Allie and Bethany came to visit two days later.
Remi opened the door to them, Kurt following more slowly behind. As soon as Allie set Bethany on her feet, the toddler made a beeline for her father. "Daddeeeee!"
Kurt crouched down on the floor, arms open to his daughter, but Bethany stopped just shy of his grasp. Then she got down in her own diminutive crouch, a small mirror reflection of her father. With a look of intense concentration, she leaned forward and placed an extremely gentle kiss on his stomach. "Aww bedder?" she asked, looking up at him.
Kurt nodded, making no effort to hide the tears in his eyes. "All better, baby. Thank you."
Bethany nodded solemnly and allowed her father to pull her in for a hug.
And a moment later, Remi found herself the recipient of a similarly fierce hug from Allie.
"It's so good to see you. We've been so worried about you both," she said, squeezing Remi tight.
Remi patted her back, at a loss for what else to do. Somehow she hadn't thought that Jane would be on very good terms with Allie. Judging by Bethany's age, Kurt must have broken things off with Allie right before he'd married Jane.
But nothing about Allie indicated any strain or discomfort. Quite the opposite really, as she released Remi and started to pepper her with questions about both her and Kurt's health.
"I'm fine," Remi insisted. And aside from the occasional headache, she was. She hadn't fainted once since she'd woken up in the hospital, and part of her was beginning to wonder if maybe Roman had exaggerated the symptoms listed on the drive. Maybe he'd wanted Remi to pretend to be sick for some reason? What if she'd collapsed for some reason other than ZIP?
"I'm almost all healed," Kurt told Allie, climbing slowly to his feet.
Remi rolled her eyes. She'd helped him change the bandage on his incision earlier. It looked better, but was by no means "healed." Allie met her gaze with a similarly exasperated expression, and they both broke into spontaneous smiles.
Remi had expected a much more formal exchange, and she felt even further out of her depth than normal. And a moment later, Bethany compounded the issue by flinging herself at Remi's knees.
"Mama Jane!" she announced. She couldn't quite make the "J" sound, so it sounded more like "Dane." And for a second, Remi just froze, looking down at the small imp who had her in a surprisingly tight grasp.
Should she crouch down like Kurt? Pick the child up? She felt paralyzed. She'd figured that Kurt would play with Bethany while she gave them some time alone. She hadn't envisioned that Bethany would expect to interact with her, too.
Even worse, before she could force herself to do anything, Kurt picked up on her distress. He stepped forward and put his hand on top of Bethany's head. "Hey, B, there might be a few new toys for you in the living room. Mommy can help you get them out of the cabinet."
Bethany scampered off, followed by Allie, leaving them alone by the door.
"It's okay," Kurt whispered, putting his arms around her.
Remi allowed him to pull her closer, trying to figure out what she'd missed.
"We're gonna try again," he said firmly, his mouth by her ear so that Allie and Bethany couldn't hear him. "Just as soon as we figure out what's going on with your condition, we're going to try again. I promise. We're going to have one of our own."
Their own what? And then her brain caught up. A baby? He thought they were going to try to have a baby? Try again? Remi fought back a burst of hysterical laughter. This was insane. She would never have gone so far as to actually conceive a child in this fake marriage.
And then she realized that it was more likely that Kurt wanted a child, and Jane had pretended that she did too. But lots of women had trouble conceiving, and sadly, Jane must be one of them.
She exhaled slowly, the tension leaving her body as she reasoned it all through. She nodded her head against Kurt's chest, putting her arms around him to return his hug. "Yeah. Soon."
He nodded and kissed her forehead. "Very soon." He rubbed her back and then let her go, but he kept his hand on her waist as they turned into the living room to visit with Allie and Bethany.
Remi forced a smile to her lips. This mission had gone on long enough. She needed to get it back on track before Weller got serious about any baby-making.
###
They were cleared to return to the FBI the following week. Desk jobs for both of them, but at that point they were both so desperate to get out of the apartment, neither one of them was going to voice any argument at all.
But whatever Remi had expected, the reality was far, far different.
Reade was the Assistant Director now. She had thought he was just filling in while Weller was out, but apparently no, it was actually his office, not Weller's. Agent Zapata was gone to parts unknown. No one mentioned her, and Remi wondered if maybe she'd been killed. And Rich Dotcom was working in the lab with Patterson.
Remi'd never met him, but Shepherd had purchased information from him through the dark web on more than one occasion. Remi remembered the tattoo that pointed to him. Ashwell Creek Kennels. She'd never wasted any time imagining what he'd be like in person, but even if she had, there's no way she could have come up with this.
