~ Outside the box ~

Chapter 1: Out of the night

Boston, 20th of November 2018

Dearest Jane,

after some consideration I decided to write to you and, full of purpose, I pulled out a plain sheet of paper, charged my pen with a fresh ink cartridge (I bet you like that I chose the term charged);

and then Eli crawled up into my lap, I patted him for a while and now honestly forgot how I wanted to start. It must be his sixth sense. He appears to have some inner calling to the study as soon as I take a seat in front of my desk.

My eyes keep coming back to rest on that old tool box of yours. I wonder why I got refueled with curiosity just now, but I truly want to learn more about it. I had once told you that you should not play it down, that you lost more than shirts when your condominium had burned to the ground.

The box, even though the metal is tinged black from the fire, is one of the two things you brought back from the remnants of your ruined living room. Besides the cactus it is the only thing you kept despite its marred surface. The flames must have tried to get inside in order to destroy whatever the box holds that you treasure. Will you let me know what it is some day?

Eli is purring excessively. You were right, a furry animal is something else. Do you think it says a lot about me that I went from loving something in a shell to (also) loving something so fluffy? I cannot even imagine anymore what it was like without him.

In fact, that fairly sums up what I wanted to write about. I cannot imagine a life without you and the boys anymore. I don't want to imagine that, however, I feel like I am forced to do so, as if otherwise I would neglect the challenges that threaten us. That envelope that got sent to you last week; I can't get it out of mind.

I do feel threatened. I am more insecure than in a very long time.

I tried so very hard after the abduction to stay positive, to adapt various methods of coping. And I don't question them, they had worked. Dr. Larkspur has led me to efficient sources of strength. Henley's Invictus, for one. I am perennially astonished by how much I can draw from that poem. Do you know it?

Howbeit, that was two and a half years ago. Yes, more than two years in which we accomplished a lot. Not only by living at all, but by living happily as well, for which I am eternally grateful even though I take all statements about eternity – especially by a secular person – as somewhat blasphemous.

Don't worry, I am not losing my train of thought.

We managed a great deal of things. We became a family that has overcome so much already. What I am allowed to experience with you makes me feel the most beautiful things; at the same time the most difficult ones.

Back then, after you found me and we tried to settle in at home, I had been the one who insisted upon not giving in to fear. We were and are responsible for two little ones now. It was not just us anymore. In fact, it never has been. And I made myself dread that word, bu about that. What if we only define ourselves by being a family; what if we don't even know what it means to be a couple?

I still have the e-mail you sent to me as I was waiting to travel back from Ethiopia. Back then you contemplated whether we had talked sufficiently and consequently clarifying enough about our relationship – just as I am now. I hope it does not appear to be too pathetic to do this two and a half years later.

I denied you the knowledge of the experiences which haunted me the most. I know you read the reports, but those are mainly clinical. They don't tell you about the headache I had, the nausea I felt from the chloroform, about the dread I felt in the pit of my stomach when I saw him pour it on a rag to drug me a second time. Or how I could barely focus on something other than the knife when he flicked it open.

I talked to him about small victories he could experience.

I was the only one who could list small victories that day. Not being irritated by the rat, getting free, holding the cuff's chain in place in order to prevent it from cutting further into my wrists, faking unconsciousness, wounding him.

Lately, I started to doubt my decision to not tell you. I explained to you, it had nothing to do with thinking you might not understand. You have suffered through much worse. And you have always understood me. I simply and extensively did not want you to be haunted by them as well.

Harris had me not even 24 hours before you would shoot and kill him. However, 24 hours had been enough to do damage despite everything we have accomplished.

I can still taste his blood in my mouth. I can still taste my own. And I remember clearly how it had dawned on me, that me biting him and him slapping me had both resulted in that indistinguishable taste. I knew, I mean, I know the bio-chemical reasons for that and yet, I still cannot understand how we could possibly be that alike; not if only but especially on a molecular basis.

Shouldn't the difference between good and bad be easier to define? Don't we deserve to sense the dissimilarity? Or is he really as good as me and am I consequently as bad as him?

I find myself getting roped into such disquisitions on many occasions. Yes, Jane, I know what you are going to say: It is nothing new. And yet it is, because I get stuck more and more often and find myself incapable of answering the problem. I am at a loss where solutions would come to me easily, almost reflexively in the past.

I used to believe that at a certain point in my life I would succeed in completing an analysis of myself. I was wrong. Again and again, I find myself trying to understand the mechanisms that make me do what I do.

There is an entry in my diary from when I was eight years old. It reads: "My parents and I had a fight today. I now know how to prevent that from happening again." The truth is, neither at eight nor at 43 have I understood how to prevent a fight or something bad from happening. I am not done.

Instead I find myself going around in circles. I have to come back to where I have already been. Oh, so many times. I have to re-understand, sometimes only nuances or only slightly different aspects, but nonetheless nuances and aspects of something I had already counted to my common knowledge about myself.

I am tired of that sort of process. Tonight, I am. Sometimes, I enjoy to look at it, at me again. Sometimes, I enjoy seeing a new side. I wonder when it got reduced to sometimes? I used to thrive in learning new things about anything.

Is that what I have become? A reviewer of an I-used-to-be-self?

Well, I am taking quite an inrun to get to the point: I decided to make an appointment with Dr. Larkspur again. She helped me a lot the last time I needed, lets say directions.

The methods had worked for my PTSD, but I might have been a bit too busy with that to see that more needed to be done in order for us to work. All I did was manage the fear I felt. I also tried to micromanage yours. When you opened that envelope last week and pulled out our blemished family portrait the fear was back. Yours, too, I could see that.

I don't wanna go back to us fighting about the unhealthiness of being kidnapped or killed. Is there a rhythm to it? Every now and then a deranged person will come after us? Whatever it is, there is no denying it and I am of the opinion that we have to take more serious precautions for the scenarios we rather not think and talk about. We've got a good security system, I know that, but this is about more than equipment.

We have to talk about what that does to us, because it is affecting our relationship; no matter how brave and strong-headed you are; no matter how much we try to believe in the opposite.

You are aware that I prefer to write these things down, but please know that you may answer me in any way you like.

.

Love,

Maura

A/N: So, there's the beginning of the sequel which turned out to be much heavier than initially intended (and I'm talking about the whole sequel). 'Ethiopia' focused on Jane, so this will be more Maura centric. Though it's not easy for me to write from Maura's perspective, I'm just not as wordy :) Therefore there won't be as many letters as in the last story.

I will use the stuff that happens in the show, aside from that it's for you to decide how AU a Rizzles story really is. Maybe a time line to the story will be helpful:

Jane is pregnant (4x16) and does not lose the baby – Frost dies – her son is born (April 2015) – during her maternity leave she and Maura go to Ethiopia (September 2015) – and return with a second baby (Spring 2016) – Maura gets abducted (shortly after that, 6x12) – and now this story picks up two and a half years later in November 2018.

Reasoned, right?