Author's Note: Yep, another new WIP, because I suck, but in my defence, it was supposed to be a single-chapter fic when I started it. It just kind of got angsty and introspective, when it was supposed to be straight-up angry sex between Kurt and Remi. Anyway, this is going to be front and centre in my mind for the next few days, so...
Thank you to kate-dammit-run for the prompt of Remi being injured, and Kurt going to her aid and not knowing what to do about her under the circumstances.
Kurt carried the last bag of broken glass and trashed homeware to the garbage chute at the end of the hall, already wishing the task of cleaning up wasn't over. The apartment had taken about three hours to repair and put back together. Though there was still a noticeable difference between the way it had been last night and the way it looked now, at least he could take a step without treading on broken glass or ripped cushions.
His heart, on the other hand, felt shattered and torn, and now he had nothing to do with his hands while he tried to figure out how the hell to bring Jane back from Remi's consciousness.
Was it even possible? Had he lost his wife forever? Would he have to back up the rest of his team while they stormed Remi's new hideout, and arrested or shot down his wife's body?
It wasn't fair. Jane had done so much good in the time she'd been herself. To have her revert back to her former, terrorist persona now, while she was dying—that was too cruel.
He paced the clean, tidy apartment as he thought back over the past few months. Remi must have made her grand comeback when Jane had regained consciousness after her fainting spell, while he was still in a coma. If Kurt had been conscious when she'd come around, he would have known something was off with her immediately. But she'd had a week and a half to do her homework, figure out what had happened since Times Square, and 'perfect' her Jane persona before he'd woken up.
He stared at the DVD of their wedding day, which he'd retrieved from the floor while he was cleaning up. A couple of weeks ago, the day they'd learned the ZIP was killing Jane, he'd gone home to find her—Remi—watching it, and she'd had fed him some bullshit line about not wanting to forget their wedding. He'd bought it at the time, but in retrospect, he felt gullible as hell. Remi had been analysing Jane's inflections, the way she'd showed him affection in the footage. Making sure her act was still good enough to fool him.
Kurt should have seen it. He'd chalked the inconsistencies up to grief at Roman's death and worry about his own wounds, then the devastating news about her worsening medical condition. In particular, the way she'd been verbally lashing out since they'd heard about her prognosis should have set off alarm bells, but he'd been too slow to realise. And if not for Allie's concerns, Remi would have thrown him off following up the Violet Park angle after the biological attack—she'd learned just how to play his emotions to her advantage.
Not that he could blame it all on Remi. Sure, she was a master manipulator, but he'd been off his game too, first dealing with his own inadequacies about his recovery from the gunshot wound and coma, and all the exhausting rehab that came with it. Then he'd felt anxious and helpless about Jane's medical condition, and let those issues skew his good sense more often than not.
No more. He was going into this with his eyes wide open. Remi had played her last card last night, trying to stay undercover as Jane—and it had been a strong one. Tears in her eyes, she'd accused him of being unable to trust anyone after what had happened with Taylor and his father. But Jane would never have thrown that at him. She still felt too much guilt over her assumed identity as Taylor, even though she hadn't known it was a lie at the time.
Sure, Remi's words had hurt, but knowing what he did now, Kurt wasn't going to lose sleep over them. She didn't know him, not the way Jane did. She'd just been trying to find a way to prey on his insecurities, but she'd missed her mark and now he knew the truth.
How could he find Remi? What had she been working on with Violet Park, and before that, Dolan Osmond? Something she'd stolen half a million dollars to achieve, he knew that much.
What did she want? Roman's data caches—he was reasonably sure of that. It was probably why she'd stuck around and maintained her cover. Even though Sandstorm was gone, she'd needed the FBI's reach and expertise to help her get to her brother's puzzles. They could hold clues to saving her life—the only objective Jane and Remi would share at this point.
They'd found five of the data caches now—Patterson had called that morning and told him she and Rich had found one embedded in a data analyst's security pass last night. He'd told her he and Jane were taking the day off because Jane was having unbearable headaches. If the news of the FBI evidence storage break-in, and his and Remi's involvement in it, made it to Patterson, he'd loop her in on the real situation, but for now, he needed time and room to manoeuvre.
What else would Remi want? Presumably Dolan had been her last Sandstorm contact, and he was now dead. She was using Violet for something specific, something for which she needed the money she'd stolen from the mysterious 'Eve' who'd assailed them last night. He was pretty sure Remi wouldn't have seen the last of Eve, not now Kurt had detonated whatever they'd been supposed to steal for the Dabbur Zann.
