I know Kurt/Nas is a touchy subject in the fandom. But, well, I decided to give them a try.
This is my first Blindspot fanfiction, so please be gentle if Kurt is OOC.
Also, I started writing 'trust' waaay before 2x06, and because of that pretty much everything is not canon.
Anyways, hope you give this a go and enjoy.
The first who notices something is shifting, is Zapata. She doesn't comment on it. Doesn't really know what it is that she sees, so there would be no point in saying anything.
Kurt has always been stubborn. Since the day she went to work in the team, she'd been sure of it. And it wasn't as if he was often wrong, so most times they all just went along. Mayfair held him back a bit, majorly due to him seeing the woman as a mentor.
So Tasha has never seen anyone go head to head with him. Not more than once, that is.
But Nas apparently doesn't care about that. Apparently isn't mindful of his temper.
They argue every other day. Fervently. Disagreeing in a course of action on a tattoo-case, making snarky remarks.
Neither one swallows it for long, only waiting for the team to leave the room in the best scenario.
And despite that, when Patterson is giving them more data, when they are heading for a lead spot, when a superior bursts in to reprimand someone, Kurt is always beside the woman.
Zapata always thought they would end up sleeping together and move on, because a fire so big could be either of two things: hate or desire. Sometimes both.
However, when Weller goes too far, she sees something flash through Nas' eyes that doesn't remotely seem like rancor.
When Kurt apologizes to the short woman in front of the whole group (in quiet whispers exchanged by a corner of Patterson's lab, not meant for them to hear, but in front of them, regardless) she knows the hatred doesn't come from him, either.
It scares her, and truthfully she should feel sorry for Jane, but the green-eyed brunette doesn't deserve the man, not after everything, not after Mayfair.
She doesn't comment on it, because it isn't her business and she isn't sure, but her gut tells her that things are changing, morphing and every time she sees Kurt sneaking a furtive look at Nas, she feels something similar to when she used to bet. Exhilarating, but with high stakes of losing control over.
He knows Zapata notices something, because he does, too. And he isn't quick enough to see the glances and connect the dots between the fighting and the united front as co-leaders. He only notices when the notes start showing up.
He is early and he sees it on Kurt's desk, through the glass. A cup of coffee. Steaming hot and a soft blue post-it note glued on it.
Reade has always been curious, curious enough to try and go out with Weller's sister, foolish too, foolish enough to fall for the blonde.
So he cranes his neck enough to try and take a look at what is written on the paper. He is curious and foolish, but his sight is not that good.
When Kurt arrives, not ten minutes later, and sees the cup and the note, Edgar hears the man laugh.
But his boss doesn't go looking for whoever left the cup. Just sits and takes sips from the drink in spaced times.
Reade is curious and foolish and he really wants to know what's going on, but he holds back and the day goes by. It's not until the next day, when Nas comes into Patterson's lab a bit after them, a cup almost identical to the one Kurt had been given, that he understands it.
The woman is distracted and hasn't taken the post-it off, so he finally gets to see what it says.
Only there is nothing written on it. Two simple drawings instead. And he doesn't understand the message and it means his two bosses have an inside joke. He tells Tasha about it because she's his partner and he can't think of anyone else.
"They'll probably fuck." The brunette mumbles over lunch, a shrug following the sentence and yeah, that's something he can guess but, somehow, it feels much more dangerous, different in a way it hadn't felt when Jane had come along and messed his friend's judgement.
"They are not just flirting. I've been his wing man before. It's not the same."
"I know." Zapata says, rolling a pea around her plate, almost defeated.
It goes on. Every day, in turns, either Kurt or Kamal sip fresh coffee while they take on a new case.
When Nas disappears during a burst in, it's been going on long enough for Weller to be scared and angry and desperate and not show it at all if not by the set of his jaw.
Despite being a scientist, despite being overly rational, Patterson sometimes is stupidly lead by her feelings. She doesn't quite understand them, tries to shove them deep down, especially after David.
