"But now the room is spinning while I'm trying just to fill in the gaps."

Chapitre 1

"How many fingers am I holding up, Jane?"

The detective narrowed her and eyes in an attempt to get a better glimpse at the hand in front of her. Maura observed her. Jane had woken up from a long coma around twenty minutes ago and they were already harassing her with questions when all she wanted was to be left alone with her fiancée. The medical staff had been overwhelming her as soon as she had her eyes open and Maura would never forget her silent scream in the middle of the cacophony of medical terms and the never-ending screech of the heart monitor. Jane had been looking for her with her eyes and with her hands and all she had been met with was detached doctors and nurses assessing her condition. It had been too much too soon but they were all so young and eager to do well. It was a common issue with interns who thought they didn't need their mentors.

To Jane, all this agitation around her was a high source of stress. She was confused as to what had happened to her and where she was. The place was too crowded and too noisy. She couldn't see much of them. Everything was a blur. She could only distinguish vague spots of colours. So were moving so fast it was dizzying. Everything else was bright and white.

Her movements were limited. Her whole body hurt, her right left wouldn't move. She fought the people around her but they pushed her hands away. She tried to sit up but they pushed her down. Their hands were cold and foreign. She didn't want them to touch her anymore. The beeping was deafening. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see. None of those strangers cared. They were arguing about who would work best on her. She wanted Maura. She needed Maura.

Her voice had broken the cacophony just as Jane screamed in a non-existent voice. Maura had kicked everyone out and grabbed the hand Jane was blindly holding out in a hope to find her. She had spent the next twenty minutes to comfort her fiancée until she was calm enough to let someone check on her. She was introduced to the nurse in charge of her, a woman called Florence. She was doing her assessment when Jane admitted to Maura that she couldn't see.

They had flashed a light in her eyes, a bright luminous spot that she had to follow. She wasn't blind but everything was blurry and she was terrified. Her hand was tight against Maura's. The medical examiner was tracing circles on the back of it with her thumb.

"Take all the time you need."

"Why can't I see?"

Narrowing her eyes or rubbing them wasn't clearing her sight. The issue was reported to her doctor by Florence and soon she was taken for a scanner and a visit with an ophthalmologist. Jane was abnormally anxious for both exam as they were done by men. She had never been so uncomfortable in their presence before and couldn't understand why she suddenly couldn't stand them so close to her.

She was relieved when she was finally wheeled back to her room where Maura was waiting for her. She was given a few hours to rest before the results of her exams came: she had taken a hard blow to her head that caused a micro fracture of her left eye socket but also the formation of a swelling that was pressing on the optic nerve and preventing her from seeing anything.

"How long?"

"We can't tell for sure. It could be a couple days or a couple weeks."

Jane was wringing her hands. Maura placed hers on them before she could hurt herself. She hated how Jane flinched at her touch. Dr. Willner was still speaking but Jane wasn't listening anymore and Maura had a hard time focusing on his words when her fiancée was so distraught. He promised to come back later to talk with Jane about the next steps in her recovery.

"We'll go through this together."

Maura brought Jane's hand to her lips and dropped a kiss on her knuckles. Jane slipped her hands out of her hold and turned her head away. Maura's heart broke. She had feared that situation. In times of vulnerability, Jane was shutting herself away and dealing with it on her own. She refused to be seen as vulnerable. Even by the woman she loved.