THE BOURNE TRIFECTA

Under the surface of a river, light from the sun above hit the water and the rays shone nicely against the gentle ripple of the waters.

But that gentle ripple was disturbed when a great mass plunged into the river from above. This mass was a Jeep, and inside were two people. One conscious, the other unconscious. The conscious one was Jason Bourne, the former agent of the Treadstone Program who suffered amnesia and went for a clean life. He was struggling to escape the vehicle that was sinking lower and lower. The unconscious person next to him was Marie Kreutz. His lovely girlfriend who had helped him two years ago when he had no one else to turn to. However, she wasn't unconscious because of the force of the Jeep hitting the water. No...she was dead.

Attempts to open Marie's door brought no results. It just wouldn't budge. Deciding on a new angle, Jason swam out of the window on his side, over to the passenger side and proceeded to pull on the door, using his feet for leverage. Finally, the door burst open and Jason pulled Marie out. He cupped her head and proceeded to try and pass some air to her through mouth-to-mouth, but it was no use...

As hard as it was for him to do, he reluctantly let her go...

As Jason watched Marie's lifeless body float away, he felt his heart hurt even more. It had already been emotionally stabbed when he saw Marie die, but now that she was gone and he was alone, he felt it torn in two.

With his world crumbling around him, he let out a devastated and hearty outcry, a swarm of air bubbles escaping from his mouth. Though it was muffled by the water, the scream was still loaded with grief and pained emotion.

That muffled cry was carried through the waters, all the way to Marie's drifting body.

Suddenly, the eyes of Marie's body opened wide as soon as the sound of the cry reached her.

[FLASH]

A woman's eyes shot open as she jolted awake from her sleep. Her heart racing as she breathed heavily from the shock of the dream. She kept taking the deep breaths and slowly calmed down, wiping the sweat from her brow.

"Scheiße," she exclaimed under her breath.

This woman's name is Marie Kreutz. Yes, that Marie Kreutz. Girlfriend of Jason Bourne. Pronounced dead back in 2004 from a bullet to the head...or so the report goes.

But obviously, this was not the case.

[HAMPSHIRE, LONDON COUNTRYSIDE, ENGLAND]

Marie sat up against the headboard of her bed and pulled her knees up, lowered her head into her hands. Deep breaths helping her calm down, her hands went from her face to running through her hair and scratching it in stress. That same dream had been plaguing her a lot lately, but there was a reason for that. This was the anniversary of that day, the day she died...the day she lost her Jason. It was the sixteenth anniversary to be precise, not one she was very happy about.

Letting out a huge sigh, Marie threw the covers off and got up from the bed, skidding her feet against the carpeted floor as she made her way to the bathroom. However, as she did, she reached up to the back of her neck and rubbed her fingers over a faded wound. That wound was from a bullet. The bullet that "supposedly" took her life sixteen years ago, and it nearly did too. But fortunately, it didn't.

Entering her bathroom, she stood in front of the vanity, turned on the faucet, and cupped some water in her hands before splashing her face, washing the sleep from her eyes. Reaching over to the towel rack, she took it and wiped her face dry. As she lowered it, she looked into the mirror at her reflection and starred for a moment. The starring didn't last long as her gaze shifted to the picture wedged in between the frame and the looking glass.

It was a picture of her and the man who was the love of her life. A man she hadn't seen for many years. Jason Bourne.

The more she looked at the picture, the more Marie began to feel a small bit of comfort and a small smile came to her lips. Letting the towel down, she brought her index finger to her lips, kissed it, and placed it on the picture right over Jason's face.

"Morning, Jason..." she whispered to him, holding her finger there for a moment.

As she continued to stare at the picture of her and her lover together, she felt her eyes begin to sting a little from the forming of tears. Her heart as well began to ache and long for him, she sorely missed her Jason.