When Jane came back, she'd swallowed things down. When she'd learned that Mayfair was gone, when it had really been confirmed, it hadn't been a shock, but it had stung.
When she sees the coffee, it takes her all of thirty seconds to crack the message. Kurt has left it on a nearby desk, cup empty and post-it still attached to it. He's talking to Jane so Patterson analyzes the soft blue paper.
Two images.
Something resembling a pacifier and a shoe.
Pacifier equals babies, that is instant.
The shoe makes her think of onesies and that's not it, she knows it.
And then she sees the inclination of the shoe, a bit bent as if-
Baby steps.
Patterson wants to smile, she really does but then she looks over at Kurt and Jane and it breaks her heart. Because the brunette had lied and deceived and she was going to tear Weller apart all over again.
So she doesn't smile. She turns away from the cup and back to her computer.
She tells Robert about it later that night, while they eat Chinese take out on her couch and Predador plays on TV.
The doctor gives her a mischievous smirk, tells her that Kurt is smarter than that. Tells her to watch out for a fight.
Which is ridiculous, really. There are fights everywhere she looks in her line of work.
She doesn't demand him to be clearer, though. She likes a challenge.
So she waits.
And, truly, it only happens a week later, but it does happen.
She cracks another tattoo, as usual, and she explains the details to the team, as usual, and what's different, from all the other cases for the past month is that Nas gives them orders, clear ones, sensible and risky but effective. And Weller had been in a mood and it results on him disagreeing with the NSA agent, who doesn't back down at his furred brow and crossed arms. It results in the raising of voices until Kamal notices the rest of the team is still there.
Results in the woman giving the final word, walking out of the room and Kurt telling them to do it.
The mission is dangerous and Patterson's ears are sharp throughout, guiding as needed, Nas with eyes glued on the screen playing the camera installed on Reade's vest.
Things work out and they get the guy, not as many killed as she'd have expected.
Weller comes back fuming and Nas doesn't really say anything before following the man into his office.
It's not polite, not even ethical, but she sticks around Zapata's desk a bit more than necessary then to just handle the woman some files.
It calms her, to notice how her teammates also take long glances at their bosses clearly arguing inside Kurt's sound proof glass room.
Later, over drinks, when some strange sort of relieve is settled deep in her belly, Tasha tells her that they (Reade and his partner, not Jane too, because it would be cruel, to share ideas with the woman) suspect something might be up with Nas and Weller.
Not yet, not at that very instant, but something that might blow up out of a sudden.
She agrees and Nas is hard and has a sharp sense of humor, but Patterson doesn't think her friend is that different.
And it's because of that, because of the notion that it may be a good path for Kurt, that she feels her stomach drop when she finds the bug in Robert's office.
That notion, the soft whisper of baby steps in her brain makes her want to cry as she tells Weller that she thinks Nas has been spying on them.
If there's one thing left of her own, is her ability to read people.
She knows that Kurt has slipped almost completely out of her reach when Patterson talks to him in private and he walks away from the blonde with a look almost exactly as the one she saw in his eyes that night she begged and he screamed and cried and handcuffed her.
She knows she's almost lost him for good when he doesn't head in her direction with that haunted look, he heads for Nas.
Jane knew she should have let him go while he had driven her back to the quarter, still with her hands bound.
Jane knew she should have let him go when Allie told her he was going to be a dad.
Jane knows he has begun to free himself when Nas meets his eyes while he goes to her and the whole squad watches.
She feels her insides knot together but she doesn't say a thing because it's not like she has a right to mourn him.
They watch the fight go through Kurt's glass doors, they go in when he calls them. They listen and they learn about Nas and Jane relates to the shorter woman in a way she doesn't want to, shouldn't want to because Kamal is helping Kurt get away from her.
She shouldn't want to defend Nas, but she does, because she had needed someone to speak up for her when everything came clean and she sat on that bright room with so many things attached to her body.
