I don't own anything besides the story, all credit goes to the original artists responsible for the characters borrowed and the universes played in.

This story takes place in the fifth season before the mid season finale, so there are going to be minor spoilers up to that point.

From complete darkness Jane gradually became aware of a fuzzy throbbing in her jaw. She gingerly moved her head, realising that the whole right side of her face seemed a lot bigger than usual. A ringing sound in her ears was slowly diminishing, eclipsed by the bright light as she forced her eyes open and the tangy metallic taste in her mouth. She found herself in some sort of basement, the concrete walls clean and clinical. As she slowly moved the rest of her body checking for further injuries she tried to take stock of what had led to her ending up in a heap on the cold floor.

She had been investigating a case, an odd one. It had the whole homicide team at the BPD stumped for weeks. Women had been found gutted, their insides ripped open. One had been cut open with surgical instruments; the rest had looked more like they had been torn open with physical force, with no tool marks to be found. All the women had shown signs of recent pregnancy, but the autopsy had found that their hormone levels were all wrong for having just given birth. The victims had shown signs of internal trauma, unlike anything Maura had ever seen before. The body count was currently at four, but there were also eight missing women which had been flagged as potential victims.

The homicide team had been working the case around the clock since the first victim was found two weeks ago. There were no solid leads, with no forensic evidence found on any of the victims, no links between them, no apparent motive. It was wearing on everyone, and the whole team was desperate for a break in the case. Jane had found Korsak asleep at his desk three times this week so far, and the only reason she hadn't been caught herself was that she dragged herself down to Maura's office and settled on her extremely uncomfortable couch.

Maura had been working herself and her team just as hard as the homicide crew, going over bodies several times to try to find any new leads, all in vain so far. She had taken to bringing snacks in for everyone, since lunch breaks seem to have been a forgotten relic of times gone by. On this particular day Maura had come up to the bullpen and dragged Jane away from her desk at lunch time, insisting on forcing some real food into her.

They had decided to drive to a café near the neighbourhood of the latest potential missing person, to take a walk around the area while they were there and see if inspiration struck. Maura had tried to get Jane to eat something green, but Jane had gotten her usual burger and fries. They would usually enjoy the light hearted bickering that went along with their food choice dance, but they were both too tired and frustrated to put their hearts into it.

After they had finished their meal they had started walking the streets near the missing woman's house. It was a quiet area, mostly run down houses and dilapidated commercial buildings. During the walk they had been passing what looked like an abandoned factory when they had heard a woman screaming.

Jane had told Maura to go back to the car and call for backup. She pushed through a hole in the construction fence around the property, gun drawn. As she reached the ajar front door she heard the sound of glass crunching behind her. She spun around to see Maura following her holding a medical kit from the car.

"In case I was unclear, you were meant to stay in the car Maura!" Jane had quietly huffed.

As she finished speaking another scream ripped from the building, sounding much more pained and desperate. Jane gave Maura an exasperated look before turning back to the door and ducking inside the building. The scream had come from further back inside the building. After pushing through the door of the lobby and several offices they came to the factory floor, filled with old boxes and stacking equipment. There was a thick layer of dust on everything, showing clearly one set of footprints leading to the back of the factory floor. The prints were weaving with scuff marks showing where the person had staggered and fallen several times.

They reached a back room and quietly opened the door. The unexpected sight that greeted them was shocking. The missing woman was on the floor, shaking frantically. She was heavily pregnant and drenched in sweat, with blood dripping from her mouth.

Maura pushed past Jane and knelt by the woman's side, checking for her pulse and looking for the source of the blood.

"She's bitten her tongue Jane, I need your help". Maura stated, but as she spoke the woman started seizing violently. Jane looked on appalled as cracking noises could be heard from inside the woman's torso. The seizure stopped suddenly as the woman collapsed, her final breath leaving her lips in a frothy gurgle.

Maura looked shocked at the suddenness of the woman's death, before reaching for the medical kit. "Quickly Jane, help me, I need to perform a caesarean section."

