A/N: I'm finally posting this Blindspot fic that I've been working on since late February. This fic will be full of angst and the first part has quite a bit of torture, so the first part of this fic could be considered rated M.
The timeframe of this fic is sometime in S3 after Kurt and Jane have reconciled, but before 3x17, so essentially before Roman threw his plan out the window (or did he?).
Thank you to the members of the whump community who graciously shared their professional medical knowledge to make this fic more realistic.
And finally, a massive thank you to take2intotheshower ! You've been my sounding board, my beta and exchanged countless of messages about this fic and listened to me rambling about big things and small things while writing.
This is my fifth piece of fanfiction ever, so I would love to get some comments from you :). But please try to keep it constructive, I'm still new to writing.
Disclamer: I'm not making any money, just a Blindspot fan having fun. All rights belong to Martin Gero & co, as well as to the great actors who bring these characters to life.
It was a chilly fall morning and Jane was headed to the NYO. She had gone there alone for the past few days since Kurt was in Atlanta for a Homeland Security terrorism seminar. She and the team had been busy trying to decipher Hank Crawford's network of associates but things had been quieter in terms of major cases. That suited Jane just fine: as much as she trusted the team, having someone else besides Kurt backing her up in the field just felt odd. Luckily, Kurt was due back today.
As if reading her mind, her phone chimed and she looked down at it to see it was a message from Kurt:
"Morning, beautiful. Just got to the airport, flight leaves in a couple of hours and I have a stopover in DC. See you soon. Love you. Kurt."
Jane smiled and typed a quick reply to Kurt before putting her phone back into her pocket.
Stepping off the shuttle bus at the airport parking lot, Weller let out a satisfied sigh. He had survived the seminar with the top brass and his presentation had gone rather well, even if he said so himself. Still, he was happy not having to wear the suit and tie again. He hated how ties always felt constricting, like they were trying to strangle him. He never understood how Reade could put up with them every day.
Now, Kurt was just happy to be home again. He'd go to the NYO, write a report on the seminar and talk it over with Reade, and then he and Jane could go back to the apartment together. He'd missed her. Things finally felt like they were slowly returning to normal. He and Jane had slowly rebuilt the trust between them and he felt their relationship was stronger now than it had ever been. They both had said and done things that hurt the other, and the reconciliation hadn't been any less painful, but he felt they were on the same page again.
Weller walked over to his car at the end of the line and popped the trunk, fishing his phone out of his flight bag, when he suddenly found himself in a chokehold. He dropped his weight down and his palm connected with his assailant's groin and the grip loosened. Then his elbow connected with the man's nose in a satisfying crack. He retreated from his first attacker, who was now kneeling on the ground holding his face. But now Kurt found himself fighting two more men. He punched and kicked one of them, blocking the attack, when the other man charged him. Just as he managed to hit the attacker and put some distance between them, his muscles suddenly felt like they were torn apart. "Taser," he realized as he dropped to the ground, grunting in pain. The next moment he retched as he received a few hard kicks in his stomach and back.
"Son of a bitch, you broke my nose!" One of the men screamed at Kurt.
Gasping for air, Kurt was helpless to resist as they pulled his arms back roughly and he heard the familiar crunching sound as handcuffs tightened around his wrists. The men pulled a hood over his head and threw him in the back of the van, accompanied by a few more kicks.
Weller blinked against the light, standing in the grip of his two captors as they remove the makeshift hood from his head. As his eyes adjusted, he couldn't hide his surprise when he realized who was standing in front of him.
"Andrew Wolff. Last time I saw you, you were being led out of a courtroom in handcuffs. To a Supermax."
Wolff walked up to Weller and frowned, looking at him sadly. "Don't look so surprised, Special Agent Weller. Long time no see…It's been what, 6-7 years ? I guess those prisons aren't as secure as you thought. Since I was able to get out."
"You must have had help. You're a murderer, not a criminal mastermind," Weller couldn't help snapping back at the man.
"Criminal mastermind or not, here you are, "Wolff smirked. " Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this moment? I would never have been caught if it wasn't for you and your meddling FBI investigation. And maybe my ex-wife - but she's on my list for later."
"You're a pathetic lowlife who killed three girls who were barely teenagers!" Weller couldn't mask his anger as he struggled against the grip of the men holding his arms.
