It's Getting So Hard to Breathe (It's Easier to Give Up on Me)
Summary: Post 1.17 / This will never happen but that's what fanfic is for. After the team rescues Patterson, Kurt offers Jane a ride home and she breaks down, blaming herself for what happened. Kurt tries to console her, tell her it isn't her fault, but he doesn't know the whole truth. So maybe it's time he learned what was really happening?
Characters: Jane Doe, Kurt Weller
Pairing: Jane/Kurt
They all gathered in the waiting room, tired, nervous andbroken. It has been a long day, a long, hard day, the longest and hardest they've had since they started this because the victim was one of them. They all gathered in the waiting room as Patterson lay in the room down the hall. Anxiously, they waited for someone to tell them something, anything. And when the news eventually came, a collective sigh of relief was released. She was going to be okay.
Mayfair sent them home, all of them, to get some rest after the day they'd had, and so with one last good bye to their friend, they slowly left her room to let her get the rest she needed.
"Do you need a ride home?" Kurt asked Jane, who had been acting strangely since they had found Patterson, her behavior slightly odd and he wanted to make sure she was okay.
Jane turned to him as they stepped into the cold night air. She wanted to walk, needed to even, but she wasn't sure just how far her legs would take her, so she nodded, "Sure," she whispered.
The first fifteen minutes of the drive was quiet, calm, and she stared out the window the whole time, letting the events of the day catch up with her. She knew he was glancing towards her every couple of minutes, she knew he wanted to ask if she was ok, but she silently begged him not to. Because she wasn't, she wasn't ok, and she didn't know if he asked whether shed be able to lie about it or not. And would she? Would she even want to lie about it?
They drove in silence for another few blocks, the streets at this time terrifyingly empty, lonely and he finally couldn't take it anymore, she could sense it in him, and he asked. "Hey, are you ok?"
She briefly glanced in his direction, not enough to make eye contact, bit her lip and nodded heavily, "Mmm," she murmured.
He knew he could leave it at that, let her have that, but he had given her one too many freebies lately, and after the day they'd had… so he pushed, "are you sure?"
She didn't answer him then, continuing to stare out the window, but when they stopped at a red light, he turned to her fully, and softly spoke, "Jane… talk to me," he said.
And there was something in his voice then, a tone, a silent, pleading request that pulled the answer from her without her consent. "Patterson almost died today, Kurt. Patterson, our Patterson," she said, her voice cracking, "she almost died today."
He shook his head, "But she didn't, we… you-"
"It's my fault, Kurt, it's all my fault. Patterson was taken, she almost died, and it was all my fault," she said, tears threatening to fall, and he knew that guilt, or he thought he did, it was the same one from David's death. "Jane, it's not your-"
"BUT IT IS, KURT! It's all my fault! You don't understand!" she cried.
"Jane? What's going on? What don't I understand?" he asked, shocked by her outbreak. He knew this case must have been harder, it always was when it was one of your own.
"Nothing, Kurt, just take me home," she said, "please."
He nodded but when they reached the intersection that turned right to her safe house, he steered left. Towards his apartment. "What are you doing?" she asked, looking between him and backwards the direction of her place. "You need to eat something," he said without looking at her, "and we need to talk."
She wanted to argue with him, to make him not do this, but she was tired, so tired, and she couldn't fight this anymore, couldn't fight this on her own anymore, and so if tonight was the night when she had to come clean about everything, then tonight was the night. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally drained, and she was dreading this, but she couldn't carry it all on her own anymore.
She found herself in his kitchen, a glass of water in hand and she thought he asked her something about food, she wasn't sure. The voices in her head were loud, too loud, one yelling at her to find a way to get out and fast, the other pleading with her to just tell him the truth, telling her that they had let this go far.
Patterson almost died today because of you!
That was the loudest. That was all that mattered.
"It's all my fault," she said.
There it is again, Kurt thought, but for once he was not going to try to convince her otherwise. he was going to hear her out.
"Okay," he said.
"There's something… a lot of things you need to know, a lot of things I haven't told you," she began and he nodded, that much had been obvious. They both stood their ground. She was in the kitchen, he was across from her, closer the living room, and suddenly the distance seemed infinite and also, the apartment never felt smaller.
