Hey guys,

I'm so sorry I've failed you guys so completely lately and not updated recently! But I promise I'm going to do better from now on! I was on vacation for the last two weeks after my grueling semester in school, and I got to see my fiancé for the first time in nearly five months. So suffice to say I was distracted!

But here is the newest chapter, better late than never? I hope!

Seriously BIG thank you for everyone who has stuck with this story and stuck with me despite the wait! You guys are amazing and I promise I will not abandon this fic! It will finish, and there might even be a sequel!

So so so so much LOVE,

Fallen

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Two Hours Earlier

Jane watched Roman leave the room, but did her best to ignore Kurt as he stood in the door. She no longer understood him or where they stood. He no longer made sense to her, and she felt confused by everything he'd done since rescuing her.

Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Or so she told herself.

Instead she waited for Patterson to enter the room, Roman had promised that she would be the one staying with her while he went to the FBI. Patterson had become the only person aside from Roman that she felt comfortable around. She at least had been friendly before Jane had been abducted. The others, like Kurt, only confused her and upset her.

But she knew that soon she would have to push that away, if she were ever going to be allowed to go back to work and back to her safe house.

She needed to get away from them all. She needed things to go back to normal.

She needed to be back at work, there at least she could pretend nothing had changed. She could ignore the dull ache on her back, and pretend that she bore no scars at all. There she could disappear, no one looked at her or worried about her at the FBI. Instead it had appeared that she turned invisible, repelling people, and establishing a safe five foot parameter around her that no one dared to broach.

Here she felt exposed. Vulnerable. Weak. Helpless.

Exactly how she'd felt when he found her again. Here she was reduced to ash. Here she had no escape.

Here she sat day in and day out, listening to varying members of the team express sympathy or making idle chatter all the while she pretended to sleep or stared into the distance. Not that it seemed to stop them from trying to talk to her.

Even worse when the nurse came to poke and prod her. Updating Kurt and the others on her condition, expressing her concern and worry as if Jane couldn't hear her.

She kept pushing to have Jane taken off the IV fluids and nutrients.

So the last day or so the team had begun to wean her off them. Forcing her to drink water, and choke down broth.

They didn't know that every drop of water that pooled in her mouth and slithered down her throat felt as it were choking her. Every gulp felt as if it would replace the air in her lungs.

Each sip tasted exactly like what he drowned her in. Brackish and coopery like blood. Her blood.

But she couldn't tell them that. Couldn't show them any more weakness. Already they thought her little more than a victim. This would only make it worse.

So she forced herself to drink, even as it choked the life from her, and sent her straight back into hell.

She even forced herself to take some of the broth even though she hadn't felt true hunger in months. Even when her stomach clenched so painfully at the mere smell of it. Again, she had to show that she'd improved, else she feared that she would be stuck in this hell forever.

She couldn't be useless. Even with this new found empathy for what had happened to her, she knew that it would only extend so far.

But even worse than all that were Dr. Borden's visits. He seemed compelled to force her to reveal every tiny thing that had happened to her both the first time and this last time she'd been tortured. Where he'd nearly given up before he seemed invigorated and more frustrated by her lack of communication.

Why couldn't any of them understand that she just wanted to forget it all?

She didn't want to talk about being branded like cattle with that monsters name. She didn't want to think about the bite of hot iron and the way the pain nearly shattered her mind. She didn't want to talk about drownings or beatings or any of the hundred ways he found to turn her mind inside out with pain.

She almost wished she could get her hands on some of the drug they'd used on her in the beginning. Wipe herself again, and truly forget everything. Just go off and live a normal life away from it all.

But that was little more than a pipe dream. She knew that.

"Hey Jane, they're gone," Patterson greeted her as she entered the room, and moved to sit on the recliner by the bed. Jane forced herself to smile at the woman, though it became more genuine as she saw the blonde pull out knitting needles and produce enough yarn to make ten blankets from thin air. Patterson out of all them made Jane feel the calmest, something about the air she produced relaxed her.

And the fact that she never demanded anything or tried to apologize or excuse or explain. Patterson just talked to Jane, told her stories, both personal and fiction. Sometimes she just sat in silence, or played quiet music while they sat together.

It made Jane feel free. Free of expectations and reality.

It was nice.

Just as expected Patterson soon started talking, today telling her stories of her childhood, and Jane closed her eyes letting her mind paint the stories as Patterson told them.

She let her breathing even out, and pretended to sleep even as she watched the movie her mind created from Patterson's words.

She did this often, pretending to sleep while the team came in and out of her room. She knew it made them feel better that she rested. Knew the nurse had told them how much Jane needed it. In truth, she too knew that she needed to sleep but she couldn't.