"Shut up, Weller!" Wolff screamed and the first series of rapid punches landed on Kurt's torso.
Kurt tried to tense his muscles to take the punches but after a while, he just couldn't. One punch followed the next in rapid succession. Just as he was about to draw air into his lungs, another punch to his solar plexus emptied what breath he had. He could hear a snap in his ears as he felt the first rib crack. Or maybe he imagined it, he wasn't sure. The first beating must have lasted for 15-20 minutes, with Wolff cursing him and his role between the punches, only to concentrate more anger into the next punch. One of the punches was directed at his face and he felt the blood drip down his chin as his lip split and a tooth came loose.
The men released their grip and Kurt dropped to the floor. He groaned quietly, struggling to breathe, his whole body wracked by pain.
Jane was sitting alone in the conference room, the desk in front of her filled with folders and case file notes, most of them written in Kurt's familiar scrawl. Jane took a deep breath to steady her nerves and hit the speed dial on her phone. She was about to make a call she never wanted to.
"Hi, Jane."
"Allie…" Jane began and drew another deep breath.
"It's about Kurt, isn't it?" Allie asked bluntly. Jane knew Allie understood the risks of their jobs better than most. "Please don't tell me the father of my child has been killed."
Jane rushed to correct Allie's worst fears "No, no! He's not dead." Although, she suspected that the alternative wasn't any better.
"He was taken"
"Taken?! By whom?"
"By a man you know. His name is Andrew Wolff."
Jane could hear Allie's sharp intake of breath. "Oh God," Allie nearly groaned. "How? He was put away for life."
Jane ran her hand through her hair in frustration. "Apparently, he escaped when they were transferring him between facilities and the transport was attacked. The Marshals have already launched a manhunt. Kurt was due back today from a seminar in Atlanta. He didn't show up at the NYO and I tried to call him but it went to his voicemail. We finally traced his phone to the JFK parking lot and went to search it. We found it by his car. There was some blood, too…" Jane's voice drifted off.
She heard the scrape of a chair as Allie sat down and she could practically see the other woman pinch the bridge of her nose as she processed the information. "You have to find Kurt, Jane. Wolff swore revenge against Kurt and his ex-wife, Cynthia, when they sentenced him. And with what he did to his victims…"
Jane's voice trembled slightly as she replied "I know, Allie. I'm staring at the case files."
"I probably don't have to tell you how hard that case was on Kurt. He was the lead agent on it."
"Yeah, I can imagine."
"He wouldn't eat, he hardly slept…they almost pulled him off the case. Wolff tortured those girls for days before killing them. It ate Kurt up from the inside. Even with his walls, I could see it. Everyone could."
"And now Wolff has Kurt." Jane said, her voice barely a whisper.
Now it was Allie's turn to reassure Jane "Kurt doesn't give up easily. And with an agent missing, you will have all possible law enforcement resources at your disposal."
Kurt couldn't help a groan escaping as his cracked ribs grated against each other when he helplessly swung with the force of the latest punch Wolff directed at him. The pain made every breath feel like he was being stabbed. He tried to normalize his breathing, tried to prepare his body to take the next punch he knew would surely follow. But what Wolff said next sent a chill down his spine.
"Ahh, I see you're married, Special Agent Weller. I don't remember seeing you wearing a ring the last time we met," he said with a smug tone from somewhere behind. "So, you have a wife. Is she pretty? What does she do for a living?" Kurt could feel Wolff's breathing on his neck, as Wolff whispered the next words: "Or maybe she's an FBI agent? Just. Like. You? Hmmm? Oh, how about children? Do you have any children? "
"You leave my family out of this," Kurt growled a threat at Wolff. The thought of Andrew Wolff anywhere close to Jane, or especially Bethany, made anger surge inside him and also a hint of fear.
Wolff laughed at him, delivering a vicious punch at Kurt's kidneys with the knuckle-dusters. An agonized scream escaped Kurt's mouth as the pain shot into his brain.
Wolff walked back into Kurt's field of vision as he gasped for breath and grabbed his jaw. "You're hardly in a position to issue threats, Agent Weller." Drawing the knuckle-duster slowly down Kurt's chest from his collarbone down to his stomach, he continued with an almost lilting tone: "I wonder if your colleagues will let your wife see what I do to you? She must already know you're missing. I promise you, I'll return your body back to her in one piece."
