Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)
A/N: Thank you everyone for reading, and for writing such nice reviews… and thank you MSerrada, for the great idea for part of this chapter – I'm not sure why it hadn't occurred to me! – and andyrunsandclimbs for being my Wilderness Survival Consultant. ;)
They'd been walking for a while in silence occasionally glancing at each other and squeezing the other's hand. Each of them were lost in their own thoughts – they both had a lot to think about.
As her mind continued to scroll through images, it had only been a matter of time before one came up that she didn't want to see. Really, she'd expected it to happen sooner, but she'd been so overwhelmed by the present time since Kurt had arrived the evening before, her mind hadn't had a lot of chances to roam. This was the thing she'd feared… or, the beginning of it anyway. Interspersed with a flow of memories that were her own was one that was very distinctly Remi's.
Kurt noticed the change in Jane immediately. Her hand stiffened in his and when he glanced at her, he saw the tension in her face. No, not just tension… that wasn't a strong enough word. What he saw on her face was more like fear. She stopped in her tracks, her eyes fixed somewhere in the distance and her breathing labored, as if she was having an asthma attack. Even just that by itself would have been strange, because in all the time he'd known her, she'd never had asthma.
"Jane?" he asked, immediately concerned, stepping in front of her and attempting to get into her field of vision. "Hey… what's wrong?"
But she couldn't hear him, nor could she see him. Suddenly she couldn't even feel his hand in hers. No, at that moment she was far, far away.
When she'd first had one of Remi's memories, she'd been at home alone. It rarely happened anymore, but Kurt had had paperwork to finish and she'd been feeling sick, so he'd insisted that she go home and rest instead of waiting for him. Normally she would have refused, but because she really had felt sick, she'd relented. Back at his – their – apartment (she wasn't sure she'd ever get used to calling it theirs), she'd been standing by the window, looking down at the street. As she'd turned back around and glanced into the living room, something had triggered the memory that she hadn't even known that she had. Ever since then, it had happened frequently enough to keep her constantly on edge, wondering what horrible thing she was going to remember next – and after everything that had happened with Roman, she couldn't help but wonder if having those memories return would turn her back into Remi, too. The thought was terrifying, so much so that she'd forced herself into exile.
"Jane," Kurt tried again. He was getting worried, because this wasn't normal. She'd zoned out a little from time to time, but he'd always been the one who was able to reach her. All at once, he watched her face crumple as her knees buckled. He realized at the last second that she was about to fall, and thanks to his quick reflexes, he managed to catch her around her waist, stumbling under her weight for a second before he regained his balance.
He lowered her slowly along with him toward the nearest large rock, which sat just off the path they were on. It was smaller than the one they had sat on in the rain, but big enough to provide a flat surface on which he could steady her. Once he was sure that he was steady enough to sit on the rock on her own, he moved back slightly to kneel on the ground right in front of her. His hands rested just above her knees, his thumbs moving gently back and forth.
"Hey, come on, Jane, it's okay," he murmured soothingly. Watching her, he could see that she was still somewhere else.
Jane was, indeed, somewhere else at that moment. She was standing in the semi-darkness with Shepherd and Roman in a room where the windows were covered with heavy curtains, looking at a hand drawn paper diagram that filled one long sheet of paper. It was so big that it covered the long, rectangular table, and would have to have been rolled up in order to move it. There were, however, some blank spots on the page – parts of the plan that had yet to be filled in. They'd been working on this carefully for a long time, and it was just a matter of finding the right components. Shepherd had insisted that it could all be done.
Without any other clues to tell her, she knew that this memory took place at the compound that had been blown up in the failed FBI raid, the one from which Kurt had been spared because someone had called him, pretending that Allie was in the hospital while pregnant with his child. But this memory had happened long before all that – long before Jane had become Jane – the lack of tattoos on the backs of her hands and up her arms was proof. This was the formation of Sandstorm's plan. Standing in the darkness that day, they had still been agonizing over how to make the pieces of the puzzle fit together, how to get the right people into the right positions. How to move the COGS into place.
In her memory, she could see Shepherd looking at her as if she'd just had an idea that she couldn't quite articulate yet, as if it wasn't quite fully formed. And just like that, she – Remi – knew what her mother was thinking. It made sense. It was insane, and it would mean giving up everything she had, the future she'd expected to have… but it solved their problems. And if she didn't do this, for her mother and her mother's family and so many others, then how could she live with herself, knowing that she could have been the one to change everything, but she chose herself over the rest of humanity? The answer was simple - she couldn't. She had no other choice.
"It has to be me," Jane heard Remi tell Shepherd calmly – too calmly, all things considered – in a voice that sent an icy chill down her spine as she remembered. Is it really considered remembering if you weren't the one who did it? she wondered.
But I was the one who did it, she reminded herself. For a second, it was hard to breathe, as if a heavy weight was pressing down on her.
Her mother just nodded, looking pleased, as though someone had just given her the gift that she'd most wanted. Really, Remi had just done exactly that. There was nothing and no one that Shepherd wouldn't sacrifice to achieve the overthrow of the corrupt government that she'd vowed to take down. It didn't matter that doing so would mean losing the young woman she had raised as her own daughter.
"Yes," Shepherd whispered, "It's perfect. He'll trust you because you can be Taylor." She nodded with what looked suspiciously like glee.
"Wait, is someone going to fill me in?" Roman demanded, looking from his sister to his mother. He was desperately confused about what had just happened between the two of them. Even though he didn't know what was going on, he already knew that he didn't like it. That much was clear from his expression.
