Title: Cerberus
Category: TV Shows » Rizzoli & Isles
Author: Light My Words
Language: English, Rating: Fiction Rated: M
Genre: Drama/Romance
Summary: How hard can it be, to track a mercenary across Europe with a heavily redacted dossier and three single frame images of a blonde woman? Special Agent Jane Rizzoli is sent to find the woman responsible for the murder of the Assistant Director of National Security, and instead finds uncovers something far bigger. The alternate universe that nobody asked for - eventual Rizzles.
Authors Note: I'm not sure if there's anyone left floating around in this fandom, but I've had this stuck in my head for a long time and wanted to place it somewhere to hold myself accountable to finishing it! This is a more plot heavy story than one I've written in a long while, but it'll still be relationship centric. If anyone stumbles across this and reads it, feel free to let me know if it's up your alley.
The first time she sees her, it's from behind and allows her seconds more than she would have otherwise been granted. Waves of thick cinnamon trail down her back, silky-looking even from the distance and the black dress she's wearing almost touches the floor but manages to be anything but modest. It hugs her figure and dips low in the back, exposing a trail of sun-kissed skin and her heels that look markedly uncomfortable, put her close to Jane's height.
If she's trying to be subtle, Jane decides she isn't very good at it.
Her stature is small and curvaceous, decidedly unthreatening and she doesn't look like a fighter and it's the first thought that strikes her. For a naive moment, Jane wonders if she has the wrong woman, it is after all difficult to track a blonde woman in Europe with just a single photo for reference. Her posture is rigid though, despite the way her hands move softly in conversation and her head tilts up slightly every few moments as if she's observing the crowd behind the man currently enthralled with her. He's probably too sure of himself and his charms to notice, but the woman is using him as an invisibility shield while she scouts the guest list.
The laugh, muted by the distance between them lights up her face and pulls at a painted red mouth, pearl white teeth pressing into the soft flesh of her lower lip. It's gently seductive, paired with a palm that smooths over the sleeve of her companions suit. It's also the first time Jane is allowed an unhampered view of her face and the picture she was given three weeks ago didn't do her a modicum of justice, but it's definitely her. Her smile pulls obviously wide eyes into the shape of almonds, green and gold in the lighting of the ballroom and her nose, narrow and freckled lightly is perfectly proportioned on her face.
Jane wonders what she sounds like, and feels a fool for her moment's hesitation in believing the file she'd been handed – for her disbelief in how someone small and so unassuming could be such a successful mercenary.
She's stirring the speared olive in her martini glass, a concoction she won't actually drink, when they make eye contact. Jane manages to keep her expression neutral in the light of being caught watching and if there's a hint of recognition in those mossy green eyes, the other woman doesn't let it show. When she chances another look, Jane finds the landing of the staircase devoid of her suspect and a quick visual inspection of the hall turns up negative. Impressively, for someone so striking she also manages to blend into a crowd without issue.
It's near ten minutes later before her question is answered, and it's done so from behind.
"Not thirsty, or is the barman not up to your standard?" It's asked in fluent Italian, a strategic assumption Jane thinks. She turns slowly on her stool, surprised to find that distance hadn't been a contributing factor to the inference of her beauty.
She's dangerously exquisite.
"I've had better." Jane shrugs in nonchalance, calling on the memories of her mother's shrill Italian to get her by.
"Oh," the noise is accompanied by a coy smirk, as if she's just learned a secret that Jane isn't privy to. "You're American." It's a statement, not a question.
"Guilty as charged." Jane holds up a hand in mock surrender and the other woman tips her head inquisitively.
"You were watching me earlier." Her english is flawless and her accent too has an American twang and Jane wonders if it's natural or a part of her cover. Her file had suggested a Serbian background.
"Watching you snap up all the good-looking eligible bachelors, maybe." She shrugs again, taking a sip from the glass at her fingertips and managing to swallow the urge to gag at the taste. She never did acquire the palate for anything past a beer and the occasional bourbon.
A laugh escapes the lips of the woman beside her, causing Jane to cock a brow. "You have nothing to fear from me, I'm not here for that."
"I didn't think anyone came to these things for anything else." Jane counters and she can see a twinkle in the other woman's eyes as if she's pleased by her quick wit.
"I came in hopes of seeing someone, an old friend. Alas, I fear I've been stood up." Despite her words, she doesn't seem remotely distraught and Jane is still caught up on the hilarity of the statement 'you have nothing to fear from me' leaving the mouth of a trained assassin she's been sent to retrieve.
"Oh well, my sincerest condolences." Jane downs the remainder of her glass and clears her throat. "I'm Jane, by the way."
The other woman hums for a moment, taking a leisurely sip from the deep red of her own glass as she observes the agent. "I'm Maire," she decided eventually. "It's a pleasure."
"What's kept you here, if you noticed your date isn't showing?" Jane leans back on her stool slightly, shifting her legs beneath the material of her own more modest navy gown. It's not an outfit she's comfortable in, but she keeps that muted in her body language.
Maire lifts a shoulder in indifference, a waterfall of curls trickling down her front with the movement. "Seems a waste of a beautiful gown, to leave early." One hand collects her glass by the stem, the other brushes over Jane's forearm briefly. "I also wouldn't know who I'd risk never meeting."
Jane grins, twisting to watch her retreating figure. "I thought you said I didn't have to worry, that you weren't here for that?"
Maire looks over her shoulder, manicured brow raised with a smile that promises secrets. "Oh, you don't. I sense we're looking in different directions. Have a lovely night, Jane."
