I Was So Sure.

Touch, making connections, being attached; these are all things Kurt Weller has hard wired himself to avoid, physical or otherwise. He could teach a master class on creating distance between two points and maintaining it.

It's always been his personal choice of self-preservation; if you don't let anyone in, they can't shoot you with your own gun. But even Kurt knows that being invincible is more than just being able to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Invincibility requires a certain amount of both apathy and empathy, of not letting yourself become emotionally involved and invested in something, or someone, while still being able to find a way to be a good human being.

It's a fine line, one he walks precariously close to either edge. His job necessitates this as a skill set, and because he's perfected it, it allows him to maneuver at will out of certain scenarios. It leaves him with the power, the choice, to keep the rest of the world at arms length. That's not so say he doesn't care about what he does—he does, so much, sometimes too much (and always more than he should). So this, this impasse of emotion that's allowed him to survive, is his compromise to keep himself from getting lost in the insanity of the work that he lives and breathes, his coping mechanism, if you will.

He's learned that if you avoid those connections, the things that create cracks and fissures in your foundation, the ones that expose your Achilles' heel and make you weak, you become untouchable. It's something he's been doing for a very, very long time.

Until he couldn't anymore.

It's been one of those cluster fuck kind of days, the kind that went wrong in every possible way. It started with a high speed chase through rural New York that put two of their FBI-issued SUVs in a ditch. It continued with a cross country chase on foot, through the woods, in the dark, while being shot at. It ended with the suspect escaping, and Jane on the ground with two slugs in the chest of her protective vest.

Kurt's ears are still ringing from the sound of the gunfire. The image of Jane gasping for air is permanently seared into his head.

Disconnecting for the sake of the job isn't something he usually has trouble with, but Kurt can't deny that things have changed. And even though most of those changes have been good—really good—some of them aren't. His focus is split, his usual meticulous attention to detail disrupted, because every last part of himself that he can spare is spent on her.

Separating Jane from the job, the woman he loves from the work he does, despite one being vital to the other, has never been more complicated.

When she showed up in Time Square a year ago, a nameless, naked woman crawling out of a duffle bag with his name inscribed like a prophecy on her back (and that scar on her neck), his world ceased to exist as he knew it. Better yet, it imploded, leaving nothing but a sliver of the shattered reality in its place. Never in the last twenty-five years of his life has Kurt been faced with a situation he couldn't choose to separate himself from, that he couldn't run from if it became too much to handle. He's always been able to retreat, to escape.

But now that they're together, things are different, and he's beginning to realize just what kind of gravity the heart is capable of—even a broken one.

He can't run from her.

If he's honest with himself, the entire thing is beyond belief, her resurrection completely blurs the definition of possible. What were the chances? For a quarter of a century every fiber of his being has wanted nothing more than to find her, and now here she is. It's laughable. It's insane.

For Kurt Weller, losing Taylor Shaw set the trajectory for the rest of his life. Every hour of every day, every decision and every mistake, became predestined the night she disappeared and the hour he stared blaming himself. There were so many what-ifs, what-could-have-beens, and now that she's been returned to him the same questions (the same regrets) keep him awake at night. Years of that weight, of not knowing, of the guilt he still lives with, threatens to eat him alive.

"Kurt?"

He blinks, sucked back into present from the bottomless blackhole of his thoughts. The road appears in front of him, the headlights of the replacement SUV reaching out into the endless night of the New York countryside. Jane's been passed out in the passenger seat beside him, something she wouldn't have usually done, but it's been days since any of them had any real rest. Even though she sometimes forgets, she is human, and she does need sleep regardless of her coffee habit. Kurt tries not to imagine the bruises that are probably forming beneath he fabric of her shirt when he glances at her. The simple sound of her voice is all it takes, and even then he can feel it—the involuntary pull that brings him back to her, again and again.

"Hm?"

"You sure you're ok?" She tilts her head slightly, green eyes warm, but concerned.

He doesn't answer right away. He knows exactly why she's asking him that question when she already knows the answer. It's her not so subtle attempt to gauge just how unstable his current frame of mind is after the day they had. He tries not to think about how terribly close it had been to being one of those days were there were casualties. Lately that's been almost every day, as if their lives have been permanently set in the crosshairs of death and damnation. Jane's tattoos have led them into increasingly dangerous situations, and Kurt is beginning to wonder if her return is actually some form of penance he's meant to pay, to make him suffer just as much as she has. He can't tell her that though, how much it frightens him that one more mistake could steal her away again, so he lies instead.

