Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. I'm just borrowing the fantastic characters so I can play with them a little bit.

Inside the office, Dr. Borden ushered Jane to a chair that sat across a low, square coffee table from an identical chair. He sat down across from her, settling comfortably against the back cushion. Jane, on the other hand, was about as uncomfortable as possible in this new setting. She fidgeted in her chair, unable to be still and working hard to avoid the psychologist's eyes. Dr. Borden watched her for a moment, not in a rush to speak. As he watched her fidget, however, he got the sense that she was only agitating herself further, and finally decided to interrupt.

"So, Jane, you had quite a long day yesterday. Did you sleep alright?" There were no implications in his tone, it was simply a question. She knew that she was expected to talk, so she took a deep breath and tried not to think too much, tried not to analyze the words in her head, only to spit them out in an order that made sense.

"We got to the safe house pretty late. It was…" she began, but faltered. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to start again. Trying not to see herself sinking to the floor the moment she was alone there, her heart racing as the panic spiraled faster and faster, as she gulped for air and wondered if she was having a panic attack. Forcing the thought from her mind by willpower alone, she opened her eyes again but kept them on the floor. She breathed in and out deliberately, hoping that by avoiding eye contact with Dr. Borden, she'd have more luck keeping her emotions under control. It didn't feel like it was working.

"You said 'we.' How's your security detail?" he asked when she didn't continue.

Jane shook her head quickly, following up with a moment later with words. "No, I mean, they're fine, I guess… I don't really talk to them much. They're just… there… you know, not big on conversation. I guess that's part of the job? But going to the safe house, I was with Agent Weller." She took another breath, found the words coming out a little more easily now, then explained, "We were in the interrogation room talking, and we were waiting there for a long time, I guess, but the safe house wasn't ready, and…" she thought back to the events that seemed like forever ago, to Weller getting her out of there when she couldn't take it anymore.

"Agent Weller thought it would be better to get a change of scenery, wait somewhere else, so he took me to this little park that overlooks the water. I don't know what it was called… I fell asleep in the car – twice. It was pretty there, with all the lights on the water. It was… calming." Her mouth curled into a small smile at the thought of the view of the water, and of Weller's few words to her there.

…whether you believe me or not, you are going to be okay. Then he'd hesitated for a second, and added, I'm going to make sure of it.

She had no frame of reference for anything, least of all whether someone was being sincere or just going through the motions, but she would have put her money – if she had any – on the fact that Weller meant what he said. Not just that he meant it because he had good intentions, either. No, the feeling that she got from him told her that he was someone who took his promises very seriously. It was something about the way he looked at her.

She realized that she had let her thoughts drift instead of finishing what she was saying, and a glance up at Dr. Borden told her that he was simply waiting for her to continue.

"Then finally the safe house was ready and we drove over. The security detail met us there." Dr. Borden just nodded, and she knew that he was waiting to see if she would continue. She didn't want to talk about the safe house – she didn't even want to think about the safe house – but she knew that it was unavoidable, so she decided to dive right in. She returned to his original question first.

"Uh… but anyway, I, uh… didn't sleep well." Again, she flashed back to laying curled up in her bed, in the smallest ball she could manage, so exhausted from falling apart that she didn't have the energy left to think about any of it, much less to cry any more than she already had. "I, uh, I didn't like it there. It felt so… sad, so empty. It was hard to be there, almost…" She inhaled sharply and closed her eyes again, remembering, yet simultaneously begging her mind not to remember.

Breathing slowly and deeply, she opened her eyes, now staring at the backs of her hands, which were clenching her knees, her feet planted firmly on the floor in front of her. With a jolt she realized that she was staring at the tattoos on the backs of her hands again then, without even meaning to, and that they were causing her panic to spike.

She forced herself to look elsewhere in the room, at one of the stark white walls, and she tried to start again, but her voice only came out in a whisper. "It was almost… hard to breathe there." Pausing, her eyes darted up to Dr. Borden, who was watching her calmly, sympathetically. His eyes reflected interest and kindness, without any hint of judgement, but they didn't help her calm down. He seemed kind enough, but he was basically a stranger… like everyone else in the world, whether you knew them or not, the voice in her head pointed out less than helpfully.

Not everyone, her mind countered.

She pursed her lips and looked back down, continuing in a quieter voice. "And I shouldn't have looked at myself in the mirror, it was just one more…" she broke off and closed her eyes, involuntarily this time, suddenly seeing herself falling to the bedroom floor and curling into a heap, sobbing. She took a slow, deep breath, and opened her eyes to find that she was suddenly fighting back tears, even as she looked at the floor. Fantastic, she thought, I've been here all of three minutes and I'm already losing it.

She took a few more deep breaths to try to get herself back under control, but her voice was now barely even coming out in a whisper. "When I finally went to bed, I guess I was so drained, I… I crashed." Deep breath, she told herself. You can do it. "I woke up feeling like I never even slept." Dr. Borden just nodded at her, his expression neutral, just as he had been through the whole session so far.

