A new story...I don't know how long it will be...or what will happen...this is all so far...But I can tell you straight up to expect cliffhangers. And probably delays between chapters as am renovating a house atm.
I hope you enjoy what I have so far.
Disclaimer...I do not own R&I or the characters. I make no profit off of it. For enjoyment purposes only.
Jam x

Inflection Point - CHAPTER 1

"This time let me save you."

It was almost a picture perfect image of last time.

Wild dark mane in a ponytail, windblown against the darkened sky. A determined pale and terrified face barely lit from the lights around. The odd silence surrounding them.

The blackness below and that eerie sound of water battering against itself.

Maura stands back, too far away to grab Jane. Jane who stands, once again, perilously close to the abyss below which seems to call out to her.

Last time Jane had told Maura to stay back. She wasn't planning to jump, only talk someone else out of jumping, and she had to do it alone.

Maura can remember the words Jane used..."I can bring Dani's killer to justice. I can do that. Okay. Please help me do that. Doesn't she deserve that?"

Jane was successful and the man had decided to live instead of jump. He had begun to make his way back to safety, along the ledge and over the guard rail, only to loose his footing and slip, falling into the murky waters and strong undercurrents below that dragged him out to sea.
Jane had looked for him but he was gone, so she jumped in after him without thinking of herself. And Maura had spent the rest of the night on the bridge hoping just to hear her friend had survived.
Against all odds, Jane not only survived, but also saved the man she had been pursuing.
Jane's swimming skills and some sort of miracle from God, or the mercy of some writer, had brought Maura and Jane back together.
That was last time...but it was not quite the same...
Close but not quite.

First and most important was Jane was not choosing to stand next to the rail of this bridge and stare into the water below.

It was also a vastly different bridge, far from the city lights and the sounds of the port.

This bridge was smaller, wooden and was not as high above the water.

Below was a river, usually flowing slow enough to kayak down, but because it was the middle of winter, the water was powerful and chaotic, sounding like the growl of thunder. The rails and road surface were coated in a fine white powder.

The water below was still black and loud like it was angry, like the water was fighting against the miserable cold as a way to not freeze over completely.

Maura could see a few icy boulders along the edge of the river and patches of white foam where the water had a calm moment trapped in a spot between two currents.

She shivered at the thought of the icy water, it looked like the coldest water she had ever seen.

Looking quickly back toward Jane who looked freezing cold as well, not dressed for the weather, not planning to be standing outside on a bridge that evening.

The man to the right of Jane, gun still trained on her, his breath huffs of white steam.

Maura took a half step closer, not that she could save Jane, just like last time, but just to be closer, as close as she could. It had to be different than last time. She couldn't go through that again. That waiting. That guilt. That fear.

The man saw the movement and glared at Maura without moving, a sign to stay put.

He is a big guy, solid built. Hat hiding his short brown hair and his trench coat hiding everything else.

Maura freezes like the moisture in the air around them which is slowing forming snowflakes that land in her hair and on her clothing.

"I can't bring her back." A gravelly broken and pained voice sounds like a cry against the noise around them, and it is almost instantly lost in the roar of the water. But both Maura and Darren heard it clearly before it was gone.

Darren looks lost for a moment, eyes distant and gun forgotten, before the anger returns as forcefully as the sounds around them.

Maura holds her breath as she watches any hope on Jane's face die in that moment. She isn't sure which 'who' Jane is referring too, perhaps either, or both.

Jane hadn't been able to talk her way out of this.

"Someone has to pay." Darren says sounding convinced of his actions.

Jane shakes her head slowly, soft curls waving around her face, "This won't change anything."

Darren stares at her. And Jane stares back. Maura watches between the two of them, feeling as helpless as the last time when she just knew something completely terrible was going to happen.

"Please." Her own voice sounds weak and she is sure it is lost into the background before it could be heard.

But Jane turns to look at her anyway, features changing and already apologizing for what might be about to happen.

Jane could always apologize with just one look, concerned and pained and regretful all at once.

"Don't hurt her." Maura begs holding back tears, tears that would burn her eyes and cheeks as they forced their way against the freezing air around them, perhaps turning solid before they reached her chin.