"I'm fine."

Jane's not convinced. However, she has an innate sense to somehow read him, to know when to push and when to give him space. She usually wants what she wants, and usually he'd give himself to her willingly. But tonight she knows better, and Kurt knows that she can see it; he's on the edge of unraveling, of diving off the proverbial edge if someone would just push him.

Instead of asking anything more of him, she gives him a piece of herself instead. And that's all he is really, that's all they are, a breathtakingly tragic masterpiece of fractured and splintered fragments that manage to make a whole. She reaches for his hand on the console, threading her fingers through his, grounding him back in the moment. He has to fight down the well of emotion that rises in his chest, and they sit in silence. There's no need for words. He clings to the calming sound of her breathing as she falls back asleep for the rest of their ride, but he can't bring himself to let go of her hand.

Creating distance, maintaining two points, has never been more insignificant.

Kurt needs her as much as he needs the air in his lungs, the heart in his chest. What's more is that he craves her, every hour and every second of every day, beyond need, because without her he's irreparably broken.

That's what terrifies him most.

Near death experiences change you. That's probably why the last twelve hours of their day have him rattled, restless, because it struck entirely too close to home. It's almost happened before...

Kurt tries not to think about it, and watching Jane saunter from the bathroom to his bed—to their bed—in nothing but one of his old academy shirts is distraction enough. There are still moments he wonders if this isn't a cruel dream, if he'll wake up and she'll be gone, evaporating into oblivion with the rest of the fantasies he's ever conjured. It's not a dream though, because the feel of her hands on his chest as she crawls over him, her lips against his, isn't something his mind could ever imitate. She is overwhelmingly real.

Six months. That's how much time it took him to figure it out, from the night they found Jane in Time Square, to the night he realized that he'd never be able to let her go again—that he didn't want to.

Kurt can recall the first time he almost lost her very clearly, the memories preserved with the all too vivid clarity that frequents the more morbid parts of his mind. The half bottle of whiskey they'd shared that night to to try and drown out the worst of it seemed to have the opposite effect. He finds that certain details are impossible to forget; lining up the sights of his pistol to the forehead of the bastard who had a gun to her head, how hard his hands shook after he pulled the trigger, how his heart leapt in his throat when it almost too late.

Almost too late. He was too late to save Taylor. He'd be damned if he let Jane sacrifice herself to the same fate.

There had been no greater relief then to have her barrel into his arms, tactical gear and all, the smell of gunpowder in her hair and his ears still ringing—alive. Then there was the blur of the evening at the safe house that followed, when desperation gave way to temptation, both of them too far gone to stop it from happening. After months of promising he would never let it get that far, his resolve finally crumbled the moment he let her kiss him. He remembers the hot sear of her skin against his for the first time, the insatiable hunger to have her—all of her—and how terrified he was that they'd both regret their decision in the morning.

Jane forgave him. She always does. He's convinced at times that her rise from the dead, though tragic in circumstance, is heavenly, supernatural, because she somehow manages to have enough grace for the both of them.

He still has nightmares where the story ends differently. They're the kind that are made up of shades of red, a lifeless body, blood splatters and brain matter scattered across a cold concrete floor. It wakes him up, sometimes in agonizing slow motion, sometimes in fits of panic that suffocate him. And he probably would suffocate, drowning in all his demons, if it weren't for Jane waiting to rescue him from the dark. Her hands are answered prayers of salvation against his skin, and her voice a hedge of protection, the sound that leads him back. In those moments of deliverance, of clarity, the entirety of her being becomes a shrine he'd gladly worship for the rest of his life if she would let him.

"I know you don't want to talk about it, but I think we should."

It's the first thing Jane's said to him since they've been home. There's a distinct echo of worry in her words as she lies next to him, and it lingers long after she's spoken. She's aware of what's waiting for him once he closes his eyes, and she wants so badly to prevent it, but this is one thing she has no control over, much to her frustration. It never ceases to amaze him that she somehow manages to put everyone else's well being before her own. He wants to tell her that he's the last one who deserves it, he's the one who let her get shot at, she could have been seriously injured, or worse. Kurt closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck, breathing her in.