"I didn't even dream last night. I was really hoping I would. I thought maybe it would…" She stopped again, unable to finish the thought. She just wanted it too much, for her dreams to somehow answer all of her questions, and admitting that it nothing had changed, that she was just as lost as the previous day… It hurt too much. "I just… Someone did this to me. Took away my whole life. And I can't do anything." She was feeling more and more desperate the longer she talked.

Dr. Borden just nodded and turned to the table on his left. He turned back to face her, holding two large coffee cups, one in each hand.

"I got you a coffee and a tea this morning," he said simply. He set them down on the coffee table between them. "Which would you prefer?"

She just looked at him helplessly, sitting back slightly and shaking her head the tiniest bit. Even this question was too much. But I don't even know what I like, her brain screamed. She had the urge to make a break for the door and somehow escape from this labyrinth of endless hallways, endless questions. It would be so much easier… and yet, she knew that she was trapped. Not by the FBI, but trapped inside herself, this stranger.

"Go ahead, try them," he offered gently. He understood her need for answers, and this was the first step. He just needed to show her how to start with small choices, small discoveries.

Dr. Borden watched her intently. What the hell do I have to lose? she thought as she picked up one large cup in each hand. She sipped one first, then the other. She didn't mind the first one, but had a visibly negative reaction to the second, informing him that it tasted like grass trimmings.

"There you go. Number one, you remembered what grass trimmings taste like. And two, you figured out that you're a coffee person." Dr. Borden sat forward in his chair and looked at her kindly. "You're not helpless. We're defined by our choices. You just don't remember yours."

She looked down sadly. If only it were just her choices that she didn't remember! Once again, she fought to keep control of her breathing and her thoughts. One down, an infinite number to go, she thought miserably as she struggled to listen to what the doctor was saying. He was only trying to help, she knew.

"So, just keep trying new things. See what your body remembers. Or make new choices. The more you make, the less helpless you'll feel. Even if nothing ever comes back, you can still find yourself."

Find herself. It sounded too good to be true. She looked at him intently, hoping beyond hope that what he was saying was possible. At that moment, it all felt insurmountable.

When Jane walked out of Dr. Borden's office at the end of the hour, she was completely drained. She'd thought that she was exhausted at the start of the session, but now she felt far more tired. The lack of sleep was catching up to her, and her emotional state was not helping, of course. She was about to turn and ask Dr. Borden if he knew where she was supposed to go next. Maybe Weller would be waiting for her in the chairs outside his office. When she looked up, however, she saw an attractive woman with long, dark hair leaning against the doorframe of the entrance to the waiting area. They hadn't been introduced, but the woman was looking at her as though she was waiting for her, smiling genuinely. Jane smiled at the agent weakly, not sure what was supposed to happen next.

"You're Jane, right?" the woman asked. Jane nodded weakly.

A second of hesitation. You tell me, who am I? she wanted to say. But they had to call her something, she knew, and her identity crisis wasn't this woman's fault. "Uh, yeah," she told her.

The woman nodded at her, pushing herself up off of the doorframe. "I'm Agent Zapata, I work with Agent Weller. You're supposed to come with me." Agent Zapata smiled at her, and Jane felt a little more at ease, enough that she almost smiled back at her. Almost.

"Agent Zapata," Dr. Borden said from the doorway of his office. He tipped his head slightly toward his office, indicating that he wanted to talk to her.

"Jane, I'll be right with you, okay?" Zapata said to her. Jane nodded and sank into one of the chairs that she and Weller had occupied an hour before, still in the same positions. Zapata stepped through the doorway of Dr. Borden's office, but the door remained open and she could hear them talking in low voices. Jane let out a shaky breath, trying to regain her composure. She felt like it had already been a long day, and she'd only been awake for a few hours.

A few minutes later, Zapata emerged from Dr. Borden's office, thanking him and smiling kindly at Jane. "Ready?" the agent asked her. Jane nodded, standing up slowly, then walked with the other woman out of the waiting area and through the labyrinth of hallways once again. When they finally walked through a doorway, Jane found herself in a large, busy room with massive flat screen monitors on the wall at the far end. Agent Zapata walked into the room, and Jane followed slowly behind her, not exactly sure what she was doing there. The other woman seemed nice, but she hadn't said much.

The closer Jane got to the front of the room, and more transfixed she was by the images spread across the monitors on the wall. She stared wide eyed, not hearing the conversation behind her. She was looking at herself. More specifically, she was looking at images of the tattoos all over her body. She knew they'd scanned them all, but… it was overwhelming to see so many of them at once.

"Tasha, I thought we were meeting in my office," Weller said, frowning at Zapata.

"No, the doc thought it might be a good idea for her to see all this," Zapata replied.

Jane's brain was somewhat overloaded as she tried to look at everything on all the monitors at once. She wasn't sure if someone was talking to her, or if it was her imagination. Was she really hearing someone say her name, or if it was all in her head? The word that repeated in the fog of her thoughts was "Jane," but it sounded like she was trying to hear underwater. It sounded like Weller's voice. Not that she knew anyone else that she could compare the voice to. After all, she didn't know many people at the moment.

