe in any God but himself. She stands looking at him, and after all this time of thinking that he was dead, of thinking that she was directly responsible for his death, the sight of him fills her with a combination of euphoria and fury.

He looks up from his lap and meets her eyes. He smiles at her, and she is filled with his joy and his relief. He believes she has come to him so that he can save her, like before. He stands up and holds out his hands to her, and she steps back.

[Don't be afraid] he touches the burned and scarred half of his face [It does not hurt. And you will get used to it] The way he pushes these things at her, she does not like it. Even as he tries for gentle and reassuring he feels harsh and aggressive. Was it always like this, and she now has someone to compare him to? Like a wave of nausea, she feels Maura outside, reaching for her, trying to tell if she is okay.

[We will get out of here] he takes a step closer to her and this time she doesn't move away. [We will get out of here, and I will fix you.] Excitement. Anticipation. [And it will hurt for a moment, Jane, but then it will be wonderful.] He is close enough to her now that he could take her in his arms. She knows that he wants to by the way his muscles flex. But he doesn't move, and she knows that he has felt her resistance too.

[That's what you want, Jane] he says, and this time, when he pushes, there is more than a subtle edge of suggestion. He is compelling her. [This is what you want. To belong to just one person.]

She narrows her eyes at him, still not moving away. He does not scare her, not anymore.

"I've already chosen the person I want to belong to," she says icily, and his eyes widen at her voice, at the fact that she is speaking to him. "I've already chosen," she says again, "I've come to tell you that."

[You've come to tell me] his refusal to speak to her is as telling as her refusal to respond to him in the customary way. [You've come to TELL me...that you've chosen that doctor over me?]

Jane swallows, but nods, not looking away.

He imitates her, nodding seriously, his lips pursed [And you thought I would just accept it and move on. Stop reaching for you, and let you live your life with the person you have chosen?]

It is pushed too reasonably to be anything but the precursor to pain. Jane knows this instinctually, the way she came to expect a beating whenever she accidentally called out for her mother after a nightmare.

She looks at him. No, he was never gentle with her. He was never with her at all, not the way Maura was.

"You don't love me," She wants it to come out of her mouth like a declaration, but it comes instead like a realization. "You don't love me. I am the greatest thing you ever created, and that is all."

The words have not even left her completely when he steps forward and grabs her hair. He grabs her, and she can feel him pulling, and she can hear muffled screams from outside, the clatter of wood on concrete.

[That's right] he is inside of her head. He is rifling through her memories from the past year without him. He is pushing the doctor aside, and she hates him. She hates him.

[I created you.] Possession, ugly and forceful. Almost impossible to resist. [You are mine]

And he jerks her forward, towards the door, reaching back to grab something off of the desk. And only when he's used her to blow the front doors off the precinct, does she see what it is, glinting in the sun.

And she loves Maura Isles with every inch of her body, and every millimeter of her brain, even the parts that Pazerretti claims to own. She would spare her doctor pain and suffering no matter the cost. She would die for her.

She would DIE for her.

She would.

[MAURA!] She reaches. It is her last chance. It is their only chance. [SAVE ME]

He pulls her closer, and he looks at her, eyes wide and confused. He has felt her reach, and he has seen the image she pushed through to the doctor.

She looks back at him, determined. She bares her teeth and she sends it again.

[Do it. Do it. Maura, Save me]

They can both hear the groan of the spire nearby as it bends under her will. Under Maura's will.

She watches realization begin to creep over his features, watches him look out into the crowd at the doctor, and then back down...at her Invictu.

"Jane," it's out of his mouth like a plea, maybe like an apology, she cannot be sure because at the same moment she feels the cold metal of the spire pierce her skin.

And she is all fire, and all ice.

And then she is nothing at all.

...

…..

It's Barry Frost's idea to whitewash the interior of her house. He and Maura and Frankie spend an afternoon pushing all of her furniture into the middle of the room, and then the entire next day painting. Maura realizes that their arrival makes her lighter, and when Frankie "accidentally" rolls a wide white stripe down the back of Frost's t-shirt, she really laughs.

It seems fitting that they should arrive ahead of her, and Maura welcomes them with hugs, the same as she did Korsak. In none of her previous lives was she such a hugger, but now, after the two months spent alone here, and the almost four since Korsak arrived, she finds that human contact both strengthens her and keeps her sane.

And when Angela arrives, there is no shortage of contact. She moves into Maura's spare bedroom ("Just until you're not alone anymore, Maura") and she is as affectionate as her daughter was, running a hand along Maura's shoulders in the kitchen, or linking their arms together when they walk the beach.

"I got caught up," she says, when Frankie asks her what took her so long to arrive. "I got caught up with...arrangements." Her eyes go a little misty "I mean...he was her father," she says thickly, "and he deserved some kind of send off."

Maura lays her hand over the older woman's on the counter, and Angela seems to shake herself. "Anyway," she continues after a moment, "I'm not late."

What she means that Jane is not there yet, and so she has not missed anything.

They do not say her name, but they settle into life on the island because they all know that they will stay. She has brought them there because she is going to return to them, of this there can be no question.

"How long was it?" Frankie asks one day. He's found Maura on her back porch, finishing the medical review for the insurance company she now works for. She looks up at him, mind still half on her work.

"Hmm?"

"How long was it?" He asks again. "The last time...for you."

Maura sighs, looking out at the ocean, clouded over today like it's going to storm. "Six months,"

Frankie sits down in the chair next to hers. "It's been longer than that," he says simply.

