Author's Notes: When I watched the episode 'Lt Jane Doe', I felt this odd chemistry between Kate and the Jane Doe. This is the result.
Kate Todd was not gay and had never felt curious about it. In College, when some of her friends experimented, she'd been too busy with course work and trying to manage her then boyfriend, who just happened to be her physics teacher, to ever seriously think about it.
But with the Jane Doe it was an immediate connection. It was an inexplicable thing, a curious pull on her heart when the woman was wheeled past her in hospital. Their souls seemed to reach out as if they knew each other and were meeting again after a long while. Kate felt drawn.
Stripped of memory, Jane Doe knew only that she had been buried alive, that there was a bomb on a ship and that she liked blueberries, not strawberries. Kate took the woman's fingerprints and then held them gently as she cleaned the ink off with a towlette, like she would a child's, feeling the warm skin against her palm, their knees touching through an unconscious drawing together and thinking, fleetingly, how no one ever touched her. Oh, she had lovers who took her, rode her, satisfied her needs; but it was a transient thing that did not penetrate the skin, and it certainly never touched her heart.
Jane Doe looked at her with large brown eyes, the plea for help so present in them that Kate had not wanted to leave her in the hospital, not even for one night, so she took her home and for the first time since her arrival on the NCIS team, she lied blatantly to do so.
The memories were already coming back, Kate could see it. A job title, a coat, a man's face. They flashed across Jane's face, and she said she was afraid to know the truth. What if who she was, was bad?
"I believe in you." Kate said and she did.
They went to eat at a restaurant. Jane placed her face in her hands, overcome.
"I was a lonely woman." She whispered, remembering and Kate felt compassion, knowing what it was to be lonely. To come home alone, to eat dinners alone, to sleep alone in a double bed at night. Perhaps that was why she worked as hard as she did, it filled that emptiness. She took Jane's hand to comfort her, to let her know that even if she was lonely before, there was no need to be now because she was there.
"Thank-you." Jane said, " You have been so kind and you don't even know me. You have no idea what a comfort you have been."
Kate felt compassion rise until it brought tears to her eyes.
When they got home she kissed her goodnight. Kate hadn't registered the desire at first, it happened as if she was slightly outside of herself, drawn to action by an external force. She had come to say goodnight and Jane had seemed so small sitting on the bed that she'd sat down too, her hand coming to caress her back in soothing circles. Their eyes had locked. There was something naked and open in Jane's face, something vulnerable, which Kate felt sometimes too, but could never reveal to the people in her lives. Vulnerability to them was weakness. She'd learnt to squash that impulse early in her career, even as she yearned for it to be asked of her, for someone to pry open the closing doors of her heart and beckon her into their arms. She felt the tugging at those doors now. Unexpected, her breath grew short, the electricity brewing in the space between them and pulling her in. Their lips met. Tentatively their mouths opened up, their hands sliding under nightwear, finger tips brushing on skin. The softness made Kate tremble. Jane's lips, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hip was intoxicating, startling, arousing and so unlike anything she'd felt before. Wrapping her arms around her, she pulled Jane in and felt a whimper hum on her tongue, through her body and flood between her legs. They explored, tasting, touching, coaxing. Kate drew a pebbled nipple into her mouth and sucked. She marveled at these breasts, the weight, texture, and taste of woman.
Laid out on the bed, their bodies pressed together, Kate sighed. To feel skin, a beating heart, heat. It uncurled the tightly bound strings of her life, strings that bound her desire, her softness, her need, things that held no place in her daily life, but which would occasionally rise in her mind on a sleepless night and make her want to be bold and brave enough to reach out for those things she wanted. Like love. She could feel Jane's wetness on her thigh, slick as their hips undulated, building a pressure with each long thrust. Jane's leg lifted to curl around her waist, her hands threading into hair, cupping her face gently as they kissed, inviting her in with her softness. They gratefully sank into each other. Kate's hand traced the length of Jane's body and slipped between them. She stroked her intimately as she watched Jane respond with a tilting of the head, a closing of the eyes, her fingers teasing the nub, the opening. She entered her, curling to find that spot, setting an intoxicating rhythm that made Jane whimper, then moan and finally cry out as orgasm overcame her, clinging to Kate. She fell back as she regained her breath, looking at Kate and they understood each other perfectly. They kissed, sweat dusting her upper lip, then Jane pulled Kate down on her and closed her eyes.
"Jane?" Kate asked softly but she was asleep. Kate disentangled their limbs and lay on her side looking at the woman beside her, naked and flushed from sex. Beautiful. This moment was transient, she knew. In a matter of hours, perhaps days, this woman before her would regain her old life, her old memories and she would no longer be untouched by a past, free from the things that tie people down like identity, history, family, context. Perhaps it was this that she responded to, she mused, the unfettered, total freedom of having nothing but the present moment.
Her eyes glided down the body before her, felt the unsatisfied throb between her legs and her hand brazenly moved to it. Intoxicated by the wildness of their tryst, she stroked herself as she looked at the breasts, the curve of the waist, the curls at the apex of the thighs, her breath coming fast, small gasps building from the back of her throat. She pinched her nipple and moaned, she teased herself closer to release. Jane stirred at the sound, opened her eyes, her pupils dilating as she took the sight of Kate pleasuring herself. She settled between Kate's thighs, lowering her head and tasted her. Kate cried out. Fingers entered her and thrust in and out. She mewled, arched her back, hand threading into Jane's hair at the sensation of that hot wet mouth. She was already so close that it was moments before she came hard.
They slept a while tucked together until the phone call came. At the NCIS basement, Ducky showed them the body of the man they had recovered behind the door to which Jane had held a key. A memory flashed on her face but when Kate asked what it was she said she remembered nothing and Kate chose to believe her, just as she believed her when Jane said she simply wanted a moment alone in her office when they finally discovered Jane's true identity. When she came back she had a bomb. Her boss came and moments later Jane had blown both him and herself up. They had been lovers.
Just like that Jane Doe was gone.
Kate received some light lacerations and so she sat on a gurney, wrapped in a blanket, while the medic tended to her. She was in shock, unable to coherently order how she felt except a terrible sense of loss. Hours ago they had been in each others arms and now the woman was dead. Why? What had their encounter meant? What had been its purpose? The turnings and twistings of the universe evaded her understanding, the patterns that draw people together and then pull them apart remained hidden.
But unbeknown to her, a shift had taken place. It was subtle but she had connected to the hidden corner of herself that had been carefully locked away and she would never be the same again.
She looked at other women after that, wondering if she wanted to share a bed with them but her curiosity soon waned into disinterest. Her Jane Doe had been unique, the connection inexplicable, non repeatable. For the rest of her brief life, she would dream of that encounter, the softness of the flesh, the trembling of the breath on her neck, the wetness around her fingers as the muscled clenched and she would wake, aching.