"Your sister is the answer we've been searching for. The key to it all," Shepherd told him, sounding frighteningly dazed. Her eyes were fixed on the diagram on the table, and she was beginning to grin. It wasn't an everyday happy grin, more an evil mastermind type grin.
Roman just stared at the two of them, shaking his head in disbelief. "You don't mean…"
"We're going to do it," Remi said. "After all this time, we're really going to do it."
Without realizing it, Roman was shaking his head now. "But what if it doesn't work? What if he – Weller – what if he finds out and—"
Shepherd smiled patronizingly at her son, as a normal mother might have at a small child who was protesting against going to the dentist. "Weller will do exactly what I want him to," she said, her voice icy and detached. "After all this time, I know him. I know how he'll react. And with her," Shepherd tilted her head toward Remi and continued, "we have the leverage we need. The best part is, neither of them will know they're being controlled."
Roman's mouth fell open in surprise and confusion. "But… what do you… you're not going to… It hasn't been tested enough. You can't…"
"Oh, I can," she replied, her eyes narrowing with the obvious displeasure of being challenged by her son. "But if you have a problem with it… you may go." Roman's eyes widened. After all, he knew that she wasn't just suggesting that he could leave the room.
His eyes fell to the floor in front of him, and he shook his head. "No, ma'am," he said, almost in a whisper. "I'm sorry. I just…" He looked up at Remi imploringly, begging her with his eyes not to do this.
Even though it had been Remi and not Jane who had been there, Jane felt exactly how Remi had felt in that moment. That was probably the thing that terrified her the most. It wasn't like watching someone else do something. No, the memory was just as vivid as the one from the day she'd met Kurt. Just as vivid as her memory of the first time she'd kissed him. So how could this be someone else? How could she say that this hadn't been her? How could she say that she wasn't Remi?
And that was why she'd left. If she felt the emotions that went along with those actions – things that had been done by a stranger, and yet also by her – then how could she not be both Remi and Jane? And if even a little part of her was Remi, how could she be sure that she wouldn't react as Remi would in any given situation? Remi had undoubtedly done so many things that Jane was terrified of remembering. Just from being inside that memory for a few minutes, she felt cold and detached, unlike herself.
That must be how Remi felt all the time, Jane thought, horrified. That is the person that Shepherd trained her to be. But how can a person live like that? Without any feelings? Without any empathy for other people? With so little regard for life that killing is just another thing that she did, a perfectly acceptable means to an end?
Now, finally emerging from the memory, she gasped slightly as a rush of emotions, the most predominant one being fear, overtook her. In these memories of Remi's, she felt only what Remi felt, which was almost nothing. However, as soon as the memory's hold on her loosened, the effect was quite the opposite, as if every pent up emotion that Remi hadn't had surged through her at once, plus somehow even more, just for good measure.
Sitting on that rock, Jane fell forward, literally knocked over by the force of her emotions. Thankfully, since Kurt was sitting right in front of her, she landed against him. He quickly clamped his arms around her lest she continue to fall and land on the rocky ground. Beginning to emerge from her thoughts, for a second she didn't recognize her surroundings, and she struggled against him. In her mind, she was still back at the Sandstorm compound, and who knew who was holding her down. But Kurt began murmuring reassurances softly again, calling her "Jane" as many times as he could and rubbing her back.
After a few seconds he felt her stop struggling, collapsing against him and beginning to sob. "Shhhhh," he whispered, pulling her as tightly to him as he could. "It's okay, Jane."
But it's not okay, was all she could think. He doesn't understand. Of course he doesn't. How could he? Why did I let him to talk me into going back? For his own good, I need to get as far away from him as possible.
That won't work and you know it, the voice in her head reminded her. He found you here, and he'll find you again if you run.
This knowledge, that there was nothing she could do to protect him, made her stomach clench in frustration, and suddenly she knew that she was going to be sick. Pushing him away from her as hard as she could, her sudden movement seemed to catch him off balance, which was probably the only reason she got past him. However, all she succeeded in doing was falling to the ground on her hands and knees, immediately feeling the pain of the small jagged rocks piercing her skin because she fell so hard onto them. Still, it was a relief, in some strange way. She'd become so accustomed to pain, told herself that it was what she deserved, that it felt like exactly what was supposed to happen. In seconds, the meager contents of her stomach were emptying onto the ground, and her desperate tears, which had stopped only moments before, had begun again with even more force than the first time.
As soon as she'd broken loose from him, Kurt had reached for Jane, attempting to catch her before she hit the ground. To his dismay, he couldn't manage it, but in seconds he was kneeling carefully beside her. Her long hair had been secured in a ponytail, but somewhere along the way it had loosened, and he held back her hair to make sure that it wouldn't end up with any of the offensive smelling material in it.
Still having been unsuccessful in getting her to respond to him, he was becoming more and more concerned. When she'd stopped throwing up, he put an arm around the front of her waist, tugging gently. "Come on, Jane, let's get you up," he told her. He'd half expected her to fight him, but was surprised when she allowed herself to be lifted back up to the rock. The heels of her hands were bleeding and she'd torn multiple small holes in the knees of her pants, where her skin seemed to be bleeding a little bit as well, but she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she simply looked at him, saying nothing, her face full of anguish. At some point in the last few minutes he'd dropped his gear, and now he was rummaging in his overloaded backpack for the first aid kit and a toothbrush.