She watches Jane swallow, puffs of white air come out her nostrils, and she hangs her head. Neither have any control.

Darren growls as he turns towards Maura. With his face now slightly less profile she can make out his cold blue irises. They weren't always that blue, its that the whites of his eyes are bloodshot that causes them to appear more blue than before. Blue, the blue that was exactly like ones in the picture she had held of his 8 year old daughter. Eyes that would haunt her for days.

She saw them more than she could bear, they were on the top of the homicide board when Emilys body had been found. They were on her morgue table. They were on the news as the public were asked for information on anyone that had seen her in the days before her disappearance and murder.

And during the investigation, the almost identical pair had walked into the morgue to identify their dead child. Those same eyes that stared at her now. They weren't angry then, they were grief stricken, wide with disbelief, and then uncontrollably flooded with salt-water, perhaps as much as the ocean held.

That had been twelve weeks ago.

Darren and his wife Silvia had sobbed and begged God to somehow undo this tragedy, they had waited for the murderer to be caught, and then they had finally gone home to their empty home that would forever after be one member short of a complete family.
No one knows how family will move on, everyone moves on differently, but Silvia never did.
She spent four days wailing on Emilys bed, refusing to eat, refusing to communicate.
And when she finally left the pink princess room filled with dolls and bears and all the wonders an 8 year old can find, she walked almost a mile, to the quiet bridge at the end of the road, and threw herself into the waters below.
She could have survived but it seems she didn't have the will to try.
She died before the trial even started.

That was in autumn...now it was winter.

Now the water was fierce, not calm.

Jane watches Maura carefully, they both know this bridge from the report, from the news, and from the small white cross and bouquets of wilted flowers placed at the start of it.

They had both known the significance of the site when Darren had called and asked Jane to meet him there.

A grieving widower who lost his only child requesting to meet the woman that captured the murderer at the location his wife committed suicide. Jane had gone because of course she would. She would help in any way possible. He had sounded upset, hurting. Maura had gone for support.

Neither had expected him to pull a gun on her.

But Darren had taken the second loss as sign that he had failed his wife. For a while as he grieved them both he could beat himself up and hate himeself. But when the hearing ended and he was alone with time to think, he found he couldn't bear the pain anymore and had to find someone else to take the blame. To become the failure that was too great for him to bear alone.

It could have been anyone, someone from his past, someone from their circle of friends.

It can't be all his fault if there was someone else to take some of it.

And that someone is Homicide Detective, Jane Rizzoli.

Jane wasn't a friend, or family, she was only someone he had spent a great deal of time with during the two most painful events of his life that hit one on top of the other.

So Jane became his scapegoat. The fall guy. A survival kit so he could retain his sanity for a little longer.

The murderer was locked up for the next 15 years to life.

And Darren needed someone that could take away all the pain he felt inside...for awhile. If he could throw it at Jane, even a quarter of it, then maybe it would stop it eating him alive.

She could at the very least have done more.

Darren looks at Maura with the same anger he did Jane.

"You think I could plead with my daughters killer to not hurt her. You think if I had begged then she would still be alive?"

Maura shakes her head, catching Jane's concerned look out the corner of her eye.

"What about my wife...do you think that begging would have saved her?"

Jane looked afflicted, unsure how to intervene in this unexpected interrogation of Maura with the gun still in her direction. Darren momentarily distracted.

Maura looks between Darren and Jane before biting her lip.

Darren growls and shakes his head, "You don't know anything about pain. You don't know what it's like to loose everything."

"That wasn't her fault, Jane was helping you."

Jane holds her breath. Deciding on how to deal with this.

"She didn't save anyone." Darren bites tipping the gun towards Jane.

"She caught him...the man that killed your daughter. Jane caught him. Stopped him."

"My wife...and my daughter..." Darren's lip quivers slightly, "They're still gone."

"He...he can't hurt anyone else. He can't hurt anyone else's kid."

Maura knows it sounds weak even though it's the truth. I doesn't change anything for Darren. And in his mental confusion, Maura isn't sure logic will reach the man. She isn't convinced anything that is said here will stop Darren.

