Chapter Text
Maura walked over to the elevators in a bit of a daze. In her accumulated years as a medical examiner, she’d surely taken the elevator to the basement no less than a thousand times, but it still took a full two seconds of staring at the elevator panel before she leaned forward to press the call button, lighting up the down arrow.
She looked over to find Jane still staring intently, brown eyes locked on Maura in search of any signs of regret, and no wonder: Jane had just loudly announced their relationship to the world, kissing Maura right outside the Division One Cafe during the lunch rush. Maura watched as Jane tried very hard to suppress a smile, the effort of which was causing her dimples to pop even more than if she’d just allowed herself to grin fully. Jane’s dark eyes flashed conspiratorially and it was all enough to make Maura a little lightheaded.
Jane had looked at her in this sort of way before. Maura had lost count of the number of times in their friendship where she looked over to find that Jane had been staring at her, expression both protective and adoring. So often Maura had seen this same irrepressible quirk of her lips, like they were sharing a joke, like Jane was the only person in the world who knew that Maura could be funny (which was quite possibly true).
The difference now was that she was allowed to see it, free to acknowledge it. There was no longer any reason why Maura couldn’t let it make a home in her heart. Less than twenty-four hours ago Maura had been worried that Jane might chicken out of what was happening between them, but since then there had been mutual declarations of love, a night at the Lenox Hotel that made Maura sweat just thinking about it, and a very public display of affection.
Even though Maura didn’t—couldn’t—tear her gaze away from Jane, she was nonetheless very aware that everyone was looking at them. The entrance to the precinct was normally alive with chatter and activity, and the lack of movement in her peripheral vision suggested to Maura that a lot of people had stopped whatever they were doing in order to stare.
And so what, Maura decided.
Let them.
The elevator doors opened and with a deep breath, Maura stepped inside and turned around. She lifted her chin, threw her shoulders back, stood tall. She set her features confidently, putting on a well-practiced mask she’d necessarily developed somewhere along her journey from earnest, lonely child to Forbes 30 under 30 to Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
As it often did, adopting an air of confidence helped her achieve the real thing. This was, after all, nothing to be embarrassed about. And if Jane Rizzoli of all people wasn’t going to freak out about everyone seeing them kiss, then Maura certainly couldn’t.
As a parting shot, Maura winked right as the elevator began to slide shut and watched a grin take full control of Jane's features before she disappeared from view.
Maura guessed it wouldn’t be more than an hour before everyone knew. Earlier in the day, when Maura had a tiny little major meltdown about their new relationship and everyone finding out, Jane had insisted that it wouldn’t be as bad as she thought. Jane had brought up that it took weeks for Maura to find out that Jane had begun dating women and while that had soothed Maura temporarily, she realized that her personal knowledge of precinct scuttlebutt was not a reliable barometer for how quickly news could spread. It was a well-known fact that she found office gossip unsavoury. Everyone respected that except for Jane, so Jane was the only person Maura ever heard anything from, but for anyone else, the precinct’s capacity for spreading gossip was extraordinary.
It occurred to her during the short ride to the basement that she was possibly experiencing her last moments of peace, as a fairly representative sample of the Boston Police Department ecosystem had been in the lobby when the kiss happened. Playing the moment back in her mind, Maura recalled numerous uniformed officers, detectives from Vice and Major Crimes, at least one social worker, and several members of the administrative staff.
Missing from the audience, Maura noted with relief as she stepped off the elevator, was any employee of the crime lab. But the notion that she may be temporarily spared from her staff knowing about the incident was immediately dispelled when she swiped her way into the morgue and saw Susie Chang staring slack-jawed at her phone. Maura waited to be noticed but managed to cross nearly all the way across the room without Susie so much as lifting her head.
“Good afternoon, Senior Criminalist Chang.”
Susie startled and fumbled her phone, which clattered loudly onto the examination table in front of her, face up. Maura looked down at the same time that Susie darted her hand out to cover her display, but she wasn’t quite fast enough to prevent Maura from catching a glimpse, and on Susie Chang’s screen, where Maura expected to see text messages, she instead saw a photo.
Someone in the lobby had managed to get their phone out in time to snap a picture of the kiss.
“Doctor Isles.” The sheer panic on Susie’s face as she clutched her phone to her chest assured Maura that she wasn’t the most embarrassed person in the room. “I…it was sent to me. I didn’t know what it was before I looked at it.”
“It’s all right, Susie.” Maura hoped that switching to the criminalist’s first name would be calming, but Susie only seemed more stricken at the display of collegiality.
“I would never knowingly invade your privacy.”
“I know, Susie.”