This whole situation was so complicated. If Remi had inhabited a separate body from Jane, he'd have had no issue shooting her down like the terrorist she was. But whatever happened to Remi had an effect on Jane. If Remi died, Jane died with her. If Remi was injured, arrested, kidnapped, tortured…Jane's body would pay the price. And whatever Remi did while in control of his wife, Jane would have to live with that if—when, he corrected himself forcefully—she got back.
And that was all assuming that the ZIP poisoning didn't kill her.
Remi had to know her time was almost up. She'd clearly been holding her symptoms back from him. Maybe they even had less time than he'd assumed—
The landline phone rang, making him jump. People very rarely called the apartment's landline, knowing he and Jane both worked long hours and were frequently active on their days off. Their cell phones were much easier ways to reach them. But last night, Remi had called this number.
He seized the phone and held it to his ear, unable to bring himself to speak.
"I need your help."
Kurt didn't know whether to be relieved or infuriated to hear his wife's voice. "This is a change from last night. I thought you were determined to kill me next time you saw me. Why would that make me inclined to help you?"
"Because you care what happens to my body, even if you don't care about me. You still think there's a chance to get Jane back. Well, this body is gonna have a nasty, infected wound to deal with if you don't bring medical supplies over."
Kurt was already reaching for his go bag and checking the first aid kit inside for antiseptic, bandages and sutures. "How bad is it, and where?"
"Right across your name on my back. Seems kinda symbolic, don't you think?" Remi's voice was tight with pain and stress. "If it was anywhere else, I could deal with it myself."
Kurt headed for the bedroom and grabbed a hoodie, the phone still held to his ear. "Why not ask your new friend Violet to do it?"
"She and her people are busy right now. And you and Jane took out all my other allies." As she had last night, she spoke his wife's name with such disdain that he gritted his teeth.
"This has gotta hurt—asking me for help after everything you said last night." He found his shoes, his car keys, then picked up the go bag. At the last moment, he took the clothing out of the bag Remi had attempted to leave with last night, too.
"I'm less than ecstatic, but you're my only option right now. Eve knows I'm injured. She'll be watching the hospitals." Remi sighed. "Will you help me, or not?"
"Send me directions. I'm on my way."
Remi tried for the fiftieth time to apply a butterfly stitch to her wound, but it was impossible. Contorting herself so that her arms bent that far, she could just about brush the injury with her fingertips, but the awkward position just made the wound gape open again. She needed help. From someone who could actually touch her.
Stay the fuck away, Roman, she mentally cautioned. Since he'd popped back into her consciousness last night, he'd done more to irk her than help her. It was like she was hallucinating him just to annoy herself, which made no sense. When she'd been less than a minute from having her suicide vest blown up last night, Roman had only made sarcastic observations.
In contrast, Weller had immediately demanded that she stop and put her arms up, so he could inspect the wiring and come up with a plan to help them get out of the vests intact. It had been like her own mind had gone on vacation, offering nothing but the simplest solutions. Weller had been in the driving seat last night, saving her life, handing over a weapon without hesitation, trusting her to keep him covered and watch his back.
Even knowing she wasn't Jane, he'd put his faith in her without pause, and had seemed honestly shocked when she'd snagged his badge and made a run for it with the device the Dabbur Zann wanted. Like he'd thought she'd have some basic decency not to betray him, even though he knew she'd been trying to cut and run earlier that night, before Eve had shown up.
Roman had thought that was hilarious—until she'd heard the explosion and stopped in her tracks, her heart seizing for a terrified moment. Then he'd started to berate her. "Why does it even matter if Weller is dead? If he is, that means you can stay undercover for longer, keep the team at work looking for my drives, while you play the poor, mourning widow."
She'd ignored him as she'd made the journey to the new safehouse, but he'd kept going. "Don't tell me you actually have feelings for the guy. You remember that screwed everything up when Jane fell for him, right? Even Weller could tell that. Jesus Christ, Remi."
"If you have no constructive advice for me, then shut the hell up," she'd muttered to him, and he'd vanished again, to her relief.
The sickened sensation in the pit of her stomach had persisted all the way until she'd managed to grab a fresh burner phone and call the apartment. Hearing his voice on the other end of the line, taut with quiet anger, she'd wanted to curl into herself with relief.
