Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession. And once again today, my itchiness as well.

A/N: As I write this, I'm a day farther along in this ordeal than Jane, and I'm starting to feel so bad for both of us, that I'm considering letting her poison ivy heal before mine… sympathy that the poison ivy gods are not feeling for me, sadly. But we'll see… Also, how hilarious that last night amid all the SDCC pictures and interviews for Blindspot season 2, Jaimie Alexander said that she was allergic to poison ivy! What were the odds? Anyway, enjoy!

On the fourth day (well, third really, except that Weller counted that first night as Day 1) of Jane's poison ivy ordeal, Weller arrived at about 8:00am and knocked on the door, only to come face to face with a very annoyed Jane, her phone glued to her ear. She opened the door and stepped back to let him pass, then closed the door, not making any effort to hide the annoyance in her voice.

"I really appreciate it, but—" Her eyes narrowed, and he had a sudden urge to step to the side, lest actual lasers come out of them. She was clearly that annoyed. Walking towards the counter with the one bag that he had with him, he set it down quietly, took a seat on a stool, and watched her. He was trying to figure out who in the world she was talking to. After all, she didn't know that many people.

"Yes, of course those clothes have been washed. That was a week ago—" Again, someone had obviously cut her off. He was wondering how much more of this she could take before an actual explosion occurred. He was confused, fascinated and frightened all at once. And he couldn't help but want to wring the neck of whoever was getting Jane so agitated, since he would be the one to have to talk her back down.

"Yes, I know." Her voice was cold and said stop messing with me or you will regret it.

"No, I wasn't doing yardwork. I don't even have a yard, really. I was on a case. I chased a guy through—" It would not surprised him if she threw her phone across the room any minute now.

"Do I have what to use? For what?" She paused and rolled her eyes. "For identification? You mean like… a book? Or Google? Because I didn't even know which plant it was that I shouldn't have touched, so no, I didn't take a sample or a picture or anything that I can look back at now…"

She was getting rather sarcastic now, and if the person on the other end wasn't picking up on that, then… wait. That sounded like someone he knew… and Jane only knew one person, that he knew of, that would ask that kind of questions. He knew Jane's frustration all too well, because that same person did this to him all the time, though he knew that she meant well.

Sarah.

Of course, his next thought was that this conversation was his fault, because when he'd run into Sarah the night before, when he'd come in after Sawyer had gone to bed, she'd wanted to know all about what he'd been up to the past few days. He'd told her about Jane's poison ivy. All he could do now was hope that she wouldn't be as annoyed with him as she clearly now was with Sarah. Sarah just liked to mother everyone, despite the fact that she was actually the younger sister. She always had. And Jane, of course, wasn't used to that whatsoever… Weller shook his head. This was a bad combination.

"At this point, it doesn't matter how I got it, does it? I have it, and I'm apparently really allergic to it. Now I know. There's a lot of things I don't know about myself. I doubt that was even the most important one."

Her words dripped with sarcasm so thick, he could almost see it. Poor Jane, he thought. And poor Sarah, if she didn't stop lecturing Jane pretty soon.

"Does it matter?" Jane said into the phone as she walked to the kitchen counter. Picking up the package that her tiny pills had come in, she read the very long name of the medicine she was on, slowly and carefully into the phone. "Methyl…Prednis…olone." She paused, and then looked as if she wanted to smack the person on the other end of the phone. Taking a deep breath, she began to spell it. "M-E-T-H-Y-L…" Pausing every few letters, because the other person – Sarah – was clearly writing this down, she finally got to the end of the word.

Oh God, Sarah's looking up the medicine they gave her, Weller thought. What good can that possibly do? What is she hoping to prove? Jane remained quiet, scowling into space, meeting his eyes for only a second before she closed hers in exasperation, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. Wow, Weller thought, Sarah's really on a roll today.

"Side effects? I don't know. I haven't had the desired side effect, the one where the reaction goes away, I know that…" Again, Weller shook his head. How was Sarah not getting how mad she was making Jane?

Jane had been wandering aimlessly as she talked, but suddenly she stopped in place, her eyes blazing. "I'm not angry because it's a side effect of the medicine. I'm angry because I've had pus filled blisters all over my body for days already, they're not going away, they're still spreading, and nothing is helping."