The doctor nods, but doesn't take her eyes off the water. "Be patient."

...

…...

She wakes up the feeling of Maura's hands on her skin, like she's just been sleeping, and the Doctor has caressed her to wake her up. She wakes up with the words pressed against her lips, still warm.

Go. And then come back.

She sits up, suddenly aware that she is naked, and then aware that she is cold, that she is surrounded by cold. She shakes her head, then her shoulders, then pulls her knees up to her chest, and as she does these things, the names for each limb returns. She makes a fist and at once they are fingers pressing into her palms. Understanding comes at once, like a rush, she has done what the doctor asked of her. She has come back.

But did she come back alone?

She looks around her, at the shelves and shelves and rows and rows, and the name comes without much bidding. Cold storage. She pushes the sheet off of herself and moves to stand on wobbly legs. As soon as she is steady, she sets to work. She does not know how she knows, but she knows that he will be here, underneath one of these sheets. She pulls back cover after cover: man, woman, man, man, woman...ah.

There he is.

For a while she just stares at him, eyes closed, mouth in a thin, straight line. She recognizes the set of those lips as an expression he would wear when she had done something particularly juvenile, and he believed she was acting below her maturity level.

She looks at him, waiting for him to jerk and gasp back into life, waiting for his hands to shoot out and wrap around her neck, waiting for him to tell her she belongs to him, and no one else.

Nothing happens.

She looks down at him, lip between her teeth. [Wake up] she orders firmly, and she reaches for him, trying to wrap herself around part of his mind, the way she used to when she was very young, and he was her savior. [Wake up] she says again, and there are tears in her eyes, angry tears that she does not want. [Why couldn't you just let me go?] she is pushing nothing nowhere. He does not respond, he cannot. So she opens her mouth, so at least the words will have somewhere to go instead of reverberating uselessly in her head. "Why couldn't you just let me go?" She asks again, quietly, like a prayer.

"Why couldn't you have stayed kind and been happy that I loved her?"

Her.

It is like a flame erupts inside of her, burning for all one thing. Jane turns away from Pazerretti's body, and almost immediately the pull is there, steady and reassuring, around her ribcage like a tie.

She's smiling fully before she knows the word for what her mouth is doing, moving before she knows what walking is.

She does not look back.

.

She pulls them as she remembers them, as they come back to her. Her doctor is already there, has already gone and found herself a home tucked against the cliffs and looking out over the ocean. She is already waiting, so when Jane can remember their lives, when she can feel Korsak and Frost, then Frankie and her mother, she tugs them gently. She pushes them towards the ocean.

They go without a lot of prodding, like they've been waiting, and Frost even smiles on the boat, when the little island comes into view. He smiles and rolls his eyes, mouthing her name without speaking out loud. She is on the road by then, slower than the time before, a little hazier, but moving, and she smiles at the image of him, saying her name.

She likes the idea of them surrounding her girlfriend, keeping her safe and grounded and company. When the doctor falls asleep, Jane reaches out and holds her. She is many many miles away, and she is not as strong as she has been or will be, but she uses what she has to visit Maura in her sleep.

[I'm coming.]

And although she doesn't really remember what has happened when she opens her eyes, she usually wakes up with the ends of a smile.

She always answers.

[I know.]

...

…..

She wakes up and it is the day.

She pushes the covers back and swings her feet out of bed, and when she stands up she feels dizzy, like she has taken too deep a breath. Like she has too much oxygen in her system. Everything in the bedroom looks shiny, looks special and perfect and ready. It is this day. She knows it.

She has trouble with buttons. There is one on the fly of her jeans, and a half dozen on the overshirt she chooses from the closet. Her fingers are trembling like they belong to someone else. She cannot make them obey.

There is no one in the kitchen and the living room is empty, but Maura grins at the vacant rooms like they are the backs of people she will never have to see again. She throws the curtains back from the picture window behind the couch and nearly claps her hands together in excitement. The day is sunny and bright, and the sky is the deepest, purest blue that she has ever seen.

This is the day. There is no doubt about it.

…

It is windier on the beach than it was up at the house. She stays close to the water and she walks, aware that if she keeps going in this direction she will arrive at the pier and the marina, where the Ferry brings visitors and residents back from the mainland six times a day. She hasn't worn her watch, but something tells her to slow is hard to relay this message from her brain to her feet and so, by the time she manages to halve her pace, her heart is racing with the effort.

She runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face and as she does so, she hears a sound in the distance.

It is the sound of the Ferry, signaling it's arrival at the dock.

Maura stops walking abruptly, like she's hit a wall. Suddenly, she couldn't move forward if her life depended on it. If today is not the day, if her hope is wasted...

Maura turns around facing away, and the tears that have come to her eyes at this new worry break free and roll down her cheeks. What if she does not come today? What if she does not come any day, and they are all left here, keeping vigil for someone who will never return.

"Jane," she says, and her hands come up to her face. "Come back." She starts to cry.

It is immediate, solid, like a real person has wrapped her arms around Maura's waist. Quiet and comfortable and familiar. The doctor gasps because she would know that feeling anywhere. And she is laughing and crying and maybe spinning, she can't be sure. All she is sure of is that she has never felt so relieved to hear that question before in her life. Not ever. Relieved because she knows exactly how to answer, especially when those hands slide around her waist.

[Alright?]

...

...

[END]