Every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep for real nightmares dragged her down. Encasing her in a hell she had no hope of escaping until blind panic awoke her. Or someone pulled her from them kicking and screaming.

Every time she slept she felt the kiss of iron, or the drag of a blade. She heard his voice, taunting her, reminding her who she belonged too and assuring her that this was reality that she'd never escape from him. Truthfully, sometimes she believed those words, waking up and imagining that she would find herself back in one of those rooms. Back with him.

Worse still were the dreams where the team stood in his place, smiling and laughing as she screamed endlessly.

It seemed her brain delighted in depriving her of peace.

But she found that the worst dreams were the dreams where she stood in a room of mirrors, naked, and unable to close her eyes. Forced instead to stare at her ruined body, and take in the endless scars. Forced to see his name branded in thick, roping letters on her back. Forced to look at her skeletal body, skin stretched so tight against bones that she almost thought she'd disappear. Her thinness only highlighting the scars, thick and thin that covered her.

Looking at herself made her feel sick.

A different type of torture. Looking back and realizing that the tattoos she so hated were beautiful compared to their replacements.

Seeing herself like that only reminded her that she would never be happy. No one would ever love such a disfigured monster. Even if they got past her body, they would have to face the blackness that marred her very core.

Truly she disgusted herself.

She forced herself to tune back into Patterson's story, the lure of another nightmares almost catching her unaware. She listened to Patterson's story about the time she'd been hit on by a drunk drag queen, forcing herself to return to painting her words instead of listening to her own.

If she had been less aware she might have laughed, giving herself away, but these days laughter felt foreign. Something she knew she'd experienced long ago, but something she no longer felt capable of. So, she stayed silent, continuing to feign sleep as Patterson continued to talk.

At one point, she stopped, and Jane heard the slight hitch in her breath. Then she spoke, her voice watered, "I'm so sorry Jane."

Jane only just stopped herself from flinching. For some reason those words always caused her pain. Patterson had nothing to apologize for she wanted to scream, only she had apologies to make. If she, Jane, had only been honest in the beginning, none of this would have happened.

She felt Patterson lean into the bed, and the slight displacement of air besides her face told her that Patterson had brought a hand up to her face. But thankfully Patterson didn't touch her, and instead she seemed to lean back in her chair. The slight creak of the frame as her weight resettled giving away her movement, and after a few hitched breaths she started another story.

Jane thanked her lucky stars.

So they settled into the rhythm, and Jane simply listened and waited. She knew that some time had to have past. Soon the team would get back and Roman would come back to her. Roman at least she could talk to.

He never asked questions, instead they talked about what she remembered and he tried to trigger her memories without feeding her anything. Borden had told them that she needed to remember on her own without others telling her things that had happened to her.

Roman, like Patterson, never wanted anything from her. Not forgiveness or reactions. He had been as content to talk with her as he had been to sit in silence holding her hand.

He was the only one whose touch didn't feel like an iron burning her skin. But even with him, she could only tolerate so much before her body tried to push him away.

She hated being touched.

Suddenly, a knock sounded on from the front of the apartment, and she heard Patterson stand.

Jane thought it unusual that the team would knock, but they set all sorts of weird precautions about the apartment. Changing the way they signaled that a friendly has arrived every day.

She thought it stupid, as someone who didn't belong wouldn't try to announce themselves. But she didn't say anything. Best not to contradict the people who were responsible for her fate.

Patterson opened the door quietly, as if she were trying not to wake Jane, and closed it just as quietly. Jane tracked her foot steps down the hall, and then in the entrance hall as she arrived at the door.

She heard Patterson speaking even as the front door creaked open. Then silence for almost a full minute. She felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand up as she opened her eyes listening more intently.

Hushed angry voices replaced the silence abruptly, and Jane sat up. Contemplating whether or not she should attempt to go out there and see what was going on.

But surely if it were someone meaning harm they wouldn't have attempting conversation?

Three minutes, and then four ticked by as she listened to the hushed argument. Unable to parse out words or even really hear the voices well enough to try to identify who spoke.

Then suddenly the familiar sounds of violence reached her ears. The distinct sound of someone slamming against a wall, and then the sound of grappling.

She pushed the blankets aside, and pushed herself up so that her back lay against the headboard.

One last resounding thump sounded and then silence.

She knew better than to speak or make noise that might alert someone to her presence.

Instead she slowly slipped the IV out of her arm, and slithered out of the bed.

She might be weak but she wouldn't go down without a fight. She cursed herself for not insisting that they leave her a cell phone or asking for one of the others to stay behind as well.