Again, there was quiet, while Jane listened to whatever Sarah was saying. She relaxed visibly, the fight going out of her. "No, Sarah, I know. I'm sorry, too. It's been a rough couple days…"

More quiet, and even a smile. "Yeah, that was the only good thing about the past couple days."

He couldn't be sure, but Jane looked like she was blushing slightly, and she turned around so that her back was to him. "Yeah, I know he does… Yeah, he really is… And he's standing here listening to me, so I should go… Okay, thank you, Sarah… I will… Yep, will do." She turned back around and looked at him, rolling her eyes. He chuckled slightly, knowing that Sarah was one of those people who had trouble hanging up the phone.

"Okay, I'll talk to you soon… Yes, I promise… Okay, bye… No, that's okay… Alright, bye, Sarah." Jane held her phone away from her ear so that she could look at the screen and pushed the red button to be sure the call was disconnected, before her eyes widened in surprise.

"Do you know how long she just talked to me for?" Jane asked.

"More or less than an hour?" Weller inquired, still sitting on the stool from which he'd watched most of the conversation unfold.

"Less, but just barely. Fifty-eight minutes! I don't even know how she did that… And oh, my goodness, I'm sorry, but your sister is…" she stopped, realizing that she wasn't sure if she wanted to use the world to describe Sarah that had popped into her mind. After all, she was his sister. She didn't want to make him mad.

"Overbearing? Impossible? Smothering?" he supplied. Jane smiled, nodding.

"Yes. One of those. I just… Wow…" Jane replied.

"A typical mothering reaction in this situation. It's just that you've never been the object of one of those," he observed, "And yes, it's weird coming from someone who is not your mother," he added. Not wanting her to focus on the not your mother part of the sentence, since she didn't have a mother that she could remember, and not wanting her to think that he was singling her out, he added, "She's been doing that to me for a very, very long time." Jane just shook her head, clearly still in shock. Kurt was just glad that the two of them had managed to end of a friendly note.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked, changing the subject. He wondered how long she'd been up.

"Sore. Pus-filled. Defeated. Annoyed…" She looked at him sadly. "Shall I go on?"

Shaking his head, he smiled at her, glad that he didn't need to talk her off the ledge, after all. "Meds?" he asked.

"Already took 'em," she replied.

He nodded, sufficiently impressed. "Breakfast?"

"Not yet," she said. "Sarah called right after I took my meds, and… you saw how that went."

"I'm sorry, Jane," he told her sincerely. She stared at him, confused.

Was he apologizing for Sarah? Why? She couldn't figure it out. "Why are you sorry?" she asked, puzzled.

"Well, I hadn't seen her for a few days, so last night when I got home, she was up, and she was asking me what was new, and how things were going, and…" He watched understanding dawn in her face as she put it together. Sarah had called to drive her crazy because he had told her about her poison ivy.

She smiled at him again. "Don't be silly," she said. "I know she's trying to be nice, she's just…"

"Overbearing, impossible, and smothering?" he asked again.

"Definitely," Jane replied. "I think I'll wait until I feel better before I talk to her again."

"Probably a smart move," Weller agreed. "So, you hungry?"

"I think I'm going to go shower and get the whole scrubbing thing over with," she said in sudden resignation. "That way I don't have to dread it, and I can enjoy breakfast."

"Makes sense," he nodded. Looking into the bag on the counter, he pulled out several of the now-familiar boxes of Zanfel and more extra-large band aids. "You need more of these?"

"Yes, thank you so much," she said, taking them from him and, while smiling at him, scowling at the boxes in her hands.

"How many of the tubes did you use at once yesterday?" he asked curiously.

She thought back to the previous day's shower, which wasn't as easy as it sounded. She was tending to block out these painful scrubbing sessions as best she could. "Two, I think. But I feel like there's more spots…" Shuddering, she tried not to think about it.

"You have enough?" he asked as she began walking like a prisoner condemned towards that stairs.

"I think so," she replied, then thinking about how much scrubbing the use of those little tubes would entail, she added miserably, "God, I hope so." Trudging up the stairs, she looked back towards him, where he still sat at the counter.

"Call me if you need anything," he said, though he didn't expect her to need anything. Though someone else might have thought that it was a strange thing for him to say to her as she went to take a shower – and that it might even have bordered on slightly inappropriate – she took his statement exactly as it was intended: Weller being his thoughtful self.

