• Characters: Jane Rizzoli, Vince Korsak, Barry Frost, Maura Isles
• Trigger warnings: Infected wound
• Synopsis: Jane doesn't know how to take care of herself. Not even when she's wounded.
“Go home, Jane. You look awful.”
The hand on her shoulder caught her off guard as well as the voice so close to her ear. She jerked out of her distracted condition, dropping the pen she had been using to channel her restless energy. Frost hated it when she was tapping it on her desk, but he wasn’t glaring at her for it today. Instead, he was looking at her with a mix of curiosity and worry on his face when Korsak’s expression was full of concern.
“M’fine,” she grumbled.
“Have you looked at yourself recently?”
She threw a death look at her partner above their computer screen. He raised his hands in a surrender attitude, not willing to deal with her crankiness. They all looked worse for wear with all the extra hours they had been working those past few days. She wouldn’t be the first one to give in and go home when everyone else was staying. She was always first to arrive and last to go. She wouldn’t change her habits because her colleagues thought that she was too tired to keep going.
“We’re all tired. Why woulda be the only one to get rest?”
“Because you’re the only one who looks about to collapse.”
“He’s right. Even the bodies down in the morgue look better than you do right now.”
“What d’you know ‘bout ‘em, Frost?” she snapped. “You can’t even get close to ‘em.”
That was a low blow on her part to turn Frost’s weak stomach against him. She was the only one to never have made fun of him for it. She was protecting him when the crime scenes were gruesome by sending him away to find clues or talk to witnesses. He was hurt, but said nothing. He rubbed his face with both hands and stretched his body. He glanced at Korsak who hadn’t moved from his spit by her side. His hand was still on her shoulder, the frown in his face deepened.
She sighed. They were just worried about her and she was giving them a hard time instead of being grateful to have people who cared enough about her to notice that she was on edge. She ran a trembling hand through her hair, a telltale sign of her troubled mind, and apologized to her partner.
“Come on, let’s all have a break downstairs,” offered Korsak. “A coffee will do us good.”
“It’s on me. Just give me a m’nute.”
She stood up and darted to the closest restroom. She reached a stall just in time to puke. The reflex triggered a great deal of pain in her right side. She pressed her hands to the wound she was keeping hidden under her shirt and a thick bandage. It was the reason why she was so miserable. (7)
For once, she hadn’t been injured on the job, even though it was her cop instincts that had pushed her to intervene in a street fight. She was just out for a quick errand and didn’t have her gun and badge on her, but the guy had a knife and he didn’t hesitate in using it against her when she interrupted his robbery. She hadn’t seen the laceration in her right side until she was home after handing the criminal over to uniformed officers and giving her statement. Going to the hospital was out of the question. The cut didn’t look too serious then.
That was two days ago and, despite the cares she had done to the wound, it was getting worse. It was all red and swollen and a stinky yellowish fluid was coming out of the cut. Maura would tell her that it was infected and that she should really see a doctor. No, she would take her straight to the hospital if she was to see this. But they had too much work to sneak out of the precinct for such a formality, as bad as Jane felt because of an infected wound. She had gone through worse, she could handle this. At least, until this workday was over.
Her hands were trembling so much that she had a hard time replacing the bandage properly. Each movement caused a jolt of irradiating pain in the wounded area that was taking her breath away. She leant against the door of the stall and took a few deep breaths to pull herself back together and be able to face Frost and Korsak again. Just a couple hours. She had to hold on for a couple hours before she could see a proper doctor and be treated and lectured on her irresponsibility.
She straightened her clothes and walked out of the stall to the row of sinks. She met her reflection in the mirror and understood what had her friends so worried. Her face was pale, and clammy, and the dark rings under her eyes were striking. She looked as awful as she felt and indeed could have been one of Maura’s dead bodies. Or a zombie.
She rubbed the back of her neck to get rid of the accumulated tension there, rinsed her mouth and splashed some water on face. It wouldn’t fix everything that was wrong with her, but it helped to clear her mind from the haze it had been wrapped in since she woke up that morning. Coffee would help too.
Maura and the woman she had saved from the robbery were there when she stumbled back into the bullpen. Damn. Just what she needed. Maura’s observant gaze was already zeroing on her and noticing everything that was wrong about the way she held herself and how she was using desks to support her and hide the instability in her walk.
“You look terrible,” Maura commented.
“Geez, y’all g’na be on m’back today?”
The slur in her words didn’t go unnoticed, but the woman grabbed her hands and squeezed them. Jane bit the inside of her cheek not to wince at the pain in her sore muscles. All of her body was working against her since she woke up and that was getting frankly annoying. All she wanted was to crawl back to bed and wait for the pain and the sickness to go away. She leant against her desk instead for her legs not to buckle under her. She wouldn’t be able to keep up appearances for too long.
“Detective Rizzoli, I just wanted to thank you for your bravery. Without your intervention, I don’t know how far things would have gone.”
“S’nothin’.”
“No, it’s not. Not everyone would have done it. Police officer or not.”
“We were about to go down for some coffee,” said Korsak. “You could join us and tell us about Jane’s heroic behavior.”
Jane rolled her eyes – and regretted it immediately when the room went blurry on the edges. She wasn’t a hero. She just happened to have been at the good place at the good time for once. At least, she had been for this woman. For herself, it was a whole different story. One she wouldn’t be able to hide any longer.
She pushed herself off the desk to follow everyone to the elevator. The world spun around her, her heart beat faster, nausea hit harder. She gripped the edge of the desk to keep her balance and pressed a hand to her wound. It wasn’t enough. Her body couldn’t take it anymore. Maura called her name, but she sounded so far away. They were all too far and she couldn’t catch up with them. Her body was rooted on this spot and wouldn’t move.
She didn’t remember falling. Yet, she was laying on the ground now and people around her was barking orders. Hands found the wound hidden beneath her clothes and exposed it with a gasp. That was it. They all knew now. It didn’t matter anymore. She was losing her battle against the darkness…
