Memento Mori
A Selection of shorts and unrelated one-shots. Mostly stuff that comes to my head while watching the show or things I think should have happened. Things I would like to see. Jane Centric, but there will be shorts about the other characters as well.
Hey guys, sorry for the long delay, my muse has not been with me the last couple weeks. This one is pretty dark, so warning. Enjoy and tell me what you think. Again, if you spot any mistakes, tell me and I will fix them.
I had two initial ideas for this, so I am going to write them both. They both start the same, with a different scenario, this is the first.
Missing
(Jane goes missing)
Four weeks. That's how long she had been missing. Four long agonising weeks of sleepless nights and hard gruelling days that lead to nothing. The house was cold and barren without her, he sometimes avoided going back to the safe house at all. He would just wonder, much to the dismay of his detail.
He could remember in vivid detail, the night he walked through the door of their shared 'safe house,' expecting her to be there, sitting between a mountain of pillows in the corner of the room, a single light illuminating the pages she feverishly drew on. Soda cans surrounding her as she sketched. It was the sight that greeted him most nights, when he came home after her. It was her to relax, a way for her to release her demons without having to break or punch things. But when he walked through the door that night, four weeks ago. He was greeted with darkness, the destroyed appearance of the room only visible from the streetlights outside. Flicking a switch, his heart sank as his eyes surveyed the room. An upturned table with two of its legs missing, the painting on the walls torn from its shattered frames and blood. Jane's blood.
Roman couldn't remember the last time he slept. He found his mind was always working overtime. Horrible scenarios creeping up on him when he found himself thinking about where she could have gone…who could have taken her. He knew she wouldn't have just gotten up and left. She wouldn't do that. Not to him…would she?
Four weeks, two days and seven hours later, he finds himself sitting at her desk. A tattered sketchbook the only thing to occupy the table. It was the only thing she truly owned. He would often flick through the pages, admiring the artwork that decorated them. She had dated each page. The first entry scribbled in the bottom corner of the page was that night it all begun. The night she had crawled out of that bag in time square. The second picture, was of Kurt, every detail of his face expertly drawn in thin grey strokes of pencil. Roman couldn't have sworn he was looking at a photograph. The next three pages were of Patterson, Reade and Zapata. In that order, each sketch being as detailed and attentive as the last. His sister had even managed to draw Patterson's trademark grin. The one that made the younger blonds eyes light up. After that, the drawings become darker. Figures invading the page like skulking shadows, their appearance not even remotely human as they glared from the pages with featureless faces. At least another ten pages depicted something that both terrified Roman and angered him. Pictures of rooms with locked doors, scratched walls, men that resembled monsters and a woman in chains. Roman didn't have to be a genius to know that that woman was his sister. He turned to the last few pages, unable to gaze upon his older twins tormented mind any longer.
He always found himself smiling as he gazed upon the last picture in the book. A sketch of him smiling as he sat on a bench in the park. The city standing blurred behind him. The attention to detail always amazed him. Sighing he closed the book and placed it safely in the draw to his right. Rubbing his tired eyes, he reached into his pocket and took out the coin that always rested there, the metal cold against his rough calloused fingers. He held it in his hand tightly and sighed.
"Where are you?" He whispered to himself, letting his head fall onto the desk.
"You're the brother, right?"
The voice made him jump, a scruffy man he hadn't seen before standing in front of him. He frowned.
"Who are you."
The man looked towards the offices, then towards the elevator. He seemed nervous.
"Someone who knows where your sister is."
"Where. What have you done to her!" Roman was suddenly standing, his hands balled into tight fists as he bared his teeth towards the mysterious man.
"Let's just say I owe her." The man seemed unfazed by the outburst, continuing to look around with slanted eyes. Placing a note on the desk, the man turned to walk away.
"You didn't get that from me."
Roman didn't even wait for the man to disappear around the corner before reaching for the note he had left on the desk. A messy scribbled address blemishing the dirty white paper.
The arrive at the location exactly four hours after the man had given him that piece of paper. There was no need for them to be armed. The CIA already knew they were coming.
As they pulled up to the chain link fence of the CIA black site, Roman was first out of the car, his hands clenching and un-clenching by his sides.
Kurt was second out of the car, his face set into a hard glare. He placed a hand on Roman's shoulder.
"It's going to be fine. We're gonna get her out of here…but maybe it's best you stay here."
"I'm going in there." Roman said, Kurt knew better than to argue.
"Okay. But stay close and let me do the talking."
Roman nodded.
As they made their way towards the heavy metal doors of the reformed slaughter house, two men stood either side of the door, another man dressed in black jeans and a untucked shirt standing with his arms crossed in front of them.
"You in charge around here?"
The man nodded.
"Names Harrison. What brings the deputy director of the FBI to our neck of the woods?"
Kurt bit the inside of his cheek before answering.
"You know exactly why we are here. Just take us to her now."
The man feigned confusing.
"Who?"
"The woman you are holding illegally at this illegal black site" Kurt could feel anger boil in his gut.
"Black site?" The man spoke the words as if it were the first time he was hearing them. Kurt could feel Roman shift beside him.
"Stop playing games. She shouldn't even be here in the first place" The man in front of him smiled, shrugging his shoulders.
"She doesn't officially exist. She has not rights under the laws of this country. Technically, we're not doing anything wrong."
"She's a god dam human being!" Zapata yelled, the ferocity in her voice made Kurt visibly jump. If Reade hadn't have grabbed her shoulder, Kurt was positive she would have beaten the smirk off Harrison's face with no mercy.