The last time she lays eyes on Maire that night is in much the same fashion as the first; from behind and through a sea of people in expensive clothing. She's walking beside the man she'd been charming earlier, her arm looped through the crook of his elbow as they descend the stairs together. They part ways at the line of cars waiting out front, her allowing him to kiss her cheek in farewell before slipping gracefully into a black town car. Jane's struck by the regality of it all as she weighs the benefits of following the car with the disadvantages. She decides as she heads back in that it's easier to acquire the guest list and spend tomorrow picking through it, mostly in favour of shedding the ball gown and heels. It takes her two minutes to create a subtle distraction to liberate the guest list from the valet stall, seven pages of names printed on a thick paper that doesn't fold well into her clutch.
In the safety of her shitty government issue apartment in the centre Brussels, Jane methodically works through the guest list to find three different variations of the name Marie, totalling sixteen women who all share the name of the blonde she'd met.
It would have been too easy if the name printed at the top of the file she was handed three weeks ago at Quantico was mirrored on the guest list. It had been written in Russian first, like most of the file had perhaps before it had been translated, and then again in English.
Марья Oстровки, Marya Ostrovki.
Alias: Queen of the Dead.
Born: August 7th, 1984. Height: 5'5"
Weight: 126 lbs. Nationality: Serbian.
Training: Russian Kali.
It wasn't the first dossier she'd been handed and she was sure it wouldn't be the last, but it did pull her brows into a frown of confusion.
"They call her Queen of the Dead. She's a Russian Kali… limited visuals, they're in the back of the file." Her senior waited while she flicked through the folder, shuffling through three glossy photos of a blonde woman taken from a distance in succession. She was wearing a knee-length dress, black and figure hugging with a pair of expensive looking heels. The honey blonde curls hid most of her face, save for the pull of a soft smile on painted red lips. Whomever she was mid conversation with had been cropped from the photo. She didn't bother asking. Jane knew classified when she saw it.
"A Kali?" Her first question, as she scans the information panel of the dossier.
"Russian operatives, usually trained from childhood. They do things that'd make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, Rizzoli." Vince Korsak seemed equal parts concerned and bemused.
"Yeah right," Jane scoffed. "I'm sure there's so many things I'm yet to see."
Korsak snickered, leaning against his desk as he continued. "Intelligence suggests she's operating out of Belgium, at least for now. She's been classified a national terror threat."
"Huh, what'd she do to earn that title?" It's immediately obvious that there are pages missing from the file, chunks of information apparently too important for her eyes.
"I'm tellin' ya, hair on the back of ya neck. She's responsible for the death of the AE Assistant Director of National Security."
"They're giving this to me?" She buried the disbelief and the subtle pride in her tone.
"Catch this one Rizzoli, you'll be in the big boy league."
The idea came three beers after the memory and a further one of research to come to fruition. She finds her under the alias Mairé Faure, the particular spelling synonymous with her Russian 'Marya', an apparent art curator that lives near Avenue Molière in a two bedroom apartment. The extent of her cover is impressive, background information spanning years and Jane falls into bed that night thinking of the version of Marya Ostrovki she had met.
When she wakes two days later, the sun is pushing its way through clouds and the trees outside her small window are green with summer. She's developed a particular love for Belgium, and her career has seen her to a lot more countries than she can recall. It isn't full of tourists in the same way a lot of the continent is and it feels like home mixed with the unique atmosphere of Europe. Being sent alone affords her the luxury of a lazy rising and a morning espresso at a boutique cafe before heading down to the address near Avenue Molière.
It's a five storey building flanked either side by similar complexes. She strolls by the entrance casually, catching the surname 'Faure' printed in block letters by the second buzzer. It isn't the first floor like she'd expected, but there's a fire escape around back that would provide quick getaway. She returns to her car that she's parked three houses down and waits, grazing on the appelflap she'd ordered with her coffee. It's sweet apple and puff pastry, spiced with cinnamon and a treat she's going to mourn on her return home. There's a lot of things she'll miss of Belgium, but perhaps not the four hour wait it takes for the blonde to emerge from her apartment block.
Jane follows her from a safe distance through the streets of Ixelles, past three embassy buildings and the twenty minute walk leaves her curious and wired. Maire's dressed modestly for the gentle warmth of a Belgian summer, a floral dress with odd white-pink stockings that give her legs a strange hue from a distance and tan coloured boots. Her hair is tied back into a bun that sits atop her head and she's carrying a small bag with a water bottle clipped to the zip. It isn't until she reaches a building with signage reading 'Studio Dans'harmonie' that it makes sense, or at least explains the tights.
There had been a section in Marya Ostrovki's file that listed her having a classical ballet education before she'd been taken and raised in that compound that bred spies and killers. Jane's confronted with how the thought makes the blonde slightly more human in her mind, that she seeks out activities that might provide memories and comfort.
When she reappears an hour later, a pointe shoe is dangling precariously from her bag while she slips a light jacket over her black leotard. Her dress must be folded into her bag because now she's wearing a pair of fitted jeans and the maroon jacket isn't zipped and Jane understands why she's a national threat. In all her beauty she's unassuming, a harsh exterior that she easily melds into something soft and even Jane finds herself intrigued.
The name Mairé is written in the sign-in book by the classroom, handwriting all loops and curves and Jane signs up for the beginners class that runs right after Mairé's. She's thankful that Brussels is a bilingual city and she can get by with the French she'd learnt when she started at the academy, and she uses it to order lunch at a local deli and head back to her apartment while she contemplates what she's learned.