“Diane sent it to me.”
Oh boy. Even Maura was familiar with Diane’s reputation. She had been with the department for decades and worked in dispatch and was BPD’s most prolific spreader of gossip. Fitting really, since she spent her days relaying information over the telephone. Maura suspected that Diane had long been waiting for this day, as there was always something smug to the operator's tone when she heard the distinct sound of Jane’s voice in the background of a call.
“Thank you, Susie. Has the body been prepared for autopsy?”
“Yes, Doctor Isles.” A pause long enough for even Maura to recognize it as awkward followed before Susie took a deep breath. “I’m very happy for you both. In case you might think I wouldn’t be.”
Maura considered for a moment. She generally wasn’t good at this sort of thing and she wasn’t sure what kind of issue Susie was implying she could have. Did she think Maura might be worried about homophobia? Or perhaps she wondered if Maura had drawn some conclusions from Susie’s very apparent nervousness around Jane? If it was the latter, she wasn’t sure if it would be better to admit she suspected Susie had a crush on the detective or to avoid the topic. Maura’s relationship with social norms being what it was, she called upon her most reliable ally—the open-ended question.
“Why would I think you wouldn’t be?” Maura asked. Susie’s eyes widened a little before an expression of relief crossed her face.
“No reason. I mean…uh…you know. People judge. Sometimes. About things. But I don’t. No one in the crime lab does.”
Maura smiled and nodded once more. This interaction was bordering on excruciating, but it was nice to hear that her staff would be supportive. “That is certainly good to know. But I think it’s time to get to work.”
__________________
Well, there’s no turning back now,” Jane announced as she strode through the morgue doors. In her left hand she held a manilla folder which she waved in Maura’s direction. “Consensual Relationship Agreement paperwork, hot off the printer. Are you ready to state for the record in front of God and everyone that you’re in a…” Jane flipped open the folder, scanning the papers inside quickly, “...’voluntary and mutual social relationship’ with me?”
“Sounds lovely. I’m in.” Maura looked up from the body in front of her and smiled. Her trepidation wasn’t exactly gone, but it abated with every instance of Jane’s ease and playfulness.
Jane had been openly out to the precinct for a few months, so perhaps Maura shouldn’t have been so surprised that she was taking this all in stride. But habits were hard to break and on the rare occasion that she’d allowed herself to envision any kind of relationship with Jane, she had assumed getting into it would be like pulling teeth. She had imagined Jane afraid, embarrassed, and secretive. This version of Jane, the one jumping in with both feet, was certainly a pleasant surprise. With undisguised affection, she watched as Jane approached her.
“Were you able to surprise Cavanaugh with the news? Word travelled so quickly that Susie knew before I stepped into the morgue.”
That tidbit stopped Jane in her tracks and she lifted an eyebrow. “Wow, that’s like…two minutes tops.” She shook her head and looked mystified. “Well, Cavanaugh didn’t know for a fact yet, but I don’t know if you could call him surprised. Apparently last year he almost had Human Resources investigate whether we were keeping a romantic relationship a secret until Korsak told him we were just, and I quote, ‘like that.’”
“We certainly were,” Maura agreed before removing her gloves in order to take the folder from Jane. She flipped it open to peruse the document. It looked to be fairly boilerplate but Maura intended to have one of her lawyers check it over just to be sure. “Ah, I see we’re agreeing to no public displays of affection at work. Good thing we made the most of our only one, I suppose.”
Maura meant it jokingly, but looked up to find Jane fixed in place with a nervous expression.
“You’re okay with it, though, right?” Jane questioned her, brow furrowing. “I know that was a bit extreme. But you were practically in a fugue state and I figured it was two birds with one stone, you know? It would probably snap you out of it and we definitely wouldn’t have to go through the effort of telling anyone.”
Maura pressed her lips together in thought.
“If you had asked me before you did it, I think I would have said no.” Jane’s face fell a little and Maura gave her a reassuring smile. “But I’m glad you didn’t ask. It’s a little awkward, but it’ll be over much quicker. Ripping off the band-aid, right? That’s the expression?”
“Right,” Jane agreed, looking relieved. “Y’know, if you’d gotten that one wrong I think they would have had to suspend your medical license.”
“You would report me to the board of medical idioms?” Maura pressed her fingertips to her chest in mock offense and watched with great pleasure as Jane’s jaw dropped in appreciation of her joke. Maura grinned. “Did your mother see us?”
Jane tilted her phone up without fully unclipping it from her belt.
“I have nineteen unread text messages from her, so I can’t say definitively. That’s really only slightly above average.”
