A/N: Hey, all. I had planned on waiting a little longer to write this, just to see how the show plot developed, but the story just couldn't stop itself from springing forth from my brain. Blindspot, man. Got me hook, line and sinker. Enjoy.
They said therapy was supposed to help. They said that talking to Dr. Borden about who she was, developing 'identity strategies', giving her an outlet to vent…it was supposed to help Jane cope with the insanity that was her life. And it did, for the most part.
Just not today.
It had been a few weeks since the team had managed to make it out of Drackland alive. Exhausted, rattled, injured, but definitely alive. For Reade, the five bullet wound stitches across his upper arm had come out last Tuesday morning. When Zapata spotted the remaining scar in the locker room, she'd smirked and given Reade a light punch on the opposite shoulder, declaring it helped him look like an actual badass. Reade had rolled his eyes, calling after Zapata as she walked out the door that this was his eleventh scar and he was plenty badass enough without a single one, thank you very much. Then he had turned to Jane, who had been both watching the exchange and fiddling with the proper position of her gun holster, and shared with her a smile. Another warm, genuine you and me are cool smile that softened his brown eyes and made Jane feel like maybe, possibly, she could do this. She could belong somewhere.
Except there was still another problem.
"Jane, I've been meaning to inquire. Have you by chance had another dream about the man with the tree tattoo since you first spoke of him? Sexual or otherwise?" Dr. Borden asked. He sat relaxed in the chair across from her, fingers interlaced together in his lap. The spiral notebook and pen he used to capture her thoughts sat untouched on the low table to his right. In their several weeks together, Jane had come to learn that his putting those tools down was indicative that she should speak freely. Everything was off the record.
Jane's eyes flicked to her jeans, eying a dime-length rip in the black denim by her left knee as she decided what to say. The truth was that the question came with answers she didn't know if she could share, despite the silent promise of utter confidentiality. Was she ready for this conversation? Was she willing to delve into the gnawing that had been sitting in the pit of her stomach ever since her newest dream had flung her awake?
Stalling, Jane met Dr. Borden's easy gaze. "Why? Do you think I should be having more dreams about him?" she asked.
One of the doctor's eyebrows gave the smallest twitch. He remained silent, though, and in the space of emptiness between them, Jane watched him watching her for a few moments. She knew he was assessing her body language. Using clues to formulate his theories. Analyzing her response. To be honest, it made her more than a little nervous. Struggling to hold his gaze, Jane began to pick at the tear in her jeans with a fingernail.
Finally, Dr. Borden cocked his head to the side. "Perhaps," he admitted. "Jane, when we spoke about the Drackland mission, you recounted your fear that Agent Weller had been killed in action and relief when he and Agent Zapata returned to the ranger's station unharmed. If the man with the tree tattoo does symbolize Agent Weller, I'm curious to know whether that very real fear triggered any further dreams about the tattooed man."
Jane nodded, still picking at the tear as she carefully chose her words. "Like a nightmare?"
Dr. Borden just shrugged, opening his hands palm up in a you tell me sort of gesture. His purposeful vagueness, Jane had learned, allowed her to interpret what he said however she wanted.
After thinking it over a few more moments, Jane bit her bottom lip and decided to take the plunge. "A few days after we got back from Michigan," she explained, "I had a dream that I was in a warehouse. It was dark, and I was trying to find Weller. I knew he had been shot, but the warehouse was like a maze. I couldn't find him. I was looking and looking but I couldn't find him anywhere. I knew if I didn't find him soon, he was going to die. I knew he was going to die."
Dr. Borden leaned forward on his elbows, engrossed in the story. "That must have been quite terrifying," he sympathized. "How did the dream end?"
Jane swallowed as the gnawing bloomed in her stomach. "I…uh…I found his body. He was lying in a pool of blood on the floor. There was blood across his chest, his arms. I could see his face so clearly, and it was red. Red from all the blood." Scraping her nails across her jeans and into fists, Jane swallowed down the gnawing as it rose up into her throat. "He was dead and it was all my fault."
The doctor nodded solemnly. "These feeling of guilt you're projecting are understandable for the line of work you've now aligned yourself with. You feel responsible for the well being of the team, and in particular, Agent Weller. You fear that your case will lead them to harm, and possibly death. That's all very natural, Jane."
Jane held her breath, watching Dr. Borden sit back comfortably in his chair. She wasn't willing to believe that he was finished with the topic, and waited with dread for him to probe her, forcing her to relive every minutia of the dream and its meaning.
Dr. Borden looked thoughtful. "It's quite notable, though, that you were able to identify Agent Weller so clearly in this dream when you were unable to identify him at all in the last. Might I assume, then, that when you saw him in this dream, you did not see the tree tattoo?"