The first thing he handed her was a bottle of water, with the top already removed. He knew that he also needed to stop the bleeding on her hands – though it wasn't life threatening – but he didn't have anything clean to hand her while he looked for the first aid kit that seemed to be at the very bottom of his bag. After all, he'd been on trails and sleeping on the ground for weeks. Everything he had with him was dirty, at this point. The cleanest he could hope for was the things that had been worn and then "rinsed" by the rain. Realizing this, he found the t-shirt he'd been wearing the last time he'd been soaked by the rain and then dried by a campfire – it had happened more than once, despite his umbrella – and tore a long strip off from around the bottom.
That shirt was a little too long, anyway, he thought. Tearing the strip in half, he let go of his backpack for the moment and crouched in front of Jane. Folding each piece of cloth, he laid them gently against the injured parts of her hands, then pressed her hands together to keep pressure on them.
"Keep your hands together for me for a second, okay?" he asked her, looking up at her worriedly. Though she didn't reply, her fingers interlocked slowly, pulling her hands tightly together.
The thing that worried Kurt the most just then wasn't the small injuries that needed bandaging, it was the dullness he saw in her eyes. It wasn't the harshness of Remi, but it also wasn't Jane. He couldn't help but worry about her, and about what must be going on in her head.
He finally found the first aid kit and his toothbrush and toothpaste. Letting a few drops of water fall onto the toothbrush, he added a small dab of toothpaste and then handed it to her. In a few minutes he had wiped down all of the affected areas on her hands with antibacterial wipes, then bandaged them up. At that point he rolled up her pants and worked on her knees while she brushed her teeth, spitting the toothpaste off to the far side of her and rinsing her mouth with water from the bottle he'd given her before. The holes in the knees of her pants weren't large, and for now they weren't a priority. As far as he was concerned, now that she was no longer bleeding, his priority was getting her to at least look at him.
"Jane, let's go and sit on that next rock, a little further down," he suggested. "It shouldn't smell as bad over there." Her eyes did finally focus on him then, but she didn't reply, didn't move except to tilt her eyes upwards to follow him when he stood up and hoisted his two bags onto his back again, looking down at her expectantly. He tried his best to smile, but he was too worried, and his face just didn't react the way he wanted it to.
She knew that she should save him the trouble of trying to pull her up, but she simply couldn't convince her body to cooperate with her mind. It was as though everything was on a time delay, and she hadn't yet caught up. However, this time when he put a hand on her back, then leaned over slowly, trying to keep his balance while wearing all of his gear as he slid his hand across her back, she slowly felt her ability to lift herself returning.
He was pleasantly surprised when he felt her lifting up without relying completely on him, and he took it as a positive sign. Together they walked to the next large, flat rock, just a little farther down the path, where the stench of throw up wasn't noticeable. Helping her settle back down again, he once again set down his gear and then sat down beside her.
"Jane…" he began, not sure what to say next, suddenly, only that he had to say something. He had to keep her with him, had to convince her that he wasn't scared, no matter how much she seemed to believe that she was a danger to him. He turned to face her, sitting on her right, and put his left arm slowly around her back. Finding no resistance, his right arm moved around the front of her, beginning at her right shoulder but draping downwards so that his right hand rested close to her waist. It was less than a minute before he felt her lean towards him, her head falling against his left shoulder little by little.
"It doesn't happen all the time, but… often enough," she whispered, sounding exhausted. "I'll remember things that I guess I – she – was there for. I don't remember all of it at once, necessarily, but the things I do remember… I remember how it felt. How she felt at that time. I think that's the part I can't get past. Because it's not like watching someone else… There's these things I suddenly remember saying and doing and feeling and it's not me, but… it is. It doesn't look like a movie, like watching someone else do it. It's like remembering myself doing it… Because it is me. And if I can do those things, then what else…" She stopped, choking on her own words.
His heart ached for her yet again, and he pulled her tighter. "Jane, it wasn't you. It's not you. And it's not going to be you," he told her soothingly.
"I wish I could know that for sure," she whispered. Then, with a sigh, she added, "I just want it to stop. I just want to go back to…" With a shake of her head, she squeezed her eyes closed, realizing that there was no time that she could remember than had been easy. Even the time after their wedding, when she'd been so happy, she'd felt a nagging fear that it had too good to be true, and it was so good only because Shepherd had allowed her to get to that point to set up for another something terrible. Never mind that Shepherd was in a dark hole somewhere. Jane just couldn't believe that the woman could be contained forever. Eventually, she would escape, and then she would come for Jane.
"I don't know," she finished, drained of nearly all emotion.
He was rocking her gently, without even noticing that he was doing it at first, and she turned around slowly to face him, leaning against him and wrapping her arms around his middle. Yet again, she'd forced herself to forget how much this helped her – just this, him, holding onto her like this. Just then it seemed amazing that she'd ever been able to make herself forget, because how could she ever have forgotten this feeling?
"I'm sorry," he whispered, feeling truly helpless. He turned his head slightly and kissed her temple, wishing there was something more than he could do.
"All that time," she murmured, suddenly sounding far away. "When I couldn't remember any of it. And I wanted nothing as desperately as I wanted to remember my past. And now…" She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, feeling herself on the verge of tears again, shaking her head against the onslaught of memories. She saw that same one again, as well as many others that flashed more quickly through her mind and froze as single images, piling up as if they were layered on top of each other. "I just wish I could forget." Her last words would have been too quiet for him to hear if he hadn't been holding her so close.
"I know," he whispered, for lack of anything better to say. "But it's going to be okay." A choked sob escaped her and she shook her head, unable to speak. He did the only thing he could think to do – he held on tighter still, leaning his cheek against the top of her head.