It feels like pulling teeth and she notices how their bosses begin to stand at different corners of the room, how the NSA agent has shaggy shoulders and loses a bit of the spark in her dark brown gaze.
It feels like pulling teeth but one day Tasha is held hostage and no one can get a clear shot, so Kamal convinces the suspect to trade in, tells him that she's more valuable than just an agent.
It feels like pulling teeth, but Nas stalls while surrendering her guns to the criminal, waiting for what they later realize is a safe distance for Zapata before turning and stabbing the guy's neck.
It's a shock, really, but the body falls with a tud and everything is silent for a long moment.
Kurt is the first one to abandon his position, run to the brunette and Jane feels her chin tremble, feels her gut wrenching because she's seeing the man she loves run away.
Somehow, after that, things go back to shifting, as she heard Reade mumble one day to Patterson.
She sees the cups of coffee and she sees Nas having lunch on that big clear-glass room with a snickering blue eyed guy.
When the team is talking through a case and Kurt stops nibbling on his bagel to comment something, his elbow bent and the pastry held midair, when Kamal steals the food to take a bite and the man doesn't even blink twice, Jane knows that it's not a question of letting Kurt Weller go anymore, but how long it will take him to free himself completely.
He is tired from fighting. Truly. He is.
He should be tired of fighting, but he just feels drained out.
He is tired from fighting his dad all those years, a silver ghost still hanging on his shoulders. He is tired from fighting for Taylor, tired from fighting the brightly colored memories. He is tired from fighting for whatever it is Jane and him were.
He is tired from fighting.
And, lately, it seems like every effort he makes into carrying on, takes everything from him.
So Nas drives him insane.
The woman, new to the team, unknown, makes calls for their cases without even gazing in his direction.
And it nags him and nags him and nags him until they end up in his office, arguing about chain of command and respect for tradition and he walks away with a headache and a heavy conscience for screaming.
He's tired of screaming.
Has been since Jane tried to explain and he couldn't listen, still felt Taylor's bones in his hands.
He apologizes every single time and it's not like the woman makes it seem as if she's hurt, almost always cracks a joke to brush his words away.
It works.
Until it doesn't.
Until Nas drives him insane on the same day his sister calls him, crying for their father's sins and he can't go help one of the few people he still considers family.
It works until he is cruel and cuts in on Kamal's turn to scream at him. It works until he spills words that shouldn't have been put together, let alone voiced.
Their weird, fighting-apologizing dynamic works until Nas takes a step back from him, brow furrowed, eyes shining and then proceeds on leaving the room.
He tries not to feel guilty, and for a while he doesn't. But then he snaps at Patterson. Fucking Patterson. And he mumbles an apology and goes to find his co-commander.
Nas doesn't look at him when he steps into that place she'd come to call office. Nas doesn't even seem to notice his presence if not by the tightening of her jaw.
"I'm sorry."
And there's no reply and he's an idiot and he's so tired. So tired from carrying his father's ghost.
"Look, I went too far. It hasn't been a great day."
"I think I'm pulling myself off the case." The voice is raspy and accented and the woman still has her gaze fixed on the computer screen.
"Because of a fight? C'mon-"
"No, Kurt. Because you don't respect my decisions." Finally it happens. Finally she looks at him and blue meets brown and he's a stupid son of a bitch.
"You're a good leader." He leans his hands on the back of a chair, bents his spine so he can hold her gaze.
"NSA has many more."
"You're dedicated to this case. To bringing Sandstorm down. You're involved. We won't find anyone more fit for the job."
"So how do you suggest we keep doing this?" She shakes her head and he tries to identify what it is that shifts behind her eyes. He can't. "Because I'm honestly getting tired of this constant button pushing."
"Baby steps."
He says it and she arches an eyebrow and he knows the woman wasn't fully convinced about leaving, not for that reason. She was probably much more inclined to have him step down.
But she doesn't say it and that's progress, he thinks.
"Baby steps?" She arches an eyebrow, her fingers still sit over the keyboard and that's a warning, that's a telltale sign that he may lose her attention at any given second.