While he waited, he made coffee and pulled out the box of donuts that he'd picked up on the way. He enjoyed cooking, but it was always nice to have variety, as well.

Upstairs, Jane removed the bandages that she'd worn overnight on the leaking blisters – one of her least favorite steps in this whole unpleasant process – let the water warm up for a minute, and forced her weary self into the shower. How she longed for the days when she could actually enjoy the feeling of the water against her skin, instead of feeling betrayed by it!

She was interested to notice that this time, for the first time since Weller had told her what those foul bumps on her skin were, the water didn't make them feel as though they were on fire. While the shower wasn't enjoyable, it was at least more bearable. Still, the scrubbing took its toll, and with the existing clusters of blisters having grown, and new ones having begun forming, she found herself scrubbing longer and harder than she had any other day. All at once, she got the feeling that she simply couldn't do it anymore. It was as if, if she didn't sit down, she would fall down sooner than later. It was, if she was being honest with herself, a little bit scary.

Despite the fact that the water hitting her skin was feeling less vengeful today, still, scrubbing each patch of poison ivy was an intense, one to two minute process, and was anything but relaxing. She would realize later that because she was now scrubbing so many more spots than she had been before, and the stress of each one compounded on the previous ones, add to that the fact that she had had her steroids but no food in her system, and she had simply pushed herself too far.

Back in the present, she rinsed the scrub off of her completely, as the instructions insisted was essential for the product to take away the itch from the skin, and, despite the fact that she was nowhere near finished scrubbing, opened the shower curtain and stepped out. Grabbing the only towel she could find, she plopped it down on the floor, and sat down on top of it, breathing heavily. She knew that she wasn't finished, and that she needed to get back in and finish scrubbing herself off. This magical scrub, while expensive and abrasive and now the target of her current displeasure, was a necessary part of making it through this whole poison ivy ordeal. She had to finish.

Just give yourself a few minutes, she told herself. Maybe you just need a rest. She hoped that that was all it was, however, as she'd never felt light-headed before, that she could remember, it was a little bit frightening. The minutes passed slowly and the sound of the water – soothing enough when she didn't have to be under it – helped calm her down so that her breathing could return to normal.

Deciding that she was ready to try to get it over with, she pushed herself up off of the now soaking wet towel on which she'd been sitting, and stepped back into the shower to resume scrubbing. She was able to get to the larger patches without too much trouble, but did a less thorough job, skipping a few smaller ones that weren't really itching too much, just wanting to be done.

Weller started thinking that her shower was taking a little longer than usual, but figured that that could very well be because, as she'd told him so many times, the patches of poison ivy were growing bigger and more plentiful. It really didn't seem fair. He'd have thought that by now, this many days in, she'd be getting more relief than this. She was on a steroid, for goodness sake. Wasn't that the whole reason to take it? To make the reaction go away?

It was Saturday, and not quite as easy to see a doctor as it would be on a weekday. She had the advantage of seeing an FBI doctor, which meant that if it was necessary, she could have gone back in over the weekend, if they summoned someone in to see her. He knew that she would resist that option, not wanting to make things difficult for other people, so he figured that they'd just see how things went.

When Jane finally arrived back downstairs, clean and even more traumatized looking than she had on the previous days, and once again dressed in loose cotton pants and a t-shirt, he couldn't help but wonder if something had happened. "Everything okay?" he asked with concern.

"I guess I should have eaten first," she said slowly, sitting down and trying to steady herself. "I didn't really think about how intense the scrubbing is. Even though the water itself wasn't hurting me today, the scrubbing does hurt, and you have to do it pretty hard, and for a few minutes at a time on each spot, and I… all of a sudden I felt like I was going to fall over." Surprise and concern immediately registered in his eyes, so she continued. "I just got out and sat down on a towel for a few minutes, to catch my breath," she added. "I'm okay. I just… I wasn't expecting that."

"You felt it mostly in your head?" he asked. She nodded, smiling thankfully as she picked up the coffee that was waiting for her on the counter. "That's what they call feeling 'light-headed.' Your instinct to sit down was good. And yes, if you have more scrubbing to do tomorrow, please eat breakfast first. Speaking of which," he said, reaching for the box of nine different flavored donuts, "pick one."