Jane blinked in surprise. Reflecting, she remembered the blood, his stained clothes, the muted, empty look in Weller's eyes. But no tattoo. She shook her head. "What do you think that means?"
Dr. Borden steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lip. "It could mean that your brain has now formed enough of a long-term memory of Agent Weller that it is able to accurately reproduce him in your dream state."
Jane nodded, but there was something in Dr. Borden's tone that caused her to question his conviction in the answer. "Or…?" she prompted.
The doctor hesitated, but before he could give another opinion, the door behind him opened and Weller himself stepped into the frame. Finding Jane's eyes immediately, the agent nodded that it was time to go.
"Sorry to interrupt. Jane, Patterson's program unlocked another clue."
Too chipper for mid-morning, Patterson waved her hand in circles around two computer monitors, both showing a blown up section of Jane's skin. The one on the left featured the number string '40.70 – 74.14' found by Jane's ankle, and the other was an intricate tattoo of a fat little pony stamped on her hip. Smiling widely at Reade, Zapata, Jane, and Weller as they stood in a semi-circle around her and the monitors, Patterson pointed with excitement at the numbers.
"So, you all remember how I said that number sequences are tricky to decode because there are too many permutations to really get a lock-down?" she grinned. Looking around at her audience, Patterson waited for a few nods of remembrance before continuing on and tapping the screen of numbers. "At first, I thought this sequence might be a mathematical formula, or degrees of temperature. But check this out. I started cross referencing symbolic clues with the numeric ones and this combination jumped out at me." She tapped rapidly at the other screen. "The pony. It's P-O-N-Y. Put that together with the numbers, and we've got GPS coordinates for the Port of New York!"
While the rest of the team blinked at the connection in surprise, Weller took a step closer to the monitor with the numbers, scrutinizing it like he expected the reason for the clue to digitize from the zeros and sevens themselves. "Good work, Patterson. Where exactly in the port do the coordinates point to?"
"Well…" Patterson hesitated.
"Don't tell me it's the top of one of those damn container cranes," Zapata jumped in from Jane's left. "The rest of you can have your little adventure time, I'm staying down on the ground. Or better yet, in the truck."
"What's the matter? You scared of a little view?" Reade teased with a smirk.
Zapata narrowed her eyes. "More like scared of the splat I'd make when I fall thirty stories to my death. My cutoff is three."
"Actually, it's a parking lot," Patterson chimed in, breaking up the conversation as she fished a tablet from her lab coat and tapping an icon. The tattooed numbers disappeared, replaced with a satellite image of a wide and vast parking lot, scattered with flatbed trucks meant for receiving containers from the cranes and driving them to their designated row. North of the lot, there were two long warehouses. To its south was a green channel of port water. To its east and west were rows upon rows of shipping containers. There were easily thousands. "The coordinates are smack in the middle of that parking lot," Patterson explained. "I'm not sure what it means, but maybe once you get there and take a look around, something will pop up."
Reade snorted. "Or shoot at us. That seems to be the trend these days."
Zapata arched an eyebrow at him. "What's the matter? You scared another scar will ruin your modeling career?"
As the two agents carried on with their ribbings towards the elevators and Weller questioned Patterson for more details, Jane moved closer to the satellite image. Particularly, her eyes locked on the two warehouses the team was about to go search. She stared at them in disbelief as the gnawing in her stomach twisted up her insides. Her dream. How was it possible that on the same day she should bring it up…?
Images of Weller's blank eyes and bloodied face flashed against the satellite image, raising goosebumps up along Jane's arms. She shivered, trying to convince her brain that the pool of red, the terror, the endless maze in her dream had been just that: a dream. Not at all connected to reality. Still, Jane hugged herself tightly like she meant to squeeze out the fear itself.
"Jane?" Weller's voice came from behind her, and she could sense him standing just over her shoulder. Practically feel the heat from him. She had to resist the urge to lean back against his chest. Take in the strength of his presence. The very real fact that he was very much alive. When she didn't answer, he stepped around and positioned himself between her and the monitor. His gaze danced across her features in concern. "Jane, what is it?"
Jane shook her head, forcing herself to focus on the scruff on Weller's jaw. The way the room lights overhead reflected in his worried, blue eyes. "Nothing. It's just…there's a lot of space to cover. I don't like that we'll be so spread out. And we have no idea what we're looking for."
If Weller didn't buy her answer, he didn't let on. "That's why we've got earpieces," he said reassuringly. "We'll always be connected."
Jane nodded, but as they both turned to follow Zapata and Reade to the parking lot several stories below, she couldn't stop herself from wondering if he was right.