Author's Note: It's been a while since the muse pointed me to a post-ep (or in the direction of an NBC series) but life is funny sometimes. One minute the first sentence appears and suddenly it's a whole piece that even has a blink-or-you'll-miss-it tribute to The Philadelphia Story.
Sorry if you're not shipping on Jane/Kurt this early in the series, but I argue that Sullivan Stapleton's eyes disagree. (Have you SEEN the way he looks at her?!) Bear in mind, I don't own him or the characters or really anything worth inciting a lawsuit over, so please don't sue. Instead, feel free to review by clicking the little button at the bottom of the page. Cheers!
If you're scared when you're out on your own
Just remember me
'Cause I won't let you go it alone
Lay it all on me.
Lay It All On Me, Rudimental
He sleeps in the damn car.
Okay, more accurately, he lies in the damn car, the seat reclined as far back as it will go (which - blessedly – is nearly flat), left knee jammed awkwardly against the steering wheel while the console digs into his right hip and the green-yellow fluorescent lighting of the FBI parking garage hums loudly enough to be heard even through the closed doors. Intermittently comes the high-pitched squeal of tires on concrete, but it's not like it's keeping him awake. He's fallen asleep under some pretty shitty conditions in the field before, situations that make the SUV feel like the Ritz in comparison, so this is really nothing. He'd be out cold if his brain would just stop replaying the last few hours on a repetitive loop that runs over and over in agonizing detail.
Come on, oblivion. Help a guy out.
And what's really funny – not funny "ha-ha," but more painfully ironic – is that his current state has nothing to do with his father and everything to do with Jane.
Sure he's ten steps beyond anger where Sarah is concerned – he's bivouacking in pissed off territory, in fact - because she knew (she knew) what he'd say if she asked about bringing dear old dad home. She knew he would shut her down so fast it would be as though the conversation never happened, so what did she do instead? She bypassed permission in favor of requesting forgiveness.
Ah, the Weller family MO.
So yeah, Kurt's angry at Sarah. Kurt's thoroughly PO-ed at Sarah, but at the end of the day, he loves his sister and they'll work it out. They always do. Already she's texted a dozen times with apologies and justifications for why their father is in his home. The final text reads: We WILL talk about this, Kurt.
No one delivers tone of voice through a text message quite like Sarah. It's possible the wrong Weller joined the FBI.
But while the return of the prodigal father is something Kurt hoped never to have to deal with, it's not keeping him awake. Instead it's the timing of this whole thing that's crap. Did it have to happen tonight? Couldn't Sarah and the state penitentiary wait just one more week to spring this on him?
Kurt has nothing to say to the man and certainly doesn't want him anywhere near the apartment he's come to think of as a sanctuary. But on any other night – any other night – the sound of his casual, "Hello, son" wouldn't have been enough to push Kurt out the door. That the old bastard could stand there and behave as though they're some sort of normal family preparing to sit down to dinner ("This meatloaf is delicious, Sarah." "Catch any bad guys at work today, Kurt?") galled him, sure, but Kurt's dealt with worse and if it had happened any other night, he could have coped. He could easily have ignored the old man's gut-wrenchingly paternal tone and pushed wordlessly by. He could have walked straight into his bedroom and closed the door without a second look or thought.
On any other night, he would be asleep in that bed right now.
But no. It did happen tonight and he's not home in bed where he wanted to be. Instead, he's crammed into the driver's seat of an SUV he already spends too much time in, unable to sleep because his subconscious won't leave him alone about everything that just happened with Jane.
What the hell were you thinking anyway, Weller?
I wasn't thinking. Clearly. (Also, I wasn't thinking clearly.)
Talk about lack of clarity, there was actually a moment – a clearly stupid, impulsive, can't-happen-again-ever moment – when he got in the car and seriously considered driving back to Jane's. During his earlier inspection, he noted that her new couch looked perfect for a lazy weekend of football viewing, which in guy terms equated to nap time and which, in turn, equated to a decent night's rest waiting right there for him. Yet thankfully his subconscious threw up a red flag to remind him just how quickly he ran out of there an hour or so before and why.