He came running over to hug Kurt, a bright flash in a garish Hawaiian shirt. "Oh god, I've missed you, Stubbles." He let go, pivoted, and grabbed Remi. "We're working on your case, no stone unturned, no hot doctor unconsulted." He let go abruptly and stepped back. "You guys look good. All that time in bed must have agreed with you."
Remi blinked. For a second, she thought she'd misunderstood, but then he leered at her. She shot him her most quelling look, the one that never failed to make men back off. But Rich perked up and grinned happily at her. "I missed you, too. Come see what we've got!" He stepped back so they could gather around Patterson's table screen.
Patterson didn't waste any time, launching into a detailed explanation of the clues they'd found on the drive and how they connected to the tattoos. Remi still didn't recognize any of them, but no one seemed concerned that the tattoos they were discussing weren't actually anywhere on her body. It wasn't until the blond said something about "overlaying" that she realized there was a second level of tattoos, ones that for some reason she couldn't see, but that corresponded to the original tattoos.
What the hell?
"Jane?" Kurt was beside her in an instant, grabbing her arm and steering her into the seat that Rich rolled over to her.
"I'm fine," she said quickly. "Just a little lightheaded for a moment. Keep going."
But Rich and Patterson immediately switched gears to question her about any symptoms she had, and the tattoos on the screen were immediately replaced by medical notes. Remi tried to follow, but she was still off-balance at the revelation that she'd been tattooed again, with some sort of invisible ink, and that Roman was apparently behind it. This hadn't been part of their plans.
But then, neither was marrying Weller and staying with the FBI for years.
"Anyway," Patterson was saying, "I know it doesn't seem like much, Jane, but we're still putting this all together. Roman believed that this could be fixed, and we do too. We'll get there."
Remi nodded. It had been easier to pretend nothing was wrong when she'd been cooped up in the apartment with Weller. Physically, she felt fine. And she'd talked herself into believing that the whole illness was some sort of clever trick on Roman's part. But the research on the screen starkly proclaimed a different story, one backed up by the doctors Patterson and Rich had already consulted.
Kurt had moved to stand behind her when she sat down, and she realized now that his hand was her shoulder, his thumb rubbing her collarbone reassuringly. And she was leaning back against him, accepting his wordless support. She didn't pull away. Not because it felt comforting, just because a room full of FBI agents would have picked up on the motion. That was all.
When Patterson had finished debriefing them, Remi followed Kurt to a row of workstations so they could review the new data in greater depth. Reade called Weller away almost immediately to review some other report, and as soon as he was out of sight, Remi called up her own case file.
It was huge. She began to skim it as quickly as she could, starting from the beginning. Her discovery in Times Square, Dr. Borden's report and assignment to the NYO, everything seemed to go according to plan. She frowned when she got to the break in at her safehouse and the man who had been killed, later identified Markos. Markos was dead? She frowned. He shouldn't have been there at all. She kept reading, pausing again when she got to Cade's attempt on her life. She'd never trusted him, but she'd had tolerated him because Markos had trusted him.
And then she got to the point where Kurt arrested her. And then there was a three-month gap, during which nothing had been entered in her case file at all. The next section stated simply that she had escaped a CIA black site and had been tracked down by the team. She hadn't given them any intel at all. She smirked at the screen, but her smug expression faded into horror at the statement she—Jane—had given to the FBI and NSA. Dear god, she'd told them everything. Including…
She had to read the paragraph about Oscar twice. He'd tried to erase her memory again? And she'd killed him. Because of Mayfair? Why would she have been that concerned about Bethany Mayfair? She'd been corrupt, part of Carter's Daylight program. She'd had to go. Not Oscar. She couldn't have killed him on purpose. It must have been an accident. She must have been lying. But the rest of the plan was all there in black and white…
She filed away her grief and loss, pushing Oscar and Markos into the same box as Roman. She had no time for mourning.
And then she read about meeting Roman and discovering her true identity. And somehow she'd promised to help the FBI stop Shepard? None of that made any sense. She'd really been playing the FBI, she must have been. She'd led the FBI to the compound where they were killed in the raid. Only then she'd injected Roman with ZIP and brought him to the FBI? And then… Roman had remembered and fought her, and then Shepherd had made her move on the FBI… and she'd helped Weller disarm the bombs. And Roman had left with Shepherd. And then she'd help the FBI thwart Phase 2 and arrest Shepherd. And then the FBI had released her.