Kurt had the wind knocked out of him as another punch hit him in the stomach. "But…" Wolff continued, emphasizing each word with a punch to Kurt's sides and stomach." It's " Kurt nearly retched as another punch landed in his stomach. "Gonna. Take. Time." He grabbed Kurt's head again and spoke menacingly "You'll be begging for death before I'm done with you, Agent Weller."
Looking at the screen in desperation, Jane turned to her friends. "Please tell me you can trace the source of the feed, Patterson…"
Patterson tapped frantically at her keyboard before shaking her head slightly "I'm sorry. He's routing the signal so it's bouncing all over the world. We can't trace it."
"Rich?"
"If she can't track it, neither can I." Rich shook his head.
"So we're just going to leave Kurt at the mercy of a sadistic killer with a grudge against him?!" Jane asked, her tone a mix of anger and desperation. "There has to be some way to find him!"
"Jane, we have law enforcement on all levels looking for Weller." Reade tried to calm her.
Jane was just about to reply to Reade when she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. "Unknown number..Could Wolff have found out who I am? Or…" "I have to take this", she told the team and quickly left the lab.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Jane. Did I call at a bad time?" Jane heard the feigned concern in Roman's voice.
"Roman…" Jane growled in a warning tone.
"What? Can't I call my big sister to see how she's doing? Oh, I'm sorry, is something wrong?"
"You had Kurt taken, didn't you? You're hurting him to hurt me…"
"Not exactly. Andrew Wolff has had it in for your husband for a long time. But I might have used that anger to get something I wanted."
"If it's me you want to punish, then do it, but leave Kurt out of this!"
"He came clean to you about Berlin. Did he tell you we met in Germany when you were rescuing Avery?"
"Yes, he told me." Jane snapped.
"Then he probably told you that we are after the same thing: Hank Crawford."
Jane had walked to a quiet hallway, and leaned against the wall, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. She closed her eyes, trying to will the feeling away. "Yes, and we are working on it."
"Well, you're not working fast enough." Jane could hear Roman's anger surfacing. "And that's where Kurt came in. Andrew Wolff had some usable information on Crawford. And unfortunately sis, your dear husband was the price he demanded in return for that information."
"So, you're the one who organized his escape and told him where to find Kurt."
"I might have nudged him in the right direction. But I do hope you find Kurt in time…You will need him to take down Crawford."
With that, the line went silent. Jane was filled with both helplessness and fury. Her own brother had helped that twisted murderer get his hands on Kurt.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and took a few deep breaths before heading back to the lab to tell the team of the contents of the call.
Kurt regained consciousness again in the dark room in which they had locked him. He let out a quiet moan as he moved. His ribs and his whole torso ached from the numerous beatings Wolff had given him. He was shivering, the room was cool and they had taken off his shirt right after they captured him and used the stun gun on him. How long had he been here? Hours, days? He couldn't tell. The beatings and torture all became a blur. Must have been for more than a day at least.
Kurt's thoughts drifted to Jane. He knew she was probably driving herself mad with worry and guilt. His only consolation was that the team was with her. He knew they would look after Jane if he wouldn't make it. The thought of her was his only ray of light at this point. He knew the protocols, he knew that the FBI and everyone else was looking for him after Wolff had made it known with his live feed that he had Weller.
Hearing movement outside the door, he felt his heart rate increasing and a sweat break out on his forehead. They were coming to take him back to Wolff. He was about to be plunged into the world of pain again. Two men entered, one of them apparently the one whose nose Kurt had managed to break when they captured him. Kurt grinned internally and he wasn't going to give up now either. He knew his best chance of escape was as they were taking him to Wolff. As one man grabbed his arm to pull him up, Weller aimed a punch as his groin and leapt on him as the man fell down.
But he wasn't fast enough. When Weller was about to turn and charge the second man he could only grunt in pain as the stun gun made contact with his neck and dropped him to the ground as the man maintained the contact.
"You fucking Fed!" Weller heard the first man curse and next he felt two hard kicks to his ribs and stomach. He groaned as his ribs telegraphed the pain all around his body.
"Good thing I had the stun gun with me, huh?" the second man smugly told his companion as he roughly pulled Weller's hands behind his back and cuffed them.
"Yeah…Too bad for him, that's only the beginning. Here."