Her eyes widened at all of the choices. She'd had donuts before, but she didn't remember them being presented this way. They were all so… pretty. It seemed like a shame to eat any of them. "Why'd you get so many?" she asked, stalled between a chocolate one and another whose exact flavor she wasn't quite sure of.

"They're donuts!" he exclaimed. "You gotta have a variety. Besides, we can save them, they'll still be good later, or tomorrow… if we haven't finished them by then." He was as excited by the donuts as just about anything she'd seen him talk about, his little boy grin plastered across his face. It was very cute.

"If you say so," she told him, finally taking the not yet identified flavor of donut. Because why not?

She munched happily, but after hearing about her lightheadedness, he insisted on also making her some eggs, so that she was eating something more substantial than just sugar. Sitting on the stool and watching him work, she simply enjoyed her coffee and the fact that, if she didn't move or look down at herself, she could almost forget for just a moment that she was now a mutant. The last time she'd mentioned this to Weller, he'd said that that made her very, very cool, and mentioned something about a movie, but he said that that would be something for another day.

He handed her the plate of eggs, and carried an identical one that he'd made for himself back around to the counter as well. It was then that she realized just how many meals she and Weller had had together in a row. The team often had lunch together – when they had time to have lunch at all – of course, and occasionally went out after work, but this was very different. Since she had no frame of reference for ever having lived anywhere with another person, this was the closest thing she had. It was nice. There was something comforting about having another person around, especially one that was Weller. It was just about always comforting to have him around.

He saw her smiling slightly, staring at her food as if she was lost in thought. "What's up?" he asked, curious about whether she would tell him what the smile was for.

She wasn't about to tell him exactly what she'd been thinking, but she didn't mind giving him the general idea. "It's going to be hard to go back to work after all this," she gestured around to the various things laying around that were there because he'd brought them with him. "I think I've gotten spoiled. You really didn't have to… but I really appreciate it."

He smiled, but tilted his head to the side, considering what she'd said. "I think," he said, "that you are actually dying to get back to work and get out of this house, and do something besides sitting around."

She nodded back, realizing that he had a good point. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she conceded. "Though I do feel spoiled."

"As a matter of fact," he said, a new idea forming, "I'll bet you'd like to get out of here right now," he said, eyebrows arching questioningly. "What do you say?"

"Where would we go?" she asked, a little glumly. "I'm still contagious. That's not really fair to the masses out there…"

"Well, that doesn't mean that we can't go outside. No one said you had to touch anything." There was a quick teasing spark in his eyes that was there one second, and gone the next, and she wondered if it had actually even happened, or if she'd imagined it. "We can just go for a walk. It's a pretty nice day outside. We could just walk around and explore. Hey," he said, another though hitting him, "let me check the weather. If it's cool enough outside then it makes sense to wear gloves anyway – the regular, non-surgical, keeping your hands warm kind." As he brought up the weather forecast on his phone, she smiled. This was sounding better and better.

"Yep," he said, reading from his screen, "perfect late fall weather. Long sleeves, jacket, gloves, a scarf… everything covered. And when we get back, everything – well, everything of yours – in the wash. What do you say?" He looked immensely proud of himself.

"How can I turn down such a perfect outing?" she asked with a smile. She went to put on a long sleeved shirt, checking her blisters one more time before she covered them up, then washed her hands thoroughly, as she had been rather compulsively over the past few days, and hunted down her knit gloves. Finally, her jacket and a scarf wound loosely around her neck gave everything an extra layer of protection. It felt like ages since she had felt so… normal. It also reminded her of back when she'd tried to hide her tattoos by covering them. She didn't really worry about doing that too much anymore, though she felt more self-conscious about them in some situations than in others.

Weller pulled his jacket on as well, even finding gloves that had been long since shoved into his pockets. With that, they went outside to enjoy what was actually a sunny but cool late fall day. Jane wasn't really familiar with the neighborhood, since she didn't do more than come and go through her front door, her detail – or Weller – driving her back and forth to the FBI more often than anywhere else. The area, of course, had been approved by the FBI as a safe house location, but that had been by someone else. It was basically new territory to both of them.

The streets were flanked by narrow, uneven sidewalks, now covered with colorful fallen leaves that had not yet been captured for collection by the city. The houses along Jane's street and the neighboring ones were simple. Nothing big or fancy, nothing too small or rundown, just functional and yet still quaint. Charming, without standing out.