"I lost two...two. Is one enough."

It's the type of question Maura doesn't understand, but Jane get's his distorted logic.

"Look at me Darren." Jane growls softly, "Forget her, this is about me."

He turns back to Jane still processing his thoughts.

"It's me you want, I'm here. I want to help you. Tell me what I can do to help you?"

"No." Maura steps forward only to be stopped by Jane raising her hand towards Maura and giving her a firm look. Stay. Just stay right there and be quiet.

Jane looks back at Darren who's focus is back on Jane as well.

"Jump." Darren says coolly his eyes darker and face tight.

Maura shakes her head.

Darren raises the gun higher and Jane raises her hands in surrender.

"There is no other way?" Jane asks softly, her voice so calm Maura is convinced Jane isn't afraid at all.

Darren shakes his head and Jane chances a glance at Maura who puts her hands over her mouth to hold back a scream.

Her brain is numb except for the word 'No' which echos through her mind in time with her heartbeat. She wants to do something other than stand there watching but she can't think of what she could do.

Darren looks in the direction of Maura briefly, angry yet disinterested in the unseen interaction.

Jane gives Maura a soft half smile. Her teeth bright against the moonlight and then vanishing behind a huff of white breath. A sliver of hope because of that smile, Maura hopes it's Jane's way of saying everything will be fine and I have a plan so don't worry, not something more sinister, like, remember me this way because you won't see me again and I will miss you.

And despite the freezing air that causes Jane to look like she might be starting to freeze, goosebumps and a red nose and her eyes glassy from the sharp air, she looks amazing and calm. The opposite of how Maura feels inside.

So calm that for a moment Maura feels it too, like it's just the two of them in a bubble of safety that nothing can ever penetrate, a warmth, a connection.

"Now." Darren growls with a frown so deep his forehead is grooved with tiny shadows.

Jane turns to look at him sadly, like she pities him. And she probably does, because the sentence handed down to the murderer of his child by a jury was unjust enough that Jane lost it in the elevator. The doors opened with a very ruffled Jane inside, messy hair, untucked blouse, a broken phone and a crumpled coffee cup in it's own puddle on the floor by her feet. Korsak and Maura allowed Jane to exit the elevator and walk past them both without a word. Because they all felt it. They never talked about it, what was the point. But none felt it quite like Darren. Darren who watched the trial amidst burring his dead wife and daughter only a few days apart from each other. Darren who watched the cause of both deaths escorted back to his cell smiling at his own sentence.
It should have been the death penalty. Anything less wasn't enough for a man that brutalized and then killed a child showing no remorse. But the admissible evidence would never be strong enough, witnesses had lied, alibis were too strong despite being false, and lawyers twisted truths to garner sympathy.

Darren swings his arm so the gun points at Maura.

"Ok." Jane says with a nod and pulls herself carefully over the handrail. All the places Jane touches wipe away the snow revealing the green paint underneath.

Jane shuffles carefully keeping a tight grip, her fingers white from the cold.

Maura shakes her head slowly, she can't believe this is happening, she can't believe Jane is getting closer to danger.

Jane leans over the edge to look at the swirling water below, she knows it will be cold, it will take her breath away instantly. She knows once the cold hits, it will be hard to swim, to fight, to get to safety.

Jane looks back at Darren, "I'm so sorry for everything, Darren."

Darren doesn't speak, or move. He waits impatiently tapping his foot against the ground grinding his teeth together.

Jane glances back at Maura, "I'm so sorry. I love you."

Maura can feel the tears burn down her cheeks as she struggles to speak, "No Jane please...no..."

Jane turns her head away and closes her eyes.

"...I...I l-love you t-too J-jane."

Jane opens her eyes a hint of a smile on her face as she looks down again, searching, not for a person this time, but for the safest possible place to land, if there is one.

And then she leans out, only her arm holding her from dropping.

And then she jumps.

"Jaaaannnne." Maura screams.

But Jane is gone.

Maura can barely hear the splash over the roar of the water.

Darren leans over the edge to look and Maura closes her eyes.

...to be continued...