She wished she could believe it, but at that moment, the idea that anything could ever be okay was even harder to believe than it had been back at the very beginning, when she had remembered nothing. Now she had the opposite problem, and yet it was even worse. As much as she wanted to believe him… how could it possibly ever be okay?
He felt her shudder at his words, and he knew that she probably couldn't believe it, as much as she might want to. It made him sad, but he understood. After everything that had happened, in some ways it was like they were starting over – no, they were starting out even farther back than they had in the first place, because there was now so much more baggage. In other ways, of course, they were starting out miles and miles ahead, and not just because they were married. No, as strong as their connection had been at first, it was a thousand times stronger now because of what they'd gone through together.
As if there wasn't enough for them to deal with at that moment, there was also the fact that the needed to keep moving. They had a three day hike down the mountain, and they had three days' worth of food. So far today, their pace was about half of what it should be because of several stops which, while they had been necessary at the time for one reason or another, were not helping them stay on pace.
"I hate to say this, but we can't afford to sit here much longer," he told her hesitantly. "Are you going to be okay to walk for a while?" They needed to at least make progress, even if their pace was slow. Slow was better than nothing, at least.
"Yeah," she replied softly. The fire that was usually in her voice was missing, however. It came out as more doubtful than anything else, despite her affirmative answer. Nodding his head, Kurt reluctantly dropped his arms from around her and pushed himself back up to his feet, then turned around to help her off the rock. She took the hand he offered, letting him pull her up, standing there for a second and just looking at him sadly as she continued to hold onto his hand.
Such despair on the face of someone he'd seen endure so much without so much as a complaint, even when it would have been perfectly justified, was painful to see. Without a second thought, he wrapped his arms around her, relieved when he felt her relax against him immediately and without hesitation. They could do this. The two of them, together.
They took several deep breaths together, in unison, before leaning back slowly, their arms falling back towards their sides as he turned around to pick up his backpacks. Jane hadn't even realized that she'd been wearing hers the whole time. No wonder her shoulders hurt. Within seconds of Kurt settling their gear on his back, their hands, which had been joined in the first place, were once again squeezed tightly together.
"Come on," he told her. "Let's try to get as far as we can before we take a break and have something to eat."
The thought of food made her feel queasy just then, but since he wasn't actually suggesting she eat at that moment, she was able to push it from her mind. Eating was one of the many things that she felt like she would never do again, judging from how she was feeling just then.
Just put one foot in front of the other, she told herself.
In her mind, she attempted to come up with a train of thought that was safe, that wouldn't give her flashbacks or lead to her defaulting to Remi's memories or otherwise upset her. Her mind flipped through a very short series of happy images – there wasn't an abundance from which she could choose, after all. Even some of the ones that had provided a happy moment between the two of them had been associated with something else, mainly Sandstorm… Her mind was a web of pitfalls.
Finally, as they began to walk hand in hand, in silence, she settled her thoughts on their wedding day. There were few days that had gone according to plan, whatever that plan may have been, since she had been delivered to the FBI, but thankfully, that had been one of them. Patterson, who had appointed herself Chief Wedding Planner, had seen to that. Had it been up to Jane and Kurt, they would have just as easily gone to City Hall and been married by a judge. However, Jane hadn't dared to say this out loud to Patterson and Zapata, who had taken it upon themselves to plan a small but absolutely perfect ceremony and reception with the people who mattered most to them.
The part of the preparations that had taken the longest and caused the most stress had been her wedding dress. It had taken longer for the three women to find the right dress than it had to plan the entire rest of the ceremony and reception, longer than taking care of all of the other details combined. Again, Jane would have happily worn a tank top and jeans. She didn't see the need for such a fuss – and such an expensive fuss, at that – over something that would be worn exactly one time. Besides, she wasn't exactly comfortable in the frilly dresses that her friends had made her try on. Just wait, they'd told her. You'll see.
Her thoughts settled on Day Seven of wedding dress shopping. Another full Saturday of Patterson and Zapata dragging Jane around all parts of New York City to try on dresses that made her feel a thousand times more ridiculous than that first dress she'd worn to go undercover with Kurt. She'd been getting tired of all the nonsensical fuss over a dress that apparently didn't exist, quite honestly, but didn't have the heart to say so to the two women who were so determined that not only did such a dress exist, but that they were going to find it. If it actually existed, Jane was sure, it was going to cost about a million dollars. She knew that there were dresses out there that cost far upwards of what an FBI agent could make in a year, because they'd made her try on the expensive ones, just for fun, as well.
The last dress she'd tried on that day, at a tiny, hole in the wall shop somewhere in Brooklyn – Jane had stopped even paying attention to where they were, since Patterson and Zapata insisted on dragging her from one end of the Earth to the other – hadn't looked spectacular on the hanger. Or maybe it was just that she'd been forced to look at so many dresses that she no longer saw anything but a blur of white. Whatever stamina for shopping the other two women had, Jane was pretty sure that she would never come anywhere close to it. If shopping had been an Olympic sport, Patterson would have taken gold and Zapata silver, Jane had decided.
But it turned out that the dress was Jane's size, and it was white, with enough sparkle to satisfy her friends, but not so much that Jane recoiled, as she had at some of the others they'd suggested. She didn't want to feel like the ball made of crystals that was dropped on New Year's Eve, after all.
When she'd emerged from the fitting room, she'd been ready to throw up her hands and ask if they could please, please be finished for that day. She'd never been a fan of shopping, and though it was fun to spend the day with Patterson and Zapata, it would have been significantly more fun to spend it doing something else. Almost anything else, really. At that moment, she couldn't help but wish for a criminal to chase down or a tattoo lead to follow up on. For some reason, more than anything else, shopping simply exhausted her. She hadn't even bothered to look at herself in the mirror, simply watching the reaction of the other two women to gauge how the dress looked on her.