She sent a prayer up that Patterson wasn't dead.

She didn't know if she could forgive herself if she was.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, someone was approaching the room.

She forced herself to stand, and walk silently to stand out of the sight of the door. There were no hiding spots inside the room, but she hoped to get an advantage over whoever might walk through those doors.

Every second counted and even in her current state she knew she'd be deadly. That would be at least one reason to be grateful for the fact she'd been trained from childhood to be a killer.

The footsteps stopped outside her door. Then the door knob slowly turned, and then the door creaked out quietly. So quietly.

Whoever had come hadn't come to talk to her.

She waited as the door slowly swung open, but when Naz appeared in the doorway looking absolutely wild she felt a moment of pure shock. Of all the people she'd imagined would be walking through that door, Naz hadn't even made the list.

She watched as the woman entered the room and scanned the immediate area. Anger crossed her face when she saw the bed unmade and the IV hanging unattached.

"Jane, where are you? I just want to talk," Naz voiced, her voice still as eerily calm as ever despite the crazed look in her eyes.

She knew that the woman would find her in a matter of seconds, so she stepped out of the shadows she'd been hiding in, "What did you do to Patterson, Naz? Why are you here?" she asked. Hoping to give herself some time to evaluate the situation.

She couldn't just kill Naz. No she had to stall. The team would be back soon. She knew it.

"Patterson's fine, I merely knocked her out when she got in my way," Naz told her dismissively, waving the hand that held her gun around before settling the gun on Jane, "I didn't come here to hurt her, you understand, I'm sure?"

Jane nodded, "Of course, as long as she's okay, why don't we get down to the reason you're here." After facing him situations like this no longer scared her. She'd seen so much worse. In fact, a very real part of her wished Naz would just pull the trigger. She wasn't sure she even cared why the woman had come.

"Always to the point Jane, one of the only things I ever really liked about you, ya know?" Naz confided, as she took a step closer, "Now get on your knees, I'm not taking any chances with you, not now."

Jane complied, surely Naz realized that if she took just a few steps closer Jane could take her out even on her knees.

"I almost didn't come here, but I just couldn't let it go. You've ruined everything for me, I lost everything because of you. Kurt won't return my calls, apparently being involved with the CIAs interrogation of you makes me a monster. But that I could live with, but thanks to you I've lost my chance to take down sandstorm. If it weren't for me no one would even know they existed, and yet you get taken, suddenly a few bugs is just too much for the director." The longer the spoke the crazier she sounded, her hands twitching sporadically and spit spraying with every other word.

No one had even told Jane that Naz no longer worked with the task force. Would have been nice to know.

"I should have known better than to get the FBI involved after you escaped, I should have taken you right back to the CIA. But I thought I could control everything, and I did. Just a few more missions and you would have died just like you were supposed to. Leaving me with all the glory, and an untouched path to everything I ever wanted."

Jane had always thought Naz seemed to have little to no desire to see her to the end of the mission alive. Nice to have that thought confirmed.

"I'd played all my cards just right, and yet even then they all seemed to gravitate to you. Even when they hated you the most, something in them wanted to forgive you, and none of them seemed to want to trust me. Even Kurt took longer than I'd imagined to sway to my side, but I'd done it." Jane watched her take another step closer, the gun resuming its place in her face as the woman continued to rant at her. Jane wondered how much longer she'd have to wait. Either Naz would shoot her and this nightmare would be over or she'd take another step closer and Jane would fight.

She decided to leave it up to fate.

"Then you got kidnapped, and that stupid bastard told them that I'd been involved with your interrogation. Suddenly I'm a monster, incapable of feeling or compassion. Ironic, since if it weren't for your director you never would have been there in the first place. Even better that if any of them had done the least amount of homework they might have found you and stopped it."

"Is there a point to any of this?" She asked, she'd always disliked Naz, and if she had to listen to another second of her pointless raving she might do Naz a favor and off herself.

Immediately the woman stopped, glaring at her as if she could will Jane into dust, "The point is everything in my life is ruined thanks to you, I'm nothing now. Zero division won't even take me back thanks to Kurt leaking my bugging to the director. Because officially, the NSA can't be seen bugging other agencies, as if we haven't been doing it for years. So I have nothing."

Jane watched as the woman took another step forward, and then she waited. Just as she finished, Naz took her eyes off her for a second and Jane sprang into action.

She pushed off her knees, hands wrapping around the gun and twisting as hard as she could. The gun wrenched out of Naz grip, and Jane threw it as hard as she could to the opposite side of the room.

Then she pulled the woman close, even as she came out of shock enough to start fighting back. Jane knew her body wouldn't be able to take much of this, already her hands felt weaker so she knew she needed to act fast.