Her plans had changed. She'd kill him if he got in her way, but otherwise, she didn't want his death on her conscience. He'd found out the truth and still put his faith in her to back him up in a tight spot, even though his contempt for her was plain. She owed him one for that.
In truth, what she'd done last night didn't sit well with her. Sure, she'd manipulated the hell out of people before, run long cons to achieve her aims. But during armed conflicts, Remi always played it straight. She didn't just up and abandon teammates in the middle of a situation, especially not teammates who were more resourceful and quick-thinking than she herself had been. At least, she hadn't ever done that before last night.
He'd saved her life, so in turn, she'd saved his, locking him in the building instead of just shooting him in the head. But how long could this go on?
Giving up on trying to patch herself up, she regarded the shredded remains of her shirt and sports bra in disgust. She'd been heading out for supplies this morning when Eve and her surviving goons had caught up with her, and she'd veered into a scrapyard to avoid them. Rolling to avoid gunfire, she'd failed to see the sharp edges in the debris she'd been traversing, and torn her back and upper arm up pretty badly. She'd managed to clean and dress the upper arm wound herself, but her back was a different story.
She pulled on her shirt again, wincing as she felt the edges of her wound part. She might be oozing blood, but at least she was a little warmer, and she wouldn't have to greet her husband half-naked—even if she had to end up that way for him to play doctor.
Fuck this whole situation.
The cabin was about an hour upstate, one she and Roman had used as a safehouse before. It was owned by one of the shell companies within shell companies linked to Shepherd's business interests. Well, it used to be owned by Shepherd. If it had been sold on since Sandstorm's fall, there was no sign of it.
Remi had jimmied the lock without difficulty and found the place pretty much unchanged. There were dust sheets over the furniture, which she'd yanked off the couch, bed and coffee table in anticipation of staying the night. The gasoline-powered generator had still been ready to fire up in the shed behind the main cabin.
She just hoped Weller wouldn't try to drag her back to the NYO when he'd finished with her wound. She doubted it—he'd want to avoid criminal convictions for his precious Jane. Though he apparently saw nothing of Jane in Remi when he looked at her.
She and Jane couldn't be that goddamn different. In fact, Jane was worse than Remi would ever be. Family loyalty meant nothing to her. She'd even killed their fiancé, and let herself be so easily brainwashed by Weller that—
I was supposed to fall in love with Jane. That was your plan. Things fell apart 'cause Jane fell in love with me. You hate me because I remind you of what a failure you are.
Remi dug her fingernails into her palms, wishing she could erase every memory of the night before from her brain. All of it. Especially Weller's complete rejection of the idea that it could have been parts of Remi he'd fallen in love with, not Jane. Why did that piss her off so much?
A distant car engine made her seize her weapon and cross to the wall next to the window. The question wasn't 'friend or foe?'—she had no friends capable of joining her here—but 'foe or temporarily friendly foe?'
Weller's familiar vehicle drove into view, and Remi relaxed a little. As much as she hated to admit it, a standoff with Eve right now might not end well for her.
She slipped out through the back door and crept around the front, pressing the barrel of her handgun against the nape of Weller's neck as he waited for a response to his knock. Not that he was unarmed—his weapon was already in his hand.
"Toss it away," she instructed coldly.
"Why would I do that?" Weller asked, not trying to turn or move in any way. "You were the one who called me here. You need me. You're not gonna kill me, and I'm not gonna kill you."
"Then why are you holding your gun?"
"Because I knew you'd have yours." He sighed, sounding weary. "Remi, let's cut the bullshit here. I'm here to help you."
"No. You're here to help Jane." She nudged at his head with her gun before backing off. "But fine. Go into the cabin, put your piece on the table just inside the door, and I'll do the same."
He turned slowly and watched her lower her weapon, then pushed open the door, his eyes still on her. Once both of them had put down their guns and stepped out of arm's reach of the table, they both relaxed a fraction.
"Let me see the wound," Kurt said, and Remi tried not to physically recoil at the concern in his eyes, even if his body language was reserved. That anxiety wasn't for her. It was all for Jane. She hated how much that bothered her.
She turned her back to him abruptly and yanked off her ruined shirt, ignoring the pain that blazed through her upper back as she did so. When Weller's light, careful touch skimmed over her skin, goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold pebbled over her flesh.
"It's not too bad. Just the placement that makes it hard to deal with." His voice was still guarded, distant, but his touch was gentle, yet capable. "Sit down. I'll grab the first aid kit."