However, the looks on the faces of the other two when she stepped out in front of the mirror caught her off guard. Seeing their mouths open in surprise, she finally turned and looked at herself reluctantly in the mirror. This felt like perhaps the five hundredth dress she tried on in the past few months, or maybe the ten thousandth, and yet somehow, looking at her reflection at that moment, she suddenly got the feeling that this was the one she was supposed to have. After staring at herself in the mirror in surprise, she walked closer to it to for a better look. Upon closer inspection, she saw that there were tiny flecks of light green sewn into the white fabric behind each of the crystals that littered the dress, most heavily concentrated on the top, but also scattered over the rest of the A-line style skirt.
"Please tell me this one doesn't cost a million dollars," Zapata said when she recovered the power of speech. "I'll start a Go Fund Me account if I have to, but it would be so much easier if we could just buy it and be done." She walked up behind Jane and checked the price tag, which was poking out of the back of the dress, and they were all pleasantly surprised to discover that this dress was not only almost reasonably priced to start with – for a wedding dress, anyway – but that it was also fifty percent off.
"Alright then, finally our work here is done," Patterson had declared to Zapata, satisfied that they had found the perfect dress. The two grinned at each other triumphantly, then looked back at Jane's reflection, watching for her reaction.
Jane wasn't absorbing anything they were saying. Her friends' voices had faded into background noise as she examined herself in the three paneled mirror. She'd gotten closer to the center panel, standing inches away to examine the dress in detail, and stood there, almost mesmerized by it. Though she hadn't wanted anything nearly that fancy, she now saw why her friends had insisted. It certainly wasn't typical Jane… but it was breathtaking.
She could appreciate the fact that the dress went down to the floor, thereby covering a large percentage of her tattoos. Still, the ones on her arms, neck and chest were exposed. They stood out in stark contrast to the white of the fabric, obscured only by thin spaghetti straps. Even so, the sparkle of the crystals almost distracted from the dark ink, and the flecks of green behind them helped to make her eyes look even greener than usual. When she turned around to look at the back over her shoulder in the mirror, she saw that the top of the dress came up just below the bottom of her most prominent tattoo, KURT WELLER FBI. That seemed especially fitting, and she couldn't help but smile at her reflection.
Zapata and Patterson had now advanced towards her, bringing their excited chatter into her ears. "So, what do you think, Jane?" they asked. She'd just smiled, turning back around to face forward, toward the mirror, but looked from Patterson's reflection to Zapata's and back again, beaming.
"It's perfect," she replied, her voice softer than usual. Just before she remembered the two of them squealing excitedly, the memory faded, and she was back in the present.
Suddenly, she felt his hand squeezing hers. Her eyes adjusted to the light again, and she could once again see the trail ahead of them, leading down a mountain. "Hey," Kurt was saying from beside her, "You okay?"
Feeling calmer now, after reliving a happy memory, she nodded as she looked back at him. "I was just remembering…" When he raised his eyebrows warily, she shook her head. "No, I was remembering something happy. For once. You know, just for variety."
Uttered in a different tone, her words may have signaled that she was upset, but as it was, she was smiling and she actually sounded happy. A happy memory, he thought with relief. Well, good. That's a nice change. After all, those weren't the ones she usually bombarded herself with.
He was watching her curiously, and she could see that he really wanted to know what she'd been thinking about that had made her so happy, which only made her smile harder. The more he smiled at her, the more she smiled at him. His concern for her was so endearing… Finally she gave in to his unspoken request.
"I was thinking about the last day that Patterson and Zapata dragged me out wedding dress shopping. The day we found the one," she told him. That thought, of course, led back to their wedding by extension, and it was only a second before they were both grinning from ear to ear.
No matter how difficult things were right now, he couldn't deny that that day had been magical. It had been hard for him to think about their wedding for the past six months, since Jane had been gone. Not that that had stopped him, of course. On the contrary, he had thought about it, and about her, every time he had looked down at the wedding ring that he had refused to take off – no matter how much those thoughts had hurt. Thankfully, now he had her back, and now he could breathe again. The memories of that day no longer stung.
Watching her smile filled him with happiness. "You looked so beautiful that day," he told her, then watched her blush. Then, because it was the truth, but also to see her blush again, he added, "Of course, you look beautiful now, too."
A laugh escaped from her then, as she looked down at herself. She was wearing hiking boots, there were holes in the knees of her pants, and she was wearing a plain white t-shirt that wasn't nearly as white as it was supposed to be. Who knew how she smelled at that point? In short, she felt about as scrubby as she'd ever been. Shaking her head, she looked back at him in amusement. Was he kidding?
"I'm serious," he told her sincerely. His expression said that he meant what he was saying, she noticed, and she blushed again.
"I look like… like I've lived with monks for…" She shook her head, unable to even say for sure. "I don't even know long I was here," she protested softly, her tone suddenly changing from happy to wistful.
"Too long," he replied in a whisper, his voice breaking as the words slipped out before he could catch them. Then, forcing his voice to steady, he added, "I don't think you've ever looked so beautiful. Or…" He paused, thinking of the other option. "I'm just so glad to have found you…" He was surprised when he felt her tugging him to a stop, her hand pulling him even closer as she leaned up to kiss him, closing her eyes for the short but sweet kiss.
"You're quite the sight for sore eyes, yourself," she told him in a whisper, her eyes still closed as she tilted her forehead against the bridge of his nose. If only she could capture the way she was feeling at that exact moment, she would have bottled it up and saved it forever.