Weller felt them tie a blindfold over his eyes and then lift him to his feet. The pain in his ribs was pulsing, he could only shuffle forward as the men dragged him between them.
"Ahh, Agent Weller," he heard Wolff's voice from somewhere. "Now all we need to do is to get you situated before starting the show for your friends at the FBI."
The men holding Weller opened the cuffs and forced him to lie down on something. They pulled his hands above his head before re-cuffing him into something that made a metallic clink. His legs were secured to the other end. Next, he gasped in shock and shivered as cold water hit him.
Weller tried to control his breathing "Are they going to waterboard me?"
The realization hit him as he felt them pull his pant leg up and tie something around his ankle. It was a wire, and he was lying on a metallic bed frame, soaked to the bone. "Oh shit." He couldn't see what was coming and the thought unnerved him even more. He didn't know when and he didn't know where the pain would hit him. But he knew that it would be bad.
"Hello again, FBI," Kurt heard Wolff addressing the small webcam in the corner of the room. He walked next to where Weller was lying and it sounded like he was fiddling with something.
"For your agents' sake I hope you're not trying to find Weller here. Because each cop that comes after me will suffer the same fate as him. Although, I might be a bit more merciful with them. With Weller, it's personal."
Weller grunted between his teeth as something touched his thigh and the electricity surged through him. "Another wire," Kurt realized as his thigh felt like it was being torn into pieces.
"Stings, huh?" Wolff said gleefully.
"You…do…realize..you'll get…the death penalty…for this? When they… catch you." Weller said while gasping for breath.
"But who says they will?"
The next shock lasted for what felt like minutes and this time it hit his abdomen, the metal and the water intensifying the sensation. Still, Weller held himself in check and groaned, not wanting to give his captor the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He breathed hard through his nose, trying to prepare for the next wave of pain. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears and felt his heart rate increase, as the fear of not knowing where and when the hit would come was starting to get a hold on him. "Still trying to keep up that stoic façade, Agent Weller? You'll scream soon enough."
And he did, as the next shock hit his groin.
"Told you, you would." Wolff goaded him.
"Go to hell, Wolff."
"Maybe someday. But you'll live through it before I let you die." Wolff pressed the wire into Weller's exposed chest and kept it there as Kurt struggled against his restraints in vain and screamed in agony. The pain was becoming so intense Kurt could only focus on getting air into his lungs as the shock abruptly stopped.
"Oh, did that hurt?" Wolff asked with faked concern. "But we're just getting started."
The next shocks were all around his body. His feet, his arms, his chest. Wolff didn't ask anything, only laughed and taunted him.
The worst was the shock directed at Weller's side and his broken ribs. Weller heard his own screams and all he saw behind his blindfold was the piercing pain invading every cell in his body before he lost consciousness.
"That was just a demonstration, FBI. I want that information on Cynthia: the longer it takes you, the worse he suffers," Wolff spoke menacingly into the webcam before cutting the signal.
As Weller's screams quieted and unconsciousness blissfully claimed him, you could hear a pin drop in Patterson's lab. Patterson was staring at the feed, silent tears running down her cheeks; Rich stood behind her with his hand on her shoulder. He was pale and looked like he was going to be sick at any moment. Tasha stood with her hands tightly fisted at her sides, quietly cursing in Spanish. Reade, next to Zapata as if nailed to the spot, was staring at the now blank feed. Almost like he was still processing the horror they had just witnessed.
But the most affected was Jane. Still looking at the screen, all she saw in her mind now was Kurt straining against his bonds as the shocks hit him and all she heard were his agonized screams. Her breathing was rapid, her heart was beating like it was going to burst through her chest. It felt like the room was collapsing on her. Jane turned and fled the lab, nearly running into the locker room.
Bypassing her own locker, she collapsed onto the bench in front of Kurt's locker, wanting desperately to feel closer to her husband. She hugged her knees to her chest, leaning her head against them, no longer able to hold back the hot tears that spilled onto her cheeks.
Her husband was stuck in hell and, despite all her training, there was nothing she could do. He was in agony and she was helpless to stop it. Seeing Kurt withstand the horrible things Wolff did to him and hearing his grunts and inevitable cries of pain, it was eating her up inside. When she had been in the hands of the CIA, she'd remembered she had counter-interrogation training to better withstand what was done to her.