"Not tonight," he murmurs. "Please."

"Ok."

She acquiesces, pulling him closer until there's no distance left between them. Her body curls into his side, her legs tangled in his own, and she becomes an anchor.

Mayfair orders the entire team to take the next day off, a rarity even under the worst circumstances. Kurt entertains the idea that Reade and Zapata likely said something to her about his emotional state—not that he can blame either of them. He did teach them everything he knows, so really it's his own fault, right?

Waking up is painful. After the foot chase through the woods yesterday, his entire body aches, his muscles stiff, a reminder that he works too hard (or he's getting old). He blinks against the sun coming in through the curtains, tilting his head to the side, Jane's silhouette breaking the flood of light. She's sitting on the bed, still in his shirt, a book in her lap, her hair falling across her face. He follows the tattoos that run the length of her arms, then from her hip to where her legs are folded underneath her. He notices that her dark, wild waves are longer now than they were a year ago, and instinctively he reaches for her and pushes them away so he can see her eyes.

She glances sideways at him, her attention leaving the pages in front of her. She grabs his hand before he can pull away, brushing his knuckles with her lips before releasing him.

"Hi," she says finally, closing the book and setting it on the bedside table.

"Good morning," his voice is raspy and rough, a perfect reflection of how he probably looks.

Jane flops unceremoniously down next to him as he rolls to his side with a groan. There's something childlike about her in the morning light, and Kurt imagines, for just a flicker of a moment, that he can see a shadow of the little girl he used to know. Her expression as she grins at him is a mixture both of amusement and adoration, though the latter he's not sure he deserves. He props himself up on one elbow, and she settles onto her back beneath him, green eyes taunting. He can't help but notice that she's moving more gingerly than normal, and even though she tries to hide it, she still winces when she finally falls still.

With a frown Kurt slowly hooks his fingers in the collar of her shirt, carefully pulling it down until he can clearly see the angry red-blue discoloration left behind by the impact of the bullets. It reaches the length of her sternum, and up towards her left clavicle, all spread across an endless backdrop of black ink. His face falls, distraught. How many more scars would her body carry because of him?

"It's just a bruise." Jane reminds him softly, framing his face with her hands. Normally her reassurances can allay his spiral into self-reproach, but this—the physical proof—isn't something he can ignore.

Jane's intuitive nature makes it easy for her to pinpoint where his mind is headed; she knows him better than he knows himself. Not only that, but she knows what it looks like, standing on the edge of an abyss made of nothing but blame and guilt and pain. She's spent so much time watching him that it's easy for her to tell by the set of his jaw, his eyes, that he's losing the little sanity he still has left after last night. And that hurts Kurt more than anything, because she can clearly see the sway she has over him, and she'll be the one that suffers watching what it does to them both.

In an attempt to keep him here with her, to keep him from falling into the void, and perhaps herself, Jane bridges the gap. It doesn't take long for her to draw him in, her hand curling around the back of his neck, pulling him to her, away from the torment of his thoughts.

The kiss is lingering, hungry, but it's not born out of lust (no, he knows what that feels like). It's something else entirely, a different kind of burn that eats at them both, and when Kurt finally forces himself to draw back from her he can see it in her eyes. There's sadness there, the flicker of a shadow that robs her of her usual spark. Jane runs her fingers through his hair, her thumb coming to rest at the juncture of his jaw and neck, hovering over the pulse there as she studies him.

"How long do we keep doing this, Kurt?"

Her question catches him completely off guard. He freezes, mouth dry, his heart rate increasing exponentially. His not-yet-awake brain kicks into overdrive as the fear begins to creep up on him, because this isn't the kind of conversation he'd expected to have with her. Panic stalks on the edge of his periphery, terrified at what she might say next, because he's had nightmares about that too. Was this it, the worst end he could have imagined being realized? The end where he's too fucked up, and she's too broken?

"How long do we keep pretending that this is easy?" She repeats, trying to feign stoicism but falling miserably short. Her eyes can't lie, not to him, and they're inconsolable as her own fears come to light in the morning. "How long do we keep pretending that I'm good for you?"