She ignored the nails digging into her skin, and the force of the punch to her still healing ribs. Instead she used all her might to pull Naz to the ground, one of her hands wrapping in the woman's hair as they went down. When they hit the ground with a crash, she pulled Naz's head back and slammed it into the ground.

She thought it would stun the woman, but instead it seemed to jump start her.

They started to wrestle for real, for every hit she gave it seemed she took two more, but unlike Naz she'd grown used to taking a beating.

Though her body weakened with every second they wrestled, she waited, her moment would come soon.

After she delivered a solid hit to Naz's face, breaking her nose even as she split the skin on her knuckles she knew it had come. Naz hesitated for just a moment, the pain overtaking her in a way that never would have happened to Jane, and Jane punched her again harder. Before wrapping her hand in Naz hair and slamming her head into the floor as she did in the beginning.

This time she slammed Naz's head down into the floor three times, until she felt the woman go limp beneath her, and then she slammed her head against the floor one last time to be sure.

She knew that adrenaline alone kept her going at this point, so she took full advantage of it. Pushing herself to her feet, and making a makeshift rope out of her sheets to tie Naz up until the team got back.

Just as she finished securing the woman, she heard people entering the apartment. She counted four different people shuffle in, and though she hoped they had returned she knew better than to believe it.

She spotted the gun just a few feet away, and quietly scrambled to grab it. Settling herself in a crouch behind the recliner Patterson had sat in early, aiming the gun at the door even as footsteps approached.

Though her hands shook, and she knew that very soon her body would collapse adrenaline alone not able to keep her going for much longer, she stared resolutely at the door as the knob turned and the door flung open.

When her eyes met the shocked eyes of Kurt, she almost cried in relief, but she didn't put the gun down. For some reason she now found that she couldn't.

Instead she merely looked at him before speaking quietly, voice trembling in tandem with her hands, "Is Patterson okay?"

Kurt nodded, slowly putting his gun away, and stepping into the room hands up, revealing Roman standing behind him.

"Jane, she's fine, you're fine, can you put the gun down for us?" Kurt asked, his voice low and calm. As if he were approaching an injured animal or a small child. She hated it.

Her eyes swung between the two men, but she couldn't do it. She couldn't let go of the gun, so she shook her head any words dying in her throat before she could speak them.

The two of them took a step towards her, but instinctively she brought the gun up even further. Fear, completely and totally irrational fear, crept up her spine, "Don't," She whispered.

Both men stopped in their tracks, and she saw them exchange worried glances. She didn't know if they were more worried by the gun or by what she knew she looked like. Naz hadn't gone down without a fight. Bitch.

Not that she needed any more bruises or cuts to add to her collection. Already, adrenaline started to fade and her body started to ache. She felt something slick on her side, and along her left leg. She'd probably opened up her stitched, and broken one of her many scabs in the tussle.

Her hands started to truly shake, and she knew soon the gun would fall from her fingers. But she still couldn't let it go. In fact, she realized, her whole body shook now, tears falling from her eyes.

Why?

Roman took another step closer, and Jane squeezed her eyes shut.

"Jane, I'm sorry I left you, but you're okay now. You beat her, you survived," Roman uttered those words like a prayer. They'd always been taught to survive. No matter what.

She heard him take another step, then another, until she felt his hands wrap around the gun and take it from her. She heard a click as he flicked the safety, then a clang as he dropped the clip out of the gun. Then she heard him toss it, it hit the ground somewhere in the room far away from them, and then suddenly arms were around her.

He pulled her into his arms, and she collapsed into his chest. The tremors growing stronger, until she felt she might vibrate out of her skin, and all her strength drained out of her replaced by an exhaustion so strong she could hardly comprehend it.

Distantly, she heard Kurt and Roman talking, Roman question how the fuck Naz had gotten here or why Jane hadn't been better protected. At some point Reade's voice entered the conversation, relaying that Zapata had accompanied Patterson to the hospital, but that the blonde appeared to be fine. Then telling Kurt that back-up would be here to take Naz away any minute.

Jane didn't want to be in this room anymore. She wasn't safe here.

She wasn't safe anywhere.

She curled further into Roman, the only person who could keep her safe. Patterson tried, but Jane knew that she kept Patterson safe from harm not the other way around. She tried not to feel as though she had failed the woman by not reacting sooner.

She knew she'd have plenty of time to torture herself over that later.

But for now she couldn't. Her body, and her fear won out.

She couldn't even identify why she felt so violated. Why she felt so affected by what had just happened.

Only that she did.