Kurt had no such training. Not that it would have necessarily helped: that wasn't interrogation, Wolff only wanted to inflict as much pain on Kurt as he could. That realization and her increasing desperation just made Jane cry harder.
"Jane?" She heard Patterson call her softly from the locker room door.
She tried to get her breathing under control, but the tears still flowed. "Yeah."
Spotting Jane and seeing how distressed she was, Patterson took a couple of quick strides and sat down next to her, putting an arm around her and pulling Jane to her side. Jane leaned into the embrace, grateful for the comfort.
"Hey…We'll find him." Patterson whispered reassuringly and rubbed Jane's shoulder as she cried.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Patterson." Jane replied with a shuddering breath.
"We have all the law enforcement agencies in the state looking for him. And Rich's contacts are scouring the Dark Web if they find any traces there."
"Kurt wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for me and the tattoos. It's my fault Wolff has him."
"What? JANE, NO!" Patterson vehemently denied.
"Yes, it is! Roman used Kurt as his price to get some information on Crawford from Wolff. And now, because my brother wants to hurt me, Kurt is paying the price." Jane argued before dissolving into sobs.
Patterson knelt on the floor in front of Jane and grabbed her shoulders gently. "Jane…This is not your fault," she said with conviction." Andrew Wolff had a history with Weller long before you entered his life."
Jane lifted her head from her knees and looked at Patterson with agony in her eyes. "But Roman used-"
Patterson sighed and squeezed Jane's shoulders gently. "He got lucky! Jane, please don't blame yourself for this."
"Kurt wouldn't want you to," she finished softly.
Jane drew in a shuddering breath, gathering herself as she looked at Patterson with gratitude. "Thank you, Patterson. I just- -."
"It's going to be OK. We'll find him, I promise."
Jane was sitting in the conference room, a half dozen empty take-away coffee cups littering the table. Among the cups were Wolff's case files that she'd pored over for the umpteenth time, hoping to find some clue as to where Kurt might have been taken. They'd checked Wolff's old addresses, places of employment, even where he took his teenage victims, and still turned up nothing.
It had already been almost three days since Kurt had been taken but, despite the team's requests and her own exhaustion, Jane just couldn't bear to go home. She couldn't spend time in their apartment where practically everything reminded her of Kurt. Not now, when she feared that despite everything they were doing, Wolff would get his way and they wouldn't find her husband before it was too late. Jane had always tried to protect him, even when it hurt her. Keeping the truth of Emma Shaw's death from him, leaving the country, leaving Kurt, to protect him. They had all backfired. No matter how hard she tried, she always failed. Maybe Roman was right, maybe she wasn't meant to be happy. Happy or not, she still loved Kurt; she needed to find him. Jane mentally stamped down on the tears that were threatening to surface, as she thought what Kurt was enduring in Wolff's hands. She forced herself to focus on the files yet again, as Tasha knocked on the door and entered.
"Hey," Jane greeted her absentmindedly, her attention on the papers in front of her.
"Hey"
Tasha walked up to Jane and just looked at her for a long moment.
"What?"
"When's the last time you slept, Jane?" She asked, her tone almost casual, but worry still evident.
Jane tried to shrug off her friend's concern and convince her she was fine. "Don't worry, I caught a couple of hours of sleep on the couch in the break room."
"When?"
"Yesterday. Are you interrogating me, now?" Jane gave Tasha a glare.
Tasha sighed. "We're just worried about you," she said sympathetically. "You running yourself to the ground won't help you, or Weller."
Dropping the file to the table, Jane's look softened. "I know. I'm sorry, Tasha." She leaned her head against her palm and spoke quietly "I just...I just need to get Kurt back."
Tasha squeezed her shoulder gently. "We all do. And we'll find him. He's one of us. He's family."
Jane was about to speak as the phone vibrated on the table with a message. "It's Patterson...the live feed is coming back on."
Kurt didn't resist the two men as they came and dragged him from his makeshift cell again. He couldn't. His muscles felt like they had been torn apart and everything hurt. After shutting the camera of the last streamed torture session Wolff had repeated it twice as Kurt had regained consciousness after passing out from the pain. He didn't know how long it had lasted or how long he'd been out. He had no way to tell time, having lost his watch in the scuffle at the airport.
They sat him down in a chair and cuffed his hands behind the back of it. The handcuffs didn't stop the circulation in his hands but were tight enough to cut into his skin.