"That night after we… before the case in the Black Sea," she said, "Carter kidnapped me. He kidnapped me and he interrogated me." She chose her words carefully, interrogated sounding better for now than tortured. She glanced towards him, knowing fully well that to get through this, through all of this, she wouldn't be able to look at him the whole time, so before she got further into it, she allowed herself one quick glance. He was standing there, quiet, stoic, focused. She told him about Oscar, about him showing up and rescuing her. She told him about the video. "I planned this… well, the person I was before, she planned this… but it's me… she'e me… I'm her… I did this to myself."
She told him about meeting with Oscar, about her many times meeting with Oscar. "I still don't know what my mission really is," she said, "he never gives me real answers, or details of what the mission is about… he answers some of my questions and evades most," she sighed, "and even the ones he does answer, their more cryptic than anything else."
She knew that what she had admitted so far could be enough, just by briefly looking at him, she knew, but she couldn't stop now, "he's had me do things," she said, "to test my loyalty… like switch Mayfair's pen for a replica," she admitted.
She told him about the tracker and Cade. She mentioned Orion briefly, quickly. And when she stopped talking, leaving the part about the order to break him and Allie up out of it, keeping the part about her and Oscar out of it, she took a deep breath, and looked back up. Is he had been quiet and stoic before, then he'd become statuesque now. She'd seen him react to bad news, she'd seen him react to very bad news. But she had never seen him like that. His jaw was clenched, the vein in his neck throbbing, his eyes dark and piercing his hands by his side in a tight fist ready to explode.
And he stood there. And time passed, and he just stood there. And her fear grew into a full blown panic when even more time passed and he just stood there.
And so against her better judgement, she spoke again, the silence becoming deafening, "I wanted to tell you," she whispered, "on the plane, over the Black Sea… I wanted to tell you…" She hoped that would trigger something, a reaction, anything. She didn't care what kind of reaction it would be, but anything would be better than him standing there like a ticking time bomb. "Say something," she breathed, "please, just say something."
Any normal person would know at a moment like this, they should keep their distance, but she wasn't any normal person, and so she stepped towards him. If he were a ticking bomb, then she could at least try to diffuse it. Her steps were slow, steady, as though she was approaching a wild animal. And in a way she was. "Kurt, please," she urged him as she closed the distance.
He looked at her, his dark eyes piercing through her, and she felt vulnerable, exposed and when he opened his mouth to speak, she felt she couldn't breathe for a moment. "So it's all been a lie. Everything's been a lie," he said, his voice thick, heavy, pained.
"What? No, not everything-"
"Heh," he huffed, "from the moment you showed up in Times Square, it's all been a lie, a puppet show and you've been pulling the strings," he said.
"No! No, Kurt! I haven't…" she shook her head, "it hasn't been!"
"How can I believe anything you say now, Jane?! How can you honestly expect me to…" he snapped, "everything's that happened the last six months, everything we've been through!"
"I haven't been lying to you all the time! I just… it's just…" she was lost for words then, trying to make him understand when she herself wasn't sure anymore.
"You just said-"
"The only lying I've done is what I just admitted to you," she said, "only what has been happening since the night -"
"Since the night we kissed," he said, a sad smile on his lips, "since the night you kissed me."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Was that also part of our master plan? Ambushing me on my street and kissing me?"
"How can you say that?" she snapped at him.
"How can I not say that, Jane? How am I supposed to know what has been real and what's been a ruse? A lie?" he lashed back at her, "How am I supposed to believe that anything you've said to me hasn't been a well rehearsed play to get exactly what you want?"
His words were bitter, angry and disappointed. And she couldn't blame him. And then she realized she couldn't breathe anymore, she felt the walls closing in around her, and she did what her initial instinct had told her to do. She moved, trying to get past him to get out of there. But he was fast, stepping in front of her, blocking her way out. "What are you doing?"
"I need to get out of here. I thought I can do this, but I ca-"
He said nothing and made no attempt to move either. "Kurt, just let me -" she put her hand on his chest, trying to move him out of her way.
"You just want to leave? Just like that?" he sighed, "fine, go."
She looked up at him then, surprised by his reaction, and what she saw in his eyes was worse than the anger she had expected. It was pain. It was pain that she had inflicted.
"Kurt, please," she didn't know what she was asking for, but he stepped to the side anyway. "You want to go, so just go," he said.
And then she was angry, at him, at herself, at why he was suddenly not fighting back anymore.