As they walked along the sidewalk, Jane slightly behind Weller on the sidewalk, which was not quite wide enough for two people, Jane lost her balance and almost tripped, catching herself with a hand on Weller's arm. She blushed slightly as she righted herself again, then dropped her hand casually, unable to find an excuse to leave it there. On a whim, however, he grabbed the hand that had been on his arm seconds before, holding it in his own and turning to see her reaction.

"Don't trip," he told her simply. "I think poison ivy is enough of a problem… you don't need any other injuries." He squeezed her hand gently, a mischievous look in her eyes. She shook her head at him, but said nothing.

Half a block later, they came to a little playground with all of the basics. A few swings, a climbing structure that started with various stairs and ladders at one end, leading to two different styles of slides at the other end. It was in decent shape, though not brand new, the color of the plastic no longer bright as it undoubtedly had been when it was first put in. As chilly as it was outside, it wasn't a surprise that they were there alone, and they took advantage of it. The equipment was geared toward "older" kids, probably around twelve year olds, so while it was clearly too small for them, they could still fit through they openings if they ducked down a little. The only exception to this was one of the slides, which, closed in like a tube that spiraled downward to the ground, was a little too tight for Weller. Instead, he slid down the straight slide, whose open sides were still a tight fit, but not as restrictive.

Jane had beat him to the ground, having less trouble getting down the slide than he had, and was now sitting on one of the swings, pushing herself back and forth slowly. He sat down on the swing next to her, pushing off the ground hard and then pumping his legs, managing to tuck them far enough underneath him as he went backwards that they somehow didn't drag on the ground. Jane, not having tried swinging over the past few months, of course, watched his technique and in a matter of minutes, was also flying high up in the air. It was a new feeling for her, and she liked it.

"This is fun!" she called to Weller as the wooshed past each other, back and forth, back and forth.

"We used to swing for hours," he called back. "It was always one of my favorite things to do outside."

He didn't specify who the 'we' was that he had referred to, and it seemed like maybe it was better that way. Maybe it had been the two of them. Maybe it had been him with Sarah. Maybe it had been all three of them. Whoever it had been, it had been something that he loved to do…

And he seems to be enjoying himself now, too, she thought. She kept going until her legs started to feel tired. It was an exhilarating feeling, and she could understand why kids loved it so much. It was almost like you were flying. Eventually, she let herself slow down, and though it felt much too soon, her feet were back on the ground before she knew it.

"That was so much fun," she told him, still sitting in the swing. She hated to give up her seat there, even though she was no longer flying through the air.

"We'll have to do it again," he agreed, standing in front of her. "You ready to go? It's about time for some lunch. And someone I know needs to take some medicine." She narrowed her eyes at him, not wanting to think about her house, or the medicine, or the blisters that currently hid beneath several layers of protective clothing. It was the freest she'd felt in days – the days that felt like months.

"Do we have to?" she sighed unhappily.

"No, but living out our days at this playground isn't really good long term planning. First of all, there's no shelter here, other than that playhouse. Not really gonna cut it. Then, you know, there's the lack of running water and other conveniences. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to give that up. Then, well, there's no food here. And I'm already getting hungry. And I'm thinking that there's still leftover pizza at your place."

She looked up at him stubbornly, though after that speech, with a slight smile. She knew that she couldn't live at the playground, of course, but going back meant… I don't want to even think about it, she told herself.

"We can have a leftover pizza picnic on the stoop," he told her, only then getting a full smile out of her. It wasn't hard to figure out that for her, going back meant going inside, which in turn meant shedding the protective layers and going back to being contagious, and having to stare at and be conscious of all those pus-filled blisters. When he could get her to go back home but still put off the inevitable a little while longer, all while bringing food into the mix? That had been what had sold her, he knew.

He held out his hand to her and she took it, having finally been sufficiently convinced. She stood up with his help – though of course, she didn't really need help to stand up – and they walked back toward her safe house slowly, still holding hands. After so many days and so much conversation, they just walked beside each other enjoying the cool air and the chance to be outside, Jane especially. It was like freedom from a cage that she hadn't expected to get out of any time soon. Their hands feel away from each other as they approached her building, but it was okay… it wasn't like either of them was going anywhere.

