Red is Dangerous

She smiles at Jane from across the room. It's sweet and endearing and everything that screamed out welcome.

Jane hates her.

It wasn't that she had done anything to Jane; it was that she had got everything Jane ever wanted.

She just knew answers to questions where Jane's struggled; her smile was real while Jane's smile was false; her eyes were green and Jane's eyes were brown. She was a size 10, Jane was a size 12.

Jane hates her and she knows it but she welcomes Jane anyway.

At school when Jane was 5 she was told that if there was a problem she should talk it out.

Fighting doesn't resolve anything.

Not long after her ninth birthday Jane saw things on the news and in the papers about war and soldiers and adverts for recruitment into the army where they would teach people to kill and not feel remorse. Jane got taught it by her teacher too in history at aged 10. She learnt about World War 1 and World War 2 and her grandparents told her stories like it was yesterday. How these brave soldiers fought so that she could live the life she was living today.

The information was conflicting and her head hurt.

How could something that started so deadly and ended so deadly create peace?

Does that make fighting right?

When she turned 11 she understood. She knew exactly what it meant to fight. It was drilled into her by the doctors, the nurses and the parents. Fighting can kill.

Fighting can also keep you alive.

Jane didn't like people that were different, probably because she was different herself. It was in her blood, she was Italian and even though people never said or did anything to her she could just feel it. She thinks that's how she became such good friends with Frost because Frost was different too.

She also thinks that's part of the reason she hates her. She is different, but not in the way her and Frost are. She arrives to school in a black limo, she wears a new outfit every day that molds perfectly to her skin, her hair doesn't have a strand out of place, her makeup is flawless and she knows the answers to every question without ever really trying.

Jane used to think that she didn't listen in class. She looked bored and uninterested doodling in her book or staring out the window but then on occasions when Jane stayed behind in the classroom to ask the teacher for help, she would stay behind too to ask the teacher questions that did not relate to the subject in class. The teacher would fumble over his words and avoid answering. It took Jane a couple of weeks to realize the Mr Parker didn't know the answers at all.

Sometimes she just stayed behind to correct the teacher on something he had gotten wrong.

On them days Jane wondered if she was stupid or if she was a genius.

Red, that is what Jane called her because she didn't care to learn her name until the second year of knowing her. She chose red because of her hair and because it was threatening and because something about her was just dangerous.

Isles, that was her surname, that's what the teachers called her Miss Isles, like a punch to the gut proving that she wasn't like them. Like she was better than Jane, like she was better than all of them put together, at everything. Jane hated it. So she didn't call her Isles, or Maura. She called her Red.

Freshmen year aged 15. That was the year Jane's mum told her that she will have to start being responsible, she will have to stop fooling around with her brothers and actually concentrate on her studies. It was also a whole year that had passed since Red started at Millbrook College, so it was coincidental really, that it was the year that she first spoke to Red after an accident at the park with her brothers.

It happened quickly, so quickly that even if Jane had of seen the ball coming, she wouldn't have been able to move out of the way fast enough and as a result it smacked her square in the nose. The bat dropped from her hands out of reflex as she reached up to cup her throbbing face. She may have screamed if she hadn't have been concentrating so hard on not crying.

"Jesus Jane, are you OK?"

She thinks its Frankie that is asking, no it's definitely Frankie because Tommy is laughing and tapping her shoulder "You need to man up" he chuckles.

Jane growls "I'm fine"

She isn't, of course. She can feel the blood trickle down her fingers, or at least she thinks its blood, she daren't pull her hands away because Frost is stood frozen at her side and she knows the site of blood no matter how big or small will more than likely make him faint.

"I can't believe you didn't see the ball" Tommy laughed, he held up his hand to get a high five from Frankie who dismissed him with a shake of his head.

"You knew she wasn't looking"

"Trust you to take her side" Tommy mumbled but thought better of arguing. He squeezed Jane's shoulder. "It's not like you to not be concentrating, you alright Sis?"

"It was a foul ball" Jane mumbled. She leaned her head back. She didn't like being caught off guard and she certainly didn't like losing. She removed one of her hands from her nose and wiped it down her trouser leg before leaning her head back again.

Frost stepped away "Erm Jane, you're, well you have, it's…"

"Bloody" Jane finished, pushing both hands across her jeans in frustration. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath through her lips. Anger came to her easily and she had to learn to control it "I know, sorry Frost. Maybe I will sit this one out"

"It could be broken" Frankie threw in his two cents and Jane tried not to roll her eyes. She loved Frankie, Tommy and Frost and she knew they were only looking out for her but she didn't need looking out for.

"Did you know that nasal fractures are the most common types of facial fractures? Studies have shown that most nasal fractures involve the septum…"

Jane turned and took a step towards the voice. It was one thing that her brothers and Frost saw her in pain. It was another thing that a complete stranger…her eyes focused… that Red saw her in one of her weakest moments. Jane wasn't weak. Jane did not get hurt. She bites. "And this involves you how?"

"Easy Jane, she is far too good looking to be rude too." Tommy laughed, stepping up beside his sister "And you are?"

Jane put her arm out pushing Tommy back. Red wasn't one of them, Tommy would never be good enough. People like them were not allowed to hang around people like her and if they did it would only result in making themselves look and feel stupid.