"Just- a truce. Let's call a truce."
"We've made those plans before, look how much has changed."
"So you really want to give up on this operation?
Nas doesn't answer, takes her hands away from the computer, brings them to massage her temples.
"Of course not, but-"
"Then we make it work."
She looks into his eyes once more, breathes deeply and he wants to understand this woman, like he understands the rest of his team, but she's impossible.
A small nod settles it and he smiles, extends his palm for her to shake and she seems doubtful as she accepts his gesture.
Her handshake is firm, regardless.
He sees the cup of coffee on his desk the following day and he laughs because, honestly, he's so tired from fighting, but the warm liquid and the two drawings on the blue paper feel a bit like resting.
They don't talk about it. They just move together and Nas gazes at him before making a call for the cases. It goes on and one day, one day he asks the woman if she wants to have lunch to go over some information and she tells him that she usually eats alone and he says that so does he.
And he gets himself thinking of ways to make her smirk, little comebacks and
I'm NSA, I know everything
Except for how to mind your own business.
He catches himself sneaking glances at her while she stabs her sallad with her fork and while she sometimes pulls that little lock of hair she insists on leaving out of her bun, behind her ear and he can see her whole face, open, secretive.
The team goes out for drinks one day and after a bit of persuasion from him, she agrees on tagging along.
He sees the way she laughs at a joke Reade tells and he sees the way Jane looks at him from across the booth.
He's tired from fighting for Jane, and somehow Nas feels like a fresh breeze with her stubbornness and her little smirks and sharp tongue.
Kurt doesn't quite know what it is that starts shifting around him, but he guesses it really settles when Allie comes to talk to him one day, belly finally growing and temper in full blast as she tells him to never go to her boss behind her back again.
It settles when he nods, pulls Allie aside, to a vacant hall few people use, one that leads to Nas' office and he hugs the woman who carries his child, lays a hand on the stomach and feels the kick against his palm.
"I know you want to protect me." Allie whispers, eyes soft but posture firm. "But I'm aware of which risks I'll take. I don't need you to recommend my boss to give me an early leave."
"I'm sorry." He mumbles, looking at the ground and it is almost comical, really, the way he knows it was stupid and the way he will just accept Allie's lecture without even contesting.
It settles when Allie kisses his cheek, looks over his shoulder, waves at whoever she sees there and goes away.
He turns and catches Nas' leaving silhouette and he follows, can't help but follow.
He doesn't really understand what he's doing until he walks in that dark painted room and sees her shuffling some papers around and
"Do you wanna go out sometime?"
The woman stops. Looks at him.
"Go out?"
"Yeah, I know this really good place nearby. They have great pasta." He smiles and she chuckles because one late night they had ordered takeout from this italian place while they tried to crack a suspect's code and she looked at ease and soft while eating her carbonara pasta and had mumbled something about guilty pleasures.
"What for?" She tilts her head and he can see it in her eyes that she got it, she just wants to hear him say it.
"A date." He smirks, lifts an eyebrow and he watches as she turns slightly brighter. "Is that a blush?"
"No." She deadpans and meets his gaze and he makes sure he shows her that he isn't buying that. "And fine."
"Is tomorrow good?"
"If we don't catch another case, sure."
"Eight?"
"Eight is overrated. Let's make it nine."
He shakes his head slightly.
Stubborn.
"Text me the address, then?"
"Yeah."
And she does and they don't catch a case and by eight thirty he's putting on his suit and what is he doing, really? Things could go downhill so easily. So so so easily because they had managed to hold off on fighting until that very day and she hadn't told him that they weren't going anymore and he's an optimistic fool.
He rings her doorbell half expecting her to be in pajamas, looking at him with that what the hell expression she has saved for the days he is specially stupid.
He feels his heart beat a little bit harder when she opens the door dressed in a body-hugging purple dress.
"What?" She asks while she turns her back to him, locking her apartment. "Thought I wouldn't show up?"