Stepping back inside the door, she immediately felt boxed in. "Just hang on a second," he told her, walking to the kitchen to take out the leftover pizza. It was an interesting feeling to be quite that familiar with the contents of her kitchen, since he'd put them all there himself. With anyone else, it might have felt a little awkward. But with Jane, it felt comfortable, normal even. He stuck the pizza in the microwave on a paper towel, then, when it was warmed up, set it back in the box, bringing the box and some extra paper towels back with him to the door.

Back outside, they sat down on the small stoop outside Jane's door, the pizza box balancing unevenly across both of their laps. Gloves off, since the only thing they were going to touch was pizza, they leaned back against the door and looked out at the street as they ate. Jane's detail sat in their car almost directly in front of them, and they nodded at them. Even though it was the middle of the day, there were very few cars going by.

"I'd almost forgotten what the outside world was like," Jane said.

"It hasn't been that long since you've been outside," he protested. "It's only been a few days."

She sighed heavily, leaning her head back against the door behind her. "A long few days. And I can only imagine how long it would've seemed if I'd been here by myself."

"You don't have to worry about that, though," he said, looking over at her.

She smiled, still looking out ahead of her toward the street. "Thanks to you," she told him quietly, finally glancing over at him. He just smiled, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Hey, I brought something to show you," he said, standing up and opening the door. They'd finished the pizza, and he took the box back inside. At the counter, he picked up the bag he'd brought over that morning, leaving the pizza box in its place. Before he came back outside, he walked around the corner into the kitchen and filled up a glass of water, then picked up one of the tiny white pills from Jane's pack of medicine. With these three things, he walked back out to the stoop, where he closed the door behind him.

He saw Jane wipe her hands on the paper towel, and then put her gloves back on.

"First of all," he said as he handed her the glass of water, "your medicine."

"You are really on top of that schedule, aren't you?" she teased him as he sat back down beside her, putting the tiny white pill into her other hand. She put it at the back of her tongue and drank the water.

"Haven't forgotten one yet. Which is more than I can say for you, Miss Poison Ivy," he told her proudly.

She just rolled her eyes at him as she put the glass down. "So what'd you bring?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Total humiliation," he said. "I'm fairly sure I'm going to regret this… but these are my high school yearbooks."

"Pictures of you in high school?" she asked with interest, her eyes lighting up. "Where?" She grabbed for one, but he pulled them back into his lap.

"Relax, I'll show you," he said, opening the first one slowly and flipping through the pages. "Ninth grade. This picture was… unfortunate… I mean…" He shook his head, finding the one he was looking for and pointing at it. "That's me." He gritted his teeth, glancing at her and waiting for her reaction.

"That's you?" she laughed, leaning over to get a better look. "That's… no, that's not you!"

"That's me, alright," he replied, shaking his head and looking away. "Like I said, very unfortunate."

"Awww, but… but you grew out of it though," she said as she tried to keep from laughing even harder.

"Ninth grade was a rough year for me," he told her defensively. She looked at him and tried not to laugh, but it was just so hard.

"Are you in any other pictures in this book?" she asked.

"Sadly, yes," he replied, flipping through a few more pages to some candid shots. "Despite the unfortunate state of my hair, one of my friends was on the yearbook committee. I'm pretty sure that he picked the ones of me that he did on purpose…" He stopped on another page, which featured Weller in another, even more unfortunate candid picture. "There," he said, pointing at himself. "I can't believe I'm even showing you this."

Jane grabbed the book then, almost doubling over with laughter without being able to stop herself. "Awwww, I'm sorry, I mean… but look at how…" another wave of laughter made her temporarily unable to talk. "You were so cute," she said, turning to him and putting her hand on his shoulder sympathetically. "And besides… you grew out of it."

He just smiled and shook his head in mild embarrassment. He'd brought this on himself, after all. No one had forced him to show her these pictures of him. There was certainly no one else he would have shown them to besides Jane.

She had managed to calm herself down, and asked him if there were any other pictures of him.

"Yes, and I can't believe I'm going to show them to you," he said, pulling the book back toward him so that he could turn the pages. He found himself on the pages with pictures marked "Mathletes" and "Science Club," to Jane's delight.

"I wish I had known you then," Jane said suddenly, without ever realizing what she was saying. Weller looked at her as her words penetrated his brain, and her mouth opened as if to say something else… something that would somehow take it back… but she didn't know what to say. She had known him, not at that time, but of course, much longer ago, but she didn't even remember the short time that they had known each other.