"Jane..." Kurt wills himself to form words, to stop this from where it's going. "You don't mean that." She can't.

"Tell me I'm wrong." She challenges, her hand falling away from his neck.

"You are wrong." The retreat of her touch physically pains him, and in that moment she seems so much farther away.

And yet part of him does wonder, in the depravity of his darkest thoughts, if maybe she isn't. Maybe from the moment Taylor Shaw was stolen from him, to the moment Jane Doe appeared with his name engraved between her shoulder blades, is just a procession of bad decisions, broken promises and attempts to stop his life from running though his fingertips. It's as if he's become the victim of his own serendipity. Is this his punishment, some sick form of atonement for all the false promises he's made begging the universe to give her back?

"It's my fault." Jane closes her eyes, her voice barely above a whisper. "If I'd never—"

"No." Kurt shakes his head, stopping her before she can say the words, stricken that she could possibly consider—"No it's not. Don't ever think that, ever again, do you hear me?"

Kurt sits up, driven partly by need, partly by desperation. He grabs Jane's wrists and pulls her up with him. The exhaustion of the previous day has finally caught up with her, and she seems so much smaller, more fragile, her usual fire diminished. She doesn't sob, or wail, but her tears are hot on his skin when she buries her face in his neck in silent defeat. He realizes how the tables have turned, how strangely familiar it had sounded to hear those words come out of her mouth—my fault. They're the same words that hunted him through his childhood, and even into the life he tried to fabricate for himself after Taylor.

Did he do this to her? Is this how she would spend the rest of her days, constantly tormented by the possibility of the past, of what could have been, just like him? Every time she looked at him, did she see her own demons, embodied in the image of man who spent his entire life chasing her ghost?

Kurt's spent decades wondering what it would have been like, a life with the girl he lost. He's wandered precariously close to the edge of madness thinking of the possibilities. If he had found her asleep in her bed that morning twenty-five years ago, if she hadn't been stolen from him, would life have progressed as it could have, as it should have? Then their story might have been normal, it might have been happy, the kind that you read about in storybooks and watch in Hallmark movies. He wouldn't have joined the FBI, and she wouldn't have his name branded into her back. They could have grown old together in his parents' home, raised their children, had a family…

As selfish as it is, as greedy as it makes him, and as volatile as their reality is now to even consider the luxury of normalcy, of a future, it doesn't keep him from wanting all of those things. He never stopped wanting them. The only difference now is that he's realized he doesn't want any of it with Taylor Shaw.

He just wants Jane.

Kurt has always avoided forays into honesty, into confession, because admittances of the heart were never something he excelled at. Here, now, he feels compelled to make an exception.

"Losing you scares me, Jane. If I could explain what it was like, all that time before, not having you here…" He doesn't know how to do this, to use words to convey how badly he needs this—them—to work. He doesn't know how to tell her exactly what she needs to hear, to fix it, but damn it all—he tries. He takes a breath to steady himself, and gently pushes her back from him, because he needs to see her face. "Twenty-five years is a long time. A really long time. I don't think I could do it again. I don't want to—"

Kurt's voice cracks. He needs her to hear him. He would beg and cry and plead if that's what it took.

"Please. Please, don't make me."

It's almost funny, that after decades of unanswered prayers, the one that matters most is heard. Jane is the connection, the thing that closes the distance between two points. Her touch, her kiss is the only validation Kurt will ever need for the rest of his life, and her mouth is on his, a breath of life as she whispers the one thing he wants to hear more than anything else.

"I won't."

AN: So thanks to my lovely friend (The Eye Does Not SEE, who also beta'd for me, and who is amazing—go read her stuff STAT), I was inspired to write something really angsty and sad and introspective. This is what happened lol. This is, again, a fic set somewhere vaguely a year in the future, and Jane and Kurt are together. I really like thinking about how it would be for them, being in an actual relationship. I think this is just a one shot, but it could stand for one more scene... ANYWAY, thanks for reading and hope you enjoy! Authentic Flirt airs today and we get MARRIED JELLER! x)

Special thanks to my lovely Em & Lauren who also cheer me on, y'all rock. xoxo

Music inspiration: "I Was So Sure" by Former Vandal.