It had been sixteen years since she saw him. Sixteen years since...since that day. The day she died. Yet here she was, still living and breathing...alone and away from her love, and not a day had gone by when she didn't miss him. And her love for him was still strong.

Now it wasn't like he was dead, she knew good and well he was still alive. Truth be told, she believed that Jason was invincible, that nothing and no one could kill him. Now that may sound like something that someone with a crush might think, but you can't really blame her given all that they had done and seen together. So there were grounds for it. Still, she wished she could see him. Granted she had seen news reports about him, but those were back in 2004. Since then, she hadn't really seen much of him on the news. Probably because he was laying low, and for good reason.

Despite this though, she still wanted to see Jason again in person. Sure, she had thought of going after him before. But she had her reasons for staying hidden all these years. One thing she learned from Jason was to lay low and not to get lazy when in hiding. But she also learned to look out for each other...which comes to the second reason.

The faint sound of a door opening and closing was heard, and then there was a voice. "Mom, I'm home!"

That was the other reason.

Taking in one final breath, the German woman looked in the mirror one last time before walking out of the bathroom, exiting her bedroom, and heading down the stairs.

"Jackie?" she called out when she made it downstairs.

"In the kitchen!"

Marie walked through the living room, turned a corner, and entered the kitchen to see a young blonde girl, whose name she had called Jackie, taking groceries out of bags. When she took out another item, the girl looked back to Marie entering the kitchen and smiled. To which Marie smiled back.

"Morning, Mom." She greeted.

Yes, the girl had just called her "Mom". And Marie didn't seem to be shocked by it. The reason for that: this girl was her daughter. Jackie was her daughter. And Marie loved her very much.

Marie came up and the two hugged. "Morning, sweetie," she replied kindly, "Enjoy your run?"

She felt her nodded against her chest as they hugged. "Yeah, it was pretty good. I got the stuff for tonight!"

"Oh, awesome!"

The two broke the hug and the young girl went back to the groceries she had just brought in and finished taking the rest of the contents out of the bags. There were jars of pasta sauce, a block of cheese, a large paper-wrapped object, a medium-sized bag of shrimp, two onions, and two bell peppers. In another bag, there were apples, bananas, a few packets of nuts, a loaf of bread, and a special treat that Jackie purchased just for herself; a packet of gummy bears.

"Oh, you got the Rigatoni this time?" Marie noted, picking up a see-through plastic bag of the ridged pasta, one of three.

"Yeah, I wanted a bit of a change-up from the Angel Hair."

"Mhmm. And it looks like you've got both the shrimp and the ground meat this time."

"Yep, for two different batches for the pasta. One shrimp and one ground meat. That way we'll have two different options and tastes to enjoy!"

Hearing her daughter's attempt to explain the reason for her purchase, Marie giggled and shook her head. "Okay, Jackie."

Jackie, in reply, laughed as well as she continued taking the rest of the groceries out of the bag.

Two hours or so later, Jackie was upstairs at her desk, invested in her homeschooling. Acing question after question in one subject, to multiple problems in another.

After a while, she had finished her studies for the day and put her pencil down. Leaning back in her chair and running her hands through her blonde hair, Jackie let out a long and heavy breath as her burning brain cooled down from her schoolwork. She grabbed her water bottle and took a good drink of it. Once she put it down, though, she looked out her window to the open fields behind the house where she could see her mother standing.

Out in the field, Marie stood still and silent, eyes closed with the warmth of the noon sunlight dancing on her face. The only sounds were the winds blowing against the tall grass and few birds chirping in the sky above.

Opening her eyes, Marie slowly began to walk forward. As she did, she passed a small device in the grass below, a tiny red light on it blinking as she stepped by it. That device was a motion sensor, and Marie passing by it triggered it and made something, a 2x4 plank of wood, pop up from the grass behind her. But as soon as it came up, Marie swiveled around and pulled out a Glock 17 with a mini silencer from a holster behind her and fired at the plank.

