PTSD

By MucklesMusings

Copyright 2014.

Disclaimers: I am only borrowing the ladies from Rizzoli and Isles. I make no claim on their copyright and the copyright of Tess Gerritsen, TNT yadda, yadda, yadda. However, the story is mine, for that I claim the copyright: 29th July 2014 onward.

Authors note: All constructive reviews welcomed. I'm from the UK, so sorry if any spelling and grammar mistakes (compared to the USA) slip through. This has also not been beta read, so there will be mistakes, no matter how much you check they always seem to appear the moment you hit send. Please bear with me when those happen. If you spot anything really awful please let me know and I'll try and edit them if I can.

Oh, and although I am going to try and keep most of this true to the series, in this story Jane is not pregnant, and Casey took a long walk off a short pier ages ago.

Summary: What if Jane wasn't quite as unaffected by the events in her life that started with Hoyt and ended with the death of Barry Frost? This is my take on how the effects of PTSD might have slowly and finally overwhelmed Jane, and the story of how those around her help Jane find her way back home. Eventually Rizzles.

Chapter one: Cracks Appear.

It was the postcard that finally broke through my reserve. All I can remember of that evening was reading the words Barry Frost had written and sliding down the wall of the counter in my apartment crying my eyes out. Somehow I made it to my bedroom, because I awoke the following morning to find I had managed to crawl under the comforter on my bed. Granted I was still fully clothed, although I had managed to remove my shoes at some point because I ended up tripping over them when I got up. Cursing under my breath at my stubbed toes I hobbled my way into the bathroom and glanced at my reflection in the mirror.

I didn't like what I saw. For a long time I had felt like an emotional fraud, and this morning I experienced that feeling more acutely than ever before. I finally realized the 'I'm fine' mask I portrayed to the outside world was slowly slipping. My long dark hair was all over the place. Naturally thin, this morning I looked gaunt, and my brown eyes looked as though they could compete in a raccoon competition, and that had nothing to do with ruined mascara! Thanks to my best friend Maura Isles and her constant need to Googlemouth all kinds of information, I couldn't help but remember the time Maura told me that dark circles under the eyes were something periorbital in nature, and combined with puffiness indicated a lack of sleep. Don't ask me to give you the entire quote, I can't quite remember it all. Needless to say, it was a typically endearing, quirky Maura moment.

I guess at this point I'd better introduce myself. I'm Jane Rizzoli, decorated Homicide Detective at the Boston Police Department; to all that know me I am confident, happy at my job, and worthy of the love from my family and friends. What I saw staring back at me from that mirror was none of those things.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, aka PTSD. That's the diagnosis I had been given by the shrink I'd been seeing privately, and if the dissociation from last night was anything to go by, I'd be seeing her for a while longer. If the department knew how deep my problems were I'd have been benched months, if not years ago. Luckily I'd gotten very good at hiding the real me behind the aforementioned mask. I doubt even Maura realized how bad my emotional state was. And if I had my way she'd never know. Nobody would ever know. Time to pull the mask firmly back into place and think about getting to work.

With a sigh I yanked the extremely rumpled dress off my body, vaguely wondering if it was too badly wrinkled to be salvaged, before I made my way under the shower. The hot water hit my tense shoulders, and I tried to relax under the spray. I could have stayed there all day, but I knew if I had to put the mask back into place that wasn't an option.

Going through the motions on automatic mode, I finished up my shower and changed into my customary work outfit of bland gray but hard wearing pants, matching jacket, and tank top underneath a shirt. Then I remembered at the last minute that I had arranged to meet Maura at the coffee shop... Yes, 'that' coffee shop, the one from my infamous internet 'they tried to sue me for spilling coffee' debut. I would have stopped going, but damn, if they didn't make the best coffee in the area. Hence meeting Doctor Maura Isles at a place that by rights I should have been avoiding. And I suppose this might be a good time to mention that not only is Maura my best friend; she is also the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, and a valued work colleague, but I've no doubt we'll be covering more of that later on, for now it was time for me to head out of the safety of my apartment.

Giving myself a pep talk the entire way there, I stopped outside the coffee shop door, took a deep breath and made my way inside.