"Not after this afternoon."
"Well, I didn't think you'd come, either, so that makes us even." She smiles and he smirks and the evening is good and her plate does look great when it arrives. He pleads and snickers and looks at her pointedly until she lets him taste her pasta. They linger and he eats dessert with small bites.
When he drops her off, he isn't quite sure what he's doing (like he hasn't been sure since he asked her out) but she stands on her tiptoes and kisses the corner of his mouth and it's like a programmed reaction, really, how his hands fly to her waist, how he turns his head and kisses her completely and how she lets her fingers play with the hair in the base of his neck.
She tastes like the bubblegum she had thrown away on the trash bin at the entrance of her building and faintly, gently like wine.
His palms slide to her back and he really wants to kiss her more, can feel his abdomen liquid and excited but she pulls away, breathes with their faces still close, pecks his lips a couple of times, hand now framing his jaw and her touch is small, warm.
"It was a good night." Nas tells him, planting her feet completely to the ground again, her forehead levelled with his chin despite her heels.
"It really was." He smiles and she leans over to kiss him again before turning and disappearing inside her home.
Kurt isn't really sure on where they stand when he leaves, but the next day she acts like things are the same, so he does, too.
Then, the week is calm and on a Thursday, he is doing paperwork when she pokes her head inside his office.
"I've got a film I've been wanting to see, wanna come over?"
She doesn't look too worried, so he nods and goes back to signing his name before she's closed the door completely.
He's in her apartment by seven and he finds her with an apron tied around her middle and her hair up, as usual, but with no locks left behind, covering a side of her, and bound by a clip, like she might let it loose once she's done cooking.
He tries to help because he's a great cook, but she snaps his hand away, tells him that it's her recipe and he'll just mess it up.
"There's wine in the refrigerator." Nas says, steering the risotto.
He serves himself, pours some for her as well and when she's letting the food steam itself ready, she leans against the counter, a hand on her bent elbow, the other one holding her glass as she takes a sip.
"What are we watching?" He asks, drink long finished and cup on the table.
"Silver Linings Playbook." She smirks into her cup.
"You haven't watched it?" He remembers seeing the film with Sarah when it first came out.
"No." She says and soon enough they sit down to eat.
He'd seen Nas putting pepper into the risotto and while she whispers that she hopes it is good, coy for the first time that night, he takes a bite, says it is delicious, but then
"Did you-uhm-" He clears his throat, shifting in his seat and she looks startled. "Put pe- pepper in this?" He coughs and coughs and leans over and in an instant she's by his side, calling his name, her hand on his shoulder.
"Are you allergic?" She asks and he nods while still coughing and truthfully, he's a little out of breath. "I'm sorry. Oh, God. I'm so sorry. Do you have an epipen, something?" And she really looks worried and he can't handle it, he starts laughing and her face slowly falls.
She slaps his bicep and calls him asshole, but snickers after a few minutes of sulking.
He tells her of when he had just joined the team and used to play pranks on Mayfair, how the woman would threaten to take his badge if he ever did it again.
She tells him that her brother used to do the same when they were teenagers until he tried to fake falling down the stairs and ended up with a broken leg.
"Is he in the US as well?" Kurt asks, finishing his plate and pouring himself his second glass of wine.
"No, he passed away a few years back." She forces a tight smile before averting her gaze from his.
He takes her hand, manages to make brown meet blue once more.
"I'm sorry."
She nods and he helps her put the dishes in the sink before they settle down on the couch.
The movie is good, and he makes comments throughout. She doesn't tell him to shut up, because she does the same. Half way through it, she goes to lean her head on his shoulder. (Because her feet are already tucked under herself and his arm is already thrown across her back.) She lowers her head for a second but then shifts, pulls the clip off of her hair before settling down again and he had never seen her with her locks down except for that gallery event. It's a beautiful sight.