Maura laughed but found herself finishing with a wistful sigh. She loved Angela very much but she knew what was in store for them. Maura closed the folder and offered it back to Jane, marveling at how much had changed in a day, lamenting at how much more was about to.
“It would have been nice if this could have been just for us for a while.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Later I’ll show you how ‘just for us’ it can still be.” Jane waggled her brows and Maura blushed, her mind immediately returning to that morning when she and Jane had been in bed together in a hotel suite, Jane’s hand parting her robe and then her legs. It was difficult to believe that had barely been six hours ago.
“You’re incorrigible.” Maura tried to look exasperated despite the tinge in her cheeks. Jane grinned in return but there was something earnest in her expression, too.
“Whatever un-corrugated means I’m sure that I am, but I’m also serious,” Jane said. “I promise there’ll be plenty of times where it’ll feel like the two of us and nobody else.” She looked at Maura with promise before nodding her head grudgingly down at the exam table. “...Although not right now though, since we have company. What can you tell me about our cemetery friend?”
Maura smiled appreciatively, both at Jane’s sentiments and for not having to be the one that insisted they get back to work. She took a deep breath. “Well, if you were hoping it would be a weird one, I’ve got good news for you: it’s an incredibly odd death.” Maura pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. “John Doe for now. I would guess he’s in his early sixties. Fingerprints and DNA were taken, and we should have the AFIS results in the next hour, but probably won’t have CODIS until after the weekend. Despite the blood loss there is no major trauma to the body.” She turned his left arm so that the inside of the elbow was facing up. “The only thing I found on my external examination is what I believe to be the needle insertion site for a blood donation.”
Jane looked over the pale body in confusion. “Is that why you thought it was exsanguination? He gave blood recently?”
“Hardly,” Maura scoffed at the notion. “He has lost far too much blood for it to be from a blood donation. A donation takes about ten percent of a person’s blood supply, and based on his pallor and the faintness of lividity, he could be missing as much as eighty percent.”
“And there’s really no other wound?” Jane peered even more closely at the body, as if searching for herself. It was a tendency of the detective’s that had originally annoyed Maura a great deal, the automatic way she double-checked everyone’s work, but the doctor had long since stopped taking it personally.
“No other wound,” Maura confirmed.
“Could…could someone bleed out via blood donation?” Jane looked surprisingly horrified at the prospect, Maura noted, something of an outsized reaction for the detective. If it was in fact death by blood draw then it was a creative death, certainly, but not the most gruesome or depraved they had seen. If anything it was actually quite tidy. Maura surmised that Jane’s reaction was from the notion that this could happen as a result of human error. She tilted her head hesitantly but eventually gave a begrudging nod.
“In theory, yes, but not under the normal conditions of a blood drive. It’s impossible for it to happen accidentally. But given enough time and sinister motives, yes, I suppose it’s possible. But we don’t know for certain that he died from being bled out, yet.”
Jane looked only slightly comforted. “Humour me for a bit. How long would it take to die from that?”
“A typical blood donation takes about 10 minutes for just less than half a litre of blood. The average human circulatory system contains five litres of blood. Hemorrhagic shock would begin around the loss of twenty percent of total blood, and death would occur around half. This body has lost nearly all of its blood.”
Jane tilted her head in the universal sign for doing mental math and Maura resisted the urge to just give her the answer.
“So like…just under an hour for death?” Jane asked.
“At minimum, likely longer. Once the blood volume got low enough the heart would become compromised and wouldn’t circulate blood as effectively.”
“Jesus. No one would sit there just being bled to death.” Jane looked back down at the body as she often did, as if the answers might materialize if she stared long enough.
“No, I don’t imagine they would. And there’s no marks that I can find from any kind of restrains. We’re running a very comprehensive tox panel. If he did die from exsanguination, I would be surprised if we didn’t at least find the presence of some kind of sedative.” Maura looked down at the body as well. “One thing is for certain: whoever did this has at least some amount of medical knowledge. At minimum a medical student or phlebotomy technician, but given that it’s hardly routine blood work, more likely a nurse or a doctor.”
“That’s something, I guess. Although that’s still thousands of people, especially in this city.” Jane grimaced. “Aren’t blood donation machines big?”
Maura shook her head. “Not for whole blood donation. They’re actually quite port—wait a second.” Maura’s head tilted up sharply, eyes fixing on Jane as realization took hold. “Have you never given blood?”
“Uh, sure I have.” Jane shrugged defensively. “I just didn’t pay that much attention to the machine when it happened, I guess.”
“ Jane,” Maura admonished. “Every healthy adult should be donating blood. And considering how much blood you’ve required in your career, your debt is greater than most.”