There she was, already standing in line, her honey blond hair falling gracefully along her shoulders. Maura was dressed impeccably. And although - thanks to my friendship with Maura - my knowledge of fashion designers had improved over the years, I still couldn't make out if the outfit of the day was a Vera Wang, Jean Paul Gaultier, or a Stella McCartney. Heck, for all I knew it could be from some obscure new fashion designer that Maura had found and decided to support. One of the things I loved about Maura was even with the Isles family money behind her, her willingness to root for the little guy was unparalleled. Whatever the outfit was, as always it looked elegant without being pretentious. The heels and accessories were perfectly coordinated. I took a moment to savor the fact that I was lucky enough to be friends with this gorgeous woman. As if sensing my presence, Maura turned my way, and seeing me just inside the doorway smiled widely and beckoned me over. Despite everything, there were times when I felt a genuine ripple of emotion, when I could smile without it being forced. My true response was fleeting, but it was enough to help me fix the mask into place for the rest of the day. This was one such moment.

"Jane," Maura enthused. "You have got to try out their new breakfast bar."

Inwardly I groaned, but made sure none of that showed on my face. If Maura was keen about a food stuff, then I just knew it was going to be full of all sorts of ridiculously healthy bits, and it probably tasted like cardboard.

Yep, I was right, because Maura continued."They contain sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chopped walnuts, cinnamon, cranberries, cherries and blueberries..."

I'm afraid I tuned Maura out at that point, and it wasn't until I registered there was a silence enveloping the immediate area that I realized Maura was looking at me with some consternation. 'Oops, caught out.' I knew it upset Maura when she thought I wasn't taking her seriously. Time to smooth things over.

"Sorry Maur," I deliberately used my pet name for her, to show I was genuinely contrite. "I guess I'm still reeling from the events of the last week." This was how I lived my life. I would give a minimal amount of information as to how I was feeling, hoping that by doing so, people would not see how much I struggled day to day.

Immediately Maura's face softened, and she placed a comforting hand on my arm. "I understand, you know you can talk to me about this at any time."

Smiling wanly I patted her hand awkwardly. "I know, and thanks for that, but right now we need to place our order."

Looking around Maura could see we were holding up the queue of people. With an apologetic glance to those behind us, she stepped forward to get our coffees, and yes, she got me one of those pieces of cardboard to eat, which I accepted somewhat graciously. I'm pretty sure I managed to hide the grimace on my face, but given the stare I got as we left to make our way to BPD I'm not sure I was that successful. I was saved by the cell phone attached to my hip going off, closely followed by Maura's cell phone also ringing. We answered with our customary.

"Rizzoli."

"Isles."

And thus our work day began.

Meeting Vince Korsak and my brother Frankie at the crime scene, we all seemed to take a moment to recognize that my partner, Detective Barry Frost was no longer with us. Although this wasn't the first crime scene we'd been to since his death, it was the first one after his funeral. Somehow that made the whole thing more final, and it deserved - Frost deserved - a moments silence as we remembered him, and processed our feelings.

Maura was the one to finally break the tableau as she knelt next to the victim. A young woman, found dumped next to a trash can in Beacon Hill. The fact that it was so close to Maura's home at 5801 Pickney Street was of some concern to me, but I wouldn't bring up personal worries in a professional setting. Unless there was a direct threat to Maura of course, and given who her father, sorry, 'sperm donor' was, that was always a possibility. Paddy Doyle had been one of the worst crime bosses out there, and now that he was in prison, some of his enemies might feel it would be alright to take potshots at his daughter. Maura had been adopted, and for a while we'd managed to hide the fact that Paddy Doyle was her real father, but it was all out in the open now. That made Maura vulnerable, and I would try and protect her as much as I could from any kind of threat. Until we knew differently however, this was a homicide not connected to our Medical Examiner.

Maura was taking the liver temperature, and after a moments wait said. "Given the lividity, and ambient temperature, I'll put provisional time of death at six hours ago, and that the body has been moved.

"Death around 2am, and a dump site," I muttered as I scribbled the information into my notebook. A bit louder I added. "Any idea on cause of death?"

Maura smiled slightly, looking up at me. "You should know me better than that Detective."

Swinging my hands down by my sides I almost whined when I said. "Oh come on Maura, give me something to work with here."