She had no idea how much time had passed before the sound of booted feet filled her ears. Then more voices entered the room, and the sound of shuffling told her that Naz was being taken away. She wondered if the woman had regained consciousness yet. But given the lack of raving she doubted it.

Eventually though the strangers voices retreated, and the apartment door closed.

Leaving Roman, Kurt and her alone. Reade had apparently gone with the people escorting Naz to try to figure out what had happened.

Some more time passed before someone broke the silence.

"Jane, what happened?" Kurt asked, from the sound of it he had settled somewhere to her left.

She took a deep breath trying to center herself, even as her brain tried to pull her back down, "Naz came to kill me, Patterson tried to stop her, but she couldn't. Then she came, and I stopped her," she forced herself to choke out the words.

"Do you really need to know this now? She needed to rest, look at her, she needs to be checked out and then left alone not interrogated after your girlfriend tried to kill her and Patterson." Roman barked, arms tightening against her.

Kurt took in a breath as if to argue but then released it, voice sounded tight and resigned as he responded, "Your right, Reade already called Shelby, she'll be here any minute to check Jane out." They'd agreed after her initial hospital stay to keep her out of them, she didn't do well in hospitals. She'd never liked them, but now she hated them.

Shelby had been her home-health nurse since her release from the hospital.

"Jane, can you stand?" Roman asked her

She wanted to say she could, hated herself for being so weak, but her limps felt like lead. So she answered honestly, "No."

"Okay, I'm going to pick you up and put you back in bed. Then Kurt and I are going to sit with you until the nurse comes, okay?"

She just nodded, not as if she could refuse anyway, the both of them were like guard dogs. She doubted she'd be allowed to shower alone now.

She bit back a yelp, when he picked her up, inadvertently touching one of her new found bruises. She wondered if there was an inch of her skin now that wasn't covered in a painful spot.

"I think I tore my stitches, and one of my scabs," She told him, knowing that her positioning had kept either of them from setting the blood, and her black sweatpants hide any blood that might have been visible.

"Okay," Roman replied calmly, though she saw him exchange a look with Kurt before Kurt disappeared out into the hall. She heard him talk, and knew he was calling Shelby again.

"We're going to have to get you out of that t-shirt, and your pants for Shelby. Is that okay?"

Again she nodded, he set her down on the bed, propping her up with one of his knees as he sat beside her, and then carefully started to remove her shirt.

She couldn't help but be thankful that for once she'd chosen to wear a sports bra. There were only so many times she could stand to be naked in front of them all.

When he had the shirt off, he lay her down and worked on getting her pants off. She closed her eyes, and let herself be thankful she had a brother. She didn't know if she could stand for anyone on the team or god forbid Shelby to be the ones wrestling off her clothing now that Patterson had been taken to the hospital.

She heard the apartment door opening, and Kurt greeting the arrival. Undoubtedly Shelby. Just in time too, she lay in her underwear and bra waiting for the woman to inspect her.

Though her brother didn't say anything about her state, she knew by the tight way he squeezed the hand he grabbed that the new additions did little to improve the state of her body.

An hour later, Shelby left, and she lay tucked into bed once more attached to the IV. A new set of stitched in her side, more pain meds, and a variety of band aids. As well as orders for strict bed rest, and further prodding about weaning off the IV.

Her exhaustion had now doubled, and she felt truly tired for the first time in a while. Her eyes like weights as she struggled to keep them open, still more afraid of what awaited her when she closed them than the sluggish tiredness that she would face if she refused to sleep.

"Jane, you need to sleep," Kurt murmured from her right, and from her left Roman echoed him.

She felt too tired to be anything but grateful to have two people in the room with her. But still she fought it.

Then Roman started to hum the lullaby her parents used to sing to them, and amazingly Kurt's baritone joined him.

Too soon, she found her eyes sealing shut and the darkness pulled her under.

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Jesus that was a long ass chapter!

This chapter is kind a of a transition chapter, I needed to get rid of Naz for once and for all. And honestly, I could totally see her falling off the edge if everything got taken away from her in one fell swoop! After this it's going to be A LOT of team bonding in the next two or three chapters, as well as some Sandstorm stuff!

My plan is within the next four chapters to have some of this resolve itself!

POLL for everyone!

Would you guys like to see me do a sequel that involves the sandstorm take down or have that arch finish in this story as well as Jane/the teams healing and recovery? Because this point I'm tempted to finish this story off with Jane healing and recovering, building back a relationship with the team, and having Roman add himself strongly to the dynamic. Then have a sequel where they take down sandstorm.

But I'm open to either possibility, so let me know what you think!

As always lots and lots of LOVE,

FALLEN 3