Jane quickly grabbed the pair of gloves offered and moved to assist. Maura already had her gloves on and was cutting carefully into the woman's belly with a scalpel. The first layers of skin parted quickly, but Maura's face twisted into a look of surprise as the scalpel squealed against something hard.

"What's wrong?" Jane asked.

"There is some sort of solid membrane around the baby, I can't cut through it!" Maura said, her voice rising in pitch as she fruitlessly tried to get the scalpel to cut. They looked at the bent scalpel, both entirely confused.

"What can we do now?" Jane asked shakily.

As they looked at each other, a loud metallic squeal ripped from the woman's abdomen. Both women were sprayed with blood as the membrane suddenly split open from inside. Maura and Jane both had their mouths open so jumped away coughing and spluttering. While wiping the blood from their eyes they heard the first cry of a newborn. They looked at the gaping hole ripped in the poor woman to see a baby boy looking back at them.

Maura was the first to regain her senses, quickly taking off her coat to lay on the ground. She reached down and picked up the boy, wiping the blood off his head and placing him on the coat. The mangled scalpel was still sharp enough to take care of the umbilical cord. She swaddled the baby in the coat and looked up at Jane who was still frozen in shock, looking between the dead mother and the baby.

Maura stood up and walked over to Jane, watching the boy's expression as he looked at her. He was astonishingly aware for having just being born, clearly focussing on her face. The two women stared in amazement at the boy.

Maura moved first, gently handing the boy over to Jane who looked up in alarm.

"I have to call my team so we can process the scene, I don't know exactly what happened here but..." Maura gasped as she jerked her hand back from the baby in Jane's arms. She had been gently holding the boy's chest as she spoke, with her finger getting close enough for him to lean forward and bite her. She pulled away from Jane in surprise, a newborn shouldn't be able to lift his head to bite someone, he shouldn't even have teeth!

Jane started to ask if she was alright when they heard a crash from the front room of the factory. Jane had immediately moved in front of Maura, who was looking at her finger in alarm. Jane barely had time to register the look on her face contorting into a pained grimace before she heard a whooshing sound, something hit her face and everything went black.

As Jane remembered the events leading up to her injury, she became aware of screaming. She had a feeling of Deja vu as she realised it was a woman screaming in pain, which is what had originally led them into this situation.

She suddenly realised she had heard that screaming before; it was Maura, sounding like she was in more pain than Jane had ever heard. Jane scrambled to her feet, looking around the room she had woken up in. It didn't look like she was still in the factory; it looked more like the basement of a hospital. She checked for her gun and found it still clipped to her belt, which she was confused by but didn't argue with. After checking there were still bullets in the clip she readied the weapon, shook her head to clear the remaining ringing and tried the handle of the only door out of the room.

To her surprise the door opened, revealing a long corridor. She had been right about the building being an old hospital, the corridor was lined with patient rooms and there was a nurse station at the end of the hall. Maura's screams were coming from a nearby room.

As Jane made her way quickly down the hall she was deeply uneasy. They had clearly been moved from the factory, but no kidnapper she had ever heard of would leave a cop unrestrained with her weapon, free to walk around and escape. She still had no idea how she had been hit without seeing anything. The situation suggested that their kidnapper had no fear of being caught, which was almost more unsettling than the screams she could hear from the room she arrived at.

Jane burst into the room, scanning for whoever was torturing Maura. To her surprise there was nobody to be seen, Maura was alone. She was on the floor, her arms, legs and torso encased in some form of metal restraints. Her head was also attached to the floor with metal straps holding the top of her head and the bottom of her jaw.

Maura was still screaming, bucking against the restraints with wild abandon, apparently not noticing that her skin was broken wherever it rubbed against an edge. Her eyes were open and staring at nothing, her skin beaded with sweat.

Jane dropped her gun and ran over to Maura, looking frantically for a way to release the restraints. They seemed to be formed around Maura, with no latches or locks. Jane realised that the restraints were actually pieces of metal plate that had been ripped from the wall of the room somehow and bent to fit Maura's shape, there were still pieces of plaster stuck to some of the pieces. The plates looked like they had been simply shoved into the floor.

