Closure

A/N So it didn't take too long for a new story to enter into my head. As promised- when it gets into the head you all get to read it. So I embark on the fifth story in this AU I seem to have created. Apparently "quintology" can become a word.

Time/background: Set 4 years after the end of Matter of Perspective. Sorry for such a jump forward but I'll fill in lots of gaps as the story progresses.

General callouts:

This is the fifth story in what somehow became a series. So- as usual- if you haven't read through the first four there are definitely things that will confuse you as this by now has become AU and not really following the series much anymore. So- click on my name. Read the others. If those haven't scared you off- then come back and start this one.

As per my usual spoilage for you all….daily (at minimum) updates will be to be expected. You all know I'm true to that so that will continue. I feel it is only fair that if you chose to spend some time reading my whacky thoughts the least I can do is update daily. That won't ever change.

Sentence fragments….blah, blah, blah

You know my affinity for cliffhangers….blah, blah, blah….but this one won't be nearly as cliffy as it is running in my head….the more you read the more I think you'll understand that…

Just enjoy….I hope

Disclaimer

I do not own any of the R & I characters. I do this purely for pleasure with no gains sought or accepted.

Chapter 1

Sergeant Detective Jane Rizzoli-Isles was a grown woman. She really was. But you wouldn't have been able to really ascertain that fact if you were witness to her current behavior. She knew it was childish. She really did. And she didn't care. Not in the least. It was simply unfair. And she was going to be sure that every single solitary person that crossed her path understood just how unfair it was. Yep, every single person.

Which might explain why no one had come within twenty feet of her desk all day. Word was out. Avoid the Sergeant's desk if you knew what was good for you. She thought she saw several officers going to great lengths not to cross her path but she couldn't be sure. The pure lack of foot traffic alone should have been her first clue. Normally her desk was like Grand Central Station. All day. But at some point the traffic around her desk had stopped. Thinking back on it, Jane might have let the last random rant about fairness, duty and sacrifice go a bit too far.

But, it was still unfair. And she was still going to voice her opinion to anyone she could find. But, she really was a grown woman. A highly decorated, highly respected (and at the moment slightly feared) Sergeant in the Boston Police Department's Homicide division. Decorated with several Medal of Valor's that she wished they hadn't singled her out for. She never felt as if she did more than her job. Respected for what she did on a daily basis and for her skills as a detective. Loved for her leadership abilities as more and more of the Homicide detective teams were placed under her watch. Her leadership style was the perfect mix of command and involvement. She took the time to get to know her detectives. She helped develop their skillsets. She trusted each to deliver when needed. But she was firm, fair and consistent if any one of them stepped out of line. She was a shoe-in for the next Lieutenant position.

Rumor was that it had already been offered to her on multiple occasions. Rumor had it she had turned it down each and every time. Rumor had it the brass was considering bypassing the Lieutenant position she apparently refused to consider to go straight to offering her the soon to be open Captain position. The entire precinct wanted that particular rumor to be true. Someone needed to succeed her now step-father Sean Cavanaugh when he announced he was retiring at the end of the year. Everyone, including the brass, wanted it to be Jane. Problem was, no one, including the brass, knew if she wanted that either. But, that was all just rumor.

For now, the precinct was forced to watch, sometimes participate, in Jane's plight. It looked an awful lot like paperwork. And not just a stack. Well, to be honest, it was stacks. Stacks and stacks of boxes full of paperwork. It really was any cop's worst nightmare. No one. No one liked paperwork. So everyone felt for Jane. They really did. To be given the task of going through ten years of cold case files was not meant to be a fun task. It was really meant to be a punishment. Jane's punishment. The unfair part. The part she complained to anyone who would listen. To Jane, the punishment did not come anywhere close to fitting the crime. Her crime.

It wasn't her fault she was in the field that day. It wasn't her fault that she preferred the work of a Sergeant expressly because she could go out in the field with her detectives. It wasn't her fault she had joined Detective Barry Frost in the field because his partner Detective Riley Rizzoli was still on maternity leave. Riley wasn't set to return to active duty for two more weeks. It wasn't her fault that Riley was still at home looking after her niece, Sophia Angela Rizzoli. It's what you did for your detectives, for your family. You got their backs. That's all she was trying to do with Frost.

How was it her fault that the suspect in two Homicides thought it was a good idea to try to run away from the police? Jane, for all her years on the force, never understood why suspects tried to run. They never got away. Never. Even if they did escape that day, there was always tomorrow. No one avoided the police when their number was up. No one. So why run? It just pisses off the officers that had to lay chase. And you should never piss off someone with a badge, handcuffs and a gun. General principle to live your life by.

So when the guy took off after seeing Jane and Frost approaching, it wasn't Jane's fault she took off running too. She wasn't going to let Frost pursue the guy by himself. You don't leave your partner hanging out to dry. Never. No matter what. So, they both ran after the guy. He wasn't that fast. And he wasn't in that good of shape. They both knew they would outlast him. The thrill for this chase wasn't even that good. Until.

For the record, as Jane repeatedly told anyone who would listen, it was not her fault that the kid on his bicycle was headed down the alley at the same time the suspect was rounding the corner. It was not Jane's fault that she couldn't see the kid coming. And it certainly wasn't her fault that the kid on the bike took the corner too sharp because he had turned to watch the suspect run down the alley. The kid didn't see Jane and Jane didn't see the kid. Until.