Temporarily homeless or not, the very last place on earth he needs to be tonight is at Jane's.
It's been a tenuous few days for everyone, but mostly for her and she needs additional complications in her life like she needs another tattoo. How she holds it together enough to get out of bed every morning, he doesn't know and he doubts he could handle her situation with half as much strength and poise if the tables were turned. Really, she's just plain remarkable – but then, if she really is the Taylor he remembers from childhood, she always was remarkable.
And there's the issue: They were kids together.
He was like her big brother and he was supposed to protect her and couldn't and now she's back and he has a second chance. What's more, now he's freaking armed and he's trained in tactical response and hostage negotiation and all of the major things one needs to know to protect someone – or, more accurately, to protect the general public of the United States of America, the job he's actually paid for.
But Jane comes first for him right now. (Sorry, general public.) Jane's an asset that needs protection while they decode the tattoos on her body and more than that, she's a human being and she's scared because she doesn't remember who she was or where she came from. She experiences wide swings between being fragile enough that it seems like she'll break if she hears the wrong word spoken to wielding a gun (or shovel – whatever's handy) with deadly accuracy and when she suffers weak moments, he's supposed to protect her. He's supposed to be the rock she leans on because it's his damn job and because she showed up in Times Square with his name tattooed across her back and that makes her his responsibility, but damn if he almost didn't ruin it tonight. Damnif there wasn't a moment where the thought, the instinct to cross the delicate boundary between protector and protectee didn't flash across his mind and light the whole thing up like fireworks on the Fourth.
Perspective, Weller. Perspective.
Sure, in the end nothing happened and he beat a hasty retreat with a promise to see her in the morning (t-minus five hours until that awkward moment arrives) and all was as it should be again, but that doesn't change the fact that the thought presented itself in Technicolor. Nothing will change that – and as his mind analyzes the incident ad nauseam, he suspects – he fears - he wasn't the only one who felt it
So this is what sheer panic feels like…
Scary thoughts seem to be the only ones he deals in these days so he should be used to the sensation, but there are scary thoughts and then there's this thought. Big difference. Scary thoughts are things like What if this guy has an accomplice who will shoot me before I see him? and What if we can't decode one of Jane's tattoos in time to save innocent lives?
This thought - the thought that there might just have been a different sort of spark between them tonight than the big brother/big sister vibe he's grown accustomed to and encouraged – is in a horrific league of its own, ranking right up there with being buried alive, another massive terrorist attack on the city, and the Mets being sold like the Dodgers were in 1957.
(Strike that; it's worse than all of those things combined.)
Jane's appearance has changed the trajectory of both his career and his life in ways that he hasn't fully comprehended yet. Hell, he's only just gotten used to having her around and to alter their delicate balance now would be flirting with disaster. In fact, they've basically moved past mere flirting with disaster and formed a stable, monogamous relationship with it – or at least he has.
What's more, she knows it. How else can he explain her veiled request for him to back off after the Sarah's failed attempt at dinner? How else should he have taken it?
"I see the way that you look at me and I don't know how to be this person that you lost."
The trouble is that he can't back off because he doesn't know what he expects of her – or himself – in this situation. There's no section of the FBI field manual that describes what to do when your kidnapped childhood friend reappears in your life two decades later with a tattooed treasure map on her body and no memory whatsoever. (He checked.) But how's he supposed to help her without guidelines?
Kurt Weller prides himself on his coolness under pressure and his ability to separate personal feelings from what's needed to accomplish the job at hand – but now that's all shot to pieces. He doesn't know how to go back or move forward – which leaves him stuck in the damn car dwelling on how he's come to be stuck in the damn car and losing sleep in the process. Give him a hostage standoff, a gun battle, a deadly neurotoxin and his instincts are impeccable. Give him a surge of sudden attraction to Jane and he's useless as wheels on a horse.
That's the problem with putting the job before everything else. Your life is a wreck and you didn't even notice until tonight.
People's exhibit A? Take the simple fact that the list of friends upon whose couches he could conceivably have asked to crash tonight numbered just Jane.