Her eyes settled on some Chinese characters that she didn't remember seeing. "Hey," she asks, "what's this right here? I haven't seen that one yet."

"Oh," Patterson jumped in, "that's 'cause it's behind your left ear. It's only about an inch big, and I sent it off to—"

But Jane wasn't listening to Patterson, because after scrutinizing the characters closely for a moment, she was suddenly reading aloud in Chinese. Everyone was stunned, including Jane herself. Weller stood a few steps to her right, facing her, watching her as she showed off this brand new skill. As usual, he was frowning as he took in this new development.

"So you speak Chinese," he observed seriously. She just looked over at him, as surprised as he was.

"It's an address and a date. Today's date," she told him.

Chaos erupted around them as Jane looked around, startled. She took a few steps back, trying to get out of the way of the movement around her. Weller looked at her intensely – more so than usual – appearing deep in thought. "You're sure?" he asked her.

"Yes," she replied. "That's what it says. I'm sure."

Not three minutes later, the air in the room had changed dramatically. Weller stood at the front by the screens now, the rest of the team in a line behind him.

"So that was right under our nose." He was having trouble hiding his frustration, even though in this circumstance, there was no way that they could logically have known better. Still, he was irritated. Somehow, he felt like they should have picked up on this sooner. What if they were already too late?

"Behind her ear, actually," Reade deadpanned, taking a drink of his coffee. Sadly for Reade, his joke was ignored. Why does no one around here have a sense of humor? he thought.

"Does it give us a time?" Weller asked Jane.

"No, just an address and today's date." She wished she could give him more to go on. She almost felt guilty that she couldn't tell him more, as if she had some control over it.

"399 White Street, Apt 7, right in the heart of Chinatown," Patterson read off.

Their on-screen map dropped a red dot over the location that the tattoo indicated.

"Do we know who lives there yet?" Weller asked the room.

"Chao Zheng," Zapata answered. "Transportation Engineer. He's a Chinese national here on an H1B visa. He's doing some work for GE."

"Any flags?" Mayfair asked, having recently joined them.

"No. He's been here three years, spotless record," Reade replied.

"Let's go pay him a visit," Weller ordered. "Patterson, nice work. Keep working on the tattoos."

Weller, Zapata and Reade turned around and started walking to the door, with Jane falling in step behind them. After a few steps Weller realized what was happening and put his arm out in front of her, slowing to a stop.

"Hey," he said, "you have to stay here."

Her eyes widened. "No, no, I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not." Weller didn't have time to argue with her about this. She was a civilian, for God's sake! FBI agents couldn't just take civilians along into the field!

"The clue is on my body, with today's date in a language I speak and you don't. I should be there." She was just as adamant about going as he was about her not going.

"That's not your call," he told her brusquely.

He started to turn to go, but she kept talking, more urgently now as she saw her window of opportunity disappearing.

"What if I'm not just the messenger? What if there's something I'm supposed to hear, or see?" He hated to admit it, but… she might have a point.

Weller glanced at Mayfair, who was standing nearby, listening. She could see both sides of the issue. She had only the highest regard for Weller and his judgement, and she knew that he was making his decision based on the need to keep Jane safe. That being said, though she hated to contradict Weller, she had to admit that Jane might be right.

"Maybe I'll remember something. Maybe he knows me." She couldn't keep the look of desperation off of her face.

Weller wasn't budging, however. "I am not gonna take you out in the field."

Jane was getting angry at Weller's stubbornness. She may not know herself very well, but she knew that she wasn't going to let him talk her out of this. "Am I under arrest?" Her voice was rising as she became more and more frantic.

"No, you're not." Weller's frustration level seemed to be rising at the same rate as Jane's.

Mayfair saw that the two were headed for a major confrontation, and decided that it was time to intervene. The pair were just getting angrier with each other and not solving anything. "Look," she said calmly to Jane, "we'd all feel a lot more comfortable if you stayed in protective custody."

But Jane refused to accept this decision. She simply could not sit by while the team rushed off to a situation that could provide her with answers that only she might be able to find. "Well I would feel a lot more comfortable if I could ask this guy why his address is stamped on my head, so unless you are detaining me, I'm going."

She's completely infuriating, Weller thought as he looked at Mayfair, at a loss. His boss nodded her head, eyes closed as she accepted that they were not going to talk this woman out of going along. Considering that it appeared that it would take significant force to prevent her from following them, Mayfair had come to the decision that they may as well let her go. It wasn't as though there was exactly a precedent for this situation. She just hoped that she didn't come to regret the decision.

"Take her with you," she told Weller.

The team looked at her, shocked. Weller was the most surprised of all of them.

Jane turned and walked away from them swiftly, out of the screens room. She'd cleared the first roadblock, but she knew there was a long way to go. She'd discovered one more thing about herself just now: she was not going to be talked out of something once she'd made up her mind.