When the bullet hit the plank, it went back down to its previous spot on the ground. From there, Marie turned back to the direction she was going and proceeded through the field. Four steps later, another plank shot up. Then another, and another! Swiftly, Marie fired at each of them before diving into the grass and firing another shot at a plank that came up just as she went down. Those went down and Marie slowly stood to her feet before moving forward again.

But as she stepped forward once more, four more planks flew up in random spots all around here. Reacting quickly, she twirled to one knee and fired as she did. By the time she made it to her knee, she had fired eight shots, two rounds flying into each other planks dead-on before they all went down.

Catching her breath, Marie stood and looked around the field before letting out a heavy sigh. She checked the chamber of her clip and saw that there were four more rounds left, plus one in the chamber. With that, she slipped the clip back in and started walking back to the house.

But as she did, she passed another motion sensor which sent up another plank. But no sooner did it come up before a bullet was fired, sending it right back down. Marie let her arm down as she still gripped the gun, her head never turning in the process. She had fired at the plank and hit it smack dab in the middle, all without even looking.

Soon, evening came and things began to settle down. As it did, the mother-daughter duo began to prepare dinner. Using the ingredients that Jackie had brought home earlier, they had cooked up a right nice cheesy beef casserole. Loaded with cheese, ground beef, chopped onion, bell pepper, and of course, more cheese. It always made Marie laugh how much Jackie loved cheese. Her favorite snack was either apples and cheese slices or RITZ Bits. And she LOVED her cheese on pizza. Yeah, she truly loved it.

6:30 rolled around and the two sat down with their dinner and flipped on the TV and watched a movie that had come on a certain channel. A personal favorite of the two: Murder On The Orient Express.

Near the end, Marie and Jackie had finished their second serving of casserole and the dishes had been quickly washed so that not much would be missed of the movie. But by the time it ended and the credits began to roll, Marie had fallen asleep in her chair. Carefully and quietly, Jackie took a blanket and covered her mother up with it, tucking her in comfortably.

She smiled at the sight of her mother sleeping, and so soundly too. It made her glad to see her like this, at peace. As opposed to some nights when she would see her shivering in bed, moaning and crying from the nightmares that haunted her mother. It truly hurt for Jackie to see her that way. But right now, Marie slept soundly and peacefully. And that was good enough for Jackie.

Leaving her mother to rest, Jackie walked away into the kitchen and began putting away the food into tupperware and into the refrigerator, and then proceeded to put away the now fully dry dishes and silverware into the cupboard and drawers. But as she put away the last bowl, the alarm from the watch on her left wrist beeped. Checking it, she saw the time was 9:20 and remembered the reason she had set the alarm, then pushed a minuscule button to turn off the alarm. When she let the watch go, Jackie closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, and let it out. She kept it up and began mentally preparing herself.

'Okay, here we go...okay, Jackie...you got this.' Deep breaths.

In with another, out with it again. In, out. In, out. In,... She then opened her eyes and let out the breath before closing the cupboard door and walking out of the kitchen and heading for the stairs.

But before she ascended the stairs, she looked over to her mother, sleeping in her recliner. If all went well, she just might get to see her mother at peace more often.

'Sleep well, Mom.' She said to herself before exhaling deeply and went on up the stairs.

And that is the end of the first chapter of The Bourne Trifecta! Hope you guys enjoyed it, it was a real fun one to write. Especially making Marie tougher and cooler. There'll be more of that to come later in the story. Plus, we got to meet Jackie Bourne, Marie and Jason's daughter. We'll get into more about her and her character the further we go into the story.

Fun fact: This story was created with the 'What If' idea of Marie surviving her terrible death in The Bourne Supremacy. Plus, there aren't enough fics showing love for Jason and Marie. Marie was his one true love and she's gone in the movies, well she's alive and back in this story. :)))

Next chapter will be up soon. Lmk what y'all thought of this one though. Til then, later! :)