Her cover was finished, Phase 2 was finished. Shepherd was gone. She shook her head. It was all gone.
The next note in her file simply noted her change in marital status and an address change to Colorado. She'd married Weller and they'd moved to Colorado. That was where Allie, Bethany, and Allie's husband apparently lived.
And then the tale resumed. There was a hit ordered on her. She left Colorado, vanished for nearly eighteen months before a box bearing her name was delivered to the NYO. Weller had found her at the given coordinates. The new tattoos were explained and catalogued. Roman had done that to her? Or was it a plan to return her to the FBI?
Because if it wasn't… Then she'd abandoned Roman and her mission and changed her loyalties completely.
She scrubbed her hands over her face, feeling like this was all some nightmare that she should be able to wake up from.
"Jane? Are you okay?"
Remi looked up to find Patterson hovering over her. "I'm fine. Just a little tired. There's a lot…" Her voice trailed off.
Patterson nodded. "Just take it slow. You don't want to overdo it."
Overdo it. What she wanted was to do it over, change the story so the good guys won. But there didn't seem to be any way to do that. At least… not yet.
"Weller sent me to tell you that he's still stuck in his meeting so I should make sure you ate something. Low blood sugar could trigger something with your brain chemistry."
Remi stood up before Patterson could launch into another long medical lecture. "You've convinced me. Let's get some lunch."
###
She escaped to the gym late in the day. Sitting at a desk in the FBI was better than sitting on the sofa in Weller's apartment, but not much. Such forced inactivity was driving her crazy.
Almost as crazy as it was driving Weller.
She'd been cleared for most activities. Except, most annoyingly, driving, due to the risk that she might pass out while behind the wheel. Weller had been cleared for… walking at a sedate pace on the treadmill. She could almost see steam coming out of his ears as she stretched following a solid thirty minutes at the punching bag, getting out as much of her frustrations as she could.
She didn't know what made her cross over to hop on the machine next to him, immediately cranking up the pace to a brisk jog.
"Show off," he muttered, glaring at her.
His look was so aggrieved that she threw her head back and laughed, coaxing a rueful smile out of him.
Weller was an easy person to be around, she had to admit. She felt… comfortable with him. Which made no sense. She was on a mission, and this was just a cover.
A cover she'd apparently kept for years.
She stared blindly ahead of her as she ran, still trying to sort out the information she'd read in her file that morning. Something must have gone wrong, that's all she could figure out. Something had gone wrong, and she'd had to abandon the plan. Maybe the FBI had gotten too close, and she'd done damage control, allowing Shepherd to live and Roman to escape. Waiting for the opportunity to resume their plans. Maybe running away from Colorado had been part of a plan to get Weller to relocate to New York, so she could resume her mission. Perhaps she hadn't been able to make progress on her own, that's why Roman had sent the box to Weller, so he could "find" her and bring her back. There'd been a passing reference to K&R work she'd done while she was supposedly on the run. Another cover? She wished she knew.
But none of this gave her any hint about the best way to move forward now.
She shot a look out of the corner at her eye at Weller, who was still pacing slowly beside her, his attention now on the news report running on the television in the gym.
It had been dangerously easy to settle into living with him, sleeping curled up next to him at night. She didn't know why, but the strange, unsettling images that had haunted her when she tried to sleep in the guest room were gone now. She slept soundly and woke up feeling refreshed.
And inevitably wrapped up in Weller's arms.
He always smiled as soon as he saw her when he awoke. A broad, lazy, sleepy smile that said he was just happy she was there. And then he'd kiss her nose or her forehead or sometimes her lips before he let her wriggle free to use the bathroom.
It unnerved her, that smile. She could never remember anyone—not even Oscar, if she was honest—being so unfailingly happy at her mere presence.
And it made her more aware of the… other aspects of marriage that she'd put off thus far.
Sometimes those morning kisses were slower. More open-mouthed. And sometimes they felt almost dreamy and unreal, seeming to flow from some dream she didn't remember having, awakening feelings she shouldn't be having.
He kissed her outside of bed, too, but those kisses were easier for her to stop before they could go too far. He'd shift and wince or she'd pull away and express worry for his still-healing incision. But in bed… In bed, it was harder to resist.
She took a large gulp from her water bottle and cranked up the speed on the treadmill to try to out run such disquieting thoughts. Beside her, Weller shot her a pouty look that made her lips curl up despite her efforts to remain unmoved.
She needed to get her mission back on track. And if that meant…
Well, she would do what she had to do.