Wolff was fiddling with the small camera again, his back turned. Kurt could feel the now familiar cold sweat on his skin. His mind and his body were already screaming at him to get away.
Wolff turned to him and sat something on a table in the shadows before walking over. "Back again…your friends haven't delivered the information on my ex-wife."
Kurt gave him a look resembling a glare. "Your wife is in witness protection, Wolff. Because of you. They won't give you that information, no matter what you do to me."
Wolff just gave him a malicious look. "Are you sure, Agent Weller?"
He turned away momentarily and, as he faced Kurt again, there was a sound that would haunt Kurt for a long time.
As Kurt heard the whirring sound, his breathing changed. He was breathing deeply through his nose, trying to prepare his body for what was about to come. When the tip of the power drill dug into his upper arm, Kurt bit his teeth together, containing his scream as the drill tore into his flesh. After Wolff withdrew the drill Kurt was panting from the exertion, his head leaning on his chest.
"Still trying to stay impassive I see. Shame. You know how this works by now."
Knowing that Wolff was probably doing the live stream again, Kurt spoke, hoping to send a message that they shouldn't risk an innocent's life for his. "The FBI…..doesn't…have access.. to the…information.. on your ex-wife. Nor would… they give it."
Kurt gave a small grunt as Wolff pulled his head up and held the bloodied drill bit in front of him. He pressed the trigger, letting the drill spin. Wolff leaned in by Kurt's ear and spoke in a chilling tone. "We'll see. I can live without getting my hands on her. You, on the other hand….You're much more rewarding a target, Special Agent Weller. Cynthia is just a bonus. As nice as it would be to get my hands on that treacherous bitch, she's only a bonus."
Next, the drill dug into Kurt side and he struggled against the handcuffs as Wolff held contact with the drill longer than the first time. Kurt let out a choked scream as the pain became too much to bear. His lungs were on fire as his ribs protested the screams. He yelled as the searing pain hit his other arm. He could feel the twist drill bit tearing into him, its motion gouging out the flesh.
It was then that Kurt caved. He just wanted the pain to end. His voice was a pleading whimper as he begged Wolff "No...no. Please, stop."
Wolff stayed quiet and grinned, seemingly taking pleasure in Kurt's screams and the pain he was inflicting as he kept going and changed the drill's target, from Kurt's side to his torso and to his thigh and then to his side again. Kurt's entire existence was consumed by white-hot searing pain.
In the lab, Jane, Patterson and Rich watched in horror as Wolff continued torturing Kurt. Reade and Tasha had stepped out to coordinate the search.
Patterson turned to Jane, who was staring at the screen, tears running down her face. "You don't have to watch this…You shouldn't watch this."
Despite her tears, Jane's words were emphatic, although pained. "Yes, I do. He's my husband. I need to know."
Jane could see Patterson swallow heavily and nod before turning back to the other monitors with Rich. Jane stared at the screen again, witnessing Kurt's torment, and she whispered his name desperately, as if hoping he could hear her and draw strength from that.
"I think we've got something" Rich suddenly spoke up.
Jane turned away from the live stream and stared at Rich, not sure she heard him right, suddenly feeling a glimmer of hope. "What?"
Rich pointed to the screen. "I was analyzing the video we recorded earlier and was able to find this pattern on the wall behind Wolff…. And it got a hit in the tattoo database."
Jane felt her heart nearly stop. "WHAT? How's that possible? How could Wolff's connection be-"
"It could be Roman," Patterson piped in as Rich tapped away on a keyboard.
"Jane, that logo belongs to a storage company that has 7 sites in the outskirts of New York." Rich continued. "Six of them are operational, but one of them was shut down seven years ago. Wolff used to work in the neighborhood, so he must've known the place".
"So, that's most likely where he's holding Weller." Patterson finished.
Jane was already halfway out the door to go alert Tasha and Reade that they had found where Kurt was. She just hoped they wouldn't be too late. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him now, after everything.
Kurt was lying on the floor of his makeshift dungeon, trying to stay as still as he could so as not to aggravate his injuries. All he could feel was the agony invading his body. He felt the pain pulsing in his nerves that the drill had mauled and saw the blood on himself.
He drifted in and out of consciousness when the pain became too strong. Sometimes it was only darkness and sweet oblivion, but on occasion it was Jane that he saw. He felt her touch and heard her voice, but then reality interfered and he was pulled into wakefulness by his pain.