Her words hung in the air, but neither of them knew what to say for a minute.

And yet, what she'd said was the genuine truth, and he knew that. There was no reason for it to be awkward. Neither one of them had been responsible for what had happened in the years in between, and there was no point in making something bigger out of it than it needed to be.

"I do, too," he said slowly, smiling back at her.

"So," she asked quickly, ready to be past that particular moment, "are you in any other pictures in this book?"

"Not in that book. So we move on to tenth grade…" In tenth grade his hair hadn't been quite so… weird… but everything else about him still seemed to scream painfully awkward. Once again, Jane had a field day. Just like in the first book, he started with his individual school picture, moving on to clubs and candids. Tenth grade found him in "Mathletes" and "Debate Team."

"You dropped the Science Club?" Jane asked in mock horror. "What would Patterson say?"

"I think maybe Science was better off without me," he replied. "I needed to leave that to Patterson and the other experts."

In his eleventh grade yearbook, Weller had started looking more like… himself. She could see more of Weller and less of the awkward kid he'd been. His individual picture was serious – not that his others hadn't been, but with the awkwardness gone, it was perhaps more noticeable. That year he found himself on the pages for "Debate Team" but also for the Baseball team, as well as one candid shot, which was, again, very serious.

"You look like a serious kid in here," Jane observed. Weller just nodded in agreement, his lips pressed together. She got the feeling that because he wasn't commenting at all, she should be able to figure out why… it wasn't like him to simply clam up when…

Thinking about it a little harder, she felt like she was catching on. The yearbooks were definitely showing the progression of Weller into the man she now knew, and knowing what she did about his – their – backstory… it was falling into place. Despite the fact that none of it had been within her control, she couldn't help but feel a little bit responsible for the progression that she was seeing in front of her eyes.

Finally, there was his twelfth grade yearbook, and she looked over at him and smiled as he started to open it, now looking at it as if he wasn't quite sure he wanted to go through with it. As if maybe he'd had enough. She reached across the cover and curled her gloved hand over his where he was attempting to thread his fingers between the pages to open it.

"If you've had enough of a walk down memory lane, it's fine… we can skip the last one," she assured him.

He shook his head quickly. "No, if I can bring myself to show you that ninth grade book, this one should be by far the least painful," he replied. He was smiling at her, but it wasn't quite reaching his eyes. Taking him at his word, she removed her hand and let him open the book, leaning her shoulder against his as he found himself in his senior year's set of pictures. A more formal portrait, since he was a senior, as well as a few candids, the Baseball team and the Wrestling team. And still, that same serious expression in every one of them. He almost looked… haunted.

They closed the last of the four yearbooks and she was left with a strange mix of emotions. "That was a lot of fun," she told him. "Thanks." He pulled the four yearbooks back into a pile and set them down beside him.

"It seemed like something you'd enjoy," he said, nodding, as if his attention was suddenly elsewhere. Once again, it was as though they were both lost in thought, staring out at the street. It was getting a little bit chilly to be sitting outside, even as bundled up as they were.

"We should probably…" he started, looking over at her. Jane had a pretty good idea of what he was about to say, however, and she wasn't a happy camper. The look on her face resembled a sad puppy.

"Do we have to?" she asked, hating the whine she heard in her voice.

"Yes," he said. "Not forever. Just for now. Besides, I'm going to cook dinner."

"Oh, yeah?" she asked, "What are you making?"

"You won't know until we go inside, because I won't tell you until then," he promised her.

Standing up, she paused and looked at him as he did the same. "I know, I know, 'bossy,'" he said, imitating her.

At that she grinned, and they went back inside. They hadn't noticed that it had started to get colder and darker outside as the afternoon had worn on, so the warmth and light of inside was a welcome surprise. As Weller set his yearbooks back over on the counter, she paused in the middle of the room, starting to pull one of her gloves off, but then stopping, for no other reason than the fact that she didn't want to. They were so much nicer than the latex ones. She could feel like a human being, and not some sort of science experiment gone wrong.

"You ready to trade those in for the others?" he asked, seeing her standing in the middle of the room and figuring that she simply didn't want to take her gloves off and go back to feeling like a "mutant," as she had said earlier. He hadn't yet had a chance to introduce her to the X-Men, so she hadn't gotten the reference he'd made.