Sure he has buddies from Quantico and from college he keeps in touch with, but work has been so all-consuming since – well, since the day Taylor disappeared if he's totally honest – that he hasn't forged the same sorts of relationships that other people have. There are no guys he knows from the gym, he doesn't belong to the fantasy football league at his corner bar, nor is he married, which means no double date nights or PTO meetings. And sure, Sarah and Sawyer are there, but they're family. That's different.
Ever since she crawled out of that bag, though, Jane is his friend. Just Jane.
So maybe you don't blow it by crossing the line.
She trusts him, dammit. She trusts him and they've aligned seamlessly, two insular individuals who share both purpose and ideology. And it kills him to watch her learn about her past in frightening and cryptic dribs and drabs so he tries to say and do the right things to help her when she struggles.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, he even gets it right. Take her most recent flashback - she nearly fell to pieces in front of him and did he panic? No. He kept his cool and knew exactly what to do: He grabbed her hand and held it palm down over his heart. He was calm. He was focused. His heartbeat was a metronome.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Maintain eye contact and watch her come back, beat by beat: "I'm here. I'm here with you. You're okay."
It was the right thing to do. It was easy – and he could do that ninety-nine percent of the time.
As for the one percent?
Epic. Failure.
Thus, he spent the better part of the day (when they weren't shooting at terrorists or in a standoff with the CIA – typical Tuesday) thinking long and hard about what she said, about how he treated her (and looked at her, apparently). And when he found out she had a new place, he took her there so he could make sure not only that it was secure, but that she felt safe there – and safe in general, as she was within a hair's breadth of being handed off to the CIA, a prospect gruesome enough to make anyone shaky.
And before he left, he apologized – apologized for making her already difficult situation harder, apologized because it was the right thing to do and because he needed to say the words to her that he wanted to say on the night she vanished all those years ago. Decades of guilt rushed to the surface and overflowed, but it was okay. They were okay.
It was only after she told him that it wasn't his fault that the whole situation turned on its head.
Gently, she reached forward and took hold of his calloused right hand with her patterned left, pulling his palm flat against her chest exactly as he had. Fingers linked, she looked him in the eye and broke him in half:
"You told me Taylor was my starting point, but I think you're wrong. You're my starting point."
Like him, she was calm. Like him, she was focused - but her gaze was so intent, her trust in him worn so openly on her face, and the thick thud of her heartbeat so solid, so real beneath his fingers that he felt the air catch in his throat. Forget breathe in and breathe out - how many times had she broken and he picked up the pieces? How many times did he hold her the way a brother would hold his sister?
Now he was the broken one. Now she caught him and everything was different because of it, the moment charged with different electricity. The longer their eyes remained locked, the more closely their breathing aligned and tighter wound the invisible thread that connected them.
The thought that exploded before his mind's eye wasn't that of a brother or a protector; it was that of a man who found himself face to face with a strikingly beautiful, mysterious woman with mesmerizing green eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. It wasn't the type of thought that preceded a chaste embrace between friends. No. He saw their bodies entwined in the most carnal way, his mouth on hers and his hands nowhere near her heart. (Also worth noting, in the version of events in his imagination, the couch wasn't used for casual weekend football viewing or a nap.)
For a split second, it was so clear it was as though it was already happening – his mouth crashing down on hers, their bodies pressed together in a frenzied union of flesh and bone and soul – and he felt his adrenaline spike and temperature rise, so much so that he wondered why his palm didn't sear the skin on which it rested. But then he felt her heartbeat quicken to match tempo with his own and watched her gaze dart to his lips and he knew she felt it too. Silently, they stood and stared and breathed inside a shared space with a shared thought while the world around them ground to a slow halt.
Uncanny, that. Uncanny the way their minds worked in such sync. He didn't know anyone else with whom he shared such a connection and the easy thing to do right then would have been to take a tiny half-step forward. That's all it would take for the tiny spark to catch fire. It would have been so simple to take full possession of her in a way befitting the imprint of his name across her shoulder blades. It would have been so simple because she would have let him, for once she engaged in a situation – no matter what it was - Jane didn't back down.
It was all right there for the taking – and if it wasn't for the surge of sanity that reminded him that his first priority was to keep her safe no matter what, even (and especially!) when the person she most needed protection from was him, he would have moved. He knows he would have moved.