"She says, with her eyes closed," he whispered, chuckling, as he shifted so that he could kiss her forehead. He took the opportunity, since they were stopped, to wrap his arms around her once again. He had the feeling that this was going to be a compulsive habit for quite a while… and that was quite alright with him.
"Technicalities," she replied with a smile as she opened her eyes. She was never going to get tired of opening her eyes to find them there in front of her.
They couldn't afford to make another stop just then, however, so simply looking at each other for a few seconds, they nodded in silent agreement. Reluctantly let go of each other, turning back toward the path and once again lacing their fingers together as they began walking.
It was about two hours later – though neither of them had bothered to check the time – when Kurt tugged her to a stop. The ground was slowly become less rocky, so there were no more large rocks on which to sit, but it was also covered in less and less gravel and more and more dirt. Or, as was the case right now, mud.
"Let's take a break," Kurt suggested, and Jane was certainly not going to argue with him. Slowly, since he was now stiff from carrying the weight for so long, he took his backpack off his back and moved things around inside until he found what he was looking for – a tarp to spread out so that they could sit down without ending up covered in mud.
Without a word, they each took a side and spread it out, using their backpacks to anchor it against the wind that whipped around them. That took care of three of the corners, and on the fourth Kurt put a bottle of water from the collection the monks had given them. That taken care of, they moved to sit down carefully, trying to avoid getting mud on the tarp if at all possible. After all, they would undoubtedly need it numerous times between now and when they got home.
Once again, they settled down close together, both leaning against the other – slightly at first, almost as if they weren't sure what the other would think, but then more deliberately. Once again they remembered that they fit together perfectly.
"My socks are still wet," he thought aloud. "I want to take them off and put on a clean pair, but I have a feeling that I'm never going to want to put my boots back on again… Also, are your feet hurting? Or is it just me?"
Jane nodded in agreement. She had the same inner conflict about not wanting to change her socks, knowing that putting her boots back on would feel even worse. "It's not just you," she groaned. "I only noticed when we sat down, but my feet kind of feel like… like they're on fire."
"Changing socks is a good idea then," he decided. "Do you need some help?"
"Help? No, that's fine, I can—"
But it was too late. He'd reached over and begun untying her boots, being as gentle as possible when he lifted the right one, which was closest to him – off of her foot and set it nearby, followed a moment later by the left one. She scooted back slightly now that her boots were off, her feet on the tarp.
"Oh wow, Jane—" he started, but she cut him off.
"Oh my—what in the world is happening with my feet?" Jane asked, staring at red splotches on her socks, which the water had helped to spread out considerably across the white fabric. Kurt frowned, his own boots still on his feet, sitting just off the tarp. He scooted back slightly to make space on his lap, then pulled her feet gently up to rest there.
"Let's take a look," he told her, not feeling nearly as panicked as she looked. Now that he thought about it, it made sense. Their wet feet were probably covered in blisters…
Just what we needed when the main thing we have to do to get home is walk, he thought.
As gently as he could, he peeled off her first sock, then the other, revealing just what he'd expected. The morning's walk had rubbed blisters into her feet, quite a few of which had popped and were bleeding. They weren't gushing, however, and thanks to the wet socks – which were the predominant cause of them in the first place – they had looked much worse than they were.
"Do they hurt?" he asked her, watching Jane carefully as she looked down at her feet. She inhaled just a little deeper than usual before replying, "Well, they don't feel good, but… It's not too bad." The look on her face for just a split second reminded him that she had been through much worse than blisters on her feet. Though it seemed backwards, he winced while she did not.
They're just blisters, no big deal, she thought, shivering as she recalled some of the more painful things she'd been through at the hands of the CIA.
"Let's get them cleaned up," he told her. "Infected blisters are definitely worse." Realizing that he couldn't move around very well while his feet were planted on the dirt around the tarp, he glared at his feet before beginning to unlace his own boots. "I'll get the first aid kit in a second," he told her. "I just need to be able to reach my pack." His feet now freed from his own boots, he set her feet down on the tarp and ignored the fact that his socks looked very much like hers, with red splotches all over. He crawled to the other side of the tarp to retrieve the first aid kit, and when he had the supplies that he needed laid out in reach, he beckoned her back over.
"Let me have those feet again," he told her. Shaking her head at him but smiling at the chance to put her feet in his lap, she did as she was told, sitting back a little to be able to reach at the right angle and then just watching him contentedly. It felt decadent to be able to just sit and look at him.
He knew that she was grinning at him, could feel the warmth of her stare on him as he gently turned her foot for a better look. He had a spray version of an antiseptic, and he ended up spraying it on so much of her foot, that there were few areas without any. Patting her foot all over with a disposable cloth, he looked back up into her eyes, which were fixed on what he was doing, but quickly snapped up to look into his. For just a second, his hand stopped moving as he almost forgot what he was doing. At that moment, he felt like no matter how much he looked at her, it might never be enough. He wondered if the feeling of fear that she would simply vanish into thin air, which he felt just then, would ever go away.
There was something in his eyes just then as he looked at her, as though he'd just been distracted from the task at hand by… She couldn't put her finger on it. His eyes were happy, and yet sad at the same time.
You did this to him, she thought, despite what he'd said about understanding why she'd left, about not being angry, and the appearance of confidence that they would work through it. She was angry with herself, even though she hadn't thought that she had another choice.