"Please just, lean your head back" Red looked between the two of them choosing to ignore them both. She looked nervous but strong and Jane was having a hard time fighting her request when she felt the blood trickle down over her lips. She leant back closing her eyes she gathered her breath and tried again.

"What's this to do with you?"

"I can help" she reached forward, Jane stepped back.

"By calling your driver and having him escort me to the hospital, no thanks"

"Look, you can take my help or leave it" Red said, reaching out again she put her left hand on Jane's right shoulder and gripped tight, her right hand came up to trace over Jane's nose, Jane felt her skin tingle and pain course through her but she didn't pull back. "But if you say leave it then I can assure you, you will look like Mike Tyson tomorrow"

Then she added pressure.

A click

A scream

Everything is black.

Caterpillars wrap themselves in silk to build cocoons. It protects them and turns them into something strong, beautiful and free.

The sheets are soft and silky underneath her skin and she wraps herself tighter in them, warm, comfortable. She feels safe here. She doesn't want to wake up but she can hear her name somewhere in the distance and it's pulling her closer making her feel alive. She opens her eyes.

Lost.

This is not her house. The room is too big and too red, not cream and black like hers is. The walls are lined with drawing and paintings but no photos like her own walls that are covered in pictures of Frankie and Tommy, here there are none. The bed, she is sure that if she unwrapped herself from the silky sheets and stretched out both of her arms she would still not feel the end of the mattress. This was definitely not a single bed like her own.

This was not her room

"I'm sorry to have woken you"

Jane shot up, she was not alone, this was not her room, this was not her house, and everything is "Red?"

"Pardon?"

Jane pulled the cover around herself tighter and then released them realising she was fully clothed. She frowned and only then remembered her accident as pain shot through her nose. "Where am I and what happened?" The questions are out before she can stop them and if she wasn't under reds stare she would have slapped herself. It was obvious where she was and what had happened.

Red knows. Of course Red knows, she is intelligent enough to read between the lines. She knows the answers to everything, apparently, even the questions unasked. "Your brother, he said your mum would kill you if you went back home bleeding and I needed to get Ice on your nose so" She trailed off, nervous.

Jane knew how to read people; it was something she had learnt from a young age. She people watched, saw their reactions and knew when to push and when to hold back. She had had time to study it, the two years where she wasn't at school she watched and she learnt and she took it all in. Red was nervous and Jane knew she could push it. "So you called on your driver and took me to" She points around the bedroom catching the grand piano in the corner for the first time "Took me to your room?"

Red holds out a bottle of water she has been holding the whole time and when Jane doesn't reach to take it she places it on the bedside table next to two tablets Jane can only assume are pain killers then Red steps away "I was going to take you to the hospital but…"

"I don't like hospitals" Jane snapped, cutting her off.

Red nodded "Yes, I know" Jane swallowed thrown of balance. She always wondered if it was still talked about, if she would always be known as the kid that missed two years of school because of what happened but then Red continued "Frost said" She paused "Why don't you like hospitals?"

"It's nothing to do with you Red" she pushed the covers off and sat up, wincing for a second. Pain shot across the bridge of her nose. She stood "I need to go"

"Red?"

Jane glanced at her then nodded. Red, danger, Maura was dangerous and she needed to leave "I need to go" she repeated herself forcefully and slipped on her trainers that lay beside the set of draws ignoring the pain that shot across her nose again.

"Ok" Red nodded dropping all questions that swam inside her green eyes "I will get my driver to take you"

"I will walk" Jane shot back and when Red opened her mouth to reply Jane beat her to it, the finality in her voice "I want to walk" They were different, Jane didn't have drivers. Jane didn't like money.

She followed Red to the door in silence and Red opened it wide leaning against the frame as Jane stepped past and through the threshold. The wind had picked up since this morning and Jane wrapped her arms around herself, the chill running right through her. She wondered if she should say anything else, if she could thank her for something that made her dislike her more. Red had seen her at her weakest and that was impregnable.

"How did you learn to do that anyway?" were the words that left her lips instead and Jane bit down on her tongue hard as punishment. Curiosity should never win she had learnt to control herself.

"I, that was the first time" Red said slowly. She slid out of her jacket and smiled "I want to be a doctor when I'm older" She beamed, proud.

Jane nodded and saw Reds outstretched arm. The jacked hung loosely off her finger in offering and Jane caught the printed Armani across the label. She shook her head and looked away.

Red had money and she wanted to be a Doctor.

A Doctor that would save lives, lives that could destroy families.

Her mind flashed back, she was 11, she was scared and she felt alone. They thought she was asleep but she wasn't. She could still hear them and she could still feel the words rip through her chest. It's going to be long and hard but you need to stick together through this no matter what the outcome Mr and Mrs Rizzoli. Something like this will make your family stronger or it will tear it apart.

She shook the thought away and started down the drive, conscious of just how stately this home was. She stopped to take it in, the tall fountains that birds hopped around on, the black limo that was tucked beside them. She let out a breath and put on a smile, her mother always told her to use her manners. Without looking back she shouted "Thanks Maura" and then bit her tongue hard again.

She didn't call her Maura, she called her Red, she was dangerous and she could not, under any circumstances, lose control.

Thanks for reading guys. This story is completely different to any direction I have taken or thought about before so any thoughts good or bad would be greatly appreciated.