Quick oneshot because once this scenario occurred to me, I needed to read it...which meant writing it.
Spoilers for S01E05 "Split the Law". Quote from Sylvia Plath's The Fifteen Dollar Eagle.
Kurt Weller has made choices he's regretted. Letting Taylor get taken. The wrong call a few times in the field - he broke his leg after leaping over a staircase to catch a perp once, miscalculating his impact. He tries to minimize the effects of his choices on other people. Calculates odds all day long.
Jane had his hand on her heart, drumming strong and furious beneath his touch. Told him it wasn't his fault. Called him her starting point. Looked at his lips with her big green eyes and -
He thought going home was the right choice, instead of staying - and it was - but the sight of his father in the place he'd made separate from all of that, just on the heels of having Jane there, it's too much. He doesn't want to say or do something he can't take back. They're his family. No matter what, they're family.
It's impulsive and stupid he knows that, ignores it as he goes through with it, but then the next morning he's got a bandage on his chest, right there, where he'd held her hand in place and her fingertips had curled into his skin and he regrets it.
Halfway through the next day and the spot throbs. He wonders if she knows what's there, but knows she's probably not making eye contact because of last night, because of what happened...what didn't happen.
He catalogues the way her cheeks color pink, just barely, hoards the memory greedily with others. The curve of her upturned lip. The determined glide of her walk. Finger on a trigger, steady and sure. Small facets of a person still being pieced together.
Jane is not Taylor. With every passing day, the difference becomes more pronounced in his mind.
A week later and he's working up the nerve to tell her. Doesn't matter she can't see it, it's there. Shouldn't be.
He's trying to be mindful of the way he looks at her. Tries to treat her like another member of the team and thinks about asking to talk to her. Apologize for it. Wants to tell her he was trying to make it right, find balance for them. He knows he took it too far and doesn't want to saddle her with something else, make her feel obligated in any way.
Jane corners him one day, lips set in a firm line and her shoulders squared, demands to know what's wrong. Scans over him for whatever it might be.
"I'm trying to-"
"-Don't shut me out," she says, and it's not a demand, it's a request. Kurt likes it, that she feels comfortable enough with him to simply say it, no hint of hesitancy or lack of assurance. Everything she says feels important. Critical. She talks from the back of her throat, and it's still rough, like she's only just started talking again after years of silence, like she's finally got enough air to do so. Like she's still not sure how to.
They stare at one another, and he knows if they don't return to what they're supposed to be doing - reading through old case files on a college professor tied to the most recent case and clue - Reed is going to happen on them again, and they aren't touching this time, not even close, but it feels like that day in the hall, like that night in the safehouse.
"I won't," he replies, because he has, and won't lie about it.
He can't get her memories back. Can't necessarily find who did this to her. The one thing he can give her is honesty.
Two weeks later, on the other side of the country, it all goes to hell.
One minute he's asking Patterson for an update on a phone trace and then the next he's down on the pavement, vaguely aware of a sting in his shoulder, just at the edge of the vest's strap, and Jane is yelling his name like someone's punched her in the gut.
For a second he panics that she's been hit too, struggles to get up, finds someone is pushing him down and her face is above his, pale and eyes wide and frantic. She yanks him by his vest and hauls him up and into the backseat of the SUV. There's broken glass and Zapata has the pedal to the floor. There's a squeal of tires and he thinks he hears Reed calling in their trip to the hospital but Jane is ripping open his vest, repeating his name, pulling at his shirt and -
In the hospital, after hours of blood, stitches, and more medical prodding than he likes, he realizes there was no way she hadn't seen it. He didn't imagine that half-second as she read it before she was working to keep pressure on the wound.
He's discharged late in the night, and takes a cab to his hotel. Finds the awaiting quiet hum of the AC a relief. No family members waiting for him.
He waits because he knows she's going to knock - he'd texted their group he was back and planning to sleep - but when he opens the door, she looks like she didn't.
Kurt lets her in, stays by the door as she does an unconscious sweep of the room visually before settling back on him. He takes a half step away from the door, so she can see he's not blocking it from her.
"How's your shoulder?" Jane asks, voice careful and clearly rehearsed.
Kurt doesn't answer, because it's not why she's here. They both know it. Barely a moment of quiet passes and she realizes he's not taking the easy roundabout way into the conversation. Reacts accordingly.
Her eyes flicker rapidly - from the door beside him, to the bathroom, to the window above the low bedside table. Exit strategies. She shifts slightly, turning to the side and away from him for a split-second before noticing the defensive stance and forcing herself to stand facing him head-on.
Despite the tension in his shoulders, he tries to keep them rounded. Keeps his hands in his pockets. Keeps still.
"Why not 'Taylor'?" she blurts out.
A question he's asked himself. Knows the answer to it, too. He weighs keeping it to himself, or just putting the cards on the table. She's got enough unknowns, might as well tell her the truth and let her decide what she wants to do.
"Because you're 'Jane'."
Kurt continues before he loses his nerve. "I know you weren't comfortable with my name like that," he explains, keeps the gesture to the back of his neck. "We're in this together, thought it would show you we're...we're a team. And then you said...you said that I was 'your starting point', and...I admit now that it was crossing a line, and I'm sorry. You don't have much that feels like it's yours, but your name is one of them, and I took it. I didn't ask, I just..."
She's not saying anything, but he watches her eyes flicker from his face to the space just below the bandage on his shoulder.
He could have gotten that tattoo anywhere.
Her lips part, and she stares at him. It's obvious she's putting the pieces together - she's brilliant - it was never going to take her long if she found out.
Jane licks her lips, and he swallows, throat suddenly tight. "Can I see it?" she asks, and when he nods, she takes deliberate steps further into the room and seats herself on the couch, waiting.
Kurt flips the locks on the door before joining her. His heart is beating erratically as he pulls at the collar of his shirt, stretching it down and to the side.
For a long moment, she does nothing and simply looks at the letters on his skin. She brings her hand up and starts to lean forward before pulling back, giving him an apologetic look.
"It's fine," he promises her, and then the tips of her fingers are gliding across her name, the same place he'd pressed them a few weeks ago. Her whole palm comes to rest above his heart, and there's no way to hide its racing pace. "It's your name, anyway."
He wants to say something like 'It's yours', but knows that's too far too soon, and isn't sure what 'it' is just yet. He looks just over her shoulder, because if he looks at her right now…
It's better he doesn't.
When Jane speaks, it's careful, and quiet, and Kurt can't look away. "One of the worst parts of this, of my amnesia, is that I don't know that I know something until I see it or hear it for feel it," she starts to tell him, never taking her eyes off her hand on his tattoo.
"Everything's new, and...scary, or it's not. It's familiar. I like familiar. I'm getting better at telling the difference."
When her gaze moves from her name on his chest back up to his, he gets the same feeling all over again from that time he jumped off the stairs. That same gut-level sense of free fall. That same sense of miscalculation.
This is farther than he thought it would be to fall. Deeper.
It's only when her thumb moves in a tentative caress over the flesh of his sternum that he realizes he's been holding his breath, and he takes in air with a sharp hiss.
"But you're...This, this is new. And...scary…" Her eyes drop to look at his lips, and she licks her own, and he's falling falling falling again. She won't break, he knows that, but he's still careful when runs his own hand over the skin where her shoulder meets her neck, traces around to the place where he knows his own name rests before moving up to the back of her head. Gentle unnecessary pressure since she's already leaning in.
"But I want to know this, Kurt Weller. I want to know you," she whispers before they both choose to close the gap between them.
Kurt Weller has made choices he's regretted.
This isn't one of them.