She walked slowly in his direction, hoping that she could put off the return to the latex gloves. Stopping in front of him, she grudgingly removed the fabric gloves and put them into her jacket pockets, then took the ones he was holding out to her. She made a face at him, but then smiled. "I'm going to go throw all this in the wash," she said, meaning her gloves, jacket, all of the extra layers. At that point, whether it was overkill or not, she would do almost anything to get rid of this condition, even if she went a little overboard. It certainly couldn't hurt to wash everything.

When she came back into the living room, gloves on, Weller was in the kitchen. "Go work on that puzzle for a little while, this won't take long," he told her. She glanced back at him, looking quite at ease in her kitchen. She was fairly sure that Weller had cooked in her kitchen more in the past few days than she had since she'd moved in. She sat down in front of the puzzle, but her mind was elsewhere.

A little while later, he called her over to the counter for spaghetti and meatballs, and only then did she realize just how hungry she was. It looked and smelled amazing… and that was exactly how it tasted, as well. "Wow," she said as she inhaled the scent. "I mean, I'm not enjoying the whole poison ivy thing, but then again… it has some serious perks." He chuckled at her and shook his head.

"Something tells me that we can't avoid saving the world forever," he said. "One of these days, we're going to have to go back to work."

"Yes, and let's hope it's soon," she said, quickly and emphatically, before realizing exactly how her words could be taken. "I mean… I know how lucky I am, I just…" She bit her lip, afraid to make things worse and not better.

He chuckled at her for the second time. "Don't worry, I know what you mean. It's been a lot of fun hanging out here and relaxing, but the two of us… we need to be doing something. Fighting for something. Solving all those tattoos that are being obscured by…" He looked at her, wondering if she was going to say what he thought she would.

"…The pus," she replied dramatically, exactly as he'd expected. "Yeah, maybe it's some sort of extra clue – now see if you can follow the clues when they fill up with pus and the tattoos look completely different…" They both chuckled at the idea, and then fell quiet again as they ate.

When they'd finished, Weller took the plates back into the kitchen and rinsed them, insisting that Jane needed to keep the pus out of the area where food was prepared. She knew he was just saying that, even though it sounded like it made sense. She wandered back over to the couch and stared at the puzzle pieces for a while, but she wasn't really looking at them.

The dishes now taken care of, he walked over with, once again, a glass of water and her medicine. "You're like… a human alarm clock, aren't you?" she asked him, once again very impressed at how good he was at remembering her medicine. She drank the water and then resumed staring past the puzzle, now more into space than at the table.

"You okay?" he asked, wondering what had her so preoccupied.

"I just wonder… what I was like back then… in high school. Or… wherever I was. I have no idea. It's… strange. It makes sense not to know about someone else's life, but when it's yours, it's… it doesn't feel right."

He nodded, looking out into the distance beside her. She wasn't wrong. It would be strange to be in her position, and he really couldn't imagine it. "We're just at the beginning, Jane," he said. "You may not know this about me, but I'm pretty determined when I go after something. And we're going to find out the truth." She turned and looked at him, smiling slowly. That much she did know about him, after all.

Out of nowhere, a yawn escaped her. It had gotten late quickly once again, and another poison ivy day was now at a close. He looked at her knowingly, and at this point, didn't need to say a word. "Bossy," she said with a smile. To his surprise, she stood up and walked across the room to retrieve her own medicine, swallowing the last pill of the day and the glass of water while standing by the sink.

He went to the counter and picked up his yearbooks, walking back towards the front door. She looked at him in surprise, since it was the first time since she'd had poison ivy that he hadn't followed her up the stairs. She stopped in front of him, but didn't say anything.

"You got this," he said by way of explanation. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Unless someone blows up something important?" she asked with a smile.

"If someone blows up something important, maybe I don't make it for breakfast… but I'll see you tomorrow. Okay?"

"Sounds like a plan," he told him. "Thanks, Weller. Again."

He chuckled at her and pushed the door open, and after it had closed, listened for the lock to click behind him. When it did, he walked back to his car. This felt almost like being on vacation, and yet, he knew that it couldn't last much longer. The world didn't wait indefinitely for anything, even Jane's allergic reaction to poison ivy.

A few minutes later, Jane climbed into bed, sighing that another day had come and gone while her poison ivy still hadn't gone. She supposed, however, as she drifted off to sleep, that if she had to have a contagious skin condition, at least she had really good company.