When it ends, he lets a low chuckle free for the grand finale of it all and she lifts her head again to look at him, eyes a bit closed, frowning and it hits him again where he is, how they are, together in her couch and he had been so invested on the last scenes of the movie that he had almost felt somewhere else.
But she gazes at him and she snaps quicker than he does, because she lifts a hand, frames his jaw and kisses him.
And the kiss is deep and strong and he uses his arm around her to pull her closer.
He drops his other palm to the space between her waist and her breast and she bites his lower lip.
Nas drives him insane and now he's learning why.
She straddles him and they should take things more slowly, they really should, but her scent is all around him and she's moving her hips the slightest bit. So he drops his hands to her arse and she laces her fingers in the laps of his collar.
He moves his lips from hers, lays them on her neck and she arches her back, her hips grit and he trails down her skin, alternates between kissing and licking and softly biting and she's wearing a v-neck. A fucking v-neck and the view is glorious.
And yeah, okay, they should take it more slowly but she pulls her t-shirt off and he opens his belt and it ends up they don't even move to her bedroom. They do it right there and she rides him because she wants to and he is not against it at all, feels his heart rate quicken by the image of her, atop him, bra still on, head thrown back, lips a bit apart and swollen.
They change passes. Slow and hard, fast and soft. She comes and he follows three moments later. She hides her face on his neck and he closes his hands around his elbows, arms around her, squeezing tight.
He feels her gently nibbling at his earlobe as they come down from the high and her skin is smooth, exquisitely contrasting with his own.
Nas fixes her posture a bit and he slips out of her.
She doesn't meet his eyes, but lets her thumbs caress his stubble, run past his bottom lip and he puts a lock of her hair behind her ear.
"So."
"We don't need to talk about it." She says, gives him another one of those tight smiles and he really is clueless when it comes to her.
"What do you mean?"
The woman shakes her head, kisses him again, like she's trying to slow time and he allows for a while because her lips are soft and kissing her seems like resting.
He pulls away.
"We got it out of our systems, right?" Her voice is raspy and she still won't look at him and what is this?
"That's what we've been doing to you?"
She chuckles, lets her fingers run through his face once more.
"Do you honestly want to tell me you want a relationship?"
He chuckles, too.
"Can you get up, please?" Kurt asks and brown meets blue and why? Why are her eyes a bit shiny if she just wanted to get it out of her system?
She stands from him and he gets dressed. Doesn't look at her and he gets his coat from the hack in front of the door and he leaves and what the fuck happened to him?
He doesn't sleep that night.
And he sees her the next morning, put together, as if nothing happened and
We got it out of our systems, right?
He brings her a cup of coffee on impulse, and he sets it on her desk without a good morning or any words at all, for that matter. She calls his name once, but it sends a shiver down his spine because it reminds the soft moans and pleas she made the previous night. So he doesn't answer and they work as best as they can.
Jane gets shot in a case and he has to be the one to keep pressure on her wound as the ambulance comes. Jane tells him she's sorry for everything. Jane begs and begs because the woman thinks she's dying, he thinks and a sort of desperation takes over his chest.
Jane is Jane and Jane can't die. She can't.
They all wait around the hospital to get news and Nas doesn't sit by his side the way he desperately wants her to.
The doctor tells them that Jane is fine, stable and he feels like breathing for the first time since he heard that gunshot.
And Nas nods at him, tells Kurt to keep her informed and then, then she leaves.
It goes on.
They push forward.
One week later Patterson finds the bug and while the blonde explains her suspicions, Weller shakes his head. Because no, that isn't it. It can't be.
He's tired of doubting his judgement, though.
So he turns on his heels, walks towards the end of the hall, meant for the NSA agent's office, but she's there already, looks at him as if she knew something was wrong.
Maybe she did, maybe she discovered that her bug was gone and wanted to probe if anyone knew why.
He heads for his own office, because he feels a fire so big, so blinding, that he doesn't care who sees them fighting.
She closes the door behind herself and he is so glad for FBI's increasing technology, for the soundproof glass room, because he starts screaming.
