Hurt.

Hurt is the only thing Jane sees in the minutes that pass after the shooting. Hurt in the slow seep of blood from Dean's chest, the bullet lodged somewhere by his collarbone. Hurt in the slump of Frost's shoulders, knowing a fellow officer of the law- even an FBI agent, as he is- has fallen and it could have been him. Hurt in the two ballistic wounds Patty Doyle bore with such stoicism, one of which she'd caused herself. Hurt, raw and sharp and all too real in Maura's eyes as she keeps Jane away, a few feet away, with the sheer intensity of her pain.

And for the first time since she'd felt the urge to be there for the medical examiner, she can't help. She can't do a single damn thing, because Maura's trust in her is dead, and it's her who's shot it. She stays crouching a few feet away until Korsak and Frankie appear, and Korsak helps her up onto legs that felt like they'll give out any second. It feels like her stomach stayed down on the ground when she stood up- Maura's pressing her hands against Doyle's wounds. Her father's blood is seeping through her fingertips; Jane can see her small shoulders shake with sobs and wants more than anything to be able to hold her.

"What happened?"

She shakes her head as Frankie takes over, Korsak heading back to look at Dean. "Jane, what happened?"

The words won't come out of her mouth when she opens it to speak. She's too busy watching Frost do what she could have done- he takes off his jacket and wads it up, and Maura takes it to put beneath Doyle's head without hesitation. "I shot him," Jane whispers. She feels removed. She feels like she's watching the whole scene from somewhere up on the ceiling- she can feel Frankie's arm around her shoulders but only from miles away. What seems closer to her is Maura turning to bury her face inn Frost's shoulder. What seems closest are the tears Maura should have been crying into her shirt, the fingers that should have been clutching at her arm.

But Maura is crying because of her.

"Kevin tried to get rid of Maura and Doyle was…up on the catwalk." She looks up at it, at where he fell through the rail, and realizes that she's shaking. It feels like Maura's soft sobs are her own- she isn't crying, but they're hurting her. Everything is hurting her. "Doyle shot Kevin, Agent Dean…told him to drop his weapon, then shot Doyle, Doyle shot Dean…" she should be more worried about Dean. Gabriel. No, he's Dean now, Dean only. He'd promised he wouldn't do anything and he's broken his word. "And I…shot Doyle, and he fell."

That's the gist of it. The paramedics come; she doesn't know how long it is before they do. They take Dean first and she watches them take his body onto the stretcher and out of sight without feeling a single thing. It is, she finds guiltily, when they lift Doyle that her stomach twists. But it's when Maura scrambles into the ambulance behind him that Jane feels a strangled half-sob, half-sigh escape her.

"I've got to follow them," she says, starting to feel a little bit more grounded now that she has a mission of sorts to accomplish. Frankie shakes his head immediately. "You shouldn't," Korsak says, giving her the same look he does whenever anyone talks about Hoyt within ten feet of her. "You really should just…go home." His protectiveness just hardens her resolve, and the fact that Frankie agrees with him doesn't help. She nods at Frost and starts walking. "Come on. We'll catch up to them in trauma."

.,.

Hospitals have always freaked Jane out. There's too much behind the walls that she doesn't know and doesn't understand, and it's too easy to think too long about the people behind each door. It's too easy, having seen what she's seen, to imagine it- cuts that go too deep, burns that ruin too much, breaks that destroy entire lives. And the other people, the people who cause that hurt, the people she spends day in and day out trying to catch.

People like her. She's one of those people now, one of the people that have hurt someone who has someone to miss them.

The trauma wing is the worst. So many unconscious people, accidents, doctors rushing and calling for codes and what she imagines the medical equivalent of 'backup' is. For the first time in her life, though, Jane willingly heads right for it, Frost trailing behind her. A tall, balding doctor stops her before she can get through, and she leans up to look over his shoulder, searching in vain for a black trench coat and honey-blonde hair.