Final score – Sanity 1, Stupidity 0. (Thank God!)
He pulled his hand away quickly and severed the current, then told her he'd see her in the morning and escaped. And then, of course, his sister betrayed him, his father said hello, and now he lies in his damn car in the FBI parking garage rehashing the whole shitty situation instead of sleeping.
No good deed goes unpunished, Weller; you know that better than anyone.
It's nearly seven when he gives up the attempt, extricates himself from the vehicle, and heads to the locker room to shower and search for a passably clean shirt. He dawdles excessively for a man who combs his wet hair with a towel and doesn't shave, but even so, Jane is in the hall when he emerges at seven forty-five.
Freaking ninja. You don't even give a guy a chance.
"You're here early." His words are an accusation and he pushes his sleeves up to give his hands something to do because the nervous working of her jaw indicates she's arrived with a purpose and he fears the words she's certainly rehearsed in her head in anticipation of his arrival.
It can't be any worse than getting tasered at training…
Her opening salvo disarms him, however. "You look terrible."
It's said with genuine concern and the truth slips out. "I slept in the damn car."
She frowns. "Why did you…?"
"I don't want to talk about it, Jane." He cuts her off in his best "I am an agent of the FBI and you will do as I say" tone, one that's meant to cut and does.
"Sorry," she says, wounded.
"Not your fault," he tells her with less edge, then adds apologetically, "Look, I didn't mean to snap, I just really don't want to get into it."
"Okay." She still looks hurt but lets the matter drop before she speaks again. "I wanted to talk to you about last night."
Forget it. This will be worse than the taser.
"Jane, I'm sorry…" he tries to head off the situation but it's suddenly her turn to cut him off.
"Wait, why are you sorry…?"
He freezes, perplexed by her question.
Wait, what just happened? Am I not supposed to apologize for almost crossing the line?
"I should apologize to you," she continues, voice brittle. "I put you on the spot and I shouldn't have. It was completely unfair of me to put you under such pressure and I…"
His own laughter surprises him and cuts into her apology.
"Hang on a minute. You put too much pressure on me? I don't see how that's possible, Jane."
She blinks and a slight blush creeps over her features before she says sheepishly, "I guess we're both pretty bad at this, huh?"
"Well, to be fair, there isn't a section of the FBI field manual that deals with this specific situation," he offers with a wry shrug.
She quips, "Did you check?" and they share another laugh.
"Look," he tells her, "I think we both said a lot last night, more than maybe we've ever said. We're in uncharted territory and bumps in the road are to be expected, right?"
"Right."
"So let's just call last night a bump and move forward," he suggests, then holds his breath and waits for her to agree.
Please agree, Jane. I don't know what I'll do if you don't agree.
After a pause that stretches to the breaking point, she nods. "You're right."
There's something in the way she looks at him when she says it, though, that gives him pause. Is it disappointment? Relief? Or something else entirely?
Best to let it go, Weller.
"Come on," he says briskly. "I need coffee."
He's halfway down the hall when she stops him. "I don't have anyone in my life except you, Kurt – no one else that I trust anyway. Whether I'm Taylor or not Taylor or whoever I turn out to be when all this is over, I need us to be okay. I really need us to be okay."
The green eyes are laser beams but her quivering lip is uncertain. "Are we okay?"
"We're okay, Jane." His tone is confident but he senses there's more to her question.
She walks up to stand toe to toe with him and reaches out her hand. She places it squarely on his heart and asks pointedly, "Are we really okay?"
Her palm is warm and he feels his heartbeat rise to meet it but there is no adrenaline spike this time; the rhythm remains regular. Her eyes lock with his and he understands exactly what she wants to know.
She needs you to love her as she is right now, Weller – love her, not anything else. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Do you think you can manage not to screw that up?
He looks down at her ink-covered hand and covers it with his own, warm flesh to warm flesh. He doesn't think about sex or one night stands, he just thinks about Jane – his friend, the woman he's come to care about so much in such a short period of time – and the decision to give her what she needs is as easy as breathing.
"We're really okay."
She smiles and squeezes his fingers.
FIN