“Wow, okay.” Jane threw her hands up. “And there’s the first ‘Jane shot herself’ guilt card of the relationship. Of course you’re using it selflessly. God, that’s annoying.” Maura’s mouth dropped open but before she could summon up the appropriate retort, Jane continued. “I promise I will donate at the next department blood drive.” Maura frowned and Jane rushed to add, “and all the ones after it! Please, can you go back to explaining the mechanics of it to me. Please.”
Maura gave Jane a long stare. She didn’t like that Jane had never donated blood, but she was a little more annoyed at the accusation that she was leveraging Jane’s foolhardy decision to shoot someone through her own torso to win the argument. But also maybe that was exactly what she was doing. Maura huffed quietly, then relented.
“The heart provides all the work for pumping out the blood, which is why it takes so long. An attempt to suck out the blood would cause veins to collapse. So you just need a device that allows the blood to drain into a bag and keeps that bag in motion to prevent coagulation. It’s about the size of a microwave, perhaps not even. Well. I suppose microwaves vary greatly in size, so probably there’s a microwave that has almost the exact same dimensions.”
Jane gave her one of those looks, like Maura was an alien doing only a medium job of passing as human.
“So it’s possible that it happened on site? At the cemetery?”
“It’s certainly not impossible. Hard to imagine, though,” Maura said.
Jane frowned. “But earlier today you said you thought he died at the scene? So if it’s possible…”
“I could always be wrong,” Maura sighed. “Or he could have died very close by, then was quickly transported. I really don’t want to speculate. I’d like to proceed with the autopsy and we’ll see if there’s anything else we can say for sure.”
Jane nodded in reluctant agreement as her phone vibrated on her belt. She pulled it from its clip and Maura watched as Jane’s eyes bugged out as she looked at her screen.
“There’s a photo?” Jane gasped.
“Ah.” Maura nodded. “Yes, I knew I forgot to mention something. Wait, did someone send it to you? Let me see it.” Suddenly deeply curious, she reached for the phone, but Jane held it away from her grasp, still staring down at it.
“Yeah, Frost did, and he’s…not very happy that this is how he found out. I should probably go upstairs and do some damage control.” Jane turned the screen towards Maura.
Maura peered down at Jane’s phone and sucked air between her teeth as she scanned the text bubbles beneath the photo. “Oh my. That is a lot of cursing.” She removed her right glove and tapped on the image itself to see it fullscreen.
There they were. Kissing.
In the photo Jane was standing tall with her shoulders squared, her hand firmly gripping Maura’s upper arm. She looked strong and commanding, with her height and her wild hair and her strong features. A little burst of pleasure detonated deep between Maura’s hips as she flicked a glance up at the real thing right in front of her. Jane looked back at her knowingly and Maura blushed faintly before looking back to the photo to observe herself. Her own body was pressed just barely against Jane’s, her back arched gracefully as a result of being pulled forward, and her coffee cup held so precariously in her hand that Maura was retroactively surprised she hadn’t dropped it. Her features were smooth of any worry, her expression serene. The kiss itself looked soft and sweet and loving.
It looked perfect, in fact.
“All in all, a rather tasteful photograph,” Maura admitted. She hated that everyone had it but she couldn’t deny that she liked the picture itself. She was glad it was on Jane’s phone so she could send it to herself later. “You realize this is our first photo as a couple?”
Jane turned the phone back towards herself and a private little smile crept over her features. Her expression, so unexpectedly sincere and unguarded, made Maura’s insides dissolve.
“We could do a lot worse,” Jane said softly and looked back up at Maura. “You okay with drinks at the Robber tonight? I promise we’ll have our time alone, but I think Frost is going to need to be bribed into forgiveness.”
“Of course,” Maura nodded. Eager as she was to be alone again with Jane (very), she also hadn’t been to Friday drinks at the Robber in months and she was sincerely cheered at the thought of spending time with Vince and Barry. Jane’s face lit up in response to Maura’s enthusiasm and she cast a quick glance around the empty morgue before stepping forward to press a kiss against Maura’s lips. Jane made it quick and just a little dirty, opening her mouth slightly and grazing her tongue along Maura’s upper lip before drawing back. It was unexpected and it flustered Maura just enough to be noticeable by Jane. The detective grinned.
“No one’s signed anything yet, right?” Jane winked.
Maura tried to look disapproving. She reached out and gave Jane’s shoulder a light shove and Jane reacted theatrically, reaching for her shoulder and exaggerating the force of the push to stumble backwards towards the morgue doors.
“Please get out of my morgue, Jane,” Maura called out sternly to the departing detective. “I’ll see you at the end of the day.”