"Maura!" Jane yelled, grabbing her shoulders to try to stop her hurting herself. "Maura, what's going on? What's hurting you?" Jane was starting to panic, Maura was showing no sign of feeling her hands, she just continued to scream and pull against the restraints. "What do I do Maura? How can I help you?"

After fruitlessly pulling at the metal for several minutes, achieving nothing but bruised hands, Jane fell back on the ground. Maura had continued to scream, now seeming to have exhausted her energy for straining against the restraints. She was still writhing inside her bonds, her screams now interspersed with strangled groans and whimpers. It sounded like she was still in just as much pain as when Jane had first found her, but she was running out of energy to keep struggling.

Jane carefully checked Maura for signs of injury, trying to determine why she was in so much pain. The restraints didn't seem to be cutting into her besides where they had rubbed from Maura's struggling and there were no other visible cuts or injuries.

Jane knelt over Maura's face, putting her hands on her cheeks. She started saying Maura's name repeatedly, looking for any sign that Maura knew she was there. Instead she began screaming and pulling against the restraints again, the sudden jerking cutting into her chin where the band was pressed against her. Jane pulled back in shock, deciding to move away to try to find some sort of tool to get her out of her bindings.

Jane ran out of the room, looking frantically in each room for something she could use to cut the metal restraints. The building seemed to have been completely cleaned out; there was no furniture or equipment left. She eventually came across a set of stairs leading to the floor below.

She realised that the next floor of the building was similar in layout to the one she had left Maura on. Finding the room directly below she saw the ends of the bindings that held Maura sticking through the roof. They had been twisted together as if they were wire, despite being thick structural steel. She was shocked to realise she could see finger marks in the steel in several places, which made her not want to consider the implications.

After fruitlessly searching the rest of the floor Jane shakily headed back up to Maura. She had not heard her stop screaming the entire time she had been gone and Maura's voice was starting to sound strained. Jane entered the room and checked over Maura.

To her surprise she noticed that the cut on her chin had barely bled. She realised that Maura's skin was white and pallid, despite the huge amount of exertion she was not flushed as would be expected. Jane carefully put a hand on Maura's forehead, finding her to be cold and shaky.

Jane checked Maura carefully for injuries again, at this point feeling completely freaked out and helpless. Her hands had started to shake at some point and she had to stop to try to steady them. She took several deep breaths, trying not to listen to the pained whimpers coming from her friend. Slightly more under control, but no calmer, Jane ran her hand over Maura's limbs trying to find any entry wounds or marks. Eventually she noticed a small mark on her elbow that looked like a needle mark, similar to the one she had sported after donating blood a few weeks ago. Jane could only suppose that Maura had been injected with something that was either hurting her or giving her vivid hallucinations.

Jane realised there was nothing she could do sitting here, so decided to try to get out and find help. She retrieved her gun from where she had dropped it earlier and moved back into the hallway. When she had found the stairs down she had also noticed a barricaded door with an emergency exit sign above it. Returning to the door she pulled several pieces of plywood away that had been nailed to it before discovering a padlock securing several chains to the door. After trying to pry the chains off she decided to try shooting the lock off. Backing off a few steps she carefully took aim.

Before she could pull the trigger she heard the same whooshing noise she had heard before losing consciousness in the factory. As she started to turn towards the noise her gun was suddenly ripped from her hands and she was knocked onto her knees from behind.

Spinning onto her feet Jane looked for her attacker but again there was nobody there. She saw movement towards Maura and burst into motion back to her. In the room she saw a figure in a creepy black hooded robe standing over Maura.

Jane charged at the figure, crouching as she hit to try to tackle the figure away. Instead it felt like she had run into a concrete pillar; she felt something give in her left shoulder as she fell to the floor.