"She's a terrorist…with vital information about an impending attack on this country."
"An attack she doesn't remember!" Zapata spat.
"So that automatically makes her innocent does it?"
There was no answer.
"We were hoping the interrogation would…jog her memory." The man continues.
"You mean torture!" Roman's voice joined the conversation, husk and angry as he visibly shook. Kurt's face was expressionless as he took a step forward, towing over the man they spoke to.
"We're here to take Jane Doe back into FBI custody. Take us to her now."
They were lead down a long hallway, through a series of locked gates and down two flights of stairs, the metallic smell of blench and blood becoming stronger as the air became stale and dark. Five minutes later, they stood at a heavy metal door. A thick lock at both the top and the bottom screeching as they were pulled open.
As soon as the door opened, light flooding into the otherwise pitch black room, they see a figure quickly scuttle away, flinching from the light almost as if it had burned them. Pushing the door open fully, the light illuminated just enough of the room to make out a small shaking figure of a woman in the corner. Bloody tattooed hands moving to cover her face as bruised tattooed arms pulled her knees closer to her chest.
The team are silent for a full minuet.
The room was small, no bigger than the elevator back at HQ, tiled wall to wall with dirty grey material. There were no windows, no bed and no lights. Kurt couldn't even imagine the darkens that would have invaded the room had the door been closed.
He could hear Roman take a shuddering breath as the metallic smell of old blood hit them. Kurt clenched his jaw, his eyes trailing down to the cuffs that chained Jane's feet uncomfortably close together.
"Jane. We're here to take you home." Kurt took a step forward, stopping the instant his friend flinched away from his voice, pushing herself further against the wall in a feeble attempt to escape, her entire body trembling as he approached. He couldn't quiet see her condition in the darkness, but he could see enough to know it wasn't good. He made a fist, breathing hard. It was the only thing he could do to stop himself from doing or saying something he would regret. He just hoped the others would do the same. He felt Roman shift beside him, his eyes focused entirely on his sister as he pushed passed Kurt and took three steps into the cell. His eyes were soft, blurred with unshed tears as he slowly approached his older sibling.
"J?" Roman said quietly, he could see Jane still trying to crawl away, the wall and chains stopping her from moving any further. "It's okay. It's me. It's Roman." He slowly moved his hands up in a pacifying gesture. He was finding it hard to contain the tears that threatened to fall, but he had to be strong.
"I came to take you away from here. To take home." He could see his sister stare at him through the gabs in her bruised and broken fingers, her trembling body dying down as she slowly moved her hands from her eyes, her expression one of fear. Roman had to clench his teeth as he considered her eyes. It was almost as if she didn't recognise him. He slowly came to his knees in front of her.
"It's me J. Your brother." He tried hard to ignore his sisters bruised and bloody face. Her split lip, her broken cheekbone, the circular burns that decorated her chest and neck. The way the rags seemed to hang off her normally muscular body, she reached her hand towards his face, her skeletal fingers tracing over the scar over his eye.
"Roman?" She tried to speak, but her voice was harsh and inaudible.
"Yeah J. It's me."
Her lips tremble as her hand falls away and his heart breaks as she grabs handfuls of his shirt, buying her face in his chest as a tortured rasping sob escapes her lips. She weighs almost nothing as he lifts her from the floor, wordlessly walking through the door, he avoids the gazes of the men that held her. The men that did this to her. He wasn't sure he would be able to contain his rage if he looked towards where they stood. He wanted nothing more than to beat them until their faces and bodies were a pulpy mess, then continuing beating them till there was nothing left. His jaw tightened as he carried his sister up the stairs, her hands clutching onto him tightly, hanging on for dear life. It's almost as if she thought if she let go, she would fall into an unending abyss.
When they finally reach the outside, she turns her face away from the light that burns her eyes. Roman thinks this must be the first time she's seen the sun in the weeks since she went missing. Seeing her in the light tears his heart in two. He carries her towards the boot of the SUV, her almost feather like weight making it easy for him to manoeuvre his left arm to open the boot. It opens automatically with a swish. He sits on the edge of the boot, holding her tightly.
Her hair almost reaches her shoulders, matted with months' worth of dirt and blood and there is a cut just under her hairline that appears angry and red. The restraint marks on her wrists matched the ones on her ankles and at least six long slashes crisscross her back, visible through the tattered rag they made her wear.
He ran a hand through her hair, carefully avoiding the tangles. Jane clutched at his shirt as he held her closer. She was completely silent.
"Listen to me. I won't let anything else happen to you." He gently lifts her head to face him, his eyes staring into her own. Her once vibrant green eyes, always filled with concern and wonder were gone, replaced by dull lifeless orbs. She looked up at him, expressionless. "You protected me my entire life…I think it's about time I start protecting you."
She blinked once. Slowly. Seeming as if she didn't understand what he was saying, then buried her head once more in his chest. It was only now he noticed the team watching from afar. He kissed her head softly and took a shuddering breath.
They had done it. They had broken her. Broken his sister. Broken the unbreakable. They had torn everything she was away and left a lifeless husk in their wake. It was his job to fix it. Fix her. Build her up piece by piece, just as she had done with him.
He wasn't going to let anyone tear her down again. Not Shepard, not the CIA and not the FBI.
That, was a promise.
So what did you think? I think the show glazed over the fact that Jane was at a black site for three months. I mean, she's tough, but she is still human.
Please tell me what you think, next one up soon.
As I said, I had two ideas for how this one was going to play out. It will start the same (With the first three paragraphs being the same) then a different story.
Hope you enjoyed!