This time he was brought back to reality by a hard kick to his stomach. He cried out in agony, unable to resist as he was nudged onto his back. He opened his eyes to see Wolff standing over him.
Wolff smirked in satisfaction, seeing his pain. "Special Agent Weller. Not so special now, are you? I told you your own people couldn't come get you in time. Even though they must've had quite the manhunt to find you."
"They'll get you Wolff…you're way too arrogant to- "Kurt cried out again as Wolff put his boot on Kurt's stomach and pressed down.
"Even if they would, you won't be there to see it. As fun as it has been to see you squirm in pain, now it's time for me to go."
Kurt saw Wolff raise a pistol and aim it at him. "I did promise to return you to your wife in one piece for burial, so I won't shoot you in the head. Goodbye, Weller."
Then Kurt felt a burning sensation hit his chest, right before he heard the popping sound of the gunshot. It felt like someone had stuck a blowtorch inside his chest. Every breath felt like a stab. His field of vision narrowed and blurred and Wolff disappeared from above him. He couldn't move, like he was nailed to the spot. He felt like a fish on dry land, desperately trying to get air into his lungs, gasping for breath.
The noise of the door opening gave Kurt a boost of strength and he slowly lifted himself up to lean on his elbows. He could hear sporadic gunshots and when he looked towards the door, he saw a figure standing in the doorway, their features hidden by the light flowing in from behind them. Kurt felt another surge of fear hit him again. "It's Wolff, he decided to come back to finish this properly. He's just going to hurt you again." He weakly tried to half-shuffle, half-drag himself into the shadows, to the corner, but he moved maybe a foot before his body gave out and he collapsed against the wall. "No...Leave me."
Jane saw a figure on the floor of the dark storage room. She took a step into the room with her weapon at the ready until she realized who it was. Holstering her pistol, she walked to the end of the room, dropped beside him and reached towards him. Kurt flinched at her touch, trying to push her away as he tried to retreat further. "No, get away from me!"
Her eyes filled with tears as she saw the fear and pain on Kurt's face. "Kurt," she whispered hoarsely. "It's me." She risked another touch at him, she needed to touch him: to reassure herself as much as him.
Kurt looked at her through half-lidded eyes "Jane…", his tone unsure and his breathing shallow.
She ran her hand through his hair and tenderly caressed his cheek. Her voice broke in desperation as she tried to get through to him "I'm here, Kurt."
"Jane…" he struggled to get up and moaned weakly at the movement.
She carefully pushed Kurt back down and softly pressed her lips to his brow for a fleeting moment, hoping to calm him. "Shhh, don't talk. Stay still, just stay still."
Kurt coughed again, a trickle of blood running down his chin from his mouth. He cast a fearful look at Jane as he fought his way back up. He wasn't afraid of her now, she could tell, but more what was happening to him.
Seeing him struggle, Jane helped Kurt sit back up and cradled him so that he was leaning against her. She kissed his temple, feeling him lean into her touch and into her. "I'm here. It's okay, Kurt….it's okay. I've got you," she whispered soothingly.
Her touch seemed to ease his anxiety and he closed his eyes, his breathing labored. Now that she had gotten through to him, she turned her eyes to his battered form.
Kurt's chest was covered in blood and his wrists had deep bloody lines where the handcuffs had eaten into his skin as he'd struggled. His arm was covering his stomach protectively and she could make out the angry wounds and bruises on him. Then, she saw one wound that was still bleeding steadily and realized what it was.
"Patterson!" She spoke into the comms, unable to hide the slight tinge of panic in her voice. "Get the paramedics in here, now! Kurt's been shot."
"They're already on their way. How bad is it?" Jane heard Patterson's voice in her ear as she moved Kurt to lean on the wall, while she shrugged out of her jacket. She gently draped it over him to try and keep him warm.
Kurt let out a weak cry of pain as Jane pressed her hands against the wound under the jacket, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I know it hurts," she whispered to him, her voice catching in her throat. "He's been shot in the chest…..Please, tell them to hurry."
"They're almost there. Just a little longer. Tasha's meeting them outside right now." Patterson tried to reassure her, but Jane heard the strain in her friend's voice.
Jane looked at Kurt. He was semi-conscious and his face was starting to get ashen. "Hold on, Kurt. Please, hold on."