"You were spying on us?!"
Nas' expression doesn't fall. She doesn't even flinch at his tone.
"What do you mean?"
"Don't give me that crap! Patterson found the bug, Nas! And in Borden's office? Really? You had to go that deep?"
"It wasn't my choice." The fact that she doesn't try to deny it again, the fact that she still holds his gaze makes him want to throw up. Because he hadn't fucked her. It hadn't been that. It hadn't, but it should have been because cups of coffee and poorly drawn pacifiers meant shit, apparently.
"You're hilarious." He shakes his head, looks away because he can't stand to see her at that very second. "What wasn't your choice? Planting a bug in your new team? Listening in on our sessions with the department shrink? Or sleeping with me?"
Kurt looks back and that fire low in his stomach grows and grows and finally that calm façade of hers slips. She seems struck.
"Don't go there." Her voice is a warning, but he's so mad. So so so mad. She had betrayed him. Another one, at that. But she'd been worse than Jane. Jane who didn't know who she was. Nas Kamal was completely aware of her surroundings. She let him fall for her anyway.
"Why? You stooped low enough to bug our therapy."
She is close enough to hit him, he thinks that it may be better if she did. But she licks her lips instead, looks down and her eyes are dark and are those tears? Are those fucking tears?
She doesn't reply and he feels this tight grip in his chest and his fingers twitch because they remember how the skin on her back had felt.
He paces. Because he isn't sure if he wants to yell some more or cry or stomp out of the room.
"Are you done?" Her voice is deep and he can't say anything back. So he doesn't. "Call the team in, then. I'm not explaining this again."
His hands shake as he pulls his door open, he doesn't meet Jane's gaze as she, Zapata, Reade and Patterson walk in.
"I'm guessing Patterson already filled you in." Nas says, leaning against his desk, arms crossed and eyes anywhere else besides them.
She waits a couple of seconds and he knows what he wants to do. He wants to go back before they had called the truce. He wants to let her pull herself from the case, tell her she really should go.
"I did come here to work with you to bring Sandstorm down. But it was a double mission." He feels the uneasiness in the room as she starts to talk and he wants to scream and go back to before, when he didn't feel the need to lead her away and tell her it's alright, that she doesn't need to explain, that it will work out. "After Mayfair and Carter, NSA needed to make sure your team was clear."
"We've gone through interrogations already. Don't you people talk to each other?" Zapata snaps.
"We do." Nas says, breathes deeply, seems to look for the words.
She means to carry on, but Tasha goes to interrupt again, but
"Let her speak" Jane says and all eyes turn to her for a second before Zapata closes her mouth.
"Truthfully it was more about me than anything else. I'm too loyal, for my superior's taste." Nas chuckles, shifts and he wants to storm out of the room. "In my line of work, we can only be devoted to this country and its safety. Nothing else. I have a tendency to get attached to my fellow agents. This was a test to see if I still deserved my position."
"Well, it seems you've passed." Reade says, leaves and Kurt wants to go, too, but he can't. Because cups of coffee and pacifiers mean shit, apparently, but he's still the superior and his team comes first.
"It had a due date, the wiring. It would end next week." Nas mumbles, after a couple of seconds. He can't keep thinking about her as Nas. That's too personal. And he can't do personal anymore. His team comes first and that will never happen if he keeps thinking about the woman in front of him as Nas.
He doesn't sleep again that night. Manages to doze off for fifty minutes. And that's it.
Kurt goes to work and stands on the opposite side of where he usually stays when listening to a new case's details. He stands to the other side because Kamal is still where she always is and his place was beside her and he can't handle that anymore.
And he goes on and on and on. Day and night and in betweens. He just keeps going and then Allie is seven months along and she has an ultrasound made with one of those 3D machines and they get to see their child and it makes him smile. He feels prickling in his eyes because if there's anything worth pushing forward for, it's the small baby growing inside Allie.
