A/N: This story is loosely based on the little known fairy tale Jorinde and Joringel (also spelled Jorinda and Joringel). This fic is very AU for 3B in a couple ways: Liz did not fall in love with and get back together with Tom as she did in S2, and thus she is not pregnant. The events of 3A generally transpired as they did in canon, and Tom assisted with Karakurt's capture, but Liz only allowed it because it was necessary to exonerate her. But like in 3x11, Liz does not formally have her job back with the task force. Anyway, I'm looking forward to writing this story, and I hope you guys enjoy it!
"...but if a pretty girl came within this boundary, the old enchantress changed her into a bird, and shut her up in a wicker cage, which she put in one of the rooms in the castle."
-Jorinde and Joringel, The Green Fairy Book
As the key scraped inside the lock, she did not move to cross to the door, just kept her eyes on the television screen flickering in front of her, playing out the same story that she had seen dozens of times. She tugged the blanket further over around shoulders and mouthed the dialogue along with the characters, the words rasping out of her throat and ghosting past her thin lips, a muscle tugging up her mouth into a vague, serene smile. The man on the screen wrapped the woman in his arms, a tight embrace full of passion and comfort. She wiggled on the mattress, biting her lip, knowing that his proposal was about to come next.
The bottom of the door swished across the plush carpet, throwing a slanted square of light across the wall next to her. A black remote sat next to her feet, but she didn't move to get it. She lifted her hands to her face, cupping her chin as her cheeks ached with the smile that sat there.
The mattress shifted as a slight weight dimpled the bed, and a thin hand with rounded, polished fingernails picked up the remote, pushing the pause button. She glanced to the woman next to her, dropping her hands into her lap with a pout.
"I was just about to get to the best part," she protested, eyes darting to the remote that sat in the woman's hand. She did not move to take it.
The woman's face crinkled with a smile as she put the remote back down, and she reached for her hand. "I know, Jenna dear," she said, giving her hand a gentle pat. Her bones were sharp through the soft, moisturized skin of her palm. "And you know that I'm always so happy when I see you girls enjoying yourselves, but I've come back with a special present since you've been following our house's guidelines so well recently."
Jenna straightened up, the blanket dropping down off of her shoulders, and she leaned in closer to look at the small woman, her right hand grasping the woman's bony one.
"Oh, Miriam! Thank you. You know how much I loved your last present." She nodded at the knitting supplies that sat on a little, low table in the far corner of the room, a half-made scarf spilling out of the tips of the knitting needles.
"I brought you something to make yourself pretty." Miriam released her hand and leaned down to lift up a small paper bag sat on the floor. She sat it on the bed and pulled out a necklace cupped between her hands, a small butterfly charm hanging from the end of it. Its silvery wings glittered in the artificial, glowing light that still emanated from the TV.
"It's...it's beautiful. I used to have one similar to it with a moon charm. I got it from-" she stopped short, pit of her stomach growing cold at the name she had been about to say. She twisted her hands in her lap and swallowed hard, biting her lip. She wasn't going to let him torment her anymore. That's why Miriam had done all of this-to take her away from all that he had done.
"Thank you. I love it," Jenna finished, forcing a smile back to her face. And she truly did love it, but any thought of him did tend to dampen her mood.
Behind her thick, circular glasses, Miriam's papery skin stretched across cheekbones and wrinkled into a smile. "It's all right. It's natural to still be reminded of him, but just remember that you've been doing so well lately. You've been thinking of him less and less. And if...if I knew that this would have reminded you of him, I would not have bought it for you."
She began to close her fingers over the necklace, like a venus fly trap slowly closing its leaves over an insect trapped inside of it. Jenna's hands darted, snatching up the little butterfly necklace before Miriam could withdraw it. She pressed it to her chest, the silver chain bumping against her blouse. "No, no! It's all right and I truly, truly appreciate it and all that you have done for me."
Miriam was silent for a moment, eyes glancing to the darkened trees outside of the window, shivering leaves reflected in the thick frames of her glasses. A smile soon returned to her face. "Very well, then. I'm glad you like it, and I'll leave you to finish your movie, but remember to go to bed before eleven thirty."
Jenna raised her brows and pressed her lips together with a nod. "Thank you," she whispered, still grasping the necklace in her hand, the tips of the butterfly's wings digging into her skin.
Miriam mirrored her nod and sat up from the bed, picking up the now empty paper bag the necklace had come in. Her shoes made no sound against the carpet as she walked out the door and closed it.
The key scraped inside the lock.
Jenna fastened the chain about her neck.
Liz didn't expect that the end of her status as a fugitive would be hailed by a streamers and balloons and a bright red banner that said, "Welcome home Elizabeth!" in bubbly, misshapen letters. It was simply that she expected that the next phase of her life would feel different in some discernible way, but she felt as if she was just as adrift as she had been a few weeks ago when she was hunkering inside a safe house away from the light, like some kind of burrow dwelling animal. So, though exhausted as she was, it had been some sort of strange, small comfort when Red had arranged to meet with her concerning some new case. When she had seen the name "Nick's Pizza" light up her phone, her mouth had twitched into some shape of a smile. She needed some semblance of her old existence to cling onto with tight fingers, and a case could ease her back into some sort of discernible routine.
