Summary: Jane finds comfort in two different worlds. In two different men. Not really an OT3 fic, but kinda? I don't know I just love Jane and want to protect her from everything, ok? This is just a look into how Jane would be able to cope with the shit storm that is her life.
Midnight Whispers Are Louder Than We Think
She's using both of them, subconsciously she must know that she is. Using each man for what he unknowingly offers her, but, if they had any idea of it, neither mentioned it to her, neither tried to put an end to it. And maybe that's why she'd chose them, specifically, because of that trait in them, because of their ability to anchor her, to support her, without even knowing that they were doing it. Without asking questions, without demanding answers, giving with no expectation of reward or explanation. Two men so different in so many ways, so similar in many more, each holding her in place in different worlds.
It had started the first time she met with Oscar, on a dark rooftop at the edge of the city, overlooking the vibrant night lights of a city buzzing with life, there she had found her first link to a previous life. She learned from him then, explicitly, that she can ask all the questions she wanted to, but that he had clear rules as to what he can answer. And she painfully learned that the questions she needed answers to were the ones she had forbid him from answering.
She had left him then and walked around the city, more lost than she had been before, disappointment heavier with every step she took, until she found herself walking down his street, pausing by his building. She didn't bother to check the time, well aware it was beyond the time deemed reasonable to go knocking on someone's door. But still she did. He was a light sleeper she told herself as she softly tapped against his front door. He's a light sleeper, but she learned that night that mother's with feverish sons were even lighter sleepers.
She's d stand apologetically at the woman, not too surprised to see the worry wrinkles her blue eyes much as it does her brother's. He'd come shuffling in from his bedroom almost immediately.
"Jane? Are you ok?" his voice laced with worry, raspy with sleep.
She shook her head, quickly regretting her decision, but still the Wellers made way and let her in. He insisted she come in and talk, only if she wanted to.
She had come in, but there were no words spoken beyond that, other than him offering her a drink and her politely refusing. She'd sat on one end of the couch, and he had sat on the other, watching her closely as she only stared at her hands, twisting anxiously in her lap. He didn't push, he never did, just waited for her next move. And he just sat on the other side, bravely fighting the urge to sleep, wanting to do anything to help her, not knowing that just being their, a counter weight on the other side of the couch had been all that she needed. She was not sure how long she had sat there, how long he had sat with her, and when she got up to leave, he had offered her to stay. But on that first night, she'd refused.
But the time came when she didn't. She stopped knocking at some point, texting him when she left Oscar and he would be there, his front door open, waiting for her. And soon after that, she didn't even need to text. He just knew. He knew her, better maybe than she knew herself. Just as Oscar knew the other her better than she knew her.
The first time she'd stayed, neither had slept, just took their places on opposite sides of the couch. Sometimes, she took him up on his offer for a drink, a glass of water nothing more. One that sat untouched on the coffee table, leaving wet ringlets that served as a reminder the next morning of her presence through the night, the only proof the previous night had even existed as the walls heard nothing. Saw nothing, but two people sharing a quiet secret.
Many of her meet ups with Oscar were the same. There would be nothing related to the mission but she would still meet up with him, sit on the edge of the roof top, dangerously hanging her feet off the edge, watching the lights in the distance flicker with life, with stories, and wonder if there was one that belonged to her. Oscar would sit next to her, at a safe distance, much like Kurt and watch her. He knew the questions she had, the questions she was dying to ask, the questions he had the answers to. The questions he is not allowed to answer because those answers did not belong to him. His job was no longer her fiancé, her friend or her confidante. He had a new job now, new orders and it was bigger than him, bigger than her, bigger than the man he knew she went to when she left him.
They were three pieces of a puzzle, in the mission, in her life, in each other's lives in ways none of them understood. One man knew her past, the other knew her present, and they kept her balanced as she walked the tight rope in between.
The first time she had feel asleep on his couch, he found a blanket and placed it over her carefully. He stayed with her a little longer and when he got up to leave, she woke up with a start, her body losing that anchor on the other side of the couch. Panic had filled her eyes and she did not need to say much. He knew. He knew the nightmares of waking up alone, confused in an unknown place must be commonplace for her, and so he had sat back down, sleep finding him just as soon as it claimed her.
It didn't require much convincing to get her to leave the couch, the next time she had fell asleep, and move to his bed. Both tired of waking up with sore necks and dead legs. She'd followed him, a few steps behind, careful not to wake anyone in the house. And quite quickly, the right side of his bed had become hers. The one closer to the door because when he woke up the next morning, all that would be left were the wet stains on the coffee table and a faint smell on the pillow next to his.
Oscar never asked why she continued to seek him, to ask to meet him when all she did was sit next to him and say nothing. He never asked because he knew. She may have shorter hair now, a body ornate with colourful patterns and a name he never felt comfortable saying, but still he knew her. So he met her whenever she needed, sat by her side, watched the city with her and tried to be there for her because if he couldn't do much else he was going to do this. Even if it had nothing to do with their mission, with the end game, it had everything to do with her, and that was what he signed up for long, long ago. Even if she din't remember that. Even if she was never going to remember that.
The first time Kurt had reached for her at night, she'd assumed he'd slept, assumed he wouldn't hear as the strangled sobs escaped her lips. But he hadn't and for the first time in months, things changed. He'd reached for her, pulled her to him and she hadn't tried to stop him. He'd held her through the night, even after she'd stopped crying, even after they'd both fallen asleep.
And her visits had grown more frequent after that evening, until they became a daily habit. She'd wait till after Sarah and Sawyer went to bed, waited until most of the city had gone to bed, and found her way to his. He'd hold her, let her cry when she needed to, but he never said anything, and neither did she. She would leave early in the morning, leaving him with a cold, empty bed for a few hours, and make her way back to her place, a place she could never call home, a place that only served as a place to house her clothes, nothing more. She hadn't even changed the bed sheets in months, she had realised one morning walking down his street back towards hers.
It's been months, and she no longer knows what the city looks like at night except what she sees sitting on the edge of that roof top with Oscar, silently holding on to that link of a past, clinging on to a nonexistent memory that she was once someone with a real name, with a real story, with purpose, dreams and hopes.
It's been months, and she no longer knows what sleep is without being in his bed, in his arms, his breath warm against his name on her back, his heart beat steady, giving meaning to hers, promising her that she could still be someone. She could still be someone with a name, a present, a future, a story she can write, a purpose, dreams and hopes.