He watched the happiness in her face drain out, even as her expression didn't change almost at all. It must be showing in his face, he realized… the strain. They were both far too perceptive when it came to each other, and just now there was so much still to work out between them… it made things complicated, even though on the surface it felt simple. They were relieved to be together, but the hard part wasn't all behind them.
The simple part was, of course, that both of them were desperately happy to be reunited. They had both feared that they would never see the other again, and neither had known how in the world they could go on that way – without the person who made them feel whole. The more complicated part was what hurt so much, even as they were so happy. They each felt it differently, but they both felt the pain deeply.
For a few seconds, they just stared at each other, a million things passing between them without either of them saying a word. And then Kurt smiled slightly, as if to remind her that it was okay. Then Jane smiled back in return, also just slightly, and once again, it felt like things were going to be alright after all. He moved on to her other foot, spraying the antiseptic on the raw spots and then patting her foot dry, looking up at her once again.
"They should be dry enough for socks in a few minutes," he told her, no longer looking at her feet, but into her eyes.
"Thanks," she murmured. "You're going to let me return the favor, right?"
He opened his mouth with the intention of protesting, but he saw her looking at the splotches on his feet, and he got the distinct feeling that she wasn't going to accept "no" for an answer. And then, of course, there was the fact that he was certainly not averse to her taking care of him. Thankfully, he thought just long enough to stop himself from declining.
"Yeah," he replied quietly. "As soon as yours are done." She seemed to accept this, nodding back at him. "In the meantime," he told her, "we need to eat something." Besides the bottle of water that he set down between them, he pulled out a small bundle wrapped in a cloth. It was from the provisions the monks had provided them, so they didn't know what it was until he unwrapped it. Upon inspection, it appeared to be a small pile of some sort of dumplings.
Kurt picked one up, but instead of taking a bite out of it, he offered it to Jane. She'd been watching the gesture, and now her eyes once again came up to meet his, radiating surprise and, if he was not mistaken, just a little more happiness than they had before. "Here," he said in a low voice. "Give it a try."
"I've had these already," she assured him. "They're very good."
"Oh, right… I forgot…" he voice trailed off, and he felt his face tighten as he looked away.
Of course, he realized. She's already been here for quite a while. She already knows their food. For some reason this bothered him, and for a few seconds he struggled with why, even as he felt Jane now watching him. He reached for a dumpling absently as well, holding it between his fingers but not taking a bite. Why does that bother me? he wondered.
Because it's a reminder that she left, and of how long she'd been here, the voice in his head told him matter-of-factly. Not that you need another reminder, of course, but that's what it is.
Her smile faded as well, and she felt the urge to do something. She knew that he didn't want her to feel guilty, that he wasn't purposely doing anything to elicit a sympathetic reaction out of her, but she also knew that watching him suffer wasn't any easier for her than watching her suffer was for him. She needed time to get over what she had done to them, but so did he. Time and patience and…
Lifting her feet off of his lap, she turned slightly, scooting backwards until she sat beside him. "Try it," she urged him quietly, which was when he realized that he was still holding the dumpling. He popped the whole thing in his mouth and bit into it, then nodded his approval. Now that his right hand was free, she reached down and took it in her left, leaning her head on his right shoulder.
Even though I want to say "I'm sorry," I know he'll tell me not to, she thought. And so, she chose to say something else that was equally true, but less likely to be something to which he objected.
"I love you," she whispered, squeezing his hand. "More than anything."
He turned his head toward her now, where hers was leaned against his shoulder, and kissed a spot on the top, in the middle of her hair. "I love you, too," he told her. "And I need you just as much as I need air. You may not believe it, but it's true. So…" She could feel him looking down at her, and she turned her head to look back up at him.
"So no more running away," she whispered, knowing that he'd been waiting for her to say it.
"Not even for my own good," he finished. "Okay?"
She nodded as she quickly looked away, feeling her face tighten and tears suddenly prickling at her eyes. Attempting to distract from the fact that she'd turned away to prevent him from seeing the anguish on her face and hoping that she'd done so before he could read her reaction, she picked up another dumpling in her right hand. After hesitated for a second, she turned back towards him. Reaching across herself, since her left hand was holding his right, she held it out to him in the palm of her right hand, avoiding his eyes by keeping hers on the dumpling. She was relieved when he reached across and took it in his left hand, keeping his right hand clasped in hers.
Letting her eyes drop again, she felt him squeeze her hand almost immediately. "You are more important than my own good, whatever that's supposed to be," he told her. "Even though that doesn't really make sense."
Without thinking about it to be able to stop herself, she started to say that thing that she wasn't supposed to say. "I'm s—" But that was as far as she got.
"Hey," he interrupted her quickly. "Let's get one thing straight here. I know that. Okay? I told you, I don't want you to keep apologizing. This is not easy – hasn't been easy – for either of us. But it is going to be okay. And I know I keep saying it… but it's because it's true. We're both pretty stubborn, after all, and if we decide that it's going to be okay, then… well… it just is. Alright?" He paused to let his words sink in, then added uncertainly, "Unless you think… if you don't want to…" Just uttering those last words made him feel a little nauseous.
Her head was shaking against him before she even had time to process the thought – the mere suggestion of not having him around – completely. As her hand tightened in his, she inhaled sharply through her mouth.
Taking that as more than enough of a reply, he chuckled softly. "Okay, good, then I think we agree," he told her. "Okay?"
"Yeah," she whispered, picking her head up so that she could look at him. "Now let me see your ugly feet." He smiled broadly for a split second before pretending to be deeply offended, while she scooted back so that he could put his feet in her lap, as she'd done with him a little while before. She gently peeled off his wet socks, just as he'd done with hers, then carefully sprayed antiseptic on the raw spots before patting his feet dry as well. When she finally looked up, she found him watching her with the same smile that he'd always reserved for her and no one else, for as long as she could remember. The Just For Jane smile.