"It wasn't all a lie," she whispered, but he said nothing, just kept his eyes glued at her, and so she locked her gaze with his. "It wasn't all a lie," she repeated more confidently.
"Whatever you say," he said.
"Dammit, Kurt! It wasn't all a lie!" she yelled, reaching back up towards him showing him slightly. His eyes widened at her reaction as his back hit the door. "It was real! It was all real!" she moved towards him and grabbing his shirt before he had a chance to react, she pulled him down towards her crashing her lips against his. There was nothing sweet or gentle about that kiss, only fueled by frustration and anger and before she knew it, he was pulling her back, pulling her away from him. He grabbed her arms and pushed her back, held her there and for a moment just closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath. She reached for him again, her hand against his chest and his eyes snapped open.
"Stop!" he said harshly, "Just stop."
"Why?" she said, her breathing heavy, matching his.
"Why? Why?" he sighed, "Where do I even begin?"
"Wherever you want."
"Do you know how much trouble you're in right now? Do you have any idea?" he said, "What were you expecting from telling me this? What were you expecting I would do? I'm still the agent in charge of your case, Jane. Your case is still an active one and it's my job to… do you have any idea what you just told me…" he moved away from her, running his palm over his face. He sighed. "This changes everything. Do you understand that? You understand I can't just keep this between us? That I have to report this, that you'll go from being an asset and a victim to being a suspect, with so many allegations against you," he said, "and right now, I don't even know where I can start to help you."
"You want to help me?" she whispered, "you still want to help me?"
"Heh," he shook his head, this coming as much as a surprise to him too, "of course I do, but I just don't see how I can."
"You should have come to me with this from the beginning," he said, "Dammit! Jane! How could you let it get so far!" the anger was back then, the anger he'd managed to keep at bay for a few minutes.
"I needed to know more, I needed to-"
"You shouldn't have let it get so far! What were you thinking?!" he yelled.
"I was protecting you!"
"I don't need you protecting me! I know what I signed up for!" he said.
"Stop saying that! No, you don't! Because you didn't sign up for this! You never had a choice in this!" she yelled back.
"Jane, I-"
"They threatened to kill you!" and there were tears for the first time all evening.
"What?"
"They said if I didn't cooperate, they would kill you," she said, "so tell me, Kurt, what would you have done, if you were in my place?"
He shook his head, looking at her in shock. "I …"
"What would you have done, if you were in my place?"
"You can't ask me that," he whispered.
"Yes, I can," she said, "you're saying I did all the wrong things, so tell me, Kurt. What would have been the right thing to do. What would you have done? If they threatened to kill the person you cared most about, what would you have done?"
He shook his head again.
"What would you have done, Kurt?!"
"Exactly the same thing," he growled, and then he was reaching for her, his hands framing her face and pulling her to him, claiming her mouth with his.
Neither one of them pulled back then, the kisses growing frantic, desperate, as her fists grabbed onto his shirt, and his hands went everywhere. And when her hands found the hem of his shirt, he only stopped long enough to let her pull it off of him, and long enough for him to pull hers off.
But when she reached for him again, to continue what he'd started, he pulled back, staring at her chest. She followed her gaze and saw what he was looking at. The necklace. Emma Shaw's necklace. "Kurt?" she whispered. She tried again, leaning into him, but his hands found her waist and stopped her.
"Jane," he said, "we can't."
"Why?" she asked breathlessly.
He sighed, "for so many reasons," he admitted.
"Don't you-"
"Oh, I want to," he said, "but doesn't mean we should," he whispered painfully.
And she understood what he meant. She closed her eyes and moved into him, resting her forehead against his chest, feeling his heart beat wildly there. She felt his arms wrap around her, mould her to him safely.
"I'm tired," she whispered against his skin, "I'm so tired."
And she was, not just of the days events, or the evening's events, but of everything, of it all.
"I know," he said, "I know."
He pulled her back after holding her for the longest time, and silently, he took her hand in his and led them to his bedroom. And they lay there, for hours, neither really falling asleep, but neither saying much anymore. He held her tightly, her back agains his chest. Her hands clasped onto the necklace around her neck, and his hands wrapped around hers. And he could see his name on her back, and he sighed, breathing warm agains her skin.
"We'll figure this out, Jane," he whispered, "I promise, we will."
She bent her head forward slightly, kissing his knuckles, and he did the same, kissing the scar at the base of her neck.