The figure finally moved, taking off the hood of the robe and looking down disdainfully at Jane. She was surprised to see that she had just tackled a young woman with exceptionally pale skin and bright red eyes. The woman turned toward Jane and casually tossed her gun to her. Jane caught it and pointed it back at the stranger, noticing as she did that the barrel was now bent to the side, showing the same finger marks as the metal downstairs. Jane dropped the gun in defeat, slumping back on her uninjured side. "What do you want?" she asked.

The young woman's voice was surprisingly soft and lyrical, but her tone was flat and bored. "This woman is an experiment. She has begun the process of transforming into a vampire. She should awaken in around three days' time. When she awakes she will try to kill you. If you can stop her from killing you she will be strong enough to break the lock on the door and you may both leave. If she kills you she will be killed as she attempts to leave. Do you understand?"

Jane had been trying to listen but her brain had somewhat stalled at the word vampire. She started to sputter out about three different sentences at once, eventually settling on "I'm sorry, vampire?"

The woman huffed impatiently, and before Jane could blink she had moved across the room and lifted Jane off the floor by the throat. "Yes, vampire. I am a vampire, the child that you found in the warehouse was half vampire and bit your companion. There was venom in his bite which caused the transformation to begin. Do you understand?"

She released Jane who fell back to the floor on her bad shoulder when her knees buckled. She gasped in pain, attempting to calm her whirling thoughts. None of what the woman made any sense, but in case this was some sort of psychotic delusion Jane elected to play along to try to get some answers and keep her attention away from Maura. "I understand, yes, please continue, you said something about an experiment?"

The woman continued in her original tone of voice. "We have a theory that newborn vampires may be more controllable if they were almost completely exsanguinated before the transformation has progressed to the point where their new vampire tissues are saturated with their own human blood. In order to test this theory we have drained all of the blood out of your companion. If she awakens and is able to resist killing you we will know if our hypothesis is correct."

"Um, ok, so when she doesn't kill me what happens then?" Jane couldn't comprehend any version of Maura that would try to kill her, so she skipped forward to the part she considered the real problem, which is how they were going to escape.

The stranger didn't quite smile at the question; it was more of a subtle smirk. "Let's see if you make it out the door together first, if you do we can talk about what happens next." The woman suddenly disappeared and then reappeared, the distinctive whoosh sound accompanying the movement. Jane flinched backwards, realising how fast the woman could move. The robed figure deposited a backpack and a small fridge on the floor near the wall.

"This backpack contains clothes for both of you and food for you. There is a working bathroom on this floor, ensure that you have washed all of the blood off her and disposed of the bloodied clothes you are both now wearing. The fridge contains blood to feed your friend when she awakens. I advise you to feed her the blood before you attempt to explain her situation, otherwise she will not be listening. Her sense of smell will be greatly heightened and any scent of blood will send her into a frenzy, so ensure that you are not bleeding by the time she wakes up or this will all be a pointless exercise." The woman was sounding more bored as she continued, her voice containing no emotion despite the fact that she was talking about the possibility of Jane's best friend being unable to resist murdering her.

Jane moved over to the bag and looked inside. There were a few health bars and some casual clothes. As she moved she assessed her shoulder, it felt like it was dislocated. The stranger had watched her movement, apparently deciding that an injury was not conducive to the experiment.

With another whoosh Jane felt hard hands manipulating her shoulder and a sickening pop before she was dropped unceremoniously to the ground again, her whole shoulder exploding in new pain. After she yelled again, she realised that the shoulder was back in place. Although she didn't appreciate the method it was preferable to attempting to set it herself stuck in this building, and if she was going to escape she could use both arms working.

The woman had apparently seen the relief in her face. "Understand that there is no escape from this building. Any escape attempt will only lead to an injury which will potentially affect the outcome. This will not be tolerated." As the woman finished speaking Jane suddenly experienced a blinding pain, feeling like her brain was on fire, with white hot sparks emanating all through her skeleton in searing waves. As unexpectedly as the sensation had begun it suddenly stopped and Jane flopped to the ground, her pained throat making her realise she must have let out a deafening scream. As she looked back at the woman that subtle smirk was back and Jane had no doubt as to where the pain had come from.