But as she sat on the bench at their pre-arranged meeting spot, her skin prickled and her nerves were electric, sparking up her neck and burning her neurons each time someone's gaze lingered on her a moment too long. Time on the run had carved out whatever sense of safety she ever had and left in its place the honed instincts of hunted prey, ready to sprint and bound away into a crowd if someone seemed about to recognize her or harm her.
But then, it had also left her with the raw instincts of a desperate predator backed into a corner, ready to lash out and react with a snarl and lashing, unsheathed claws, so when she felt a shadow beginning to sweep over her, she flinched, head jerking up along a stiff neck, ready to defend herself if necessary. Her fingers knotted into the fabric of her jeans.
Pulse quickening at her throat, she pressed her hands flat to her legs when she saw that it was simply Red hovering near her, mouth parted as he looked down at her. She flicked a hand to the empty spot next to her, a muscle in her cheek jumping as she attempted a smile. A slash of light glinted off of his amber sunglasses as he sank down next to her, keeping a space between them.
The circular shadow from the brim of his hat cast obscured his eyes, but she saw the furrow in his brow. "Is everything all right?" he asked, voice dipping down as he leaned toward her.
Liz did not want or need concern right now. She couldn't talk about the way she had almost jumped back when the cashier handed her her receipt too quickly, afraid that he was about to strike her, or how obsessively had gone through every inch of her apartment looking for bugs, checking the locks, and analyzing the different ways she could exit and escape the apartment she needed, because if she began to talk about those things, it would be a rushing confession that she might not be able to stop. Right now, she didn't need to pick through her psychological wreckage and salvage for what might have remained intact. Right now, she needed to keep clinging to her life preserver, and kick toward something familiar. And that familiarity was a case. It was something bland, something routine.
She gave a twitching shake of her head as she inhaled, lacing her fingers together. "Everything is fine. What's up?" She sat up straight, rolling her shoulders back, trying to settle back into the old beat of discussing a case with him.
But he had seemingly latched onto her mood, and once he caught a scent, he was determined. "The case can wait for a moment. You can talk to me if you need to, you know that."
She raised her eyes, pressing her lips together. Why couldn't he leave it? "I know that, but like I said-it's fine. Let's just talk about the case."
The edge of his mouth twitched, and he pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. It was clear that he wasn't about to believe her, but then he bobbed away from her and pressed his thumb against the brim of his hat to adjust it. "Have you heard about the disappearance of Dawn Abato, the girlfriend of mob boss Bruno Sabelli?"
"Sure, I saw it on the news a few nights ago. What about her?" Liz had seen the woman's square face flash across the TV screen mounted in a noodle shop she had gone to a few nights ago, the quality of the photograph bad on a blocky, thick screen that had to be at least seven years out of date. She had had a gray hoodie pulled up over her head as her hands gripped a cooling cup of noodles that she listlessly forked into her mouth. It had been a cliche image of a woman hitting the rockiest of bottoms, but she didn't care.
"It wasn't a simple disappearance. It was a kidnapping, and I believe that it is connected to several other disappearances in nearby counties. The women's backgrounds and descriptions are always similar-young women in their mid-twenties or early thirties, typically brunette, and always in a relationship with a man seen as either dangerous or abusive. There are rumors that one person is responsible for all of this, though it's unknown who." Red's voice had returned to that typical business-like tone once again.
She crossed her arms and then said,"I assume you somehow know Bruno?"
"Somewhat," was all he said. She knew he wasn't about to elaborate more than he felt necessary.
"How do we know the women weren't simply murdered?" Abductions happened, but she'd studied enough serial killers to know that a pattern like the one he was describing could also be attributed to something more homicidal.
As if he had completely anticipated the direction their conversation was about to take-and knowing him, he probably had-he slipped his hand inside his jacket and withdrew a glossy photograph. She swayed closer to him, the backs of her legs pressed close against the edge of the bench. All she initially saw in the photograph was a sea of people, their slumping shoulders and shifting legs morphing into an amorphous wave, but then she saw it, the single motionless element-a woman had craned up her long, swan-like neck to look at something above her, her thick lips parted and deer-like eyes staring in glassy confusion. A tangle of black hair fell over her shoulders.
"This woman was one of those kidnapped. An amateur photographer was snapping street photographs, and when he was going through them, he saw this woman and recognized her as a woman that had recently gone missing from his town. He reported it and posted the photo all over the internet-it was shared thousands of times if I recall correctly-, but she seemed to have disappeared once again." He released his grip on the photograph, and Liz picked it up between pinched fingers.
Her eyes were still fixed on the ghostly woman who stood alone, a sentinel tossed heedlessly about by the blurred confusion of humanity. Liz knew how that felt.
"Okay," she said, half to herself and half to Red. "We'll bring it to the Post Office." She shuffled through her purse and slipped the photograph inside, careful not the bend it, as if she was somehow protecting the woman's image who had been captured.
She was about to rise, but then Red wrapped his hand around hers, a thumb running over her knuckles. "It will get easier, in time, Lizzie," he said, voice edging down into that strange, rough tone that he reserved for comfort.
She couldn't be angry. He was not asking her to confess everything that was rattling around inside her cluttered, loud mind. He wasn't even offering to help move around the furniture and sort through the boxes of trauma she kept in her head. He was simply offering her a different life preserver to hold onto for the time being, until she was ready to try to return to the shore.
She gripped his hand back for a moment, shifting her thumb over the top of his. "I hope so."