"Jane, this is the way it has to be." Oscar stepped forward, thrusting the butt of the gun towards her. "It's your plan, your mission-"
"Not my plan. Not my mission." Jane hissed through gritted teeth.
"Dammit, Jane, you hate him. I mean everything that happened to you, it all started with his failure. This is exactly what you wanted for God's sake."
Oscar was angry. For the first time since Jane had met him, he was angry with her, and she suddenly realised that this wasn't just about her reluctance to follow orders.
A realisation was dawning on her. She'd been wondering why Oscar had never shown any sign of jealousy towards her feelings for Kurt. She didn't doubt that he was a devoted soldier to their mission, but to see the woman you love kiss another man, fall for another man, and not display even a hint of resentment?
The answer was simple. Oscar didn't see Kurt as a threat because he always knew how the game was going to end. In this room. On this night. Kurt would be dead, they would burn the FBI to the ground, and he and Jane would rebuild their relationship and get back to where they were. Happy again, with all this behind them.
"I'm sorry, Oscar." Jane said. He looked down at her, concern etched in his features.
"Taylor-"
Jane held up a hand to stop him. "I'm sorry that you put your trust in me. I am. I'm sure we had something special. In fact I know we did. I know I loved you because I can still feel it."
Oscar's features softened, and she felt that familiar pull. That desire that felt so alien yet so natural.
"But we made a mistake, Oscar. I made a mistake. If the plan was always to kill Kurt, then letting me get so close to him was a mistake. I don't know what the old me expected to find. Perhaps I thought he would be callous, cold and distant. Maybe I thought he was going to be everything I hated about the FBI. Corrupt and twisted and easy to hurt."
Jane took a deep breath, she looked back at Kurt and almost involuntarily her hand rose to touch his bruised cheek. She heard Oscar shift behind her.
She turned back to him. "But that's not what I found, Oscar. I found a warm, caring, good man. A man who just wants to do right. A man who just wants to protect the people he loves. I made a mistake Oscar. Please believe me. Kurt isn't the man we thought he was."
Oscar was silent for a moment. At first Jane thought she might have gotten through to him, but his eyes suddenly focused on something behind her, and he gave the slightest of nods.
A pair of heavy hands suddenly gripped Jane by the arms and hoisted her backwards. She twisted to see the face of large, bearded man who, she assumed, must have been standing silently in the shadows at the back of the room. Jane inwardly cursed herself for not being more perceptive. Her concern for Weller had dulled her instincts.
"Oscar, what the hell?" she yelled, trying to wrestle herself free.
"I need you to remember that you forced me into this, Taylor." Oscar said, looking at her with what seemed like genuine disappointment.
Jane struggled desperately but the large man pinned her arms to her sides in a bear hug. She assessed her options in a heartbeat, a glass bottle on a plain wooden table about three feet to the left. If she could break this gorilla's hold she at least had something to work with.
Oscar was speaking again, and she noticed with a surge of panic that he was pointing the gun at Kurt.
"This was important, Taylor. You gave me a playbook. A strict set of rules. And one of those rules was that if we reached this point, and you couldn't go through with it, I'd finish the job for you."
"NO" Jane heard herself scream "Oscar, don't you DARE do this."
Time suddenly seemed to slow as Jane felt her instincts take over. She drove her head backwards into the face of the bearded man, hearing his nose shatter and feeling his grip loosen. She twisted quickly, bringing her elbow up into his windpipe hard. He staggered backwards, hands clawing at his throat as he gasped for air.
Oscar was frozen, gun poised "Taylor, don't do-"
He didn't finish, he'd given her a split second too long and a split second was all she needed.
In one fluid movement, she whipped the glass bottle off the table and sent it flying towards him.
He ducked, the bottle shattered harmlessly behind him, but he knew it had been nothing more than a distraction. Jane had started to cover the ground between them the instant the bottle left her hand and before Oscar could straighten up she hit him with a right hook that spun him face first into the wall.
"Taylor, STOP," He yelled. He raised the gun in a desperate attempt to subdue her, to get her under control. He realised his error almost immediately, but it was already too late. Never point a gun at her. Never point a gun at her.
Jane grabbed the barrel and his hand, then twisted his wrist violently. Oscar felt his finger break in the trigger guard as she yanked the gun backwards, rotating it smoothly until it was pointing directly in Oscar's face.
"Unchain him." she said. There was no trace of panic in her voice now. No lack of control. Her eyes were blazing with the intensity of a soldier in her element. This was what she was made for, what she was made of.
"Don't do this," Oscar was clutching his broken finger, blood seeping from a split lip. "Please, don't do this."
"I've made my decision." Jane said. "I'm going to act on it. With or without your help." She stepped backwards, and pointed the gun to the left of Weller's knee. She shot the padlock off with an accuracy that would have once made Oscar smile. Once. But not now.
Jane moved quickly, pulling Weller to his feet. She felt the reassurance of his warm skin against hers, but he looked disconnected, as if a fundamental part of him had been torn away in the last 24 hours.
His tired eyes found hers. "Jane, I-"
"Shhh." She whispered soothingly into his ear. "Shhh, now."
She pointed the gun back at Oscar, who looked distraughtly between her and Weller.
"How can you do this?" he said, his voice wracked with emotion. "You hated him. You've always hated him."
"People aren't always who we think they are." Jane said, slowly making her way to the foot of the basement steps. "You and I should have thought about that, Oscar. We should have thought about it before we split my life in two."
She paused before ascending. Looking at Oscar, feeling Kurt at her shoulder. She knew there was no way back from this now. That from here on out, everything was going to get worse. More complicated. With higher risks and greater dangers.
But she had started this, and she was damn sure she was going to finish it.
"Don't follow me, Oscar," she said, with a touch of sadness. "Not this time."
She made her way upstairs, moving quickly through the small house that was never really hers. She took one look back, and for the first time in a long time, she knew he wouldn't be there.
At that, Jane opened the front door and pulled Kurt Weller out with her into the night.