The woman spoke again. "That was your only warning. Any further deviation from your instructions will lead to your death and the death of your friend. Do you understand?" The woman's tone had finally picked up an emotion, she now sounded like she was speaking to a small child, with a condescending lilt.

Jane might be having some trouble getting her head around the situation but she was abruptly very convinced that she was out of her depth in something she had never experienced or heard of. She was also convinced that the threat was real and that she held Maura's life in her hands, and she wasn't going to let her stubbornness get them killed. "I understand, sorry. Ok, don't let her kill me, feed her blood before I try to explain, get her to break the lock. Wait, how do I get her out of the restraints?"

The vampire looked disdainfully at Maura, who seemed to have run out of energy to scream early in the confrontation and was shaking and whimpering. "When she wakes she will break out of the restraints. You will have minutes at best to feed her and get her under control." With that the vampire looked back at Jane with a cruel smirk before disappearing again. Jane waited a few seconds for her to reappear, and when she didn't she struggled to her feet, her legs shaking under her. Making her way back to the exit door she realised the boards had been reattached to the frame. Feeling defeated and drained she made her way back to Maura.

Maura's face was still contorted in pain, with a lot of fear and exhaustion mixed in. Her eyes were still wide open and staring, with the added element of a few broken capillaries. Jane guessed that she had been awake for maybe an hour, which meant that with the time it had taken to transfer them to the building and set up the barricade Maura had probably been bitten at least three hours ago, but with no way of knowing how long she had been knocked out that was a guess. The vampire hadn't left her with a phone, and without windows to see the sunlight there was no way to measure the passage of time.

Jane gently touched Maura's hand to try to give some comfort, although she was doubtful that she would be noticed. She decided to sit for a while, stroking Maura's face and murmuring random comforting words, more for her own benefit at this point. Maura seemed to still be in pain but she had settled into quiet whimpers, which was easier for Jane to cope with than the violent screams from earlier. Eventually Jane felt a little less freaked out and decided to start exploring their prison.

She first checked over her bent gun, concluding that it was definitely useless. She dropped the gun on the floor near the fridge the vampire had deposited on the ground, noticing that there was a working power point on the wall that the fridge was connected to. Opening the fridge she found several bags of what she assumed was blood, all with a resealable lid. She supposed this was to help her keep the smell of blood out of the air after feeding the contents to Maura, what with the frenzy that would apparently occur at the smell of blood. Jane had to stop herself laughing at the thought; this whole situation was completely ridiculous.

Shaking her head, Jane closed the fridge and left the room to explore. She started to think through everything that had happened, trying to construct some sort of logical explanation for the weirdest day of her life.

Everything had been normal at the warehouse up until the point where the mother of the baby had died. She hadn't been intimately involved with many births, but she still clearly remembered the incident a few years ago when she had helped Maura save the baby of a murder victim that had been carried into the spa while they had been bickering over a mud bath. That birth, while traumatic and horrible due to the dead mother, had been normal and as she would expect based on what she had seen on TV. There was no weird barrier around the baby, and the baby they had saved that long time ago hadn't had sharp teeth and curious watchful eyes. The fact that Maura, the big brain herself, had also looked completely mystified by the whole thing made Jane sure that the baby wasn't normal, in fact wasn't anything the medical community had ever heard of.

Next was the look on Maura's face right before Jane blacked out. She hadn't had time to process it at the time, but thinking back she was sure the look had been surprise mixed with pain. She had seen Maura injured before and knew that a simple nick on the finger wouldn't make her grimace like that, especially when they had just realised there was someone in the warehouse with them. Jane could only conclude that the vampire had been telling the truth, the baby had in fact had some sort of venom in his bite which had gotten into Maura. If the vampire was telling the truth about what had happened, the venom in that tiny bite was enough to cause the agony Maura was currently suffering through, which made the venom much more potent than anything Jane had ever heard of. Jane had no idea if the fact that the vampire had apparently drained all of Maura's blood was making the agony worse, but she was definitely worried what the lack of blood might be doing to Maura, especially in light of how much exertion she was being put through.