The whole thing was a common verbal batting to and fro from both of us, and I hoped one day I might get Maura to crack and give me some kind of positive answer on cause of death before she got the body back to the morgue. However, that day wasn't going to be today.

With a coy smile all I got was. "I trust you'll be at the autopsy?"

Conceding defeat I answered with a sigh. "Yeah, just let me know when you're ready."

"Of course," and then Maura was directing the crime scene techs, as well as organizing for the body to be taken back to her domain within BPD. I turned my attention back to the rest of the crime scene, and helped Frankie organize the uniforms on site to start going door to door to see if anybody had witnessed anything out of the ordinary. It was already shaping up to be a long day.

As I'd suspected I didn't get home until nine that night. Most of my time had been taken up tracking down the murder victims ID. Finally we got a name to go with the body. Abby Smith, a young traveler from Dallas taking a year out before she was due to start university. All murders seemed such a waste of life, but when the victim was so young, and had such a bright future ahead of them, then the heinous nature of the crime seemed amplified somehow.

With a heavy sigh I flopped down onto my couch, removing my boots and wiggling my toes, pleased they were finally out of the confines of the leather. Thankfully Tommy had taken Jo Friday for the week so I didn't need to worry about the little dog's needs. My youngest brother had wanted to see how his young son, TJ, got on with a dog, with the view of getting a pet to add to the family. I had been genuinely thrilled when Lydia had changed her mind about being with Tommy. They had moved in together the past week, and I really hoped their relationship would grow to be good and strong.

Maura had invited me to go over to her place that night, but I knew my mask was far too fragile to be exposed to Maura in such an intimate setting. I was sure she'd see how badly I was struggling, even though she had not made any mention as to how I was really doing. Maybe the mask was more secure than I realized.

The evenings and night-time were the worst times for me. To start with, immediately after my first run in with Hoyt, I had taken to drinking heavily to try and block out the nightmares, panic attacks and flashbacks. That didn't work, and when I started to crave a drink during the day I knew I needed help. That's when I had found my shrink. I was suppose to be seeing her tomorrow, but using the current homicide as an excuse I had phoned and cancelled the appointment. Realistically I could have made the time to see her, but a large part of me was not up to interacting with people, so I was closing her down. At least for the time being. I was aware doing this was a slippery downward slope, yet somehow I couldn't help myself. Outside of work, shutting people out of my life was the only way I could survive the current upheaval in my emotional state. My main concern was how I would be able to achieve this without Maura or Ma realizing something was very wrong. For now I'd try and relax. Take the medication I had been prescribed, and with luck tomorrow would be a better day. It didn't happen that way.

I'd ordered Chinese take out on my way home, which I started to eat once I changed into more comfortable sweat pants. Half way through my meal I could feel the familiar tightening of my chest as my anxiety rose. One thing I'd discovered over the years was that if I could work out what had triggered the event, in this case the start of a panic attack, then generally I could deal with them easier.

Tonight I wasn't going to be so lucky. For the life of me I couldn't work out what had set me off. And it was shaping up to be a real doozy. Giving up on my meal I threw the rest of the food away. There was no way I would be able to finish eating when my throat felt so constricted. Time to try and beat this thing.

Normally I would use physical exercise to help me get over something like this. However, when it was a panic attack my ability to breathe was always compromised. Therefore I had come up with other ways to help me through the worst. If it was a mild attack then I could set about vacuuming the apartment. When I'd mentioned this to my shrink, she'd thought it was a good way of bringing myself back to the present. The trick she'd said, was to try and refocus my mind away from the negative issue, but without pulling it away so fast that I would get hit by a second wave of panic later on. Oddly I had found doing crossword puzzles really helpful. Either that or just playing a silly game on my phone that didn't take much thought to complete. Solitaire and bowling were my two go to games. Tonight solitaire was the winner. I started to play, letting the mindless nature of the game filter through my brain.

'Play... and breathe... play... and breathe... play... and breathe...' became my mantra for the next two hours. Eventually the crushing ache around my chest eased, my throat didn't feel as though I was trying to swallow around a baseball, and my muscles started to relax slightly. I'd made it through another evening. It was time to go to bed, and hope that I wasn't going to be struck down by nightmares.