"I have to get in. I'm looking for Maura I-"
"Doctor Isles," the man interrupts her, eyes practically hidden under the thickest, most obnoxious eyebrows Jane has ever seen with someone with such little hair on his head, "is a liscenced professional, and you don't have permission to enter the trauma wing. You can wait in the waiting room like everyone else."

She squares up, looking him right in the face, but before she has time to say anything, Frost's got her elbow and he's suggesting, in his nice little goody-two-shoes way, that they leave. In te waiting room she pauses, and he looks back over his shoulder to see her. "You coming, or what?"

She looks around. The second she sees someone sitting in a chair, crying, she follows him without any further hesitation. She might have the stomach to shoot someone through the head, but she doesn't have the heart to sit in a room of people who don't know whether or not the person they love is going to live. Not anymore. Not after what she's done.

The elevator is empty except for them. She knows that he's going to speak before he even opens his mouth, and before he's finished his question, she knows how to answer it. "You okay?" She looks over at him and heaves a sigh, trying to bury what little feeling she has left with the numbness that's taking over. "Do I look okay?"

He blinks, then shrugs, sticking his hands deep into his pockets. She knows he's not going to take up a fight with her, as much as she wishes someone would. He's too smart for that. "You don't have to be pissy about it, you know. I'm not asking to be funny."

"I'll be fine. Thanks, but I'll… figure it out."
"And Maura?"
"Well, we'll see, won't we?"
"You were just doing your job. She…she knows that."
"I hope so."

.,.

Just because she can't wait inside doesn't mean she's not going to wait outside. Frost is suspicious when she tells him she'll catch a cab, but he leaves her anyway, and she's never been more grateful for it. There's a bench in front of the hospital doors, and even though it's probably somewhere around 30 degrees, Jane hunkers down and waits.

She doesn't have a coat, just a thin blazer. It's not windy, though, and she finds that the cold doesn't bother her as much as long as she's not thinking about why she's there. She counts the cracks in the sidewalk. She checks her phone, fakes a text to Ma, Frankie, Frost, and Korsak, telling them she stopped to eat. She tries to remind herself what she'd thought of when she first took the job as a homicide detective, tried to remember if she'd ever been afraid that she'd make a mistake and hurt the wrong person, but all she can remember is how unafraid she was to get herself hurt.

Before she knows it, it's been an hour and a half. She can't feel her toes, and people are starting to leave. Every time the automatic door whirrs open, she thinks it might be Maura and cranes her neck to see. And every time, she's disappointed. Not that she's entirely sure she wants to see Maura at all, but she knows she should try. A half hour later, at seven, she gives up. She's gotten four texts from Ma asking when she's going to be home, and she knows she can't lie too much longer.

So she leaves. It kills her to do it, and the second she's in the cab her first thought is that Maura's probably just leaving and she's just missed her, but she has to go. She knows she'll be able to find her, somehow, but she also knows she's not going to be sleeping for quite a while. As soon as she gets home, she lets Ma know, then Frost, just because he'd been so worried earlier. It occurs to her to ask him what he knows about either Dean or Doyle's situations, but his answer is 'nothing'- she's not surprised, since he left before her. But Korsak ought to know, and when she gets a text back from him, garbled as most of his texts are ("The buttons are too tiny for my fingers!" "You mean your paws, old man?"), saying she should try to call Maura…it's clear to her that everyone else is just as aware of what happened as she is. Maura's never going to look at her the same way again, and she's not sure if she wants to face that just yet.

Besides which, Maura doesn't answer her phone. Not the first, third, or fifth time, and after 5 Jane gives up, because she knows better than to think Maura hasn't seen the messages she left. The phone doesn't ring. It sits in the middle of the counter and she stares at it for about ten more minutes before Jo Friday seems to have enough of it and gets out of her doggy bed just to bark at her. The phone still doesn't ring.

"This is gonna be a long night," Jane sighs, and Jo follows her onto the couch, showing uncharacteristic affection when she nuzzles against the crook of her arm and whines.

The phone doesn't ring.

And eventually, somewhere between three and four o'clock, she sleeps.