Author's Note: Jane should totally have gone to the park to meet Kurt that night (especially since in canon, if you factor in travel times, she hadn't been at the radio tower for at least two nights after she and Oscar first met, so one more night of not meeting him wouldn't have hurt). So here's my 'Oscar is still AWOL' take on Jane meeting Kurt at the park. :)
"Mayfair told me she lifted your detail." Kurt leans against the lockers beside her, a faint smile on his face.
After the hell of the last couple of days—two long-haul flights, plus a much shorter, but more hair-raising flight, where she had to land the plane on a steep trajectory without any power—Jane is pretty exhausted, and she can tell Kurt is, too. The captivity and torture alone would have been bad enough, but the flights had tipped things from stressful into draining. Still, she'd managed to get some uneasy sleep on the FBI jet home, and her newly granted freedom is making her feel a little wired now.
"Yeah. You were right. She took it okay coming from me."
Kurt had recommended, during a quiet moment at the airport, that she should be the one to ask Mayfair to lift her detail—since if they went in together, or if he brought it up, their boss would immediately question his motives in advocating for Jane. "And maybe she'd be right to," he'd added, making her smile a little.
Now she's free to walk out of the building unescorted, she can't wait to get going. She's going to take the subway, maybe grab some takeout… Unless Kurt wants to make a claim on her first night of freedom, that is.
As though he senses her need to spread her wings, he tilts his head, considering. "You and I, we need to sort out some things. There's a park at the end of my street. Meet me there at ten o'clock?"
Ten o'clock is far enough away that she still has time to be out and about. He seems to have an instinctive sense for what she needs, sometimes.
"I'll be there."
He nods, then reaches out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The temperature in the room seems to rise by several degrees as they gaze at each other, holding back because of where they are, but completely aware of the potential for more between them.
As Reade and Tasha enter the locker room, debating something Jane has no frame of reference for, Kurt drops his hand back to his side. "See you guys tomorrow."
When Kurt leaves his apartment, five minutes before he's due to meet Jane, he expects to be the first one there. When he gets to the end of the street, though, there's a familiar figure sitting on the backrest of one of the benches, her feet on the seat. Even from a distance, he'd recognise Jane's silhouette anywhere.
As he gets closer, he realises she's eating a small pot of ice cream, the kind you can buy at movie theatres, and he can't help but smile. She's looking out at the water as he approaches, and doesn't realise he's there until he asks, "Did you go home at all?"
Jane looks up, a faint smile on her face. "For about a half-hour, in between dinner and a movie."
Amused, he sits beside her on the back of the bench. "You took yourself on a solo date?"
"It wasn't planned that way, but yeah, I guess I did." She holds out her spoon. "Want some?"
He puts his hand over hers to tilt the pot, checking the flavour. It's got enough caramel and chocolate to tempt him, so he takes the spoon and scoops out a slightly melted helping, his hand still over hers.
"That's amazing," he says, once he's eaten the mouthful of cold, sugary goodness.
"I'm still in the process of trying out new flavours to see what I like. This one goes firmly in the 'yes' column."
Jane steals her spoon back and finishes the pot within a few seconds, while Kurt scans the park for threats, out of habit. "So what movie did you see?"
"Some superhero thing. To be honest, I've already forgotten what it was called. It's been a long few days, and I was only really paying attention to the fight scenes."
"If you want to go home, get some rest…" He doesn't want her to go, but he feels like he should have at least given her a night to recover from their hazardous trip to Turkey, before dragging her out here.
Jane leans over and tosses her empty ice cream carton into the trash can nearby, then straightens again, turning her body a little more towards him. "I'm fine, Kurt. I wanted to see you."
Tentatively, he reaches for her hand, reassured when she laces her fingers through his. "There was a moment, back there on that plane, that I thought we were gonna die."
"Just a moment?" Jane gives him a wry smile. "No offence to Patterson, but I was pretty sure we we'd nosedive into the runway."
"Not then. Before that, before Patterson contacted us." Kurt shakes his head. "When I thought the only option we had was to blow up the plane. I looked at you, and all I could think about was how unfair it was that we had to die, when we only just…" He isn't sure how to finish, trailing off with a sense that he's revealing too much, making a fool of himself.
Jane watches him intently. When he goes silent, she says, "I came to see you the other night because of something Patterson said. About pushing David away when she just wanted to hold onto him. And then it was too late; he was gone."
Kurt nods. He'd had the same thoughts on the plane as he'd contemplated putting a bullet in the fuel tank. Regrets that he hadn't followed Jane back to her safehouse that night. Despair that he'd never know what they could be together. Even after they were safely back on the ground, the thoughts had lingered.
Jane hesitates before continuing, "I know the work we do is dangerous. Either one of us could die tomorrow, or we both could. But if that happens, I don't want to have any regrets."
Kurt reaches out to brush his fingers over her jawline. She leans into the touch a little, her eyes falling closed. Unable to resist any longer, he sways forward and kisses her, the way he's longed to in every idle moment since Sawyer interrupted them the other night.
Jane is the one to escalate their kiss this time, and he tastes traces of her ice cream as he wraps his arms around her. Their embrace is a little awkward, since they're sitting side by side on the backrest of a park bench, but being this close to her feels right, somehow. He doesn't want to draw away, and she makes no move to either. Her fingers caress the side of his neck, and he's sure she doesn't mean it to be as much of a turn-on as he finds it.
When he shifts uncomfortably on the bench, his pants too constrictive for his growing arousal, she pulls back, her expression filled with the same craving he feels. Before he can speak, she gets up from the bench and holds out her hand a little shyly.
He puts his hand in hers and stands up, too. "What—?"
Jane loops her arms around his neck and presses against him, their bodies fully aligned as she gazes up at him. "Just needed to get closer."
He kisses her again, his lips growing urgent against hers. With a tiny moan, she rubs against his hard cock, and he groans, cupping her ass for a second before reining himself in. Pulling away, he tells her, "Speaking of regrets, right now I'm really regretting asking you to meet me in public."
She looks up at him through her eyelashes. "You could…walk me home?"
Unable to resist, he gives her another soft, brief kiss before telling her, "If I take you home now, we won't sleep. And we both need to rest after everything that's happened. Especially if Patterson solves another tattoo tomorrow."
She sighs, smiling a little ruefully. "I know. You're right."
"How about tomorrow night?" He brushes his lips against her forehead. "We won't have to get up early Saturday morning. We can stay up as late as we want."
"It's a date." Jane gives him one more kiss, lingering but undemanding, before drawing back. "I guess we should probably cut this short for now."
"We should."
Neither of them lets go of the other, and after a second they both break into light laughter.
"A kiss for the road?" he suggests.
"Mmmm. Yes, please."
One kiss is all he intends to give her, but by the time they part, breathless and aroused, they've spent several minutes making out, and his body is begging him to take the next step.
"You should—"
"Go. Yeah." She withdraws to arm's length, and he keenly misses the heat of her against him. After a slight hesitation, she whispers, "Goodnight, Kurt."
"I'll see you tomorrow."
She gives him a smile he'll remember for years to come—simultaneously shy and full of joy—and turns to leave. It takes every tiny shred of willpower he possesses not to go after her as she crosses the park and heads out of sight with a last glance over her shoulder.
Fuck, she's incredible. As kids, they'd been as close as a brother and sister, but now they were adults and she's been returned to him, the connection between them is as different as it can get, yet still just as intense.
And now he needs to calm down before he can head back home.