"Do you want anything else to eat?" he asked.
"No, I'm fine," she replied. She honestly wasn't hungry, and she also knew that they had a limited amount of food with them. He was watching her carefully, she noticed, as if he was trying to read whether she was telling him the truth. "I'll have some more later, I promise," she added. "It's a long way, after all." That last part finally made him acquiesce, and the skepticism faded from his face. Suddenly it occurred to her how endearing his behavior was, and she couldn't help but smile broadly.
He ate one more dumpling before wrapping them up again, storing them in his backpack and handing her the water once more. "Drink some more," he insisted, which she did before handing it back.
"Alright, now let's put some band aids on those feet," he told her. "Just maybe, we won't end up with bloody socks again." She shifted obediently to put her feet back in his lap and smiled when he rested his hands gently on her ankles for a few seconds before reaching for the band aids. He covered the spots that needed it, keeping a close eye on their quickly dwindling band aid supply and knowing that his feet weren't going to help matters one bit.
"We need to go easy on the bleeding, because we're going to run out of band aids if we're not careful," he remarked.
"Got it, no more bleeding," she replied, reluctantly moving her feet off of his lap and shifting so that she could take the band aids from him. Once she'd bandaged his feet, she looked at him, only now realizing one important potential flaw in their plan. "Um… now the question is whether we have any dry socks to put on."
Kurt had just been thinking the same thing, and he grimaced. "Fingers crossed," he said with a shrug, digging into his bag to look. Jane pulled her smaller bag towards her and opened it apprehensively. The top fabric of the bag itself was wet. The clothes at the top – 2 shirts – were pretty wet, while the pair of pants below them were only damp. Getting down to the bottom of her bag, the 2 pairs of socks and 2 pairs of underwear there were… maybe not 100% dry, but only the slightest bit damp. Better than she'd feared but not quite as dry as she'd hoped.
She pulled out one pair of socks and found him looking at her, holding a pair of his. "So?" he asked. "How bad is it?"
"Not too bad, actually," she replied. "Slightly damp, but not horrible."
He nodded. "Mine are a little wet, but better that what I had on. The problem, of course, is how wet our boots are…"
Groaning, she realized that she'd also completely overlooked the issue of the wet boots. They both moved carefully to the edge of the tarp to inspect the inside of their boots. Again, they weren't soaked, but they could have done with some drying time.
"I think they'll work for the afternoon," he said optimistically. At least, he hoped their feet wouldn't end up soaked all over again. "And then we'll build a fire tonight, and hopefully they'll get a chance to dry." Jane nodded, having no better plan to propose. The two of them sat back and put on their only slightly damp socks. They now each had only 1 pair of clean and mostly dry socks left, and most of their three day trek to go. This was more than a little concerning, but neither of them said it aloud. They were also concerned about running out of food and water, so clean clothes weren't even the most important thing they had on their minds.
Once their boots were on again, the folded up the tarp, careful to fold the dirty side against itself to keep as much of the dirt as possible from touching anything in Kurt's backpack.
"Uh, before we go, I need to… pee," Jane said, slightly embarrassed.
"Yep, me too," he replied. They looked around at the wide open space they were currently standing in. There wasn't anything remotely resembling privacy. Yes, they were married, but even in the best of circumstances they still closed the bathroom door. "I don't think anyone else is going to happen along, so… pick a spot." He crossed his arms and faced off in one direction, away from her, making it clear that he would keep facing that way.
She grinned as she walked away from him. He could be so darn cute. A few minutes later she walked back over to stand beside him, bumping him playfully with her shoulder.
"Better?" he asked.
"Yep," she replied, surprised when he handed her a bottle of hand sanitizer.
"Oh, nice," she told him, surprised that he'd thought to have that along.
"I picked it up about halfway through this trip. Seemed like a good idea," he said with a smile. "I'll be right back," he added, disappearing behind her.
Once she finished rubbing the gel into her hands, she stood and stared out over the wide landscape in front of her. This was certainly somewhere she never would have expected to end up. It was a long way from New York City and everything else she had known up until the moment she had left. And even with all the obstacles they faced in getting back home… being here at the end of the Earth had suddenly changed from feeling like a punishment that she'd inflicted upon herself to almost a vacation. Now that she was here with Kurt.
Speaking of Kurt, he walked back up beside her a moment later, and she held the bottle out upside down, ready to squeeze some gel on his palm. He held his hand up with a grin and she did just that, then rubbed his hands together quickly before he put it back in his backpack.
"Ready to get moving again?" he asked.
Her feet were now feeling very sore, and she still felt damp all over from the rain, but all things considered, she'd been much worse before and survived. Besides, that was when he took her hand again, and she promptly forgot about anything that may have been bothering her.
"Ready," she replied.
"Oh, one more thing," he said suddenly, just as she'd taken a step forward. She turned back to look at him questioningly, and was surprised when his face was suddenly directly in front of hers. Pressing a kiss against her lips, he brought his free hand up to her face and cupped it against her cheek, letting their faces linger just another few seconds against each other.
"I'm glad you didn't forget that," she whispered when they drew apart.
"Never," he replied softly, touching his forehead against hers and then straightening up again. "Now let's go."
It was much easier to continue along the path now that they were re-energized, and that was exactly what they did. There was still a long way to go, after all, and only one way to get home, both literally and figuratively: moving forward.