The big thing Jane was having trouble coming up with any way of processing was everything to do with the vampire herself. She had obviously possessed superhuman abilities, at minimum phenomenal strength, skin that felt like cool marble and super speed. There was also the searing pain that had come from nowhere, the vampire hadn't moved at all much less touched Jane and yet she had been screaming on the ground. Jane knew that if the vampire had wanted her dead there would have been nothing she could do, she probably wouldn't have even seen it coming.

With this rather sobering thought Jane realised she had done a full circuit of the hospital they were trapped in. Jane had located the working bathroom and found a sealable bin, most likely left there by the vampire for her to deposit the blood stained clothes.

She had not found any windows or doors apart from the barricaded one on Maura's floor. The one opening she had found was in the corridor containing the door, a breach in the ceiling. The roof of the hallway was about six meters high, which left Jane no chance of getting up to the hole since there was nothing in the hospital to use to climb on. She could only guess that was the way the vampire had gotten out, as the barricade seemed to be locked from the inside.

Looking up at the hole Jane felt a gripping despair crash down on her and stumbled to the nearby wall, sliding to the floor. She hung her head in her hands as she realised that she had no way of getting Maura out of this. Tears fell freely down her cheeks as she started to sob, guilt now accompanying the sorrow as she thought about her dear friend, once again hurt by being near one of Jane's investigations.

So many times Maura had come along with her to interview suspects or check out crime scenes after the body had been moved back to the morgue. Thinking back she couldn't remember anyone ever questioning why the Chief Medical Examiner had any business getting involved in active investigations after the autopsy was complete, but since Maura so often gave them the vital break in the case nobody gave the phenomenon a second thought.

But so many times their work had caused her friend pain. Jane sobbed as she thought of Maura in the hospital after having her leg cut open by Jane, looking so pale but still smiling at her to reassure her. Despite the fact that not 24 hours previous they had been barely speaking, Maura was now looking after her despite the fact that she had almost lost her leg because she had wanted to help. Jane remembered being surprised to find no blame on Maura's face, only forgiveness and happiness at being together again.

Jane recalled Maura's face when they had discovered that the man she was dating was a serial killer, the realisation coming almost too late as he grabbed her by the throat and dangled her life over an elevator shaft. The mixture of relief and terror on her face as Dennis had let her go and fallen to his death had almost broken Jane's heart. The shame she had felt in allowing the situation to progress that far had sat in her gut like a stone for weeks.

The time when Maura had come with her to visit Hoyt one last time as he lay dying, only to be attacked and almost killed in front of Jane was the worst. She had felt so helpless, not just because she was terrified of Hoyt and his smirking apprentice, but because she had pulled Maura into his field of view and he had taken full advantage. The guilt combined with fear had stopped her from fighting back until she saw Maura shocked numb by the taser and bleeding from a scalpel wound. The white hot panic that had flowed through her at the thought of letting that abomination defile her friend had enabled her to blast through all her internal barriers and finally defeat her own personal demon.

The helpless state Maura was now trembling in took Jane back to that moment with Hoyt. But her face back then had helped Jane take action. The look on her face now was so much worse. There was fear, pain and exhaustion, but there was no awareness of anything around her. It was as if Maura was gone, and there was only an empty shell lined with ghostly echoes of the woman she knew.

Jane dreaded the looks still to come. The revulsion when she looked at Jane with the knowledge that she had allowed her to be hurt yet again, the disgust when she realised her best friend had dragged her into a completely new world and left her there. But Jane would happily see any of those expressions on Maura's face if it meant her friend was still in there somewhere. Maura's face now gave Jane no strength, she was out of ideas, had no options, and knew of no way to help her friend.

Jane eventually managed to get her breathing back under control, her chest still heaving as she grasped the wall and pulled herself up. That was the only time she would be allowed to feel sorry for herself, although she would never forgive herself for allowing Maura to be swept up in this she needed to focus on helping her friend through whatever was ahead.

She made her way back to Maura, deciding that she would sit with her until her condition changed.