Frost caught the suspect. Jane caught the kid. Jane wasn't looking to catch the kid. The kid was fine. Jane, on the other hand, broke her ankle. Or more specifically, a trimalleolar fracture that involved the lateral malleolus, medial malleolus and the posterior malleolus. Jane considered that too many words to describe a broken ankle but her wife, Dr. Maura Rizzoli-Isles Boston's beautiful Chief Medical Examiner, continually gave the correct medical nomenclature for her injury. All Jane really knew was it had required surgery, screws, pins and six weeks of non-weight bearing rest. And rehab. At least four weeks of rehab before she would even be allowed to consider light exercise. She had just started week number two of rehab.

The non-weight bearing and rehab had sufficiently planted her to her desk at work. Which was where the punishment came into play. Korsak decided that since Jane had several weeks of desk time, the cold case project would be hers to handle. He said it served her right for chasing after a suspect and getting hurt. Boxes and boxes of paperwork to sift through was her punishment for getting hurt, again, in the line of duty. She swore she heard her step-father mumble once under his breath that Jane alone was causing the department's insurance premiums to more than triple but she couldn't be sure. The cold case project was everyone's way of punishing Jane for being accident prone. Jane decided it was a conspiracy against her. And it hadn't been her fault. It really hadn't.

She'd been at it for four weeks now. A month of pure torture and she had only made a small dent in the project. The only bright moments in her days since returning to her 'Desk of Perpetual Hell' so labeled when Maura had innocently asked her how her return to work had gone after her first day back were her lunch breaks. Her lunch break would consist, depending on the day, either a reprieve spent with Maura down in Maura's office or if they were both lucky it was spent up in the Café with their son, Christopher Benjamin Rizzoli-Isles. That pleasure happened once, sometimes twice a week depending on the schedules for Maura, Jane, Nanna Angela, Grandmother and Babysitter Extraordinaire and Grandma Constance also Babysitter Extraordinaire.

Jane glanced down at the photos that adorned her desk and each made her smile. They had that effect on her every time she looked at them. The first photograph was a photo from Jane and Maura's wedding. It had been the perfect wedding. It was hard to believe that it had only been three years ago. Jane always felt like she had been with and married to Maura for forever. But they were going to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary in just a few months.

The second photo was probably Jane's all-time favorite photo. It was a picture of Maura and the then one year old Christopher. Both sound asleep on the couch in their living room. Jane remembered the scene to the exact detail of the pink haze of the night sky fading towards darkness. Maura had come home later than usual due to work and had wanted to make up for lost time with Chris insisting that she was going to read him his stories before bedtime. Her plan sort of worked. Only, they both ended up falling asleep. When Jane had come into the living room to check on the suddenly very quiet Chris her heart melted at the scene she found. She couldn't resist the photo. She was glad she hadn't. And so was Maura. The exact same photo sat on her desk downstairs as well.

The third photo was of Chris on his second birthday. Just this past July. It was taken at his birthday party. The entire guest list consisted of only adults and Jane sometimes had a hard time calling it Chris' party. But he was surrounded by the people who loved him most. Nanna and Grandpa Sean (he hated being called that but still seemed to get mad if you didn't at least try it once a day), Uncle Frankie and Aunt Riley, Uncle Tommy and the recently engaged and soon to be Aunt Stacey, Uncle Barry and the very, very soon to be Aunt Alexis (the wedding was in three weeks), Uncle Vince and Grandma Constance. The photo had Chris in the middle and all his extended family surrounding him. The boy was truly loved.

And so was Jane. She was lucky and she knew it. She had a wife she adored who loved her back. She had an amazing son who took her breath away every time she looked at him. And her family was all healthy and happy. Her Ma and Sean had been married for two years now and were very happy. Sean was retiring at the end of the year and that made them both happy. Frankie and Riley had been married for a year and they had just had their daughter Sophia two months ago. Tommy had stayed sober and out of trouble for several years. He was now a foreman for a construction company and he had just proposed to Stacey and she had said yes.

Frost and his fiancée were tying the knot in three weeks. Constance was still living in Boston and had two really big art shows in the last three years. She took to her grandson immediately and was a doting Grandmother. She and Angela usually spent hours working out the schedule of who got to watch Chris while Maura and Jane worked and both wanted him all the time. Vince was happy dating a nice lady Carrie, he claimed he would never marry stating he wasn't falling into that trap a fifth time but Jane had a running bet with Maura about that. She felt the odds were in her favor. Vince was, at heart, a hopeless romantic and she was sure marriage would come again to Lieutenant Vince Korsak whether he saw it coming or not.

Jane sighed a heavy sigh. It was only 10:30 am. It wasn't lunch yet. And that meant she had to go back to work on the current box of files sitting on her desk. She grumbled and mumbled to herself about being trapped at the 'Desk of Perpetual Hell' and pondered when she would be released from desk duty. She knew, however, that really didn't matter. This chore, these cold case files, was now her cross to bear until the end. It just wasn't fair. Four weeks. Four weeks and not even a dent.