The team is fine, he guesses. They arrest the bad guys and get themselves in bad situations and when he has to partner up with Kamal, he does. They do the work because there's no time to overthink when they are in the field.
But then, then they get a case and stumble across a maniac. He disguises when they go looking for him and Kurt tries to warn Zapata, he tries to scream Tasha, but when his voice forms the words, it's too late.
The suspect already has an arm around the woman's neck, gun to her temple and everyone stops, everyone freezes because the guy got off in killing people in the open, in grabbing someone random and making their company watch as he pulled the trigger.
They don't have back up and they can't get a clear shot. Reade is desperate, to be honest. Keeps telling the man to let Tasha go. That he won't get out of there alive otherwise.
Kurt sees a sickening sort of spark in their suspect's eyes.
The man pulls the hammer of the gun down and Kurt can't hear anything, his blood flow is deafening.
But he sees the commotion by the corner of his eyes. When someone starts to approach the criminal, when the guy starts to snicker and nod and when he realizes who the person is, he wants to throw up.
Kamal is trading herself for Tasha and Kurt honestly didn't think she was that stupid.
As soon as Zapata is free, she runs for them and takes a position, tries to get a clear shot.
The guy grabs the NSA agent in a different way, whispers in her ear in a way that sends hot flares down Weller's spine.
Their suspect had had a type, he knows that.
Kamal starts taking off her vest, probably due to the guy's demand.
Things happen in a blink, really.
He almost misses it.
The way Kamal takes hold of the wrist from the hand that holds the gun, twists it, shoves a knife in the place where the man's neck meets his shoulder.
Weller almost misses it. But he doesn't.
He watches with his heart in his throat and he watches as the body falls heavily down and everything is still.
Kurt doesn't think about bugs and trust. He runs to her.
"Are you okay?" He shouts, riffle already to his side. And his hands go to her upper arms, his eyes run through her and yes, yes, she's fine she tells him before shrugging his hold off.
She doesn't talk to anyone in the team after that, closes herself in her office and he can't prevent his mind on going overboard, creating scenarios where she isn't fast enough and that shitbag kills her and what would happen then?
When they are done with paperwork, Reade drives Tasha home, Patterson stays in her lab and Kurt can't help it, doesn't know what he's doing, like he never does when it comes to Na- Kamal.
The door slips open to the dark room and she's sitting in her desk, placed in a corner not seen by the entrance. Her head in her hands, her breaths long and concentrated.
"What you did was stupid." He says and she takes a couple of seconds to reply.
"I know." Her face is honest, open and he takes a seat on the chair beside her. Sees the glass with scotch sitting abandoned and he doesn't overthink it, he just picks it up and takes a gulp.
"The man was unstable. If you were an instant slower-"
"I know, Kurt. But who would the team rather have dead? Me or Zapata?"
He looks at her and does she really believe he would want her to die?
"Neither." He says.
She chuckles, shakes her head, shifts her gaze straight ahead.
"No one has looked me in the eyes for weeks. I'm sorry if I have a difficult time believing that."
"I'm looking. Right now." Brown meets blue and she presses her lips together before letting a breath go through her mouth.
"Maybe they are right. I don't deserve this job."
"You fucked up. With the bug." He says and he lets himself wonder for a millisecond before putting a hand on the back of her chair. "But this is your team. What you did was stupid, but incredibly brave."
She nods, rubs her face and when she pulls her fingers away, he sees she's shaking.
It's something that overcomes him. It's something he wouldn't know how to explain, but he hadn't been this close to her in weeks. So he leans forward, kisses her and it takes a moment, but she returns it.
She returns it and he had missed kissing her, missed her taste and-
Nas pulls away, holds his face.
"Kurt-" She mumbles, shakes her head.
"Do you want this?" He asks. Because he was so so so mad for the wiring and for pushing him away, but she was only doing her job and she could have died today, trying to save one of their own.
He feels her nodding, but he needs to hear it.
"Yeah." She whispers and kisses him again.
Kissing Nas Kamal feels like resting.